Halloween

Chapter 2

        "Oh please, shut the door, you imbecile," Arian huffed, hands tight on the countertop.

"You guys, it's almost dusk! The carnival starts any minute now," Celine pleaded, pointing to the tall grandfather clock in the center of the room. "Please Arian, we have to get going."

"I cannot just leave them unattended now that they have this idea in their heads!" Arian held out their hands in exasperation, a look of annoyance painted onto their face.

"Then let them go with us! Please," Celine repeated.

Everyone watched as Arian stood in silence, internally contemplating what to do. Their foot trapped in thought, leaving a solid, repetitive print in the dusty-rose carpet. "Fine," they finally sighed, letting their shoulders lose. "As long as everyone behaves! And there is absolutely, no contact with the townspeople," they told, eyeing each ghost.

Katy shuffled with unease as the rest of the crew cheered at their victory.

"You really think this is alright?" Arian asked Celine, beginning to put on their coat.

"Yes, of course! Hurry on, then," she hastily answered.

But not hastily enough for Katy to not notice the crossed fingers she held behind her back as she answered her elder.

Suddenly she felt like this was going to be a long night.

"Hey, wait a minute! What about the others?" Gabby questioned, motioning towards the maze door. "It would be totally unfair to not let Ben, Irene, Pyro or Taiga come along, right?" She hopped over to the maze entrance. "Yoohoo, anyone down here?"

It wasn't long before Ben popped his head up in the doorway. "Oh! So this is where everyone skedaddled off to, I was wonderin' why it was so quiet down here. What's happening?"

"I am humbly extending my offer to you and anyone else down there who wants to come along on our Halloween adventure! In other words, we're getting the heck outta here and going to the school," Gabby replied, explaining the situation to the cowboy.

"Wow! That sounds like a lot of fun! I'll go ask around! I'll be back before you can even see that I'm gone." Ben disappeared back into the maze. Though, it didn't take long for him to reappear, and this time, he had Irene with him. "It looks as if Pyro and Taiga don't wanna get out, so I suppose it's just us for the night!"

Rune made a face at Ben before turning around and putting on a huge grin again, shrugging. "Well, looks like the gang's all here! Guess that means we can all go out now!"

"Fantastic." Victoria groaned. She really didn't want to spend this night with Rune. Usually her Halloweens were magical and great, not miserable and exhausting. In short, she really wasn't looking forward to this night, but proceeded to exit the shop first, anyway.

That was when she realized something was wrong. She stood and waited for everyone to exit, expecting the ghosts to simply disappear, as Katy and Gabby had said Rune did when they exited the shop usually. However, they didn't. She frowned nervously and looked over to her two friends, hoping they were seeing the same thing.

Amyx leaned down to Henry who was standing at his side. "Hey kid, check this out, since we're practically invisible now," he chuckled, before reaching over and yanking Katy's ponytail backwards.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed, rubbing the back of her head and whipping around. Hot pain seared behind her. "Amyx, what the hell was that for?" she asked, eyes like daggers into Amyx and Henry as they stood before her.