Cantrip Hallowzine 2022

PRESENTED BY CANTRIP

Front and back cover art by Dustin Hoxworth.

A special thanks to Fat Nugs Magazine and all of the authors and artists we received submissions from.

Copyright © 2022 Cantrip, Inc.

Readers beware.

Dear Reader,

Welcome once again to the creepiest publication to be found on the shores of the Commonwealth, the freakiest feature to feast your feeding eyes upon, the spooktacular and admittedly dangerous Hallowzine.

This year you may have noticed is somewhat shorter than our previous edition; we seem to have misplaced one of our regular contributors. They left only this note where once they left their works:

“Felix - I find myself encumbered and unable to produce my normal works. If you do not hear from me by September’s end, please presume that I have been taken by the selfsame creature that absorbed my dear Hudson, and that I fight now in the bowels of an eternal hell. Please send my regards to our audience, and know that should I survive, I shall have a most hellacious tale to report in next year’s edition, and should I fall, that my fate imagined will be worse than any yarn I might spin.”

And with that, we hear no more.

As usual, please enjoy this Hallowzine, produced by the esteemed estate of my namesake, the Cantrips, and read in good health and with all of your hairs on end. The nights darken, and the long winter beginswith this year’s Hallowzine.

Good Luck and Highest Regards,

Felix H. Cantrip

Pumpkins are orange, Blood is red, Finish the Hallowzine, Or you will be....

poem by Colin Curran

The Cabin

by Jess Brandon

When I first opened my eyes

To the flickering winter’s light, My head screamed in desperate protest And I shut them quickly tight.

A deep, long breath I let Slowly fill my shaking chest; I rubbed my aching temples Wishing so for peaceful rest.

But the gods above denied me And I lay awake in pain, The drink of the night before Coursing still through my tired veins.

After hours, or seconds, or a lifetime I tentatively sat up in bed. The room swirled, I tasted bile, And felt sweat dripped down my head.

My sore eyes slowly split apart

And I saw in my little room

An old wooden floor, and old wooden walls, And not much else but gloom.

I wracked my brain for answers

As I felt my face, burning hot. What did I do the night before, And was I alone, or not?

A glimmer of someone’s face

A figure, hulking, dripping, and bent, Filled my mind for but a moment, And then out of my head it went.

I needed coffee, water, food, In order to discover What lead me to this place And to identify the Other.

I got up, wobbled, steadied, Then headed to the only door.

Each step sent flashes over my eyes So I focused hard on the wooden floor.

There, beneath my feet, As I cleared my fog-filled brain,

I could see light flickering madly From outside the window pane.

I dared a glance up to see What could have made this glow, But the panes were dull and frosted;

The source was not for me to know.

I finally reached the door, And turned the wooden handle, And passed through to a small space With no light, not even a candle.

Down the hall there was a room

With a couch and fireplace. The whole cabin smelled of pine

With a sulfur hints; just a trace.

My head throbbed, the sweat still ran

In streams down my burning face.

I longed for water, ice, more sleep

For this hangover to be erased.

I sat on the sagging couch, And was shocked at what I grasped.

The thing was also made of wood, And I let out a little gasp.

When the sound escaped my mouth, The strange, quivering light outside, Which had been docile until now, Flickered violently in reply.

I laid back on the wooden seat.

My eyes hurt with the twinkling light.

It was time I wracked my brain for answers; So I began to recreate my night.

It started at a local bar, Called “The Long Stay.”

I had gone every night for a

year,

After my wife had gone away.

I drank with Jim, the owner, A whiskey then another. No one else had been there, So we entertained each other.

A flash of the same hulking figure

Crossed through my addled brain...

I realized he had entered The Long Stay from the rain.

Before I could know more, A sharp twinge crossed o’er my spine

I must have slept crooked; I was stiff like the couch of pine.

The light continued to flicker, But seemed to be a tad more dim.

I closed my eyes and returned To the Last Stand, and to Him.

We had talked, I know that. Exchanged “hellos” beneath bleary eyes.

But I couldn’t remember his face, No matter how I tried.

I got up from the wooden couch,

And tried desperately not to sway.

I passed wooden chairs and a odd wood rug,

Looking for hints along the way.

That’s when it finally hit me, “There’s no door!” I began to shout. “How did I get in here… And how do I get out!”

The yelling brought me to my knees,

The breath in my lungs was fire.

The flickering light was dancing madly

My situation gravely dire.

I glanced around again, Wildly searching for some other clue.

And I saw on the farthest wall

A framed picture...of You.

That’s when the pieces clicked,

The wooden room, the flickering light. I could see His face so clearly then,

At the bar, sitting to my right.

He had known You, he said. You’d worked together for years.

We’d toasted to Your memory, And I cried drunkenly over our cheers.

He said You’d always smiled, And You’d never hurt a fly. That He had never met someone

Whose beauty made Him cry.

I told Him how I’d searched and searched For answers all these years. That I would do anything to know

What had happened, why You’d disappeared.

The whiskey flowed, my eyes were wet.

Then He turned to look at me.

His eye were black, so dark and deep,

And his smile stretched with glee.

“I can’t tell you where She went,”

He said in a careful tone. But I can show you, if you assent, Where she made her final home.”

For you see, on this fateful night, Through my wet and drunken eyes,

I was looking at the man who’d taken You, Who alone knew where You died.

My first instinct was anger, To hurt Him and to take All the breath from His thick throat

To revenge my constant heartache.

But as I lunged, the whiskey spun me

And I fell to the bar’s grimy ground.

He reminded me he was the only one Who could take me to where You’d be found.

Sobbing, lost, and wasted, I agreed to His horrific trade:

I would suffer the same fate as you, But at least I’d know where You laid.

We took his car. The trees sped by.

I felt completely numb then. I saw dark birds, the sky, and stars above, And wondered if I’d soon be among them.

After a while we pulled over, And started hiking on. It seemed like hours, days, or years, The same amount of time that You’d been gone.

As I sit in this wooden home, With no door, no light, just flickers

I now know it is not real, Just my brain’s reply to threats and liquor.

We went to this cabin once, A real one, a beautiful place.

The couch was soft, and door stayed open, And the breeze blew hair

around Your face.

He took me to a clearing. And then told me to dig deep.

The next thing I remember I was waking up from sleep.

So You see, this cabin is a coffin, Buried deep under the forest floor.

I crafted this home to help me cope

With the knowledge that there’s no more.

I’m in a box, made out of wood, With a single candle match, Just as You were buried, in a box, Did you scream? Did you scratch?

The cabin walls are fading In the flickering match light outside.

I close my eyes, and think of You, Hoping I’ll soon be by your side.

A Grave Memory

by Dustin Burden

In the dream I am running. Behind me is the crumbling house with asbestos siding. Inside, are broken plates, sticky surfaces, and oozing yellow stains from decades of smoking. I keep running toward a giant burn-pile behind the house. By the time I see the bone-white ash, and the mounds of metal and partially burnt tires; I notice that I’m not running but falling. Beneath me is a red slide, and as I fall faster and faster, I see it is not a slide, but a giant tongue. I am being swallowed by a monster.

The dream had gone on for months. I thought it was stress, a residual ache from the living nightmare of my life: the redline during rush hour after work, tweekers begging for money, or just being far from my home. Whatever was causing my actual nightmare, my bad dreams, I knew - the city wasn’t helping. It all had been so charming - once. Now, the city made my head feel like an over inflated balloon. Massachusetts, Dorchester, didn’t have anything left for me.

I needed a way out, so I contacted Henry. We did some time together down at the Bridgewater state hospital and he knew what I was capable of. When I told him

about my situation, Henry agreed - I should get out. He had an idea, quick money he said. He even knew a guy, some old geezer selling off equipment on the cheap. If I bought low and sold it off to the right people, I could make a lot of money.

The hell with it, I told myself. Why not?

A quick search and a phone call later, I was talking to the old geezer, Thomas Waitley. Waitley was looking to sell off some stone cutting equipment. His asking price was a steal, so we talked about money, and arranged the sale. After looking up his address, I realized his home was located near the old town of Wilson.

Wilson was a ghost town. Nothing like Dogtown up in the Northshore or Perkins, Maine. Wilson never had more than forty residents. All that was left were a few old colonials on the side of a forgotten interstate and the cemetery.

But I liked that sort of thing; old forgotten places. After searching internet forums, I learned there was a cave near the Wilson graveyard.

Like I said, I hadn’t been

sleeping too well. But when I withdrew all of my savings

I felt a surge of energy. That day, I violated my probation and drove north on the Alesbury Pike toward New Hampshire. I tried Seattle, Oakland, New York, Boston, and this was my last shot. I felt like the universe was telling me an emphatic yes. I rode with the windows down, singing the overplayed songs on the radio. As I crossed the border, I was on day two without sleep.

Two hours later, I drove through the Wilson cemetery gate. Gravel crunched beneath the truck’s tires as I crawled down the cemetery’s main road. Headstones dotted the hills of the graveyard like a mouth filled with crooked teeth. At the top of one of these hills was the most recent headstone, an unremarkable slab of polished granite; dated September 1940. In less than in a minute, I was parked in the back lot.

I parked next to the only car, a silver Honda Element. My phone read zero bars. But it didn’t matter. I remembered from the forums that a willow tree marked the entrance to the path. The tree was easy to find. Crossing the gravel parking lot, I stood beneath the

tendrils of the willow tree and found what I was looking for. The path was worn and beaten down into a hard pan. On either side, creeping ivy threatened to overwhelm it.

I was about to make my way down when I heard something soft and rhythmic behind me.

Across the cemetery, a shirtless, middle aged man was running laps. I was surprised I hadn’t seen him when I first pulled in. I watched him, and his bowl cut bounced with his stride. At first I thought it was a rug, but as he approached I could tell it was just a shitty haircut. He wore thin green Umbro shorts, the kind that are little more than a sheet of polyester. On his feet were neon green and gray running shoes.

The man’s gait lessened and soon his feet merely shuffled as he came to a stop beside the silver Honda Element.

I had my back to the path, and stood under the shade of the willow tree trying to hide. I watched, as the man rooted in his car for a moment before producing a package of cigarettes.

Once in hand, the spark of the lighter came. A light humid breeze passed across the headstones, and with it came a thick sweet smell of tobacco.

I must have taken a step out from where I was hiding, because the man noticed me and raised his hand in a wave. I turned away and moved down the path.

After ten minutes of stumbling down the trail; I found it.

The mouth of the cave was the size of a garage door. Three hulking slabs of rock covered the entrance like three jagged teeth. From the gaping maw came a putrid smell of brackish water, algae, and rot. I plugged my nose, knelt, and slithered past the slabs of granite and entered the cave.

My first step inside sent me sprawling.

Pain twisted up my leg like a drill. I had slipped on a black substance that covered the cave floor. But a new vitality was surging and I shot back up to my feet. Looking at my wounds, I saw a thick black gunk smeared my hands and knees. It smelled like the halitosis of an old man. I wiped away the putrid substance and moved forward. Following the thin blade of light cutting across the cave, I made my way to an outcropping of rock dangling from the ceiling like a giant uvula.

I reached the spot and balanced myself by holding onto the rock overhead. Up close, I could see the cave dropped down at a forty-fivedegree angle. A single step forward would send me into the blackness below.

I found a rock and gave it an underhand pitch down the gullet of the cave.

Two seconds passed before I heard the stone ricochet off something hard. No sooner had the sound of the bouncing stone stopped that I heard something coming from further down in the cave.

It was light; wispy almost. Water I thought, but the more I listened, the more I thought it sounded like voices.

In my mind I saw the burn pile from my childhood. The memory was vivid. I could see the sheet of firescorched metal half buried in ash. I unearthed the metal and beneath it was a dead cat. Its orange fur was matted and wet. Its belly was bloated and its mouth was open. As I stood in the cave, the memory changed. The cat’s fangs moved, its jaw shuttered to life. The holes filled with maggots rolled up, staring; the cat was talking to me.

I jumped and nearly fell below at the sound of a voice. I turned, still holding onto the outcropping of rock and faced the cave’s entrance. The jogger from the cemetery had poked his head into the cave.

“Howdy!”

The man from the cemetery squeezed into the cave. He had a shirt on this time; a short-sleeve button-up opened at the chest. He was still in his umbros and running shoes.

“I didn’t see you come back up,” he said breathlessly.

“Watch your step,” I called back.

“Yeah, whoa, what is this, Black mold?”

I shrugged, but I doubt he saw it.

“Can’t be healthy,” the man said, still walking toward me, hands out as if he were walking on ice.

I said nothing and watched the man approach.

“It’s hard as hell to see here. Glad I finally got to take a look.” The man said, laughing at his own contradiction.

“Much nicer in here isn’t?” the jogger said as he wiped his brow.

The cave seemed to tremble with the jogger’s loud voice. I turned away from the approaching man and stared down into the steep grade and the blackness below.

“Whatchaya lookin’ at?

Anything good?” The jogger said placing his hand next to mine on the outcrop of rocks hanging from the ceiling.

The jogger’s face was only inches from my own. He was smiling from behind his reddish beard. His straight white teeth reflected the small amount of light that reached this far back. His eyes were blue and expectant. The sort of face that hadn’t weathered too many failures.

“Not seeing,” I said, smiling back at him, “Listening,” I added.

The jogger continued to smile, and leaned in a little closer to me and the pit below. He looked up at me, as if expecting the punch line to some joke.

“You can’t hear it?” I said shifting over from him to take my place at the precipice of the abyss. The man shuffled around me and stood where I had stood.

The man knelt forward, almost bending over at the hip.

“Do you hear it?” I asked from behind him.

“Yes,” the jogger said vacantly. I knew the smile was gone from his face.

“What does it say?”

“It’s...” the man went to say but the words caught in his throat.

The jogger turned to face me. The expectant blue in his eyes was gone. His smile was replaced by a circle of terror. A hot gust of air busted from his gaping mouth as I shoved him with both hands.

The back of his head connected with the rock overhang. I had just enough time to watch his eyes roll back into his head before he fell into the darkness below.

I stayed in the cave and listened. The whispering was gone, replaced by a low gurgling hum.

“Give it time, you’ll adjust.”

I squeezed through the crack at the mouth of the cave and felt a warm blast of sunlight strike my face. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. The murky slime caked under my nails brought the smell of brackish water and algae. I found shade under a nearby tree and held my fingers to my nose and breathed in deep, before sticking my fingers in my mouth.

They tasted so good.

I bounded back up the hill, nearly running. The Honda Element was still parked next to my truck. As I passed it, I kicked the driver’s side door. The metal bent with a hollow pop and flakes of silver clung to my boot.

Leaving the cemetery, I pulled onto the road and nearly hit a Volkswagen Jetta. As I sped past, I caught a glimpse of the driver; a bewildered man with blonde dreadlocks. Both of his hands were raised up in fury. I roared past him and headed to the farm to buy the stone cutting equipment.

I drove for twenty minutes and fishtailed my truck onto Thomas Waitley’s long driveway. Waitley must have seen me make the turn; he

was already out the front door and pumping his arms in a hurried walk watching me approach. I buttoned my top button, gave my fingers a few more sniffs, and parked the car beside Thomas Waitley, who stood arms folded in his lawn. Waitley had a weathered face. He wore an ironed short sleeved t-shirt, with pearl colored buttons, and dirty blue jeans. The driver’s side door groaned open and I leaped from the seat into the dusty driveway. Waitley took an immediate step backward as I moved to greet him. The old man pivoted on his hip like a boxer and held out a hand as if to coax a wild dog.

“What’s your hurry, Chuck?” He asked nervously.

“You must be Mr. Waitley.” I said halting my approach.

The old man remained hunkered to the ground and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re the Marsten fella, here about the shop?” He asked wearily.

I beamed a wide grin at him and held out my hand.

“That’s me.” I said smiling. The old man said nothing,

but held the same puzzle stare as his eyes moved from me and to my outstretched hand. The old man waited several seconds before taking it.

“Let me show you what I’ve got.” He said.

“Great!”

Frowning, the old man dropped my hand and began to trot toward a small ramshackle barn. I followed, sneaking in two quick sniffs of the dirt under my nails, and walked the hundred yards to the building.

The fluorescent lights flickered on and I got a good look at the equipment. It was a large metal work bench with small hand tools used from grinding strewn across the top. Next to it was a modified table-saw for cutting stone.

Waitley stood looking at the discarded equipment with his hands on his hips.

“Business dried up in the sixties with my old man.”

As Waitley talked, my eyes were drawn to the saw.

The blade shimmered like sandpaper. I approached and ran my thumb across one of its jagged teeth.

“But I still do some odd jobs here and there.” The old man said behind me. “I used that saw there, to work a piece of granite for a local family; the grand-dad is buried up in the cemetery down the road.”

“Funny family, old family, helped found the town.” Mr. Waitley continued, “Got roots back to when one of them fellas that came up here from Salem.”

I nodded and gently spun the saw. The jagged teeth made a tinny sound as the blade made three smooth revolutions. I turned from the blade to see a single bead of blood ooze from my thumb.

“Guess he wanted to be buried with the rest of his kin.” Waitley added.

“This still work?” I asked, giving the blade another spin.

Tom Waitley said nothing, but reached for an orange extension cord, and plugged it into the wall. The blade whined with speed. I stood over it and listened.

I was back at the burnpile. The sheet of metal was gone. The orange cat, Cheeto, stood, with his paws buried in ash.

“The motor shouldn’t stutter a bit,” Waitley hollered behind me.

“Are you sure?” I called back over my shoulder, “I think I heard something.” Mr. Waitley leaned in; close enough that I could kiss his rutty cheek.

“I don’t hear…” The old man went to say.

I put my hand on his back and pulled him closer. Cheeto opened his mouth and his tongue rolled out, it was so red it was purple.

Ooze and maggots fell away from his face.

“Here listen.” I said with my mouth almost in his ear.

Cheeto, the cat I drowned in the bathtub, and hid in the burnpile, decades ago, held its mouth open as if to scream. More maggots fell out followed by a loud popping sound.

“Jesus! The old man cried out.

I looked down.

I saw the hot sticky blood, but then blinked.

There was only the unplugged extension cord. “Sorry ‘bout that; want me

to plug it again?” Waitley asked, holding the cable up to show me.

I shook my head. “I think I’m satisfied.”

I gave Tom Waitley the money. He counted the bills and nodded.

“Let me get the dolly.” He said as he stuffed the money in his pocket.

It was dusk by the time we had loaded half the equipment in the truck. I left promising to pick up the saw table and a few other tools the following day, but I never did.

I made it back to my hotel in Portsmouth, I was in the bathtub listening to the sounds coming from the bottom of the drain when I heard the pounding at the door. I was in handcuffs shortly after; the prime suspect in the murder of William Kinsman.

The car I passed as I left the cemetery was a friend of Mr. Kinsman, a man named Endsmoore. They had planned to continue jogging in the cemetery together. Apparently, Kinsman was quite the smoker and left a trail of cigarette butts down to the cave. Endsmoore

followed the trail, found the cave, and suspecting the worse, called the police.

As I spoke with Mr. Waitley, the police had already gotten my license plate number from Endsmoore, noted my truck’s tire marks and my shoe prints in the cave. By the end of my first night in the local jail they had found the body of William Kinsman. He had died almost on impact, falling nearly thirty feet into another anti-chamber of the cave.

I’m back at Bridgewater and I think my stay is going to last much longer this time. I came out of a mental fugue after the arrest. I got on some really good meds and got lots of therapy. That’s what this is; the doctors are having me write this letter. They say it’ll help me process my crime. After years, I think I know what I heard that day in the cave, in the pipes, and from my poor friend, my kitty Cheeto, haunting me in my dreams. It was just a single word, a command, repeated over and over and over.

Feed me.

artwork by Erryn Kimberly

The Droning

by unknown

The drone came from somewhere outside. It kept the same notes, whining monotonously with the occasional flair if only to convince me of its reality. I smashed my pillow down over my ears for a moment’s relief. I thought it might be the neighbor’s neon sign collection, the rarefied noble gases buzzing in atomic bliss, but it seemed to dance too much, to whistle, to flirt up and down in volume, tempting me into the thought it might in a moment vanish. But it persisted still.

I heard shouts and screams from the town. Their angst drowned in the flood, a horn rose from the sea, spilling chaos that crashed into and over itself and its wake left only cold, hard reality. The wail of the zombie hordes wailed and swelled, cresting and breaking over the potholes and graveled cement, convincing me of the coming apocalypse. Sirens blared and whistles flared, breaking the night into shambles. The drone picked up its own intensity. I was certain now that someone was playing a church organ in a repetitive manner. The housing for the mental was right next-door, so it would have made sense. The barking of a werewolf off in the distance jumped

my heart as I felt the rage and loneliness of the wolf who lost his pack. I was certain they were coming for me; the zombies, werewolves, and the wildly indignant alike. I felt their anger like a pumpkin orange hot iron on pale, supple, flesh. I knew they were rioting out in the streets: looting stores, breaking into cars, fighting, cursing, spitting, fucking, anything they could think of before the fire in their veins subsided and they were left weak and impotent upon the side of the road as the great cleanser of midnight filth, the street sweeper, came to cart them off to a far, far better sleep than that which they have known. I smelled the burning of the town and the strange musk of the adrenaline secreting from the wounded and the ruined rye of the freshly reaped. I tasted salt in the air and felt the flickers of a drowned town flit across my face. Finally, the fear of it got the best of me and I discarded myself from my bed and flew to the window, wrenching it open to better see the coming apocalypse.

It was quiet outside. The drone remained, playing its melancholy concerto, but the murderous mobs had vanished with the night, and the world was calm, quiet,

and cold again. I returned to bed and lay on my side, my entire body coated in a slick layer of clammy sweat. My joints and extremities buzzed like flies, tingling me and enticing a numbness I wanted to know. I could feel it fading, myself, my mind. The whispers were rarely more than hallucinations, the things I heard. My body felt rarefied, stripped, bending like trash in a compactor, weak with its overuse or underuse or some such poor treatment on my part. The haunting drone of the organ continued to swell, maintaining its monotony with just enough hints of character to obscure its origin, be it machine or man. I hacked violently, spitting up small amounts of blood onto the bare mattress, my sheets having been long since torn asunder. I heard voices again, the outside calling me. A murmur and a mutter, a sniff and a laugh. I thought I heard your voice; I hallucinated you had brought me flowers in the dead of the witching hour. I rose once more to look out into the night when I thought it was safe, to see if I could find your voice, like a specter on the fog. But when I looked out I saw an empty driveway and the orange glow of the streetlights and heard no voices.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her in the shed in the garden. Her eyes were wide and black and her face pale, mostly covered in a deep red hood. I froze, daring not to look at her full on, for I knew what her presence meant. She made no move either, and let me slink away from the window and return to my bed where I lay on my back and drew the covers up slowly. My heart was beating unlike anything I’d felt before, fear coursing through my veins and oxygenating my brain, and slowly the numbness I sought took over, first from the elbows and knees and then down my limbs into the fingers and toes. The blood in my veins was turning to sludge. Darkness poured in from the sides of my vision, encroaching on the already poor vision of my ceiling.

I felt this was it, that I was prepared to be taken, to be done. I accepted the dark and the numb, and the droning finally stopped. I would surrender myself for the sweetest sleep, and I would feel relieved to have it happen. I closed my eyes, my heart finally calming, ready to answer my calling, to slip and fade…

I felt the sun rise on my cheek once more and knew I had made it through another night yet, and wondered why

she had not come to take me to the shed, to bury me there with all of her pain. But as I walked out onto the porch, I saw your flowers and your words, and something began anew…

Distinguished Earth in Dissaray by woland

Distinguished earth in disarray

Anguished and twisted to this day

On wings of fortune does hell arise

That dark beast with such forlorn eyes;

Swirls and eddies, thick with thought Suddenly tension, ratchets thought

Leaving out to hope on high That which festers, prays to die.

A breath of death, a tear in fear letting go of a grip on peers

Wild form free to lose its light

Sickly returning to a world of blight.

by

The Cursed Stoner

by Blue Amnesia

“The ideal way to celebrate morphs as you grow, but trust me that you always end up wanting to do what you used to do when you were a kid.”

“I dunno about that, Grandma. I’m grown now and, not to be crass, but men my age like to party with beautiful women who like to role-play in whatever costume they’re wearing that night, and Cassondra is going to be at the party, so thanks, but I think I’m going to pass on the homemade candy and ghost stories tonight.”

Jared bent to kiss his grandma on the forehead as he grabbed his carefully crafted scythe and headed toward the ringing doorbell.

“Bro, what are you supposed to be? That is THE weirdest wizard staff I’ve ever seen.” Krystal pushed past Jared and skipped into the familiar kitchen to give granny a hug and raid the fridge, as they’d done since they were little.

“Ugh, why aren’t you in your costume already! I thought we were going to the party tonight? Remember?!

Cassondra is going to be there and I still have to go, y’know…run a few errands first!” Jared waved

his costume accessory sarcastically in the air and then toward the door.

“Um, no. I said ‘maybe’ to the party, but honestly, I’ve missed every Halloween with Gran since we were 15 and I thought we could just stay here and listen to ghost stories like old times! Plus, Gran already knows you smoke so I don’t know why you’re waving that thing around like a moron.”

Gran choked back her laughter as she bent into the cupboard to pull out her handmade hard candies for the evening’s festivities.

“Fine, you can stay here. I need to go to the dispensary before the party, but I’m not missing the chance to see Cassondra’s costume!”

Jared grabbed the remainder of his belongings and slammed the door behind him.

A minuscule of a second later, the door creaked back open and Jared sheepishly apologized to his grandma for slamming it, then sneered at Krystal in a playful way and said, “And it’s not a wizard staff. I’m the Bong Reaper! It’s a bong scythe!” before closing the door and rushing off.

A loud crashing sound followed by a stream of

expletives came shortly after when Jared dropped the glass pipe that was tucked away in his robe. Both Gran and Krystal looked at each other with pursed lips before erupting in laughter. “That boy is gonna have a real rough night if he smokes from that thing! That’s the cursed bong that boy just used for his costume!” She threw her head back in all-knowing delight and unscrewed the jar to the candies she made especially for that night’s ghost stories.

“Careful when you suck on these candies too, they’re not the same candies we pass out to the kids if you know what I mean!” Gran said with a wink.

“Woah, you mean you’ve been getting high this entire time? And what do you mean cursed bong?” Krystal knew that Jared’s grandma was cool, I mean, she was the first one to teach them to be a woman, but she certainly had never seen her rip from a bong before!

“Why don’t you suck on one of those and I’ll tell you the story of The Cursed Bong in a few minutes.”

Meanwhile, Jared already took the last few hits of his flower from the handmade

cosplay scythe before getting in the exorbitantly long dispensary line. He was disappointed that his regular sources were all out of town and he wanted to make sure he showed up to the party with an impressive amount of flower. He knew, after all, that Cassondra was one of the biggest stoners in his class and he wanted to impress her.

After half-an-hour of standing in line dazed, he realized that the line he was in was actually for the haunted house and the line for the dispensary was wrapped around the other end of the building. He sighed deeply and headed toward the end of the correct line, knowing that by the time he reached the front his high would wear off and he would certainly be ready to smoke whatever he was about to buy.

Just as he reached the end of the correct line, a gargantuan security guard came towards the center of restless stoners and announced in a loud boom that the dispensary was now dry and the next shipment of flower would be there in approximately three hours. A sea of groans ensued and Jared decided to just go to the party where there would surely be plenty of

grass already! The stressful series of events killed the buzz, though, and now he was really looking forward to both his next smoke session and seeing his special ganja girl all dressed up. He scurried to the back room hiding his face under his grim reaper cape, quietly waiting for his turn to hit the bong. Just as it was being handed to him, the sister with the ripped tail barged in, pointing at him and shrieked, “THAT’S HIM!”

His instinct was to put the bong down swiftly, but as he was turning to place it on the table, he hit the corner and shattered the entire piece. Frozen in place, all he wanted to do was be home, eating Gran’s candy and listening to ghost stories like he did when he was a kid.