Part One

Joey, Billy and Clarence were excited to go Trick or Treating for the first time on their own. This was their seventh year Trick or Treating together, but, for the past six years, their parents had chaperoned. 

Billy was the oldest, his twelfth birthday was in July. Joey’s twelfth birthday would be two days before Thanksgiving, and Clarence was the youngest with a January birthday.

Halloween was their favorite holiday and they had been planning for two months. This included countless thrift store and craft store purchases and each scrambling to earn allowance money from their folks. 

By the time the day arrived, they had managed to coordinate costumes. They had done the Three Amigos two years ago, and last year was the Ghostbusters. This year, it was their first horror movie themed outfits. The movie was Tres Duendes, and they were three supernatural spirits who had returned to extract vengeance on the heirs of family members who had wronged them. It was a low budget monster movie from Spain, and the three boys were obsessed, quoting, re-watching and analyzing the film for hours.

Their outfits were gruesome and quite effective. They had practiced their make-up and were quite proud of their DIY and original idea. The plan was to rake in a record amount of candy. Somehow they knew that they were nearing the end of a certain age where the world was still big and Halloween was the most important day of the year.

On Halloween night, their success was quite evident when they were beginning to have trouble lifting their pillowcases. They debated doubling back home and emptying their sacks, but it was Billy who changed their minds.

Billy said, “First of all, we’ll lose precious minutes because we can’t hit the houses more than once and the only way to get home is to retrace our steps. Second, it’ll be like cheating. It’s Trick or Treat, not Trick or Cheat. We have to be able to carry the load in the sacks we’ve got or the record won’t be legit.” 

It was agreed that the integrity of their goal relied on these objectively rational rules and they struggled for two more blocks before Joey said, “I can’t do this anymore. I vote we hit this last house and head home. It’s the biggest house in the neighborhood and it looks like a criminally insane person lives there. I mean, look at it: the grass is weedy and needs to be cut. Half the bushes are dead. Even the JackOLantern on the porch is already starting to rot. This is the creepiest house we’ve been to all night. It’s the perfect last house to Trick or Treat.”

Billy didn’t fully agree, but Clarence’s arms were getting sore and he sided with Joey. They were very democratic and Billy acquiesced, though grudgingly. He was always the most ambitious one of the group.

The doorbell sounded as if it had an electric short and Clarence jerked his finger away when the button made a “TZZT!” noise. A moment later, a tall, imposing man in a black suit answered the door.

The man stood there, not speaking or smiling. The boys were temporarily distracted with by his height and somber expression.

Billy shouted, “Trick or Treat!” and the other two quickly chimed in. The man studied them for a moment, and it was unclear if he had heard them. He reached behind the door and pulled out a large bowl, but instead of candy, he placed what appeared to be origami paper skulls in each of the boys’ bags.

“Ah, I see.” the man said. “Tres Duendes. Your costumes are quite remarkable. I hope that you don’t reap the curse of Los Lobos.” His face grimaced into a sad smile and he closed the door.

The boys stood staring at the closed door. Not a single person had recognized their costumes from the obscure foreign horror movie all night. They had tried to explain to a couple of the old ladies who seemed perturbed by their explanations before they stopped trying.

“Holy smokes!” Joey said. “That dude knew the movie! He even mentions the Los Lobos curse. What the heck!”

Billy shuddered and said, “That was the freakiest thing. Let’s get home and eat some candy!”

Back at home, the important task of weighing each bag on the bathroom scale showed that they had, indeed, gathered more Halloween candy than ever before.

(To be continued)