Sybil said I can play at Halloween, and I thought, what I’d really like would be good scary Halloween story. But I’m too lazy to write more than the beginning, so I decided to do my bit, and see if any of you talented writer/readers could chip in a few words. Go wherever you want, be silly, be scary, be whatever you want, just help out little Mary Sue . . . please.
So I’ll start the story, and your comments will take it to the next place. Each comment progressively changes the story. By Wednesday afternoon, we should have something pretty entertaining to read.
Here goes:
It was a dark and stormy night and Mary Sue was heading into it. It was Halloween! She’d get candy if it killed her . . .
She’d been in this rotten orphanage for five years, ever since she was six, with not so much as a Snickers bar. Heck, even talking about Halloween was against the stupid rules. The way Mary Sue saw it, it was now or never.
She even had a costume.
Okay, it was the sheet from her bed, and it wasn’t very ghostly, a stupid pink color… so last week!… and covered in green alligators, but no one could see her. That’s what mattered. No way she wanted anyone yakking about her being on the street after dark. It was eight o’clock now, and she planned to be back by nine with no one the wiser. All she had to do was get out of here without Black Bonnie, the headmistress, gettin’ in her face. Mary Sue shuddered when she remembered what the Black B had done to Mitzi when she’d forgotten to put the stupid cap on the toothpaste… Jeez! But she wasn’t going to think about that, and she wasn’t going to get caught either.
She took her pillow from its slip and tossed it over her skinny shoulder. She could almost taste the candy hoard now…
**But how in heck was she going to get out of the house?**
She took a quick peek out of her bedroom door to make sure Black Bonnie was still in the kitchen forcing the others to eat the “Halloween Surprise”…the actual surprise being trying to identify what animal was cooked up for them. She quietly closed the door making sure to turn the knob so there would be no “click”. Black Bonnie had superpower hearing and would be at her room in an instant if she made too much noise. She took stock of her room making certain the “dummy” in her bed was sound asleep. Noiselessly, she opened her bedroom window and made her way out. When she finally got out, she felt a hand cover her mouth…..
Hallowe’en, Black Bonnie’s favorite night. The night, every year, when one of these smart ass kids, tries to make a run for it.
It wouldn’t be a 5 year old — too unaware that they can do stuff and get away with it. An 8 year old might think of escape, but no, in the end they’d be chicken.
But 11, yeah, 11 was just right for an attempt. Little demons always thought they could outsmart her. Bonnie tapped her chin, thought hard….which one, though. Bonnie stood in her kitchen and listened intently, tracking the creaks and groans of the old building.
There! Mary Sue’s room. The window was sliding up…stupid girl. She was on the third floor. Bonnie the Beautiful, (she’d taken care of the little rat that had given her that other nickname – satisfactorily too) sucked her pointy front teeth and flew up through the floors to Mary Sue’s door.
She slammed it open with no more than a thought. Too late!
Mary Sue leaped from the window sill.
She wasn’t alone!
The hand over May Sue’s mouth was cold and clammy–no it dripped–and it smelled bad, real bad. Like the orphanage toilets before their yearly cleaning.
And if that wasn’t awful enough, that bi—, witch Black Bonnie was screeching from the window. Already hot on her Halloween tail. “May Sue you get back here,” she yelled. “Now! Or there’s a ghoul’s worth of hurt waiting for you. You hear me?
May Sue had to do something, and she had to do it fast!
She bit the hand over her mouth . . . and she bit hard!
Mary Sue started to fall to the ground and her mouth filled with the sewer stench from the hand she had latched onto. It took her a moment to realize that she had not hit the ground yet, and that she was in fact flying thru the air. The thing that had its hand over her mouth had wings and was carrying her away from the school!
Damn that Evil Edna! Bonnie howled, her sister was going to have all the fun. Mary Sue dropped out of Edna’s reach, then just before she hit the ground, her powers kicked in and she began to fly. Wobbly, bobbly, and screeching and screaming, the little demon picked up the pace and made for the rooftops.
It was time for her to learn that candy was only part of the night.
When Mary Sue came into her evil strength at midnight, it would be Edna who would get to teach the newly minted demon all about her powers.
That is, unless Bonnie took her down.
With a cackle that rang through the night, Bonnie launched, mouth wide with a scream.
Until a bug the size of a Buick slammed into her right tonsil.
Her right back molar caught the thing and crushed it.
Hm, tasted like chicken.
Mary Sue began to panic! How was one supposed to land when they JUST found out they had flying power?! Then she saw someone flying next to her and saying something…..but saying what she did not know becauase she flew right into tree branches…
and saw her old boyfriend Dick, who was changed into a vampire last Hallowee.His other vampire buddies were also there called Tom and Harry. They were all sitting on a tree branch trying to figure out who to suck the life out of this night. Dick then saw Mary Sue and smiled and said…
“Vant to suck some blood?”
Mary Sue blinked, she must have hit the tree hard because she could barely understand him.
“Dude, stop sucking on the lollipop.” Harry hit Dick on the back of the head.
“Ouch. Man, that hurt.” Dick groaned, then smiled at Mary. “Hey, want a lollipop?”
“Where’d you get those?” Mary Sue asked as Tom opened up a pillow case and showed her a pile of candy loot.
“Down there.” Tom pointed, way way down the road to a dark house at the edge of town.
“Bet ya Mary’s too chicken to go down there alone.”
“I’m not chicken…” she said, grabbing for a mini snickers.
Popping the Snickers in her mouth, she glided down to the sidewalk below. This flying thing wasn’t so bad once you got the hang of it.
Taking off for the house Tom had pointed out, she told the trio in between her chewing, “I’m out here for candy tonight, and if that’s where I have to get it, then I’m there!”
She could hear giggling behind her and as she neared the edge of the tall, dark fence surrouding the eerie house, her step faltered.
“Whaddya waitin’ for, Mary?” Tom whispered in her ear. “Scared?”
Mary suddenly took to the air and was at the front door before any of them could blink.
“Mary, wait!” Tom cried. “I was just joking!”
Mary knocked on the door, but when she knocked, the door flew open. She looked inside and in the center of the living room was a coffin. Tom came running in and stopped and stared at the coffin. “Mary, you are in the Master’s house,” he said. They heard a loud scream from upstairs.
Holy crapola, Mary Sue thought, feeling the teeniest shudder run along her skinny spine, a girl goes out for a few bits of candy and what does she find–a coffin and a darn nest of vampires. Even turn-coat Tom looked a little green around the fangs.
Just then a couple of red-eyed rats scurried over her bare feet and went to huddle beside the coffin. They gave her a loathing gaze and twitched their noses at her as if she smelled bad–or maybe good, depending on whether or not you were a rat.
What to do? See who the heck was in the coffin or find herself some Smarties. Mary Sue was nothing if not determined.
She looked at Tom. “This Master guy. Has he got a sweet tooth?”
“A couple of them.”
“That’s it then.” She headed upstairs–toward the scream . . .
“You can’t go up there. Nobody goes up there.” Tom took a step back.
Mary Sue, ignored him. Boys were such pussies.
Bonnie watched the parade of foolish young vampires and one demon girl head into the Master’s lair.
Right where she needed them to be.
With a flick of her skirts, she zoomed into one of the upstairs windows and waited for the children.
She slipped her hand into her pocket and waited, giving the large bug one more little crunch. Then she sucked the bits out of her molar.
Mary Sue was asking Tom a question. “Do you, d’you, think there’s candy up here?”
“Nah, there’s just a whole lotta old up here…can’t you smell it?”
“I smell chocolate. And I want it.”
Mary Sue thought to herself it was a good thing that under her pink sheet with the green gators she had on her rented Buffy the Vampire Slayer costume. She knew if she had to she could break out the wooden stakes, machete, and holy water stashed in a vest pocket.
Just as Mary Sue came to the top of the stairs, she heard another blood-curdling scream that sounded oddly like, “I FEEL LIKE A NUUUUUUUUUUT!” and an answering scream, “SOMETIMES YOU DOOOOOOOOON’T!” She was suddenly glad she rented the “full” BTVS costume, instead of the “lite” version that came with only matches and charcoal lighter fluid.
Meanwhile, the master vampire awoke from his torpor. As always, he felt a sense of renewed hope as he considered that this night might be the night… the night Tom would come back for him.
It was true that, as a master vampire, he was destined to not know love in centuries, or at least not until the day he met his soulmate, but such was a lonely existance, especially when you considered the fact that he lived in a haunted house with a ghost who was trying to get his start writing commercial jingles… a house that was probably, even now, being broken into by some silly kids.
The master vampire sighed morosely and opened the coffin lid. The thing needed its hinges oiled. Maybe he’d get the ghoul to do that later.
But for right now, if he couldn’t have his life’s mate, and he couldn’t have that delicious hunk of young vampire, Tom, rub scented oil over his body in a purely platonic way, he was going to settle for the next best thing.
Cackling madly, he wandered into the bowels of the house, cranked up his old Donna Summer albums, and, unmindful of the fact that there might be any witnesses, proceeded to do the hustle, even as he pined for a return of such long-forgotten passtimes.
Soon the Master vampire started to sing “I Will Survive” and “Y.M.C.A” As he was busy trying to be John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever, he heard some clapping and turned out to see…
NOT PART OF THE STORY! But I gotta say it, you guys are hilarious!
Meanwhile, Mary Sue reached the door she thinks she heard the scream come from. She can smell chocolate, nougat, coconut, and more chocolate. Her mouth is fairly dripping, she’s drooling so much. She puts her hand on the doorknob…
The master vampire saw a sight to chill his blood. It was either Michael Jackson or a scout from an alien species bent on taking over the world! Oh noes!
Miss Piggy was zeroing in on the master vampire with intent in her eye. She was dressed as Gidget in a bikini and a Hawaiian grass skirt. She swayed her hips and batted her eyelashes as she crooned, “Come to mama, my little vampire…”
While master Vamp finishes off Miss Piggy–adding a balsamic vinegrette and a touch of parmesan–Mary Sue stands outside the upstairs door. She starts to turn the knob. Stops. Frowns.
Abruptly, the house falls to quiet, no more screams, no YMCA coming from downstairs. Nada.
Mary Sue can still smell the chocolate, the sweetness of caramel dipped apples, but behind those tantalizing aromas another scent is fermenting, a scent she’s vaguely familiar with, a combination of Vick’s Vaporub, boiled cabbage, and gardenia.
She strips down to her Buffy suit . . .
As she turns around she sees Dr. Frank-N-Furter motioning her to come over to him. She opened her mouth to say something but all that came out was “quack”. “Quack?” Mary Sue wondered what was happening to her! She looked down and saw that where her shoes once were she had webbed feet…
It was then that Mary Sue realized that not only was he a Master Vampire, he was also a witch. She could feel the threads of power streaming from him, changing her body and morphing her into a harmless duck in a Buffy suit.
Mary Sue struggled to reach her flask of holy water before her arms became wings. Just as she felt feathers fluttering across her shoulders, she grasped the flask and hurled it at the Master. It shattered against his chest and drenched him.
As the liquid soaked into his clothes, the Master started to smell something sweet wafting up from the shattered remains of the flask.
Lily of the Valley. The sweet scent of springtime when he was young. He gazed at his fat belly, his flat feet, gritted his broken fang, sank to his feet, folded his hands in prayer and moaned. “Virgin, lady of mine. Kiss me better that I may be young and handsome again.”
Mary Sue kicked him and he doubled over screaming.
“Why you do that?”
“Because you are past the best before date and if there’s one thing I hate it’s a wussy vampire.” She stamped on one of his feet. As he jumped up and down she turned on her heel and ran. Halloween tomorrow and the damned vampires would be out in force. She ditched her costume, grabbed a cape from the hallstand and hit the street.
Mary Sue was fed up. She’d wasted enough time in this drafty, rickety old vampire mansion, she was outta here! With less than a half hour left before she had to get back to the orphanage, she was batting zero.
The next house on the street–if you ignored the dozen or so black cats on the roof, the corpse hanging from a tree in the front yard, and the blooded lips and pale faces looking out from the cracked windows–looked promising.
She marched to the door, adjusted her cape, and practised those time-tested words, “Trick or treat?” Too bad she didn’t have the cute thing happening to go with it.
She knocked on the door.
It swung open . . .
Mary Sue couldn’t believe it.
“Mama?”
Elvira looked down at the ill-dressed little girl on her doorstep. She did look familiar. But something had to be done about those clothes!
“Come in, child,” Elvira beckoned.
“Have you lived here all this time?” Mary Sue asked. “Why haven’t you come for me?”
“Really,” her mother replied, “I can’t be seen with a child who dresses as you do.”
Mary Sue looked down at her worn duds. She brushed a few feathers from the front of her cat-covered skirt.
“Come, we will take care of you now, make you into someone who will make me proud!”
“Do you have any chocolate?” she hopefully asked.
“Yes dear, I have all the chocolate you could eat,” Elvira said. Elvira showed Mary Sue that the whole house was made from candy. The roof was made out of big candy corn. The windows were sugar glass. The doors and walls were chocolate. The fence around the house was pixie sticks. She told Mary Sue the only way she could get any of the candy was to bring all the children she can to the house. Mary Sue ran down the street hollering, “I know where all the candy is, follow me, I will show you where.” Mary Sue brought all the kids to the house.
As Mary Sue herded all the kids into the house, Black Bonnie watched from behind the tree in the front yard, stroking the hair on her chinny, chin chin . . .
damn now Mary Sue was in the house. Black Bonnie could taste the snickers bars the kid had in her pillow case. But first she had to get past Elvira and that candy ass was tough.
I just love Halloween and all the fun stuff that goes with it. Especially the stories and movies.
“Well well, who have we here?” cackled Evil Edna.
Black Bonnie was so surprised by Evil Edna’s stealth that she expelled black ink from a random orifice.
Edna laughed so hard that beetles came out her nose and one of her eyes fell out. “Beebo, I can’t believe I still have that effect on you. I thought you got over that in early demonhood, ’round about when you stopped drooling green blood and chewing on rat heads.”
Black Bonnie whirled around and glared at her older sister. “What do you want? And don’t call me Beebo.”
Evil Edna offered Black Bonnie one of her beetles and looked around for her missing eye. “I know you hate, adore and fear me, but you despise Elvira even more. If you want to train our new demoness as much as I do let’s join forces and get Mary Sue back.”
Black Bonnie trusted Evil Edna about as much as she liked fluffy pink bunnies and Christmas, but she loved the idea of outsmarting Elvira and taking Mary Sue under her batwing. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That you take Mary Sue for every Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic holiday, and I get her for at least two months in the summer.”
Evil Edna popped her eye back in and winked. “Agreed.”
Unfortunately the eye was in backwards, a glowing red orb flickering behind Evil Edna’s straggling black hair.
Evil Edna started walking backwards and ran into Black Bonnie. They both tumbled onto the ground, narrowly missing the pixie stick fence.
They came up fighting, fists flying, legs failing.
“You idiot!” Black Bonnie screamed. “Get the hell out of my way.”
Pushing Evil Edna aside, Bonnie stalked through the Kit Kat gate and banged on Elvira’s moaning door.
“Ouch!” the door yelped.
infuriated Black Bonnie kicked the moaning door. Screaming hysterically Moaning Door tore loose from her hinges and tumbled over Black Bonnie.
“Get off me you stupid door”
While Black Bonnie was having an epic battle with the door. Evil Edna took advantage of her distraction and edged her way into the house.
“Now which way did they go?” muttered the evil and ever so peckish Edna. Leaning a hand upon a doorframe to peek into the room, she became aware of a heavenly scent so dark and so luscious that she went weak in the knees. She heard voices in the distance talking of the more palatable points of the house. Even the recognition of Mary Sue’s voice could not stop her from taking a rather large bite from a convenient edge.
“What are you doing?” she heard Black Bonnie hiss in her ear.
“I ‘ot nooing ’nuffin.” she hastily replied with wide-eyed innocence even as chocolate smears covered her chin and a cheek.
Mary Sue smirked at Black Bonnie….”Did you know that everything in here is poisoned? In approximatly ten minutes you will begin to shrink and turn into a jelly belly. Where do you think all the candy comes from?”
Black Bonnie began to feel a sharp pain in her stomach….
That’s when Black Bonnie realized the pencil she stuck in her pocket earlier was poking her. She took it out and broke it in half with a twist of her gnarled fingers.
When Black Bonnie looked over at Evil Edna, she started in shock. Edna was gone. In her place was one tutti-frutti-flavored Jelly Belly. Edna didn’t know if she should scream or have some candy. So she just ran out of the house, Mary Sue in hot pursuit.
Bonnie hated that everyone under the moon called her by the horrid nickname. Couldn’t they see her beauty, her natural flair?
Obviously dullards, all of ’em.
But Mary Sue’s time of change was almost upon her and Bonnie needed to catch the little demon in time.
The huge bug she’d eaten earlier wasn’t sitting well…she belched a slimy wad and took off after Mary Sue.
Leaving Elvira’s house…she did her sister a huge favor (which Edna would have to repay) and zapped her back to full form.
“Quit foolin’ around, Edna….we’ve got work to do. You go left, I’ll go right and we’ll grab Mary Sue by each arm. We’ll share in her training and that’ll make us both stronger.”
In unison for once, they cackled and headed out after the rotten little demon, Mary Sue.
Mary Sue was getting tired from all the running, and she was getting leg cramps. But there was no time to stop and buy a banana (or is it milk she’s supposed to drink?) so she kept on running past the grocery store and towards her target destination. As she ran, she dug around in her pockets and found a half-eaten…
“Geez, is that a Snickers bar or the hind end of rat?” she thought.
“Eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” Not even for the taste of sweet on her tongue would she put that in her mouth. So much for an extra kick of energy.
Suddenly Mary Sue felt a zing go through her body. This one was the most potent one so far and she still didn’t know what was happening to her. Maybe she should have taken the chance that thing had been a Snickers.
Just then she was pushed from behind and started somersaulting through the air and quickly turned her tumbling into flight as she heard that awful witch’s laugh. Too close!
Breaking right in an effort to throw the you-know-what off balance, she ran straight into…
… a tree!
“Danggit!” she hollered as she picked leaves and twigs out of her hair. She sat on a high branch trying to peek through the leaves to see if her pursuers were near.
Mary Sue was sitting, panting from the exertion, when she got a tingle across her skin again. She looked at her arm and thought for a moment she saw something move under her skin. She looked a little closer and saw…
….a worm crawling out….it was red and shiny in the moonlight. She wondered how it got there when she remembered she had eated a jelly belly at Elvira’s house. The worm must be one of the unfortunate souls who were tricked into eating part of the house. But what should she do with it? Just then she looked up and saw Black Bonnie, Edna, and Elvira barreling towards her….
Mary Sue jumped back as they almost ran her over!
“Ah! you found Harvey.” Black Bonnie exclaimed.
Mary Sue suddered at the thought of something so slimey coming out of her skin along with having the name of Harvey.
“Harvey?” She asked?
“Yes. He is a very special type of worm.” Black Bonnie said as her eyes glowed and she licked her lips as she went to grab for the worm.
Both Edna and Elvira stood their rolling their eyes. But before anyone could stop Black Bonnie, she grabbed Harvey and…
Oh, sad, sad day . . . Halloween is over for yet another year. And now I must complete Mary Sue’s epic search for the ghostly, the weird, and wee bit o’ candy.
Poor Mary Sue had a pretty rough time of it, and there are many things to be considered before I send her off into her happy, or unhappy, ever after. When this is done, and the end is well and truly typed, Sybil will advise the generous Ms. Kate Duffy of Kensington Publishing to send books to the winners of our writing game.
The story questions intrigue me–such bizarre brilliance!–and leave me with much to ponder as I seek out the funniest, the spookiest, and she who made the most contributions (should there be a tie, I will put all qualifiers into my witch’s hat and make a draw. Such will be named winners of our All Hallow’s eve writing extravaganza.
But before I write the ending for Mary Sue’s saga, I must diligently study the posts, so that I might do the right thing for our feisty but beleagured little heroine.
Today, oh creative ones, today . . .
As the three hags battled over Harvey—everything came clear.
In that one crazy blinding flash of a moment, Mary Sue understood—the power of Harvey. Harvey wasn’t an ordinary worm, oh, no! Harvey was a lemon lime, one cent, jelly wiggler, with licorice eyeballs. And he was the key to Halloween, to vast storehouses of rot-your-teeth sweets, candy unlimited, mountains of chocolate, hills of peppermint, rivers of caramel and trips to Mars bars.
And whoever controlled Harvey controlled the worldwide Halloween candy distribution system.
Mary Sue saw no reason that shouldn’t be her.
She took out her holy water spray can and blasted them all, Black Bonnie, Elvira—who was so-o not her mother—and Evil Edna. They went down in a tangle of limbs, shrieking and cursing. But they went down hard, and they went down forever.
Mary Sue plucked Harvey from Black Bonnie’s rapidly melting hand, brushed him off, and set him on the back of her hand.
“You with me or against me, worm, because I’m thinking we could build ourselves a pretty good life. Get a yacht, maybe one of those islands in the sun—maybe take over the Christmas candy cane business. †She stroked his slimed head with her pinky, and he arched his back. “We could have ourselves a real happily ever after thing, you know . . . be a family?†she added, a trace of hope in her voice. Mary Sue thought having a worm for family was better than no family at all.
Harvey arched a non-existent brow, and said, “I’m with you babe—and if you promise to keep me on top of skin instead of under it, I’ll do something else in appreciation for you saving my green slimy ass.â€
“What?â€
“Grant you two wishes.â€
“How come only two. Isn’t it always three.â€
“Two or nothing. We’re not doing greed here.â€
Mary Sue thought about candy . . . and about family, smiled and nodded. She already knew what her first wish would be. “Two’s more than enough.â€