Collection of Stories for Demented Children (6 page)

“Thank you, Abel.” Runyx studied the second
floor of the manor where a lone light shone from a window at the
right corner. “Is she with her parents or is she in her room?”

“She’s alone in her room,” Abel answered.
“What do you know about her and what’s the plan?”

“Her name is Opal, she’s nine years old and
she’s never been allowed to go trick or treating.” Runyx led them
to the gate and moved to the other side with a blink of her eyes.
Stryk squeezed through the bars and Abel flew over before landing
on the straw man’s top hat. Runyx continued, “She’s a very good
girl who always obeys her parents and never gets into trouble. It’s
one of her greatest wishes to go trick or treating, so we’re going
to see to it that she gets to tonight.”

“It sounds like we’re doing a good deed.
That’s not in our job description,” Abel said suspiciously.

Runyx grinned evilly, which looked very odd
on a cow, even an unholy one. “Her parents have an ironclad rule
that she will never go trick or treating. We’re going to get Opal
to break that rule by convincing her to sneak out of the house with
a scarecrow, a cow and a raven.” They went to the side of the house
where the roof hung low. “Then we’re going to take her out to get
candy, which is also against the rules in her household. We’re
going to encourage her to talk to strangers. Then we’re going to
take her home with a full bag of candy and tell her to hide it from
her parents.”

“That sounds quite evil to me.” Stryk leapt
up to the roof and walked quietly toward the girl’s window.

Runyx used supernatural powers to levitate
to the roof. She was able to walk lightly on the shingles with
those same powers. She was too big to fit through the window, so
she blinked again and magically appeared in the room. There was
just enough space for her to stand at the base of the girl’s
bed.

Opal was a blonde haired girl with a frilly
dress that matched her bright blue eyes. In her lap was a small,
floppy eared black bunny that she was softly petting. She stared in
wide-eyed wonder at the unholy cow in her room and then at the
scarecrow and raven coming in through the window. “Okayyyy, this is
really weird. Why are you in my room?”

“I’m Runyx. These are my friends Stryk and
Abel.” The unholy cow nodded in their direction. “It’s our
understanding that you want very much to go trick or treating.”

“Umm . . . yes . . .” she said tentatively.
“But I’m not allowed to. Trick or treating is evil and only bad
children ever do it.”

“Well then. It’s time for you to be a bad
girl and join us for a wonderful night of evil candy gathering,”
Runyx told her. “Do you have a costume? If not, you could pass for
Alice in Wonderland with that blue dress and your blonde hair.”

The girl just stared with her jaw hanging
open. It seemed that a talking cow was more than she was capable of
comprehending. Stryk sat on the bed next to her and petted the
bunny. He jerked his hand back when the bunny pulled a straw out of
the sleeve and began eating it. “I love Alice. It’s one of my
favorite stories ever, especially the parts with the pills and the
hookah-smoking caterpillar. Now put away that bunny and come with
us,” he told her.

“Yes,” Abel agreed. “Come with us. We’re
obviously trustworthy. It’s totally going to be safe.” The raven
rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” Opal agreed, much to Abel’s
surprise. “Come on Emo Bunny, let’s put you back in your cage for
now and I’ll bring you a nice bit of apple later.” She got off the
bed and took the bunny over to a multi-level cage. After putting
him in, she turned back to Runyx with concern on her face. “I’ll
get into a lot of trouble if my parents find out.”

“They won’t find out. Now take Stryk’s hand
and go out the window with him. We’ll get you down from there.”
Runyx was thrilled that the girl was agreeing so easily. She didn’t
even have to influence Opal with magic like she expected. Sometimes
the best-behaved children were the most likely to do foolish
things.

“There’s a good girl,” Stryk told her as he
lifted her up through the window. Abel flew ahead to perch on the
front gate and Runyx blinked herself back onto the roof.

“Lift her onto my back,” Runyx told the
scarecrow. He did so and the girl plopped down with a gasp of
surprise. She gasped again when Runyx jumped off the roof and
floated gently down to the ground.

“This is really weird. I love it,” Opal said
happily.

“You’re not worried that we’re kidnapping
you or something terrible?” Abel asked incredulously from the gate.
Runyx glared at him for daring to jeopardize their mission. He
ignored her.

“No, cows don’t kidnap people. Plus, it’s
Halloween, so weird things are supposed to happen. I read it in my
grandma’s diary.” She held her arms out to Stryk as he lifted her
off Runyx. Then she slipped through the gate with him. “Grandma was
a witch, but mother and father don’t know that. I hide her diary in
a secret lock box in the attic.”

“I say, her grandmum was a witch. That
explains a great deal about why we’re here,” Stryk said with a nod.
He walked hand-in-hand with Opal as they headed into town. “Did you
know her grandmum, Runyx?”

“No,” she answered with a shake of her
bovine head. It
did
explain a lot. Witches tended to bargain
for unholy favors. Runyx didn’t know the exact nature of the
arrangement and really didn’t care. The important thing was that
they had an impressionable child to corrupt.

Opal looked at her. “Runyx. I love your
name. You’re very beautiful for a cow.”

“Thank you, Opal. That’s very nice of you to
say.”

“Being called pretty for a cow really isn’t
that much of a compliment,” Abel said with a smirk.

“Don’t make me slap you with my tail,” Runyx
threatened with narrowed eyes. Abel cawed and flapped away to the
nearest tree. It wasn’t an idle threat. Her tail was extremely
dangerous.

“I say, this looks like a good house to
start at,” Stryk suggested, pointing toward a rundown shack. A
dimly lit jack-o-lantern on the front porch was the only light. It
was quite a distance from Opal’s house and the girl looked around
in astonishment. Runyx didn’t bother telling her that she used
magic to get them to a different neighborhood.

“There’s no porch light on. In school, they
told us to go only to houses with porch lights on,” Opal
explained.

“Well, if they said it in school, it must be
true,” Abel said from the branch of a dead tree. “It’s not like
schools are political propaganda tools for brainwashing children or
anything.”

“What did he just say?” Opal whispered to
Stryk as they walked up the dirt path to the front door.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Stryk replied.
“He tends to squawk a lot.”

“I heard that, you rotten sack of hay.”

“How nice,” Stryk replied with a grin. They
reached the door and he leaned down to Opal. “Knock on the door and
when the person inside answers, say ‘trick or treat’.”

“But I don’t have a bag to put candy
in.”

“Ahh. I happen to have a pillowcase for the
occasion.” Stryk pulled white cloth out from under his shirt. He
brushed a few pieces of straw off it and handed it to Opal. It was
just as big as her when she unfolded it. “It came off the biggest
pillow I’ve ever seen. I went out specifically to get it tonight
before coming here. Now knock on the door like a good little
girl.”

“Okay.” Opal knocked on the door. It didn’t
take long for an ancient-looking woman to open the squeaky door and
stare at the child with big buggy eyes. “Trick or treat,” Opal said
timidly, taking a step back.

The old woman turned her head to the side
and looked at Opal with only one buggy eye. Then she put a candy
bar in the pillowcase. Before Opal could say thank you, the old
woman grabbed a handful of candy bars and put them in the
pillowcase too. Then she turned her head to look at Opal with the
other buggy eye before slowly closing the door with a long drawn
out creak. It clicked shut and the sound of a latch came from the
other side as it was locked.

“That went extremely well,” Runyx said
happily. “Let’s go find another house.”

“I didn’t say thank you though,” Opal
protested.

“You don’t have to say thank you to anyone
tonight,” Runyx told her. “Be a rebel. If they tell you to say
thank you, stick your tongue out at them.”

“I can’t do that,” Opal said in horror as
they walked back down the dirt path.

“Sure you can. They should be thankful for
the opportunity to give such a wonderful young girl candy. Stick
your tongue out at them if they give you any problems about it,”
Runyx insisted. They turned down the sidewalk and headed to the
next house.

When the girl blinked, Runyx put them in
front of a different house. It was brightly lit with orange and
white lights. There were glowing pumpkins and ghost lights in the
yard and cheerful looking spiders and vampire posters everywhere.
“This is just disgusting,” Abel said in disgust, landing on a happy
mummy poster staked in the yard. “Must everything be commercialized
these days? I’m surprised the vampires don’t sparkle.”

Opal looked around in amazement as Stryk
walked her up the sidewalk. Runyx stayed behind to keep an eye on
things. Some of the kids looked at her oddly, but they didn’t say
anything. A couple of teenagers came by and smacked her rump. “Hey!
It’s a cow in the street. Let’s tip it over.”

Runyx’s favorite supernatural ability was
the fact that her tail had bug zapper power in it, fifty times more
powerful than the ones that people used to kill mosquitoes. She
whapped both teens in rapid succession. The zapping sound her tail
made was pleasing to her ears. Even more pleasing was the blue
electricity that knocked them both on the ground where they lay
twitching and glowing.

A cheerful woman wearing a blue Frankenstein
wig was handing out candy at the door. “Oh my, aren’t you just the
most precious thing ever! Here have lots of candy.” She dumped the
entire bowl of candy bars into Opal’s bag. “Bye, bye now, you
precious little girl.” She smiled and waved enthusiastically as
Opal and Stryk turned around and walked back to Runyx.

“She gave me all those candy bars! I didn’t
expect that,” Opal exclaimed in awe. “This is really fun.”

Opal blinked again and they were in front of
another house. “It looks like a lot of fun,” Runyx told her. “Now
go get some more from this house.” They were standing in front of
another well-lit house, though not with so many cheerful
decorations in the yard.

A minute later, the girl came back with even
more candy bars dumped into her pillowcase. She held it out to show
Runyx, who nodded and waited for her to blink again. When she did,
they were in front of another house.

***

Fifty houses and fifty minutes later they
were standing in front of yet another house. “This is the last
house we’ll be visiting,” Runyx told Opal.

The girl was struggling to carry the
overstuffed pillowcase by that point. “I’m so surprised that every
house we visit has had candy bars! And they keep dumping all of
them into my bag!” There was a big grin on her face and her lips
were covered in chocolate from the eight candy bars she had already
eaten. Instead of wearing down under the load, she was extremely
hyper and jumping up and down at each new house they visited.

“I’ll carry that for you,” Stryk said
helpfully while taking the sack. He led her up to the porch, which
was crowded with numerous artistically cut jack-o-lanterns.

When a portly man opened the door with the
largest basket of candy bars yet, Opal yelled enthusiastically,
“Trick or Treat! Hee, hee, hee, hee.” Her eyes were wild and her
hair was ragged by that point.

“What a . . . pretty little girl,” the man
said, taking a step back from the fanatical child. “Here, just take
the whole basket.” He dumped it in the pillowcase Stryk and Opal
were holding open, filling it to the top. As they turned to leave,
the man asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be saying thank you, little
girl?”

Opal stopped in her tracks, slowly turned
around and stuck her tongue out. “Ttthhhbbbbtttthhhttt.” She gave
him the longest, noisiest, juiciest and chocolatiest raspberry
anyone had ever seen. Then she turned around and skipped back down
the walkway while Stryk carried the bag with a big grin on his
face. Abel cawed with mad laughter from the white picket fence
surrounding the yard.

Runyx waited for Opal to blink her eyes
again. When she did, they were suddenly back in her room. “How did
we get here?” she asked, looking around as though she had never
been in her own room.

“Wherever shall you hide your candy?” Stryk
asked, hefting the pillowcase.

“Umm . . .” Opal stared blankly.

“Put it under the bed,” Runyx told him.
“Opal, your parents won’t look under your bed for the next month,
but you have to eat all those candy bars before then.”

Opal looked at her with wide eyes and nodded
slowly.

“If you don’t eat it all before then,
they’ll find the bag and all the wrappers and you’ll be in big
trouble. You don’t want that, do you?”

She shook her head slowly back and
forth.

“Good. Now have fun eating all those candy
bars and don’t tell your parents.”

“I won’t,” she promised quickly.

“Good girl,” Runyx told her. “Have a good
life and be sure to sneak out of your room next year and every
other year after that to go trick or treating too.”

“I will,” Opal agreed enthusiastically.
“Goodbye and thank . . . I mean ttthhhbbbbtttt.” She stuck her
tongue out and gave Runyx a raspberry. They all laughed. After
Stryk and Abel exited the room, Runyx blinked past the wall. They
headed away from the house in a different direction than they had
come.