Forever Knight was created by Parriott, et. al, and owned/copyrighted
by Tristar/Columbia.
Permission granted to archive this puppy on the fanfic site.
***********************************************************************
HALLOWEEN: Good Little Boys (01/01)
Copyright 1997
by Bonnie Rutledge
Even on Halloween, good little children were in bed by midnight.
Those left after the clock struck twelve turned to smashing pumpkins
and lacing their baby-sitter's mailbox with rotten eggs. Those left
after the witching hour were born to hang and bound for long-term
prison stays before they turned twenty.
"Do it, or I'll kick your ass so hard," Eleven year-old Bobby
told his best friend, Max, "you'll be tasting crap on your cornflakes
for a month."
Ah, the sweet innocence of youth.
"The hell you will!" Max shouted, then grabbed his best friend by
the hair and tried earnestly to pound him flat. Max was a very expressive
child. Physically expressive, that is.
Sammie, second-best friend to both other boys and pissed to know
it, called them the names for every offensive body part he could think
of, then ended his rant with the most damning words of all, "You suck!"
Sammie was a verbally expressive kind of kid.
Back to Bobby. Bobby didn't express much, though at the moment,
his nose oozed real blood to blend with the fake stuff he'd smeared
over his chin hours before so he'd look like a flesh-eating zombie.
Zombies kicked ass. It had also been Bobby's idea to break into the
radio station as a dare, and, dammit, those babies were gonna do it,
even if he had to turn into an ass-kicking zombie to make them. The
nose-bleed was the final straw.
Bobby bent down to pick up his Official Toronto Blue Jays baseball
bat from where he'd been kicking it around the ground with his feet
earlier. After scratching his butt and winding up, he smacked homeruns
into Max's, then Sammie's, stomachs. Both other boys doubled over in pain,
Max throwing up the half-pound of chocolate he'd gobbled in the past hour
all over Sammie's sneakers.
"We're going to CERK," Bobby announced, tapping the wood against
one hand for emphasis. "Anybody got a problem with that?" The only answers
to his query were the muffled coughs and whimpers of the other boys. "I
didn't think so," he concluded, just like the smug little thug he was.
***************************************************************************
The pack of boys eased down the dark hallway, the eerie blue glow
that seemed to haunt every corner of the station illuminating their
faces so that the children resembled demonic smurfs. A lighted sign
hovered above a closed room at the other end of the floor, broadcasting
its occupant was 'On Air.' This information was also evident from the
flowing speech sounding over the speakers bolted along the walls.
Bobby, Sammie and Max couldn't help but listen to the Nightcrawler's
broadcast. They were trying to sneak around the joint, so they weren't
exactly tap dancing and throwing plates.
"What is it about modern Halloween that so enchants the masses?"
the radio personality's voice rang in their ears. "I say it's the
masquerade. What a perfect opportunity to pretend to be what you are
not, to delve into your most secret fantasies and share them with the
world with no fear of censure for what you are. Halloween...it's just
a night. The sun comes up just as any of those other, countless mornings.
It's only a costume...nothing to frighten you from snuggling content
in the dark. None of the horror is real...Or is it?"
The boys weren't adoring fans.
"What a wuss," Sammie declared. "A pop-tart chewing, flower
sniffing, royal girlie of a wuss. You still got that bat, Bobby? We
should smear him. There's three of us and a blunt object...not a problem."
"Shut your mouth, you turd!" Max hissed. "He'll hear you!"
"What are you, Max? Sc-sc-sc-sc-scared?" Bobby taunted. Max's face
reddened at the slur, his face appearing purple in the lighting. He
body-slammed his best friend and proceeded to bludgeon his head against
the floor.
Sammie sneered at the sight of his second-best friends trying to
kill each other on the radio station carpet. "You girls are so stupid.
Tell you what - when you get tired of hugging each other, join me. I'll
be kicking ass on the Nightcrawler down the hall." Sammie turned, bending
down with the intention of redeeming the baseball bat from its spot on
the floor.
The bat was gone.
"Dammit," Sammie groaned, assuming it had gotten kicked into
the shadows at the beginning of the other boys' skirmish. Crawling on
his hands and knees, Sammie felt along the floor as he moved from the
blue-lighted areas into the blackness.
After a minute, his fingers encountered something. Not wood, as
he expected, but leather. A shoe. Sammie thought,
The boy looked up with the speed of a tortoise. A pair of eyes gleamed
with lime-colored fire out of the darkness.
Sammie shouted, making a sound resembling, "Uhhhnngghhh!!!!"
He fell backward, retreating in reverse gear as fast as crawling
would move him. Suddenly, Sammie brushed up against warm, flushed skin.
"Aaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!" three young screams pealed at once.
Bobby and Max had stopped their tussle at the sound of their second-best
friend's wail, waiting in silent anticipation to know if they should fight
or take flight. When Sammie bumped up against them, all the boys freaked
out, then froze in panting fear.
Smooth steps echoed along the hallway. Something was coming at them
from the darkness. Something big. Something menacing. Something with green
glowing eyes and a rumbling snarl. One of the children, or maybe all of
them, began to whimper in fear.
The man-thing entered the area lighted blue. He was clothed entirely
in black, and there was a sliver of silver in the shape of a sword fastened
at his neck. He glowered at the boys as though he couldn't decide whether
they were dinner or his next pair of shoes. Each boy swore he was at
least eight feet tall.
The man lifted one pale hand, a ring on the pinkie finger, and dangled
the missing baseball bat above their upturned, mouth-agape heads. The
Nightcrawler's voice came to them, the whisper of a hiss added to his
speech as the pricking tips of a pair of fangs peeked past the man's lips.
"Looking for *this*?"
The children ran as though their lives depended on it.
Lucien Lacroix chuckled at the patter of their retreating
footsteps as he tossed the bat from hand to hand, testing its weight
and grip.
"I'll smear him."
His laughter echoed throughout the CERK station as he strolled
back to the broadcast booth.
************************************************************************
"His eyes were bugging!" Max shouted, fighting back his shivers as
the trio ran down the street.
"Screw the eyes! What about those teeth?! Damn! He was going to
eat us!" Bobby cried, a combination of outrage and terror lacing his
squeal. "The Nightcrawler's a friggin' flesh-eating zombie!"
"Zombies don't talk, you asshole," Max argued.
"Do, too!" Max hurled his body at Bobby at this protest, and,
pretty soon, they were smashing skulls again.
Sammie kept walking, sniffing back tears as he went. The smell of
urine surrounded him - he'd been that scared. Sammie kept walking. After
half a block, Bobby's shout rang out after him. "Where're you goin',
Sammie?"
" 'M going home," Sammie yelled back. They didn't try to catch up
with him. After all, he was the second-best friend.
Sammie huddled onto the subway, remembering every frightening
detail about the encounter with the Nightcrawler as he rode across
town.
Then the words of the earlier broadcast came to him. "It's Halloween.
It was just a costume," he muttered as the train reached his stop.
Arriving home, Sammie crept into his bedroom. As he tore off his
stained, smelly clothes, he repeated the words in his head,
He climbed quietly into bed. The lights of his clock-radio glowed
at Sammie in the dark, urging him to click it on and prove that nothing
was real. Gingerly, he reached out an arm and flicked the switch.
"...wishing you a safe trip home and dreams of your *best* friend...
the Nightcrawler. From CERK, 490 AM, goodnight boys. Sleep tight, don't
let *anything* bite."
Sammie shut the sound off, then curled his head under his pillow
as he cried himself to sleep.
He was damned if he was ever going to go out after dark again.
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Fin
Happy Halloween!
Send comments and virtual terror to: br1035@ix.netcom.com
(
geocities.com/~br1035)