Red, Blue and yellow flashed around the dim room. The colors that mixed flickered through the crowd whose silhouette made a bizarre tangle of shapes, what could be illuminated by the bare light gave peeks of participants bearing inhuman appearances. Their bodies moved erratically to the rhythm of a haunting song, dancing to a ritual that commemorates the night of the creatures of the dark.
“YEAAAAAH!!!”
“Happy Halloweeen!!!”
“Looking hot teen wolf!”
The dancers cheered and laughed to the music, opposed to what the setting initially seemed, this was not entirely wrong since this gathering was a party for Halloween. Despite it being an event that was not celebrated constantly for it to garner a party in their community, many months of being cooped up indoors from quarantine made some teenagers decide to host a party the moment protocols loosened, a few of which were who came are Cris, Louis and Raph.
“This is awesome! Check out how much they decorated the place.” Cris gestured to the decorations, from the table with food and beverages, all Halloween themed of course, to the cobwebs on the furniture and even the fake blood on the walls. At the center of room was a wooden statue with a disfigured face.
“This is going blow up in everyone’s faces later.” Raph disapproved, he was the one out of the three who had not been keen on joining the party. He felt a little embarrassed since compared to most of the attendees costumes, they were just in casual clothes with a plastic Devil horn headband, three devils they were.
“Oh come on, it’s been ages since they kept switching to tell people not to go outside and letting everyone out. Weren’t you also complaining about feeling choked at home.” Louis teased while they took drinks from the buffet. “Anthony was nice enough to invite everyone from class, I feel a little jealous, his parents let him use their resort for a Halloween party.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t worth spending my time outside if I get COVID from the lack of safety measures.” Raph snorted.
“Why the heck are you even here then?!” Cris asked annoyed.
“You guys were the ones who tricked me for a free ride, remember.” Louis averted his attention elsewhere feeling guilty, Cris had asked for his help to convince him, wanting to go to the party, both only told him they wanted hangout but not about the destination or event.
“You know, never mind.” Raph downed his drink, frowning. “They mixed a lot of alcohol in this juice.” After saying that he left out of the room.
“Hey! Are you leaving?!” Louis called out amidst the music.
“Just going out to buy something from the convenience store.” Raph waved back without looking.
“What a party pooper.” Cris said.
“Heeey! Are you devils enjoying the party!!?!”
They looked to see a zombie Anthony, the host of the party coming towards the two, a drink in one hand and a plastic Jack-O-Lantern filled with shiny candy on the other, he seemed already tipsy.
“It’s great man, nice excuse to get out of the house.” Cris said enthusiastically and Louis smiled while nodding.
“Good to hear! Here have some, its not Halloween without candy right,” He offered the candy he carried.
“Thanks!” Both boys accepted the treats and each took a few, afterwards Anthony left to give more to the others.
“Ha! Raph’s missing out.” Cris said as he ate his candy right away. The candy tasted was rather interesting and new, not something they were familiar with.
CRASH!!!
Right then many heads turned to look at the middle of the dancefloor to see the statue had fallen. The body split from the torso, it’s head a few feet away, the old aged wood was splintered, its pieces scattered on the floor. For some reason Louis felt a chill on his back seeing the ruined statue.
“Oh shoot!” One guy with a skeleton mask cursed while staggering away, apparently he had gotten too drunk and hit the statue hard enough to make it fall.
“Is okay, don’ worry ‘bout it,” Anthony came and waved him off. “That old antique was a gonna get thrown anyway. Keep up the party people!” He gestured around and everyone went back to partying while keeping distance from the broken statue.
Cris whistled. “Hey, it would really suck if that thing was cursed right?” Louis noticed that he seemed shaken. They tried to return to the mood they had before but for some reason they became gradually anxious. Something felt off and they were not the only one who had the feeling.
“Hey look! The walls!”
A girl’s high-pitched shout was heard loudly despite the music blaring music. Cris and Louis turned and the uneasiness they felt was unfortunately answered from the walls. The fake blood written into haunting messages, they were turning darker and muddier. The writing seeped out more of the dark liquid, one party goer, under the shock of the others took a swipe of the ever dripping substance with their finger and licked it.
“It’s Chocolate!” He shouted in amazed joy.
“Whoah! Really!”
I few more people immediately scrambled to the wall and started laying their hands on the chocolate, putting what they could wipe in their mouths, on the other walls same thing happened. Things are turning weird but it did not stop there. Louis heard another crash and looked at the snack table, to see a fallen Jack-O-Lantern rolling around, the candy in its content was spilling out on the floor without running out contrary to what it can structurally hold, he could see the face was laughing, it actually was able to laugh!
Louis freaked out, not because of the walls or that even more candy spilled out of the animated Jack-O-Lantern, but because the other people dived towards the candy crazily, they teared, bit through and swallowed regardless of the wrapping then acted like animals protecting their food viciously growling at others nearby, another girl smiled at him from afar with her teeth shining like jelly beans.
“What the hell is wrong with these people!?!” Cris yelled weirded out by the feral display.
More chaos ensued, a couple was running away from a rampaging bear, the spider webs turned into gum that a horse-faced man chewed on, the floor was moving them around but that didn’t stop a another guy from licking the candy off.
Suddenly a he saw a skeleton deliberately bump into Cris making him fall down. He was about to crouch and help him up, but froze. His friend wasn’t the same anymore, hell he was not human anymore! Just a bare skeleton with candy gushing out of his bones inside.
“AAAAAHHH! What the hell! What the hell!” Louis cursed repeatedly. More shouts and screams, everywhere he looked more candy appearing from knows where turning people into crazies.
“Well, things turned crazy tonight huh.” He heard a deep dreadful voice behind him.
Louis looked to see the Jack-O-Lantern floating in mid-air, more candy cascading down, some floating around it like a solar system, it was smirking at the chaotic display around.
“Trick or Treat, have some more sugar and sweets!” It cackled madly before Louis finally couldn’t keep up and felt the world turn dark.
He felt heavy, he kept hearing noises around him. Many vague urgent voices, movement but felt to tired and a little headache. Then the face of the Jack-O-Lantern appeared.
“If you don’t wake up, you’ll get more candy.”
His eyes immediately opened. Everything was white, no, he let few moments pass to adjust his eyes. He was in a hospital ward. He could register other patients being tended before a person beside him caught his attention.
“R-Raph!” He rasped.
“Well good to see you awake.” Raph closed the book he was reading.
“W-what happened?! Where were you?! Why are we here? The party! The people! T-there was lots of candy?!---“
“Settle down.” Raph flicked his forehead and explained.
“Well to be short, the party was a disaster, when I came back there were a lot of people acting crazy, licking and eating almost everything, the floor, walls even the decorations and a few fights. Someone already called the police and they did some damage control and sent lots of people to the hospital.”
“B-but the floating Jack-O-Lantern?!!”
“Oh that, turns out the candy distributed from that Jack-O-Lantern actually had a large dose of Ecstasy from what the police investigated. Those drugs caused it all, it’s a relief, though it could have gone worse.”
Louis was shocked. “Wha-So everything?”
“Was just a drug induced hallucination, Cris is fine by the way,” Raph pointed at the bed beside him to see their friend sleeping. He had a bandage on the head, probably when he fell.
Louis deflated in his bed.
“Want some candy?” Raph offered while grinning at him to which he replied with a glare.