Rule of the Fist

Chapter 9

“Hold still. You’re gonna mess me up.”

“I don’t see why you need to do all this.”

“You want to look like Dracula, don’t you?”

Lauren, Henry’s older sister, swiped carefully at Henry’s bangs with a comb and slathered them with gel. Henry wore a Dracula costume, complete with a black cape, red vest, and black velvet pants.  Riley rested on his couch, watching TV. She was dressed as a pirate, with a plastic sword attached to her hip and an eye-patch.

“There.” Lauren patted Henry’s head. “That’s as good as it’s gonna get.”

“Thank god. Halloween will be over by the time you get your costume ready. Come on Riley.” Henry said, grabbing his trick-or-treat bag off the dining table.

When Riley asked earlier, Judy and Mark were more than willing to let Riley trick-or-treat with Henry. They wondered why Emmy hadn't been hanging out lately, but when they asked, Riley gave them as vague of an answer as she could.

Henry's sister, Julia, had been planning to come with them. The wheelchair would slow them down, but Riley had already made it clear that she didn't care. When Julia got sick, Henry had wanted to stay home, but his mom had told him to go anyway. He promised to bring back candy for his sister.

As they left Henry's house, they put their plan into place. Henry went off in the direction of Sara's house. Sara’s neighborhood was near Woodland Lakes. She and Henry would get as much candy for Julia as possible, drop it off at Henry's house, and meet up with Riley and the others later. 

That was the way trick-or-treating worked in Tuscan. Kids went back and forth between neighborhoods, collecting candy and partners. It was one advantage of living in a small town. Riley cut through someone’s backyard and into another neighborhood, searching the crowd of kids dressed as devils, princesses, witches, cats, and cowboys. The sound of laughter ran through the air. Houses were decked in fake spider-webs and Halloween lights.

A little kid dressed as a clown ran past Riley, holding a seltzer bottle and spraying Riley as he passed by. “Hey!” Riley laughed. “You jerk! Come back here!”

It didn’t matter that Riley didn't know who the clown was. She ran after him into the street, snatching his clown wig and cramming it on her own head, giggling. That was when she got a closer look at him.

“Oh. It's just you, Maxwell.” She teased, peering at his grinning  face. It was hidden under a mask of multicolored make-up. Max sprayed her again with his bottle.

“Max,” He corrected, quickly turning and squirted two teenage girls dressed as Satan’s helpers. One of them wailed.

“You little brat! The material in this outfit was imported from Paris. You just set me back four hundred bucks!”

Max stepped away from her, clunking awkwardly in his clown shoes. “You should consider yourself lucky. I was thinking about putting mud in here." He held up his seltzer bottle and tried to step forward, stumbling again.

Satan’s Helper rolled her eyes and stomped away in a huff. Max and Riley burst into giggles as soon as they were gone. Before Riley could saying anything else, somebody gripped her neck.

“I’m going to have a vunderful meal tonight. Zhey say zhe neck is where most of zhe delicious blood is located.”

Riley screamed and jumped, turning as she did. Grace was in hysterics, leaning against the tree she’d been hiding behind for support. She was dressed as a bat with a body-suit and pink wings attached to her shoulder-blades.