Halloween 2020: Choose Your Spooky Outcome: Chapter 12
With every passing second, the pain in your skull is getting worse, like something is trying to claw it’s way out from the depths of your brain, determined to be remembered. Clutching what sanity remains, you desperately scour your thoughts, looking for the right phrase. What is it that’s breaking your brain so much? For a moment, you nearly utter Sheryl’s name, but something stops your tongue.
No. Not something. There’s an image flashing in your mind. Big, orange, and round, it’s almost a jack-o-lantern, except for the design carved into the front. A face. A face very much like Sheryl’s, yet not the same. Jack-o-lanterns continue to fill your head, more than just the recent metal version. Ones that winked, ones that tried to talk, so many attempting to pass along a message, but what did they want to say? The orange keeps building in your brain, until finally, there’s a break in the dam.
For a moment, one terrible, hideous moment, everything you’ve forgotten is brought to the surface. So many deaths, so much pain, yet buried among it all are glorious, shining memories. Like the one of a small girl born on Halloween day, whose parents had such a hard time thinking of a name. So in the end, they’d chosen a small, private reference to the day they met, even if it was a bit of a silly moniker. Bracing your grip, you plunge your hand fully into the torrent and scream with every bit of breath in your lungs.
“Pumpkin!”
The hand slaps against yours somewhere on the other side, taking hold of your wrist in a powerful grip. At the touch, more memories come bursting up, drowning out the rest of the rabble, but you pay them no mind. Every drop of focus is on the act of pulling, dragging this new person through the torrent of light. At last, there’s a sort of pop and the person flies forward, collapsing on the ground in a heap next to you.
Both of you lay on the cold stone ground, panting. Much as you want to say something, the pain is too much. Your whole brain feels as though its been seared with acid, and is slowly struggling to recover. Dimly, somewhere in the cave, you hear more yelling. Getting closer, too. The others must be getting driven back. What little piece of your brain is still functioning realizes that means you failed to stop the threat. The shadows are coming, and you’re all out of long-shot gambits.
Stirring, the woman next to you gets to her feet, unsteady, yet recovering fast. She’s scarcely a few years younger than you, with short, dark hair featuring a bright orange streak in the middle. “Ahhh, I’m going to beat the horns off that crossroads demon if I see him again. ‘Technically survivable trip’ my ass.” Looking around, her eyes fall on you, confusion mixed with what appears to be carefully restrained joy. “Is that… how… sorry, didn’t expect you to be so young. But hey, who am I to talk? Dropped about forty years since we last saw each other.”
The woman reaches into her outfit, black and sleek, with a short jacket from which she produces a knife, although not one quite like you’ve ever seen. Aside from the blazing magical glow burning off the thing, there’s a skull at the base of the hilt, and the shaft of the blade is oddly shaped, too round and thick in the center, before it forms into a sharp end. Part of you knows to protest whatever she has in mind, yet you just can’t manage to make the synapses for movement fire correctly.
“Merlin, if you’re on the precipice of action, now would be a fine time to take the leap!” Victoria’s voice echoes through the cave, worryingly close. You want to call out to her, managing to halfway lift a finger and grunt out a soft gurgle.
Pumpkin’s hand with the dagger halts, looking from you, to the sounds of battle, and back down. “Friends?”
With all the strength you can manage, your head tilts forward, into a nod.
“Friends. And friends who are in trouble, by the sounds of things.” Once more, she glances from you to the dagger, then lets out a tired sigh. “Yeah, it’s never that easy, is it?” Pumpkin leans in, hugging you so tightly your spine lets out audible pops, then pulls herself back to standing. “This bad boy is only at full power on All Hallows Eve, and it’s one-shot until the next year. Looks like you’re going to have to be stuck for a little while longer.”
By the time she turns, your friends are slightly in view, and looking haggard. Cuts, bruises, Thad is even walking with a limp. They gave their very best to buy you time, and now you’re all trapped in here together. It seems so hopeless, if not for the figure confidently striding forward, blade held aloft.
“Do you quasi-tangible turds have any idea how hard I worked for this reunion? Getting my hands on the right power, clawing my way from world to world, finding the proper tool for the job, sending over magic objects to get his attention, sneaking coded messages through, leading him here to The Between so I could be pulled through the last barrier, all of that, then you go screwing things up.”
Pumpkin steps forward, the light from her blade driving the shadows away, giving your friends a chance to get back. “It might be ridiculous, vulgar, and strange, but when the chips are down, I do love the chance to sound our family’s battle-cry: Fucking Magic!”
With that familiar phrase, she slams the blade into the ground. Waves of true darkness burst forth, not mere animated shadows, sweeping through the attackers like a scythe through wheat. They flail and try to flee, all in vain. In seconds, the forces are wiped out entirely.
Victoria, Thad, and Jim are all staring in disbelief at the new arrival, but it’s Jim who finds words first. “Whatever she’s dressed as, I call dibs on that costume for next Halloween. Looks like it carries some real ass-kicking power.”
“Not a costume.” You manage to wheeze the words out, brain finally having recovered enough for some basic function. As the tides of madness ebb, they don’t leave you unchanged. New memories are there… no, not new. Lost. Buried, because they would have snapped your mind otherwise. Memories of a life and world you lived, of dying in bed, surrounded by family. Family like your kids, including the one who had Sheryl’s face except for your chin, but that wasn’t all.
She’d also taken after her Uncle Thad. Pumpkin was born with the same gift as your brother, a talent you only later learned could be passed down through the bloodline. In the life you knew, she had become rich and successful, but slinging supernatural weapons around was definitely a new trick.
Lifting a no longer glowing key, Pumpkin walks over examining the crew. “Let’s see, Lady of Autumn is obvious, by the costume I take it you’re Jim, and that makes this slab of a dude Thad. Guess you guys must have patched things up.”
“While I am grateful for the assistance, I prefer to be the one speaking in obfuscation and riddles,” Victoria pipes up. “Merlin, perhaps you would care to tell us about your new ally?”
Ouch, yeah, that’s going to be a long discussion. You could try to explain everything, escaping and talking simultaneously. Or maybe its best to just skim the surface of what’s going on, given how little you fully understand. Hell, perhaps the best choice is just to let Pumpkin introduce herself, she might answer a few of your own questions as well.
Whatever you decide, better choose soon. Time is running out, and you still need to find a way home.