Scary Holiday Tales to Make You Scream (19 page)

Bob got up and headed toward the bathroom to pee, but Pete was already up and running out the door. "Gotta spit" he gurgled, but it sounded more like "goblin sped" and Bob wanted to punch him for it.

When his turn to use the bathroom finally came around, he trundled into the room and locked the door and went straight to the mirror. His eyes darted around inside the mask. He could tell they were his by the blue color and the telltale vein in the left orb. His hair, muffed into weirdness from his strained sleep, was also familiar. But that's where the familiarity ended. His face was green and yellow, its two bulbous cheeks and chin tinted in colors that reminded him of three nicely waxed Granny Smith apples. Aside from a brooding brown shelf of impossible eyebrows, the most notable goblin markings on his green face were a long nose that hung sideways like a divoted pickle from between his eyes and numerous banana-colored boils that seemed ready to burst at the touch of a finger.

Bob touched it anyway, pressing into the plastic. His face had gotten distinctly more rubbery over night. Or was it more gobliny? How rubbery was a goblin's face, anyway? He didn't know, but he knew one thing with such utter certainty that he had to sit down on the toilet and think long and hard about what to do about it: the mask was merging with his very skin, taking over his features, becoming his new face.

When he stepped into the shower, he turned the hot water all the way up and stood on tiptoe to get maximum water pressure into the space around the edges of the mask. But it did no good: the edges were barely there anymore, and in some places the edging was gone altogether. All he did was scorch his face so harshly that he had to pull away and eventually give up trying altogether. The pain was too much to bear.

As he dried, the realization dawned on him: the heat of the water had seared his goblin flesh. The mask had bonded with him completely. His very nerve endings confirmed it.

He dried his hair, mulling over the implications. He was no longer Bob. He wasn't entirely a goblin, either. He'd become something in between the two. A Boblin.

His mother punched on the bathroom door. "Hurry up, Bobby, it's time to go."

"It's not Bobby. It's the Boblin!" he shouted back.

"You're running late for school," she called back, her voice pulling away. "Meet us in the car."

He went back to his room and put on his nicest clothes. He wanted the Boblin to look his best when people met him.

He climbed in the backseat and his mother took off to Massapequa Junior High. She chattered on her cell phone during the whole trip. Then she let the Boblin and his brother out in front of the school, having not once looked him in the face. If this had happened a few years prior, she might have found herself lip to lip with a green-faced, pustule-covered freak, but she'd given up kissing the kids goodbye long ago. She waved an aimless hand at them before driving away.

They were late for school, just as she'd warned. They took their time walking toward the building.

The Boblin pulled his brother aside by the shoulder. "Look at me."

"What?"

"Don't you think it's weird that I'm still wearing my Halloween mask to school?"

"What Halloween mask? That's just your ugliness nasty regular look, isn't it?" He stifled a laugh.

"You're clueless," the Boblin said, adding an insult that he knew would hit home. "Just like mom."

The Boblin and his brother made it all the way to the hallways before they saw any other kids - all latecomers, rushing to square away their lockers and head off to class.

"See ya later, snot head," Pete said as he ran down the hall.

Splitting up at Bob's locker was an old ritual of theirs. Pete's class was on the other side of the building.

The Boblin flicked the combination lock and opened the door and put away his backpack. He thought twice about going to class. The teacher wouldn't recognize him, so why bother showing up for roll call?

"Look here, someone thinks it's still Halloween!"

The metal locker door slammed shut with a noise like a gunshot.

Joe Hanson stood in the space where it once blocked his view of the hall. Hanson was the bully of the school. The Boblin knew this because he'd once pushed his little brother down the stairs for no reason other than "looking at him funny" on his way up.

"Hi there, Joe," the Boblin said, the words feeling goofy between his oddly-misshapen lips.

"Who do we have here?" Joe Hanson asked as he slapped at the mask that didn't come off and then made a funny face of terror.

The Boblin thought he'd introduce himself, but his mouth tore open and had already snapped around Joe Hanson's arm and began chewing into the ulna. His mouth flooded with blood and he hungrily swallowed his breakfast. When the boy pulled away to run, the Boblin lunged and found the throbbing meat of the neck even tastier. He pushed him inside his locker and munched into his ribcage until the bell rang, when the Boblin thought it best to lock up the carcass, grab his bloody book bag and run towards home.

He showered again, this time to wash the blood off his body. He didn't know what to do about his clothes so those were put in the trash in the garage. The Boblin was a mess. In the mirror, he noticed that the green gill-like edging of the mask had not only merged seamlessly with his human flesh, but that the green pigment had begun spreading down his neck. Boils were growing on his shoulders. Hairs sprouted in weird places. And the lobes of his ears had turned into elongated flaps that had acquired the organically pointy shape of a fleshy diamond.

The Boblin was not horrified. No. He had begun to like his new appearance very much.

What mattered to him more, now, would be what to do about his family. They had ignored him so far, but there would come a time when there'd be no escaping the fact that his mask was not going to come off. And what if the Boblin got hungry for more man meat? Would little Petey be for dinner? Mom?

After all, the hunger was something he couldn't control - his face had just taken over and snapped its jaws onto tasty Joe Hanson's wrist when they'd come close enough for that long pickle nose of his to smell the pumping blood it harbored. That's what horrified the Boblin more than anything else. The lack of control. The sudden lunge of his mouth, champing on its own accord. The instincts taking over. He found that eating a human was a very rewarding act, but he didn't like losing control at the drop of a hat like that. He'd rather pick his victims on purpose, just like all those killers in the movies did.

He took one last look in the mirror. The boils from the mask had darkened to a rich mustard yellow. He pinched at one with two fingers and - surprisingly - it burst as easy as a blister, blurting milky pus all over the mirror and sink. This pleased him because he'd always thought those stupid boils were what made the over-the-top goblin mask look fake. Now he looked far more realistic - far more like a Boblin should. He grinned and noticed that his teeth had somehow become triangular and sharp as blades and that the canines, especially, had elongated like a dog's. Maybe the Boblin was getting more and more gobliny than he expected. On the inside. But that was okay, so long as he found some place to run to and something meaty to eat. For he was getting bored with looking at himself and getting hungry all over again.

He still had sense enough to put on some clothes. A hooded sweatshirt would conceal the Boblin's face from those who might recognize him as no longer human. He quickly scanned his room, looking for anything he might want to take with him, given that this might be the last time he ever stepped foot inside the place. Nothing meant much to him anymore. The books, the baseball glove, the posters...all of it was Bob stuff. Not Boblin stuff.

Except the bag at the foot of his bed. The one filled with Halloween candy. He rushed over to it and dumped its contents onto the bed. He sorted out the suckers and tossed them onto Pete's pillow, a parting gift for his little brother. The rest went back into his bag, just in case he needed something to munch on as he chose his next victim.

He rang the doorbell and held the bag open. A woman answered.

"Trick or treat," he said to the stranger, his grin spreading wide.

Her face expressed recognition and horror at the same time. She wasn't the right person. But he pounced anyway, latching his mouth around her forearm as she tried to shut the door. She fell backwards and he went right for the thrashing neck. Her lilac perfume was a welcome new marinade as he pulled her entire throat out with one mean tug of his head.

"Trick or treat," he said to the neighbor next door, his grin spreading wide all over again.

The longhaired man who answered the door was clearly horrified - not by the green-faced boy but by the massively bloodied sweatshirt and massive row of teeth that stood before him, waist high. He turned but the Boblin leapt onto his back and feasted. He got a lot of hair in his mouth. That sort of bothered him the way that stringy corn on the cob used to bug him, so he punched into the man's back with his lower jaw and clamped onto the muscles that held his left shoulder blade in place. This was some of the best meat he'd had yet. It was so satisfying, he spent the night in the man's house, sleeping peacefully in front of the television set. Luckily, no one came home.

The doorbell awakened him when the cops came over to ask about the lady next door, but he just ignored them, curling sidewise on the sofa and sleeping while they worked the rest of the block.

He would have to work the rest of the block, too. This one and the next one. The Boblin had to find his creator. He was on the hunt. He was almost entirely a beastie now, but he still had his memories and he figured that someone along their trick-or-treating route on Halloween must have done this to him. He didn't know who or where or why, but someone whose doorstep he'd visited had turned him from Bob into the Boblin. Maybe it was just some sort of trick instead of a treat - a magic trick. Or maybe it was just the work of some candy that he'd snuck out of his bag when they went from door to door - candy that had been laced with some potion or poison. Maybe it was the mask manufacturer. He didn't care. He had to find the person who did this to him. And he had to eat. The Boblin was homeless, after all. Whoever had done this would have to take him in. He was their kid now.

He moved at night, when the cops were gone.

The Boblin ate the whole block. None of the neighbors claimed him as their child. None seemed remotely responsible for his transformation. All of them were innocent. And all of them tasted good to the Boblin.

He was no longer hungry, but he was lost. He had nowhere to go but back home.

His mom opened the door.

She recognized the goblin mask instantly. She rolled her eyes and then said, "Where the hell have you been, Bobby?"

He sighed. "Trick-or-treating, I guess."

"I thought you ran away. You had me worried sick." Her lips quivered and she clearly couldn't keep her angry front up long enough to scold him. A tear spilled out of a quivering eyelid. She bent down to hug him and pick him up, but stopped short of a homecoming hug. "What is that stinky stuff all over you?"

"Bloo-" he started but his mouth was open and her heart was so close to him and he couldn't stop from jumping right into her chest, mouth first, munching his way through her breast and swallowing hard as he nuzzled into the gap between her ribs. Chomping madly, he rammed his tongue through the cage of bone, trying desperately to reach the heart encased there, thrashing its purple meat against the muscles that surrounded it. But he couldn't quite get the green tip of his goblin tongue close enough to the muscular prize to tug it free. In a struggle to get there, he held her tight with both arms, finally giving her the hug she'd originally wanted, using all his might to pull his face deep into her corpse.

"Halt, bloodthirsty demon of the damned!"

The Boblin looked up, surprised by both the assured sound of his brother's voice and the ludicrous words of his command.

Peter stood tall above them, slipping a shaking arm through his wizard costume, the conical sorcerer's hat crooked on his head like a dunce cap. He uttered baby talk: "BrogeticusLividnum Fazistuporfluo."

The Boblin had finally found his maker. He thought that when he found his creator, he would find a new father - perhaps even a new mother - to join in eternal hellish bliss. But never a little brother.

But then… No, someone who didn't know how to eat a lollipop properly could not possibly be responsible for this. The kid was just play-acting. Trying to erase the horror he had found in his foyer with a fantasy. Trying to escape from the traumatic scene of his mother's demise in the only way he knew how - through pretending to be in control.

In his free hand, Peter waved a wand.

The Boblin had had enough of this nonsense. Pete was always jerk. He never could stand up for himself in school. He'd do him a favor. He'd make spit bubbles with his bloodied skull. The Boblin lunged.

And fell down onto his chin, the impact snapping the very tip of his tongue off between his sharp teeth.

He yelped like a dog and tried to pick himself back up to lunge again, discovering that he was anchored to his mother; his hands and feet stuck to her dead body like weights. His flesh connected to her flesh. His hands bound to her sides with an impossible epoxy. His fingertips, gone, sunken into the ribcage. The Boblin moved to chew them free, but even then, it hurt - he had felt the bite pierce her skin as if he had bit into his very own and pulled away in agony.

Her dead eyes opened. Mother had never looked so strange. It was as though she were wearing a mask that made her into a whole different person. And maybe that was because he was seeing himself at the same time that he was gazing at her, the vision of two sets of eyes impossibly meeting one another along a shared optic nerve, blurring oddly into one fuzzy image that masked his face over hers and hers over his in a way that made the Boblin into something more. Something Mom and something Bob and something Goblin. A Momblin.