A Creepy Love Story for Halloween
In the spirit of the occasion...
Ahh, Halloween! The night when the dead rise again from their graves and walk the streets.
All except me, of course – I’m going to a party.
It’s the one night of the year when you get to stretch your legs and feel the wind in your ribs – only a brainless numbskull would waste it hanging around the graveyard and moaning like a rusty gate in a gale.
So I’ve found a party and I am totally going to crash it. It’s in Windsor; a town I have known for many years. Ah yes, there’s a very fine castle in Windsor; one of the best.
A lawyer couple have invited their friends and neighbours round for a Halloween bash in the smarter part of town, and I have decided I shall be there as well. It’ll be all silly hired costumes and ridiculous make-up; the kids will be turned out as devils and ghosts and sent out trick-or-treating before being bundled up to bed so the grown-ups can get on with the serious business of pouring alcohol down their necks and behaving badly till the small hours. Just perfect for a skeletal spectre like me to blend in with the crowd and make the most of my Halloween night of freedom.
I get a fix on the party and materialise outside the front door. I have previously taken the precaution of popping into a costume shop and borrowing one of those all-in-one nylon body suits and a cheap plastic skeleton mask. I chose a black suit with a skeleton painted on in white – oh, the irony of it is delicious.
I press the bell, and after a moment a woman comes to the door. She’s dressed as Cruella de Vil.
“Hi, come on in!” she says. “Great costume! Who are you under that lot?”
“Nigel” I say. “I work with Jacinta.”
I have done my research. Jacinta is the wife; a lawyer in the City. There is a Nigel who works with her. Unfortunately he’s not feeling well this evening so he couldn’t come. When I say he’s not well, I mean he’s in a nasty state of shock. He thought he’d seen a ghost, apparently.
I really must be more careful where I materialise.
“Cool” she says, and stands back to let me in.
I float in, taking care to move my legs so it looks like I am actually walking. It’s all in the detail, you know.
“Everyone, this is Nigel. He works with Jacinta in the City,” says the woman. I don’t think anyone hears her, but it’s the thought that counts.
I drift across the hall and into the dining room. There’s a dining table pushed up against the wall, groaning under the weight of enough bottles to stock a medium-sized off-licence. On the wall behind it is a large black and white photo of a family. There’s a mother and father in their early 40s, and a boy and girl in their teens. They’re lying on a lamb’s wool rug together, all smiling up at the camera. None of them have shoes on. I go up for a closer look.
“Jacinta, Crispin, Tarquin and Cressida” says a woman next to me. Fortunately she hasn’t spotted that I’m standing inside the table. I move back quickly.
“Yes,” I say. “Aren’t they lovely?”
She nods and is about to say something, when she spots someone more interesting behind me and moves away.
I pour myself a glass of champagne – a useful prop – and move across to the sitting room. There I see a man dressed as Dracula, telling a long-winded joke about a fellow and a horse. I have heard it many times before – the setting changes over the centuries, but the core joke stays the same. It wasn’t funny when I first heard it in the 12th century, and to be honest, it isn’t now.
I look carefully and see that the man under the Dracula make-up is Crispin. I decide to have a bit of fun at his expense. I drift over and stand in front of him.
“Hello, old man” he says. “It’s Nigel from Jacinta’s lot in the City, isn’t it?”
“No” I say, then in front of his eyes I grow to eight feet tall and change shape, becoming a fearsome devil with wickedly curved horns, blood red skin, a forked beard, burning yellow eyes and razor-sharp teeth. “I am Satan, the dark lord of the underworld, and I have come to take you to the pit of everlasting torment and make you pay for your sins for all eternity!” It is pretty impressive stuff, made even more so by the deepening of my voice to a bass roar and the accompaniment of the shower theme from Psycho.
He’s not impressed.
“That’s slander” he says. “You’re implying that I am a sinner.” He pauses, as I deflate back to my original size and costume. “Where’s your proof?” He laughs. “Nice trick, though. How did you do it? Is there like an air pump in your costume to make you bigger?”
He turns to a woman next to him. “Did you catch that, Jessica? Nice trick.”
I turn to look at Jessica and see she’s smiling.
Then I realise with a shock that Jessica is quite simply the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.
Ever. Ever. Ever.
And that’s a very long time.
I take a small peek into her mind and all I can see is kindness, caring and positivity. I realise that here is the most perfect girl in the world.
If I had a heart, it would have melted.
“Yes, nice trick” she says.
Even her voice is beautiful.
As I look at her, I realise that finally, I have met my perfect soulmate.
Around 800 years too late.
Suddenly I have to get out of the party. I have to get away from this girl before I do something awful. I can’t be in her presence knowing I can’t be with her because she’s alive and I’m not.
I mutter something incoherent and move away.
“Wait” she says, coming after me and putting her hand on my shoulder. “Have we met before? I am sure I know your voice. I have to see your face.”
“No,” I say. “I’m sorry. You can’t. I have to go.”
“Don’t go,” she says. “Let me see you, please.”
This is torture.
“No,” I say again. “I must go. I’m sorry.”
I turn and move quickly into the hallway. The front door is open; Cruella de Vil is letting some newcomers in. I move swiftly past her and out of the door.
I go quickly across the road, then I stop. I feel a hand on my shoulder and I turn.
“Please,” Jessica says, looking up at me with a quizzical smile. I look back at her. She really does have the most beautiful eyes. “There’s something about you that tells me I have to know you better.” She takes my hand in hers. “You’re very cold,” she says softly. “Come inside, take off the mask, and let’s talk.”
“Jessica,” I say, “I would love to, but I can’t, Please let me go, and forget you ever met me.”
“You don’t mean that,” she says, and reaching up, she grabs the mask and the nylon headpiece of the body suit, and pulls them off.
And screams.
I stand there, a skeleton in a nylon suit painted with a skeleton on the front, and above the neck, a real smooth white skull.
“Jessica…” I say forlornly, as she backs away in horror.
The van that hits her must be doing at least fifty, which is extremely reckless on a residential street in Windsor at night. She doesn’t stand a chance. She is flung in the air and crashes to the ground with a sickening thud behind the van as it speeds off round the corner. I can see from the shape her body makes in the road, and from the spreading pool of blood, that she must be dead.
A group of people run out of the front door of Crispin and Jacinta’s house, silhouetted against the bright light from the hall. They stop, staring in horror at the scene in the road.
But none of them see what I see.
I see Jessica slowly get up out of her body, and walk hesitantly towards me.
“What happened?” she asks.
“You got hit,” I say. “You’re dead, like me.”
“It feels strange,” she says, and glances back at her body, now surrounded by people. They’re all frantically dialling on their mobiles. “Is that me there?”
“It was,” I say gently. “Now you’re here.”
“I remember now. You scared me.”
She looks me up and down. Now she’s dead, she sees my body as it was at the height of my earthly life; solid flesh and blood, my long golden hair combed back and my beard neatly trimmed. I am dressed in my finest clothes. I think she likes what she sees.
Suddenly she knows who I am.
“Richard,” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “I am your Lionheart. And now, you are my queen.”
She takes my hand and together we slide into the shadows.
© 2017-2022 Jonathan Posner. All Rights Reserved.
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