*****
Halloween Nightmare
*****
It was that time of the year again: Halloween, my absolute favorite holiday. Although it started in the West, it was a major holiday here in Japan where little kids dress up in their cute costumes and go around at night to get candy from their neighbors.
Me and my buddies have our own little Halloween tradition that we all found really enjoyable. Every year, we would visit a far-off town that hold their own trick-or-treat event, don our costumes and the lie in wait for unsuspecting children to pass by. When a child shows up, we jump out of our hiding place and scare the living daylights out of them. Sometimes, we compete to see who could make the most children cry, which was itself, a reward to me for all my hard work.
We've never been caught. Grownups like police, parents and volunteer nightwatch have chased after us, but we always got away. There were a few close calls, but that just added to the thrill.
Thanks to all that, me and my buddies earned ourselves a nickname: the Halloween Nightmares. We embraced that nickname with pride.
Like the last five Halloweens, we all gathered outside of a town a bit far from any city. Our scout, who we sent ahead of time, found us a dirt road we could take which lead to a spacious enough clearing in the forest. We parked our cars there and then walked the rest of the way into town, consulting maps and notes saved into our smartphones.
After reaching the town, we split into two groups and headed to places we agreed on hours ago. The place my group headed was a neighborhood by a road with a decent amount of trees and bushes for us to hide behind. And by decent, I meant that the place was practically a forest itself.
Good, I thought. I'll have to remember to treat the scout to some drinks. He couldn't have chosen a better place, because places like that make it easier for us to get away because there's enough to obstruct our chasers and there's enough cover for us to throw off our costumes without anyone seeing. Underneath our black jackets, we all wore dress shirts and ties, because no one would suspect someone dressed for work to be up to trouble. I've lost count the number of times we managed to throw off the cops with our salaryman looks. No, wait. It was two.
We all huddled between a bunch of trees, just a few feet away from the road where the lamppost's fresh white light couldn't reach. It was so dark that I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. Sometimes I get all philosophical and wonder how I could be completely surrounded by darkness when there was such bright light nearby.
Some of us risked some light from our smartphone screens to make last-minute adjustments to our mask and to double-check the schedule. According to the timeline emailed to us, a group of kids led by some high school goody two-shoes should be showing up any moment now.
"Brr." The guy next to me shivered. He had on a shriveled, gray zombie mask. "Man, it's cold."
"Perfect temperature for a chilling Halloween," I joked.
Annoyed, our leader spun around and hissed, "Shush! I hear kids!"
We all shut our traps. Like our leader claimed, as I strained my ears I could hear the chatter of little kids get louder and louder.
Beneath my bloody clown mask, I licked my lips with anticipation. I couldn't wait to see some children cry. Seeing their tears would be like seeing priceless art, and their wails will be the sweetest music to my ears.
Clop! Clop! Clop!
Over the clamor of children, I could hear wooden sandals clapping against pavement. A boy dressed in a white and black hakama kimono soon came into view. Going by his height and build, he was an average high school kid, probably in his first or second year. In one hand, he held a flashlight, which he pointed into the trees. The other hand grasped what looked like a long roll of red foam, which I assumed was supposed to be a sword.
The guy lingered around, waving his flashlight right and left.
It was just like our spy said, I thought.
Our spy had warned us that the volunteer groups in this town were especially security-conscious. Not only were many grownups patrolling the streets, they had all the kids do their trick-or-treating in groups with two or more supervisors. At least one supervisor's supposed to stay with the kids while the other scouted ahead to make sure the way forward was safe. That samurai's probably on the lookout for us. But I wasn't worried. We were so deep in the trees that he wasn't going to spot us no matter how much he looked.
Someone giggled.
"Shhh!" hissed our leader. "Quiet! He'll hear!"
Someone giggled again and he turned to us, his white oni mask coming in handy to reflect his irritation.
"Seriously, who's laughing right now?" he asked. "I know you're all excited, but reel it in or you'll ruin our fun!"
We all looked at each other. I know I wasn't laughing, even though I had a huge smile on my face earlier.
All around us the trees started rustling their branches, causing their leaves to applause with sound all around us. Weird thing was, I didn't feel any wind that would have caused them to shake like that.
The sound completely covered the kids' chatter and I could only barely hear the samurai scout's whistle shriek. But one thing the leaves' rattling couldn't cover was the laughter that I now realized belonged to a girl who was practically right next to me, as if she were mixed in with the rest of the gang. Problem was, the Halloween Nightmares was a gang comprised only of dudes.
Not good, I thought. Did we get spotted?
I looked around, but I couldn't see anything or anyone. It was just too dark in here, which was a no-brainer because that was why we chose to hide here in the first place.
"Whoa!"
Startled, I jumped up. "What is it? What happened?" I asked.
"Someone just pulled my leg!" cried the guy in the bloody wolf mask. He jumped to his feet and turned right and left. "I swear someone just pulled my leg from behind hard enough to make me fall!"
I took out a penlight, switched it on and looked where Wolf Mask pointed. I saw no one, but I could still hear a girl laughing close by. The trees ceased rustling and the girl began to sing.
"Kagome, Kagome. The bird in the cage, when, oh when will it come out? In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped. Who is behind you now?"
"Just who's behind you now?"
I yelped and spun around. Someone had whispered in my ear behind me, but I couldn't see who.
I won't admit I was scared, but I did feel incredibly angry. Someone was messing with us. It should be us doing the messing. Not the other way around.
"Show yourself!" I demanded of the singer. "Come out here now!"
"Kagome, Kagome . . ."
The singer completely ignored me and repeated that old song.
"Coward!" Wolf Mask screamed. "Why don't you come out here and show yourself? Or are you too afraid because you're so ugly?"
The singing stopped.
"Oh?" said Wolf Mask. "Didn't like that, huh? I must have hit the nail on the head. You must be so ugly, I feel bad for you- Ah! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Wolf Mask screamed. I screamed. We all screamed.
One second Wolf Mask was hurling insults at the invisible singer, the next, he was high up in the air flailing his arms and kicking his legs out while screaming. We all screamed with him and then pointed our flashlights at him, but I couldn't see what was holding him so high up the trees. None of us could.
"Put me down! Put me down!" he cried.
Zombie mask was the first to calm down.
He shouted, "Hold on!" and went over to try and help Wolf Mask, but then fell down flat on his face. I thought he might have tripped over a tree root, but then he suddenly slid backwards as if being dragged away. But there was no one at his feet who could have done that. Zombie Mask disappeared into the bushes screaming. His screams quickly grew distant until I could hear him no more.
And then the laughing started again, but this time it was far more maniacal, as if a switch had been flipped turning the invisible lady from mere mischievous to downright insane.
"Aw man!" moaned Gorilla Mask. "Forget this! I'm outta here!"
And yes, I'm just going to call each and every one of my friends by their masks. Got a problem with that? You can call me Clown Mask if you want.
"Hey! Hold on!" cried out Oni Mask.
But Gorilla Mask had already split from us and ran. He didn't get far, however and flipped in the air. Something invisible had him by his left ankle and pulled him high up the trees where he hung upside down, screaming. That was the last straw that broke the camel's back and finally got us running for our lives.
I scrambled for the road where the samurai kid with the foam sword was standing guard, not caring whether I'd get arrested by the cop that was sure to be with him. But I only made it halfway before I suddenly stopped. And no, I did not want to just stop right there. Something MADE me stop. I couldn't move. No matter how much I mentally screamed at my legs, they wouldn't listen to me. It was as if I was suddenly hit with a freeze ray.
Up ahead, I could see the children all walking by in pairs. The samurai had gone, but a girl had taken her place. She was dressed in a white kimono and had some kind of white headband. Her back was to me, but I was sure that headband had a piece of triangle-shaped cloth. That kind of headband and the kimono were parts of a classic Japanese ghost costume.
"Hey!" I cried out. "Hey! Help me! Help!"
I tried calling out to the girl, but she did not seem to hear me. None of the children or the other adults did either. And I screamed my throat ragged, trying to get their attention. I was desperate and close to tears. But to my despair, they kept on walking without ever acknowledging me. And then, when the last of the trick-or-treating group was gone, I truly started crying.
The bushes beside me rustled and a girl in a blouse and blazer stepped into my vision. She had long, silky black hair, but that was all I could say about her. Her face was covered by an oni mask like our leader's, only hers was red. One other thing that set the girl's oni mask apart from the leader's was that the eyes of her oni mask glowed green.
She looked at me, and I looked at her.
She softly cackled, and I softly whimpered. I could tell she wore a big, wicked smile beneath that mask of hers, and that whatever she thought amusing was definitely not for me.
Slowly, she raised her hand, a gray and wrinkled mummified kind of hand with long, yellowing fingernails. Her slender fingers were wrapped around the black handle of a kitchen knife.
"Hey," she said. Her voice was muffled by the mask. "Want to see what color your intestines are? BECAUSE I SURE DO!"
She lunged at me, laughing. I screamed my lungs out and ran. But I didn't get far before I froze on the spot.
Gravity auddenly went all topsy-turvy and lifted me off the ground. I was in the air for one or two seconds, and then I dropped to the ground. Rocks and pebbles dug into my back. But I didn't really notice. My attention was all on the masked girl hovering over me with a knife.
"Kagome, Kahome . . ."
She started singing again as she raised the knife over my head. My heart beat rapidly while my fright levels went over scale.
And then she screamed, and I screamed too.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
She brought the knife down and everything went black.
*****
Mirai
*****
I, Mirai, leader of Megugami High School's Community Service Club and pretend Demon Lord, stood over a man in black who laid on the ground with foam leaking out of his mouth.
I turned my gaze away from him and faced the girl in a white kimono standing behind me. She looked incredibly refreshed. So much so that her cheeks were shining as she smiled radiantly.
"Don't you think you might have taken it too far?" I asked her.
But she, Isaneko, just replied, "Not at all," while keeping that beaming smile.
I didn't say a word and looked around at the other guys lying on the ground with their eyes rolled back, foam at their mouths, and their arms and legs twitching like dead bugs. It's easy to forget, but despite acting like a prim and proper teacher's pet most of the time, underneath that mask, Isaneko was a devilish sadist who would treat her own friends like toys if given the chance.
When she noticed my eyes on the knife in her hand, she held it up and said, "Relax. It's just a fake I made out of cardboard. See?"
She bent the knife in half and then tore it in half.
"As if I would risk being arrested by carrying around the real thing," she said.
I was more bothered by the fact she only thought to bring a fake because she didn't want to get arrested because it kind of meant that if there was no risk of a bad run-in with the law, she would have brought along a real one.
Confused? Okay, let me give you a rundown.
Us of the Community Service Club do volunteer work for the community. It's in the name. So, naturally, when a big holiday like Halloween came up, we volunteered to be part of a big trick-or-treat event the town hosts every year. During a meeting about the event, we all learned about the Halloween Nightmares, a group of losers who got a kick out of making kids cry every Halloween. A police officer who's been chasing after them came to the meeting to say that our town was the Nightmares' next target.
It really struck me as weird how a bunch of losers like that managed to evade the law every year, and I decided to try use my clairvoyance to pick up any clues. I can really only see up to a couple of minutes into the future with my psychic power (and yes, I have psychic powers), so I wasn't really expecting to find anything. But to my surprise, I caught wind of someone posting every juicy detail of the meeting onto a private online chatroom.
So they got a spy, I thought. They must have sent a mole to infiltrate the town to steal intel and use it to find their victims and avoid capture. It's how they've managed to get away with their heinous crimes every year.
But not this year. This year was going to be different, because this year, they've set their eyes on kids in MY territory. And as long as those kids were under my protective wings, I wasn't about to let those losers have their way.
So, I kept a psychic eye on the spy and let Isaneko and the others in on what's going on. We formulated a plan around their plan and decided to teach them a lesson that they would never forget.
Well, honestly, I was okay with just getting the police to take care of them, but Isaneko insisted they needed to be punished, and that she be the one to do it. She was the one who made those guys fly around and dragged them across the ground, using her psychic power to move things with her mind. I hoped they didn't get hurt too badly in the process.
When my smartphone rang, I took it out of my pocket, swiped the answer button with my finger, and pressed it against my ear.
"Hello?" I said.
After a brief moment, I hung up.
"That was the student council prez," I said to Isaneko. "Yuna found the other Nightmares and pointed them out to the police. They're being sent to jail right now."
"Aw, that's too bad," Isaneko said, genuinely disappointed. "I wanted to treat those other Nightmares to some Halloween fun."
I looked at her astonished and said, "You still haven't had enough? After all that? The singing? The laughing? Using telekinesis to lift them in the air?"
Isaneko's smile faded and she gave me a puzzled look.
"Singing? What singing?" she asked.
"Don't play dumb," I said. "I heard you singing 'Kagome, Kagome', which really creeped out the Nightmares."
But Isaneko said, "That wasn't me. I didn't make a peep until I finished off that guy with the clown mask. I thought you were the one who did that."
"Please, Lady Isaneko," I said. "I may have many talents, but even I can't mimic the singing voice of a little girl."
"Well, if it wasn't you and it wasn't me, then who was singing?"
She and I looked each other in the eye in silence. And then -
"Kagome, Kagome. The bird in the cage, when, oh when will it come out?"
Isaneko and I looked around. Neither of us saw anyone or anything. We exchanged looks again.
"We should go and get the police so they can arrest these chumps," I said.
"Agreed," said Isaneko.
And then, together, we ran away as fast as we could. Behind us, I could still hear a girl singing.
"In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped. Who is behind you now?"
A strong gust of wind blew by, causing the trees to shake their leaves.
"Who is behind you now?"
