The Post of Halloween

Another Halloween had come and gone; Then it was November. The first of November was the last call of spooky season. Last day for haunted attractions, last chance for a legit Halloween party, and all the little kids still had their candy and wore their costumes one last time.

And before you knew it, it was October again with skeletons and spider webs covering porches and yards. The little kids choosing their costumes for the big night.

Ryan wasn't a little kid nor did he have any. Neither did either of his two roommates, Blue and Conner. They all had full time jobs, post-college years, and were fully adults.

Yet, here he was on insta looking at Blue's posts from last year where she had claimed 'Another Great Spooky Season'. Ryan was squeezing his phone as if he could juice it. The post he was currently glowering at showed Blue dressed as a a freakin' dragon. A whole dragon costume she made herself and a top of head to chest paint job with homemade horns and prosethetics that took her three hours-according the post. She was alongside a couple people dressed in more normal costumes; a fairy and a sexy witch. They were all holding green-colored drinks in martini glasses with fake plastic vampire teeth hanging on the edges. He scrolled. The next picture was her holding some tiny fake trophy on a mini stage; she had apparently won the costume contest. Of course she freakin' did. She had a whole homemade dragon costume, complete with tail and contacts! The 'competition' was people like the sexy witch who's only 'witch' depiction was a black mini cape and a tiny witch hat on a headband.

And what ticked Ryan off even more was that Blue had still managed to clean the bathrooms that day. Somehow, she had been able to spend 3+ hours on costume makeup, stay out late and win a costume contest out at some bar or club whatever and still got her assigned chores done.

He kept scrolling, scowling deeper at every photo of Blue in her October best.

"Dude, you good?"

Conner's voice broke Ryan's anger train.

"Did you ever go out with Blue for Halloween?" Ryan asked.

"Um...no. Why?" Conner looked at Ryan confused and afraid.

"Do YOU have 'great spooky seasons'?"

"Err, Ryan, your white-knuckling your phone"

Ryan jerked his head towards his phone and loosened his grip with a growl-like sigh.

"Did you...not have a good spooky season?" Conner asked.

"I never have a good spooky season! I work!" Ryan snapped.

Conner threw his hands up palms out.

"But Blue works too and she always has a 'great spooky season" Ryan said more to himself. "Somehow, as a full adult with a full time job and laundry and stuff, she manages to have 'Great Spooky Seasons'" he scoffed with an eyeroll.

Conner's eye twitched. "Um...what?"

"Is Blue here?" Ryan demanded.

"Yeaahhh, she's in the kitchen, I think" Conner said, sticking his thumb to his left.

"C'mon" Ryan said and stomped by Conner.

Conner had wide eyes and no idea what was happening but pivoted to follow Ryan anyway.

Blue was indeed in the kitchen, wearing an orange apron with prints of bats, cats, and witchs' hats as she cut out orange sugar cookies with a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter. Her phone was playing 'Monster Mash'. There were two balls of dough on the counter; one green and one black.

"All right, Blue. We want answers" Ryan came in hot.

Blue looked taken aback and looked from Ryan to Conner.

Conner shrugged and threw his hands up again.

"To...what?" she asked.

"You have a 'great spooky season' every year" Ryan accused, pointing at her.

She nodded slowly as she returned to pressing cookie cutter.

"And we want one too. How do you, as an adult, have a good Halloween and we don't"

Conner opened his mouth and raised a finger but then shook his head, apparently thought better of it, and crossed his arms. He blinked at the back of Ryan's head.

"It's because I do things you think are stupid" Blue said bluntly. She placed cookies neatly on a parchment lined baking tray and put them into the the oven.

"What do you mean?" Ryan demanded.

"What decorations did you put up?" Blue asked, re-rolling the orange dough.

"Uh...what, none. Now, listen, decorations are stupid. You take forever putting them up just to take them down. They're a waste of money" Ryan defended.

Blue raised both brows and lifted her chin "And what costumes do you wear?"

"I am an ADULT. I have no reason to spend money, and closet space, on a costume I'm only going to wear for a couple hours!" Ryan countered.

"What Halloween parties do you throw? What Halloween movies do you watch?" Blue pressed on.

"I don't have people to do parties with and Halloween movies are either dumb 'horror'" Ryan rolled his eyes and made bunny quotes " films with no plot or good characters or are for kids"

"See? That's exactly what I mean" Blue said as she lined another tray of cookie pumpkins. "You don't have a good Halloween because you don't do anything. When you see decorations, movies, and everything as a stupid waste of money, Halloween is just another day of the week. I make it special and good by actually participating in Halloween stuff and not being serious or critical about it!"

"I'm not critical" Ryan argued.

"You haven't really said anything positive, dude" Conner piped up.

Ryan wheeled around and looked at him "Whose side are you on?"

"I didn't even know what we were talking about!" Conner cried. "But I think I have a solution"

Ryan narrowed his eyes and Blue looked at him curiously.

"Let's do stuff with Blue this October. We'll do the Halloween-y stuff with her. Then" Conner finger-gunned to Ryan "you'll have a great spooky season too. We all work the same hours"

"That's fine, but on the condition that that one" Blue pointed her rolling pin at Ryan "Doesn't make critical comments about the money etc constantly. I don't want his constant complaining and criticising ruining my spooky season"

"Will you not talk like I'm not here" Ryan said.

Blue shrugged.

"Okie. All right, it's a deal. I will keep my critical, albeit correct, comments to myself and we'll do Halloween stuff with you. What's first"

"In the basement is a couple totes for Halloween- I don't use all of it every year. Go pick out something to decorate your rooms with" Blue said.

"But I don't have spa--" Ryan started, but Conner clamped his hand over Ryan's mouth.

Blue glared.

Conner pulled Ryan back and gave a sheepish smile "Basement, you say? We're on it."

Once they left the kitchen and went just inside the basement door, Conner smacked Ryan's arm.

"It had only been five seconds and you complained almost immediately!" he scolded.

"I did not; you stopped me before the complaint fully came out." Ryan argued.

Conner narrowed his eyes "Let's just find these totes."

The basement had to sections-one was more finished with a couch and tv area and the other was for storage. The back wall of the more finished side had line ups of totes and they found the orange ones labled 'Halloween'. They sifted through the totes. Conner settled for some paper-pop-up Jack- O'lanterns and a small skeleton with a string attached. Ryan sneered at most things but finally decided to hang some plastic-bag ghosts with faces and strings. They went upstairs and put them up with command strip hooks.

As they finished up, Blue came over.

"Nice job, and good news" she said, smiling, "My friend said it's fine if you guys come to her Halloween watch party friday night"

"What?" Ryan asked none-too-enthused.

"She's hosting a Halloween Movie watch party. That's what the cookies are for. You guys can buy a bottle of ginger ale and a bottle of hawaiian punch"

"Why..." Ryan demanded.

"For the party punch. Contributing to the party" Blue replied.

"But what if we don't want to..." Ryan began but Conner punched his arm.

"Starts at 7" Blue smiled and then whisked herself away.

Two days later, Ryan found himself wearing an black shirt that read 'This is my costume' and sitting squished at the end of a stranger's couch next to Conner.

A round corner table had an orange table cloth and was overwhelmed by the punch bowl and various brought goodies. Eventually the host-some girl named Jenna- and Blue, and some other stranger finally decided to relegate the popcorn balls, Blue's Cookies, and a larger bag of mixed candy to the coffee table.

Then until almost 1 am, the 15/16 people crammed into a way-too-small apartment living room watched Bride of Chucky, The Addams Family, The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Ryan had never seen any of them except 'Great Pumpkin' before when we was a kid. He had no idea how sexual and grotesque 'Dracula' was; he found himself locked in on that movie.

When they finally got home, Blue asked if they had a good time.

Conner was pleased but sleepy.

Ryan said "It was fine, I guess".

"We can hit up a corn maze tomorrow" Blue said "Good night"

Ryan spoke bedgraggled to Conner "That sounds stupid"

Conner punched his arm.

"Will you not do that!" Ryan rubbed his arm.

"When you stop that" Conner muttered as he walked away.

The next day, Ryan was just folding the last pair of jeans when Blue and Conner came up to his open door.

"Ready?" Blue asked "It's still kinda warm right now, but I still recommend a hoodie"

Saturday had went along so normally, Ryan had completely forgotten about Blue's plans.

Reluctantly, he picked up his hoodie from his computer chair, and pushed his drawer shut.

They got to some pumpkin farm and then proceeded to spend almost an hour looping through a corn maze that had been shaped, according to the map, like a stack of pumpkins. On top of that, they were tasked with finding 8 secret points with different hole-punch shapes onto a card that had random facts and these points were intentionally in dead-end spots. Cornstalks everywhere, every wall looking the same, bumping into people.

"Did you go down that way?" "I..I don't know!" "We'll let's check!" "No, we were here" "No we weren't, see?"

They fianlly got out with pieces of straw stuck to them. Blue insisted they buy pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns and they launched some corncobs from slingshots. They walked away with three pumpkins, a bag of kettlecorn, homemade apple donuts, and a gallon of applecider.

Back at home, Blue brought out carving pattern magazines and carving supplies and showed Conner and Ryan how to clean out and carve the pumpkins.

Another hour of his life Ryan couldn't get back was spent squeezing pumpkin seeds from pulp to have a the silhoutte of a skull glowing at him. Blue made a bubbling cauldron and Conner had chosen a spider. They put them on the porch.

It didn't end, because then Blue had them shape meat loaf to look like feet for dinner and watch yet another Halloween movie.

Every other night was Halloween movie time and shared meals were themed. Cinnamon rolls that were stretched and red-icing to look like intestines, Halloween pasta shaped mac and cheese, squid-ink pasta! Ryan didn't even know pasta could be black!

The next weekend they went to a haunted house. Ryan thought that was dumb but didn't say anything lest his arm get punched again. And it was $40! Forty bucks to have some goth punk in a mask pop out at them.

But when they got to the location, there was a bonfire, food trucks, and a ton of halloween lights and blow-up decorations. After security, they stood outside what looked like an abdanoned hospital. Ryan wasn't ready for any of it. Once they walked through the dimly-lit hall at the start and passed a doorway with dangling black cloth, it got crazy. The room they entered was brick and had some old, worn signs but halfway the room lit up with red lights and alarms. They all screamed. And then a what looked like a sign on the wall went up and some creature reached out and made a scream. They screamed again and started jogging forward only to be stopped by that same creature! Then there was a room with inflatable black things that squished you, Blue called out that it was a claustrophobic room. And then there was a gross and gory medical area, then a prison spot with scare actors everywhere, grabbing at them, one of them had a prop gun, then they were in a clown space with a rickety small bridge to walk across while a tunnel of colors spun around them and an anamontronic jack in the box nearly gave Ryan a heart attack. Then there was a just black area-no actors, no sound, just black. No one talked. Then an airblast happened, some person dropped from the ceiling on a bunjee and the chaos continued. They finally ended with being chased by three monsters with chainsaws out of some chainlink fences.

Ryan could barely process any one area. His heart was pounding and he was out of breath. His throat hurt from yelling.

The group they were with, about 12 people total, some were laughing, clapping, high-fiving. Blue looked scared but was laughing too. Conner was nodding.

"Wow, that was a LOT" Conner commented.

"Did you see that one girl in the medical area with her eyes missing?" Blue excitedly asked.

"Was she the one who crawled out from under the gurney? Oh my GAWD, she swiped right at my ankle!"

They laughed. And then they all went to get food and drinks. Blue asked if they wanted to do a mini-escape room.

Turned out some of the trucks weren't food, they were side attractions and temporary merch shops. Ryan couldn't believe in total a the haunt he'd spent close to $100. He went home with a picture of them from in the haunt, a t-shirt, and a magnet.

The next weekend they went to an escape room with a couple of Blue's other friends. Downtown was a local set of escape rooms at a place called 'LOCK AND KEY' and they went to the one called 'The Lab'. They were future experiments to a mad scientist unless they could escape before the evil doctor returned. They even started out handcuffed to a wall in a small room! Ryan and Conner had never done an escape room, save for the little one at the haunt. But that one was five minutes to find the number to call. This was an hour of digging through drawers, finding the name of the brain, putting test tubes in the right order, and a grabber falling from the ceiling to reach a key. Which, by the way, had scared the crap out of all of them; as did the instructor paging them to say they had 30 minutes left.

They were trying to figure out the correct order of buttons on the wall when they got the five minute warning.

"We just can't keep pressing randomly!" one of Blue's friend's called out.

"They aren't numbered though!" said the other.

Ryan panicked and looked around the room. He had embarrassed himself earlier by spending 5 minutes on what turned out to be a red-herring puzzle so he was desperate to not only get the group out but also redeem himself. His eyes caught the test tube rack. He looked back at the button panel- they had the same colors!

"One Minute" paged the instructor.

"H-hit Yellow, Green, Purple, Red, Blue!" he called out.

"Wha-Okie!?" the friend at the panel quickly hit the colors after asking for a repeat.

The door opened!

They all cheered and hugged. The instructor clapped as she approached them and told them they got to take the picture at the winner wall and also got a 10% discount on all merch.

Ryan ended up with another picture and t-shirt.

Their town was a little weird and did Trick-Or-Treat the Thursday night before actual Halloween (for some reason) and the three bought and took turns handing out candy.

On actual Halloween night, Ryan and Conner went with Blue to a local bar and even though they didn't participate in the costume contest, Ryan and Conner did both wear a pirate and vampire costume respectively. Blue had did their makeup as well as hers and people asked for their photos all night. He drank something called 'vampire's kiss' and had a 'zombie brain shot' with the group. Blue had won again and they went home to eat from the bags of candy they had bought as they watched 'Hocus Pocus' until they fell asleep in the living room.

Halloween had come and gone. November 1st had insta posts from the past month.

"Had a Great Spooky Season, can't for us to do it again next year" and this time the post was Ryan's.

At Thanksgiving, Ryan was showing his photos from October around the table and his mother commented.

"Ryan, dear, I thought you didn't like that stuff? I thought you'd said it was a waste of time"

"My roommates helped me finally have a Happy Halloween and all the fun it brings. Life's only a waste of time if you don't do the things to enjoy it. The real waste is holding a grudge against people who do"