Our Stories

Calum's POV: Esskeetit (BONUS CHAPTER)

We all walked into the woods slowly, Milla and Ashton leading the way while me, G, and Kali stayed towards the back. 

    "What are you supposed to be?"  I asked G, awkwardly.  She kept looking sadly at Michael who was way ahead of her, so I felt kind of bad.  I don't think they have talked since he started rugby.

    "Morticia Addams.  From the Addams family."

    "Nice."

    Silence.

    "Luke!  Stop tripping over everything, you're going to rip a hole in your dinosaur costume," Michael scolded him ahead of us.  "It cost a lot of money!"

    "It's pitch black out, Michael, I can't see anything."

    He was right.  And we weren't even walking on a path, just through the thick woods.

    I took out my phone and tried to turn it on, only to find that it was dead.  "Shit."  I turned to Nat who was walking beside G.  "Hey, you got battery on your phone?"

    "No.  I forgot my phone at home."  Ashton and Milla stopped and we all clumped together in a spot.  "Did y'all hear that?"  Nat said, looking around the dark woods while holding onto G's shoulders.

    "That tree snap?  Yeah," Luke said.  "Pretty spooky if you ask me."

    "I think someone's here," Ashton said, trying to turn on his phone to use the screen as a light, but sadly, his 2008 Motorola flip phone wasn't doing the trick.  "Goddamn I need an upgrade."

    "Wait!"  Kali hurriedly looked through her candy bag.  "I forgot I brought this!"  She takes out a small flashlight and turned it on.  It flickers a few times but eventually works.

    "That would have been nice to know of fifteen minutes ago when we first started walking," I mumbled.

    She elbowed my side and I tried to elbow her back, except instead of elbowing her I hit Michael in the penis.  He groans.  "Who did that!"

    I stepped away from him and scratched my head awkwardly.  "Uh... maybe we should keep going."

    Kali, with her flashlight, went in front and we all followed directly behind her, keeping about zero space between all of us as we kept moving as slow as turtles.

    We heard another snap to the left of us.

    "Hello?"  Ashton called out shyly from behind me.

    "We-we're not here to hurt you," I said from directly net to Kali.  "I know this girl's facial hair suggests otherwise."

    "Hey!"

    "Guys," Milla says, stopping us.  "Look."

    Up ahead, there was a small speck of light coming through the trees.  As we got closer we heard voices, and saw the flames of a fire.  I really didn't know what to expect when we finally came to the small clearing.  I thought we'd stumble upon a cult-led sacrifice or something, but no.  What I didn't expect to see was a group of teenage boys dressed as skeletons getting lit in the middle of the woods.

    "What the..." Milla dropped her bat.  "Logan?"

    One boy who was busy snorting a pile of... sugar... lifts his head, powder dripping from his face.  "Milla?  Oh shit!  Wassup B!"

    My eyes widened and I looked at Luke, who had his eyes fixed on the cocaine.

    "Are you tellin' me," Michael starts, trying to make sense of this situation.  "We just found your brother and his homies...in the middle of the woods on Halloween... doing drugs?  Dressed as a spooky scary skeleton?"

    "Yup," one of the skeletons drawls out after taking a puff from a blunt.  "It's an annual tradition."

    That's nice.

    Milla looked angry.  "This is where you go every Halloween?  Why did we hear screaming?"

    "Billy over here tried to steal one of my beers," one of the boys said, pointing to a guy sitting by the fire holding his hand.  "He tried to punch me but missed.  Hit a tree instead and started bleeding."

    "Someone was following us," Ashton spoke up, mentioning the sounds we heard in the woods.

    Logan wiped his nose and got up, walking over to Ashton.  "It was probably a squirrel."  It was more of a statement than a suggestion.  The grin on this guys face was almost sinister and taunting.  It was like he was hiding something.

    Ashton stayed in the way of Logan getting to Milla, maintaining a straight face.  "I highly doubt a squirrel would be out at this time of night.  Marsupials are not nocturnal."

    I really didn't like the way Logan was looking at him.  It was kind of creepy.

    "Ugh, I can't believe this," Milla groaned, obviously annoyed with her big brother.  "I am so sorry you guys had to witness this.  Let's go."

    We all awkwardly left the campsite, the boys in the skeleton costumes watching us until we were fully out of sight.

    "What the fuck, Milla," Nat said.  "Your brother is kind of a hottie."

    "That was so weird."  G picks up her long black dress as we begin to move back again.  "I mean at least no one was hurt."

    We walked in silence until we got back to the main road.

    "Well..," Milla started, "Again, I'm... sorry you all had to see that back there."

    I put my lips into a thin line and nod.  None of us or the girls said anything for a while.  We just stood there staring at each other.

    "Bye, I guess," Luke says to the girls, waving around his dinosaur hand.

    The girls head back the way that we first saw them and so do we.

    It was silent as we made our way back to Michael's house.  He said his mom always kept candy for him, so we'd all split that once we got home.  I don't think any of us wanted to go trick or treating now.  What we saw back there would come back to haunt us... we just wouldn't realize it for a long time...