Halloween 2014 Choose Your Spooky Outcome: Chapter 13
“You should have asked me for advice,” Victoria says as the three of you exit her town car. You’re finally back at your apartment, and Jim has just finished coating her front seat in powdered sugar as he continues laying into his endless funnel cake. The mysterious driver apparently accepted a few bites, based on the strange sounds you heard coming from the front seat during the drive.
“And then you would have told me it was my job to choose or something,” you replied. You’re careful as you lift your pitchfork and new possession out of the town car, cradling the boon like a swaddled toddler.
“The trials were over, I was free to advise you as I saw fit,” Victoria says.
“Mmmfrmphrumph,” Jim adds, mouth stuffed with funnel cake.
“Well maybe I didn’t want your advice. I like what I got, thank you very much.”
“It just seems frivolous,” she tells you.
“Let’s see you say that after I try it out in the parking lot.” You all walk up to your apartment and open the front door. Sitting on your couch, clad in a blue apron and drinking a craft beer is a giant skeleton.
“Hey Wilbur,” you say, greeting your third roommate. “How was the coffee shop?”
“Horseshit as always,” Wilbur the giant skeleton replies. “Bunch of kids lit a pumpkin on fire outside the store. Fucking Halloween.”
“Mmfrumgrrrtlk,” Jim adds.
“Since Lady Dempsy is here, I assume there were some festivities on your end too?” Wilbur says, ignoring Jim.
“Nothing too outlandish, just driving a few pests from my home. Merlin and the man chowing through an endless funnel cake were kind enough to lend me a hand.”
“It helped that she didn’t tell us what we were doing,” you add. You turn to look at Victoria. “Why was that, anyway? We would have gone along even if we knew the score.”
“Neither of you is particularly what I’d call the ‘planning’ type,” Victoria says. “You both function best when reacting and thinking on your feet. By keeping you in the dark, I was helping ensure you didn’t get in your own way. Plus, to be frank, it was more fun that way.”
You find the second part more believable than the first.
“Since no one seems dead, guessing you pulled it off,” Wilbur surmises.
“And we got some cool shit to boot,” you say. “Jim asked for an endless funnel cake.”
“Hrmmphrurr!” I’m not going to keep telling you this is Jim. It’s clearly Jim. We’re all smart, it’s implied, no need to restate.
“What about you?” Wilbur asks. “Get some cool magic, or maybe some sweet cash.”
“Better. Way fucking better.”
“I beg to disagree,” Victoria says with a shake of her head.
“Come on then, what is it?”
In response, you toss your newest possession from your hand and it falls to the floor. Before actually hitting, it stabilizes in mid-air and hangs there, ignoring the siren song of gravity. Wilbur can’t do much in the way of facial expressions, but from the way his skull tips upward you can tell he’s both surprises and impressed.
“No way.”
“Yup,” you confirm.
“You got a hoverboard?”
“Damn straight. All the money in the world can’t buy one of these things.”
“Actually,” Wilbur says, “There is this Kickstarter one-”
“No, bullcrap,” you interrupt. “That has to be in a special park with all sorts of materials. This is the real deal. All terrain, except for water, I guess, and never runs out of juice.”
“Is there some significance to this object I’m missing?” Victoria asks.
“Let me change, then show you how awesome it is. I think you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.” You hurry off to your room, carefully removing the demon costume as you go. Moving quickly, you switch into sweats and t-shirt, putting most of the costume into the garment bag Victoria first provided. The one thing you keep out is the pitchfork. You hold it as you open your closet and push back a wall of dress shirts that you never wear.
Carefully, you rest the pitchfork against a small shelf. Already on the shelf is a threadbare wizard’s hat, a mannequin hand, and a jar of glowing green goo. You add the crystal doorknob, setting it down by the hat. The pitchfork will just have to lean, there’s no way that thing can fit on your small shelf. Then again, if shit keeps going down like this, you might need a bigger one soon.
Moving your clothes back into position, you hurry out to the living room. In the next hour, you’ll pull off several small tricks on the hoverboard before slipping up and fracturing an ankle but all in all, this turned out to be a pretty fuckin’ rad Halloween in…