Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure (9 page)

Or something.

Arthur isn’t currently in the mood to master
metaphor.

At the back of the crowd stands Annie Fabray, ominous
as ever, dressed in perfectly normal clothes save for the pair of
devil horns on her head.

Appropriate.

Cora hustles on up to the front door and swings it
open. The little bell on the door jingles out their doom.

Outside, the sky is dark and cloudy. There’s the
feeling of coming rain in the air.

Cora lifts up her werewolf mask; now it’s more of a
werewolf hat. An unsettling look. In
creepy-ringmaster-at-the-circus tones, she announces, “Welcome, one
and all, to Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts’ ... Scarestravaganza! If
you’re looking to have a delightful celebration of all things
Halloweeny, cross the room and climb the stairs! If you’re ready to
get so scared you pee a little,” she sneers, “stay downstairs.”

There’s a collective antsy murmur from the parents at
that. The children all laugh, but it’s a hushed laughter. A nervous
laughter.

“A maze awaits you,” Cora proclaims, sinister. “And
at the end of it, infinite riches. But have you got the strength to
make it that far? There’s only one way to find out. Come with me
through this door, and into a land of your wildest nightmares.”

Now there isn’t even nervous laughter. Just a bunch
of kids, staring blankly at them.

Not great.

“One more thing,” Arthur says, stepping up next to
Cora on a whim. “Everyone, make sure to wish Tyler Fabray a happy
tenth birthday. The downstairs ... situation ... has been
specifically designed according to Tyler’s specifications, with the
blessing of his mother Annie Fabray. Don’t just thank us for what
you are about to experience. Thank the Fabrays.”

There’s a drawn out silence. Then the parents all
start clapping riotously.

Clearly they know who the arts ‘n crafts deity is in
this town.

Annie Fabray puts on a regal smile and waves,
queenly.

“Also, um,” Arthur adds, partly because it’s
important and partly because some dark piece of his heart wants to
overthrow her. “For anyone who might have an aversion to flashing
lights, I highly recommend you go upstairs. Or ... home.”

Everyone stares at him.

Well, that kind of diffused the enthusiastic
atmosphere.

“Aw yeah!” Cora says, his rowdy saving grace. “It’s
gonna get flashy up in here!!!”

Tyler, apparently moved by this, shouts, “ARRRRRR!”,
lifts his plastic sword, and runs to the front door.

“Bold move calling out the Fabrays,” Cora mutters out
of the corner of her mouth as Tyler and his followers rush past her
into the store.

“I had to,” Arthur mutters back. “I couldn’t let us
go down in infamy.”

He watches in relief as a number of children hustle
upstairs with their parents. At least they’ll meet a better fate
than those who choose to stay down here in the muck and the
mire.

Go,
he thinks.
Be free!

Then he realizes that he has in fact become a sad and
ridiculous person.

Once the upstairs crowd has reached their
destination, Kristy turns off the main lights and flicks on the
strobe light.

Immediately, the room is overtaken by a strange and
wild energy.

There are some shrieks of laughter from the kids, and
Arthur is just beginning to think that this might go all right,
when—

“Aaaugh!” Tyler shouts. “I stepped on a chopped-off
wiener!”

Howie picks this very unfortunate moment to burst out
from the beading aisle and wave the chainsaw, cackling
menacingly.

“LOOK OUT,” Tyler screams. “HE’S GOING TO CHAINSAW
YOUR WIENER OFF.”

“I am not, dude!” Howie says, offended.

“Does he mean ‘hotdog,’ or ...?” Arthur asks,
panicked.

“He’s a ten year old boy,” Cora replies. “He does
not
mean hotdog.”

“EW!” screeches a girl dressed like a pegasus.

“They’re just intestines!” Arthur protests
desperately.

“They don’t
look
like intestines!” Tyler
shouts. “They look! Like! WIENERS.”

His surrounding friends all let out frenzied,
Lord
of The Flies
-esque war cries.

“No one has been castrated!” Arthur cries.

“How did you not see that one coming, honestly?” Cora
says to Arthur.

Arthur considers quitting life, here and now.

“They’re breakfast sausages,” Kristy says from where
she stands behind the cash register, her voice ringing clearly
through the room. “Be careful. The monsters that lurk within the
maze love to eat breakfast ... almost as much as they love to eat
children! And they don’t clean up after they eat.”

Kind of odd, but she makes it work. Arthur feels
desperately grateful.

“Sweet!” one of the boys shouts. “Sexy mummy!”

“Told you!” says Tyler.

Kristy’s smile becomes very fixed.

“Now—go forth into the maze!” she says.

The kids consider it.

“Is that blood?” Tyler asks, touching the gauze.

“You scared?” one of his friends asks.

“No!” Tyler exclaims indignantly.

And with that very promising proclamation, they
venture forth through the ketchupy gauze of doom.

“Not off to a very good start, are we?” Annie Fabray
mutters as she breezes by.

Arthur gulps and goes to fetch his guitar.

+

This, Howie decides, is the worst.

Everything is foggy, loud, and pulsating with hideous
flashing light. Howie can hear Arthur’s mournful singing, but he
can’t see him, which makes the whole “ghostly troubadour” thing
more effective than Howie had anticipated.

He lurks in the scrapbooking aisle, trying to decide
the most intimidating way to wield a chainsaw ... while
simultaneously making it clear that you don’t want to chainsaw
anybody’s junk off.

Honestly, with the lights flashing all crazy, it
doesn’t take much to be creepy. He swooshes it experimentally
through the air, pressing the little button that makes it go
Rrrrrrrr!
, and jumps. It’s fuckin’ creepy.

At that moment, a hand clamps down on his
shoulder.

“SHIT!” Howie cries.

“Where is he?” snarls—Amber??

Amber as he’s never seen her before.

“Uh,” Howie says, “what?”

“That little misogynist in training. Where is
he??”

“What
are
you??” Howie asks, taking in the
horrendous sight of her.

Her dark hair is frizzed out and flying everywhere,
like she stuck her finger into an electric socket on the way here.
She’s wearing a white nightgown artfully splattered in what Howie
hopes to God is more ketchup. That, coupled with the zombie makeup,
makes for one freaky Amber.

“Bertha Mason,” Amber proclaims. “Avenging angel of
feminists everywhere. Straight out of the attic, and ready to
school some little boys on objectification.”

Mitch, also all zombied-of-face, grins. He is wearing
a t-shirt that proudly proclaims in swirly puff-painted
letters:

DON’T BE A ROCHESTER.

“Check it out.” Mitch jumps around, showing the back
of the shirt.

It says,
FEMINISM!
BOO
YAH.

“What does any of this even mean??” Howie is pretty
sure his brain is going to start melting any second.

“I thought it was pretty self-explanatory,” Mitch
says. “The ‘boo’ is underlined ‘cause, ya know, Halloween.”

“Nice touch,” Howie says to Mitch, “but you’re
supposed to have brains all over your shirt, not ... feminism!”

Mitch shrugs, all,
What can ya do?

Howie returns his attention to Amber. “I repeat: WHAT
ARE YOU?”

“Oh my God, Howie, when are you just going to read
Jane Eyre already??” Amber cries. “I’ve been asking you to for the
past ten years!!!!”

“It’s on my to-do list!” Howie howls. (Like, it’s on
his to-do list after ‘Write a rap about Henry David Thoreau’s
glorious neckbeard,’ which comes in at about number 127, so it’s
not a
priority
, but.)

“I can’t believe you complied to this little jerk’s
stupid demands about sexy mummies,” Amber fumes. “I’ve never seen
Kristy this sad before. And I say that as the only person on earth
who has ever been horrible enough to hurt her feelings!”

“She said she was fine with it!”

“Yeah, because she’s the nicest person ever! But
shame on you, Howard!”

“Hey! Shame on Arthur! He’s the one who decided to
negotiate with a ten year old perv!”

Unfortunately, Howie redirects Amber’s fury a little
too effectively. “Where is Arthur???” she growls.

“He’s singing creepy acoustic TSwizzle ballads!
Amber, believe me, he is sad enough.”

“His song choices gravitate worryingly toward
pre-feminist-awakening-era Taylor!”

“Yeah, well, it’s either that or Cora’s Halloween CD,
which is The Monster Mash sixteen frickin’ times in a row! Now, can
you just chase some kids around and pretend you want to eat their
brains and
not
lecture them about feminism?”

“No,” says Amber stoutly.

“Great,” Howie says, frustrated.

A group of kids wanders into the aisle, decked out in
adorable kiddy costumes and gazing around like they’ve accidentally
stepped into an R-rated movie they were so not ready for. Howie,
who watched Hellraiser at the tender age of seven, remembers the
feeling well.

“Aaaaaaaaah!” they scream at the sight of Amber.

“Aaaaaughhhhhh!!!!” Amber screams right back.

“Gloria Steinem!!!” shouts Mitch with wild
abandon.

The kids turn and run out of the aisle in a frenzy of
screeching.

Howie decides there is no salvaging this, and moves
the fuck along.

He makes it out of the aisle just in time to see the
front door swinging open.

Great. Another innocent child to traumatize.

But then—wait—the new arriver is definitely way too
tall to be an innocent child.

It’s Kristy’s boyfriend, Cliff.

And he is not zombified like he was supposed to be.
Oh no.

Instead, he is dressed as what Howie can only
describe as a sexy man mummy.

The guy is wearing a pair of tightie whities
and—unless Howie is mistaken—arm and leg bands cunningly crafted
from toilet paper. It is, objectively speaking, terrible, but you
gotta admire the guy for going shirtless on a cold cloudy night in
October.

“That’s right, I’m a sexy mummy for gender equality!”
Cliff announces defiantly to the room at large. “Deal with it!”

“Reddy! What are you doing?” Kristy gasps.

“You won’t suffer alone, Kristybee!” Cliff cries.

Arthur stops playing a truly harrowing version of
“Mean” and runs to the front door.

“No,” Arthur says. “Too strange. Go home and put some
clothes on.”

“Why are you naked?” one of the kids asks. “Tyler,
you weren’t supposed to get a
guy
sexy mummy!”

“I didn’t!” comes Tyler’s protesting shout from
somewhere in the aisles.

“I’m not
naked
,” Cliff says. “I’m a sexy mummy
for gender equality. Why is it weird when I wear this, but you just
expect her to dress this way?” He points rousingly at Kristy.
“Yeah. That’s right. Search your souls, people!”

Howie looks at the parents standing around. They’re
all watching with totally baffled faces.

Well. Some of the moms look pretty intrigued.

But Annie Fabray is not among them. Her mouth has
flattened into a thin, terrifying line of disapproval.

“Go,” Arthur says. “Go, go, go. Thank you, the
thought is truly inspiring, but please go—”

Cliff throws one last yearning look Kristy’s way,
then lets himself be pushed back out into the dark night.

“Ewwww!” a boy dressed like Iron Man yells. “Sexy man
mummy! Tyler likes man mummies!”

“I do not!” comes Tyler’s voice from inside the
maze.

“Tyler is ga-ay!”

“None of that, thank you!” Arthur snaps. “Into the
maze.”

“But it’s creepy in there—”

“That’s the point! Go! Please! All of you! Either
that, or you can go upstairs to the little kid party. I promise
it’s very nice.”

There’s a moment where all of the kids just stare at
him in silence. Somehow, it makes it totally obvious that everyone
wants to be upstairs at the little kid party.

“We’re not
babies
,” one of the boys says.

That seems to decide it. All of the kids head
maze-ward.