Chapter Eight: Halloween

“Wait, it’s already Halloween?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah it’s the biggest time of the year for the mansion,” Picario said. “Practically every phantom shows up for the Halloween party on the 100th floor. It's fantastic!”

“And the costume?” Ethan asked.

“On Halloween we can buy special costumes that transform us into the monsters until Sunrise after Halloween, I always go as the wolf man.”

“Awesome, when is the party?”

“Oh the door to floor One-Hundred opens up at the first ray of light on Halloween and goes until the first ray of light the next day. So it’s happening right now.”

Ethan rushed out the door and called out behind him, “Well what are you waiting for I need a costume!”

Picario led Ethan to a special Halloween Shop in the General shop. Inside were life size still models of dozens of different monsters and other costumes. Next to the models, small stands with the cost of the outfit and a rack filled with tens of small bracelets with a small sigil attached to them resembling the monsters or outfit in a smaller size.

Ethan went around the shop admiring the many different costumes but was disappointed to find out he could only afford three of them. He ended buying a skeleton costume bracelet which cost: 800 Ghost Points.

After putting the bracelet on, Ethan was surprised to see his entire body transformed into that of a skeleton. Picario was already fully in his wolf man costume and waiting for Ethan at the entrance to the shop. When Ethan came out Picario cracked several cheesy skeleton jokes, then the two teleported to the 99th floor where they had to walk up the stairs to floor 100.

There were many other Phantoms in various monster forms of their own going up the stairs. At the top, Ethan saw enormous double doors over ten feet tall that were wide open. Beyond the doors was a creepy dark graveyard filled with large tombstones and fog that reached up to Ethan’s knees. In the dark sky were numerous floating Jack-O-Lanterns slowly rotating around and giving the graveyard a dim light. Further down the graveyard in the center of it were several light green glowing skeletons that were dancing around.

Past the graveyard was a large room filled with normal phantoms in suits or dresses dancing around on tiles that lit up whenever someone stepped on it and went back to white when they stepped off it. At the back of the dance floor was a band made of, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and a man with a pumpkin head singing, ‘Monster Mash’.

There was a massive refreshments table just to the right of Ethan and Picario. Ethan went over to the table and looked at its contents. It had numerous bowls of red, green, and blue punch with cups stacked next to them. More bowls were on the table as well but some were filled with eyeballs which Ethan suspected was just a trick and they were a sweet candy. Snakes made of chocolate; white, dark and regular slivered around on the table.

While Ethan enjoyed some of the refreshments on the table and watched the other phantoms dancing around having a great time the song ended and a mummy came up to the microphone and said, “Alright That was ‘The Munsters’ and their hit ‘Monster Mash’ song. They’re going to take a break but coming right up are the witches all girl choir singing ‘I put a spell on you’.”

Shortly after the song started Picario said to Ethan, “Come on let me show you the other parts of this party.”

Ethan followed Picario to a slanted hallway that had white walls and countless little green red and blue spiders hanging from the ceiling. As Picario passed by some of the spiders he grabbed a few and threw them in his mouth and started chewing them. He then grabbed a blue spider and offered it to Ethan.

Ethan starred at the small spider in Picario’s palm and just shook his head then said, “No uhh, I’m good thanks.”

“They’re edible gummy spiders try one,” Picario said putting the spider closer to Ethan’s face.

Ethan sighed then reluctantly grabbed the spider and started chewing it. To his surprise it really was delicious! Ethan then started plucking the other gummy spiders from the ceiling and eating them as well. Picario turned to him and said, “Grab a chunk of the wall and try it.”

For a moment Ethan starred back and forth from Picario to the walls then just shrugged and did as he said. The wall was squishy and very easy to grab. He pulled out a handful of some white stuff and the wall soon filled the small gap that was taken from it. Ethan smelled the wall stuff and it smelled sweet. Then he took a bite, it was marshmallow.

After Ethan ate his fill of the gummy spiders and marshmallow walls the two continued. They came out of what Picario called the, ‘Sweet treats hall’ and into a massive theater. It was an old style theater with a stage and curtains but on a much grander scale. There were long rows of seats that were filled with all sorts of monsters which Ethan knew now was just transformation costumes.

A green fog covered Ethan’s feet and the lighting of the entire place was very dim except for where there was a break in the rows for people to find a seat. Picario looked around the seats until he saw a small blue light held above one of the rows and headed towards it; Ethan followed behind him.

They got to the seat below the blue light and found Kelly sitting there waiting for them. She was in some kind of dress but it was too dark for Ethan to make out anymore than that, otherwise he didn’t think she was in any costume at all. Picario sat down at the open seat on one side of her and Ethan on the other. “The show is about the start.” Kelly said without turning to either of them.

Ethan removed his skeleton bracelet as he sat down. Then he said, “My fault again this is all still brand new to me remember?”

“You’re not wearing a costume at all?” Kelly asked.

“I just removed mine because I didn’t want to be wearing it for the show, how did you not see it? Anyways what about you?”

“No, I never wear a costume.”

Before Ethan could respond or ask more questions the stage lit up and the curtains fell back. The stage was set with a small dimly lit village from what looked like the 15 th century. The lights centered down on a scarecrow man and an unsuspecting house. Music from all around played in beat with the scarecrow man as he tip toed to the house looking left and right.

The scarecrow man pulled out a small pumpkin with a long fuse extended from its head. He placed the pumpkin down at the door step, lit the fuse and knocked on the door then ran around to the side of the house. A normal person opened the door looked around then looked down at the pumpkin.

This person picked up the pumpkin and a brief moment later it exploded into a giant mess covering the person and their entire porch in pumpkin. The scarecrow man skipped away cackling.

The curtains then closed and after a minute they opened again and showed a tavern from the inside. The scarecrow man went around pulling pranks on the people in the tavern. His pranks on the people were relentless, never stopping at just one simple joke.

After the curtains closed and reopened again they were in a graveyard with a table set and cracked and worn out tea pots and cups set out through it. The scarecrow man dug up multiple graves and pulled out skeletons and placed them throughout the table at different seats. While the scarecrow man cackled in strange delight at this morbid joke he was completely unaware of the black knight on a dark horse approaching from the graveyard entrance.

The black knight rode up swiftly behind the scarecrow man with his axe held high. The scarecrow man took notice of the black knight just in time to turn around as the black knight chopped his head off. The scarecrow man fell to the ground as his head rolled away; the black knight didn’t linger.

The spotlight shifted to a nearby pumpkin which started rolling towards the Scarecrow man. The pumpkin stopped rolling when it reached the scarecrow man and then seemed to attach itself to his neck. The scarecrow man stood up twisted his head and a glowing menacing face appeared on the pumpkins face.

As the curtains closed Kelly yawned then leaned over close to Ethan and whispered in his ear. “This is boring, want to sneak out and go enjoy the rest of the party?”

“What do you mean sneak out?” Ethan asked.

“You can create illusions right? Make one of us both while we sneak away and by the time Picario realizes were gone he won’t know where we went.”

“Hmph, so that’s what you mean.” Ethan thought about it silently for a couple minutes.

“Okay I can make us invisible and create clones of us in the exact same positions but we have to be super quite.”

Ethan and Kelly quietly snuck out of the theater and made their way to the ball room. There was a band of all girls dressed like witches singing “I put a spell on you”.

The two of them went onto the dance floor and started to swing dance along with everyone else. The songs changed, bands switched out and the rhythms of the dances changed with them. Ethan hadn’t danced too much before that night but he and Kelly danced until the bands stopped playing and others started to leave.

Together Ethan and Kelly left the 100th floor going through the graveyard with everyone else. As soon as they got outside the room they pulled out their amber crystals and teleported to floor 94. Ethan walked Kelly back to her room and after they got there she kissed him on the cheek and said, “Happy Halloween.”

Ethan began to blush a little then smiled and said, “Happy Halloween.”

Kelly went inside her room and shut the door behind her. Ethan pulled out his amber crystal and teleported to the first floor. He went outside to the mansions porch and watched the sky as night slowly transformed into day. He thought to himself, all in all it was a wonderful Halloween.