There weren’t many kids going around from house to house. As far as he could see, there were no more than twenty in their own groups, not including his own. While looking at them visiting houses, he also scanned through the streets for Ryan.
“Always freaking late.” said Terrence, looking at his Apple Watch.
“Hey, give him some slack. You know why he’s always late.” said Bryce sympathetic.
“That house’s out, too.” Aaron pointed at a house a bit far from them. There were other kids, a bit younger than them, at the porch. The owner seemed to be mad, pointing at them and swinging his hands to shoo them away. They could hear him screaming, although inaudible, but the door slamming was quite clear to their ears.
“What’s going on there…?” frowned Bryce. It took him just a second to realize, “Don’t tell me…”
“Seems like it’s the case.” said Terrence. The light inside the house then was turned off. The kids then walked away and left; they seemed disillusioned and furious as well. “My parents actually don’t want me to go out and ‘trick-or-treat.’ I have to wear this stupidly expensive watch so that they can track and call me any time…”
“Hey, at least you get to have expensive stuff.” commented Aaron.
“That's just the stupidest ‘at least’ comparison I have ever heard…” replied Terrence.
“There. Finally…”
Ryan showed up, from nowhere, and was running toward them. He wasn't really fast — even from afar, he could tell that he was exhausted. He simply carried a plastic bag on his hand, unlike all three of them, who used sophisticated pumpkin-shaped purses. He wore a sort of clothing from Middle Ages, but stained with blood. He couldn’t help but feel that he was wearing the costume of Bloody Baron, minus the chain.
“Sorry… late… hhh… started… already…?” panted Ryan between his exhausted breathing, as he caught up with them..
“Duh. If we wait for you, we won't get as much as this.” said Aaron. He showed him the candies inside his own bag; it was half-full of candies, most of which were chocolate.
“How’s your mom?” asked Bryce.
“Doing well… come on…”
Slowly, he started to catch his own breath. They immediately walked to the closest house. “Are you sure she’s going to be fine?”
“She’s sleeping now. She won’t wake until morning — it’s not like we’re going for candies all night…”
Almost all the houses had Halloween decorations, but simply by putting pumpkin lanterns on the floor at the porch. As they entered the porch, Bryce realized that they turned out to be of plastic pumpkins and light bulbs inside. Aside from that, there was nothing else of Halloween from the house.
“You guys are staying over, right? Just making sure…” asked Ryan again.
“Yeah, of course, we are.”
Aaron rang the bell, as Bryce commented, looking at the fake lanterns, “No spirit of Halloween, I see…”
The door opened. He didn't realize that it was Mrs. Green until she opened the door. He quickly hid his annoyance on his face, smiled widely, “Trick’o’treat!”
“Still ‘trick or treat’?” said Mrs. Green; not even one bit of smile was there. “It’s already late — especially for you, Ryan. Who’s taking care of your mom?”
“She's fine, Mrs. Green.” replied Ryan. Even to Bryce, it was clear that he was annoyed by it.
“Great. No one’s taking care of her. Don’t come crying if something happens.” burst Mrs. Green. “And it’s way late — if that happens again…”
“Come on, Mrs. Green. It’s Halloween…”
“Exactly. That’s the problem.” cut Mrs. Green.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Green. Just give us the candies and we’ll go home immediately.” said Aaron, obviously cutting out the problem from getting worse. Bryce stole a glance at Ryan; he seemed to be losing control of himself.
“Yeah, right.” snuffed Mrs. Green. Despite that, she grabbed a big bucket full of various kinds of candies from behind the door. She then grabbed a handful, and poured it into each of their bags, even including Ryan’s. “Not satisfyingly full, but sure, you’d call it a day and go home.”
Without any further saying, she closed the door, with a bit of slamming. As they walked out of her porch, Ryan said, with a low voice, “Mean.”
“Joy-killing meanie.” agreed Terrence.
“She’s not wrong, though…” argued Bryce.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re brainwashed that instantly…” mocked Aaron.
“Her eyes, her face, her boobs…?” continued Terrence.
They three burst out laughing loudly, whereas Bryce could only blush, “Come on, guys, seriously…?!”
“You started it yourself, dude…!” laughed Aaron.
“Okay, screw you all.” replied Bryce. He still tried to remove his blush on his cheeks.
They were about to enter the next house, when they immediately stopped laughing. “Alright, alright… let’s get serious for now.” said Aaron, when he pressed the bell, again.
In the next thirty seconds, all four of them stood still in silence, waiting eagerly for the door to open and to shout, “Trick’o’treat!” But then, Aaron pressed the button again.
“Light’s on…” Terrence took a peek to the small glass window next to the door. Although it was closed by thick curtain, they could still see bit of light behind the curtain, from the inside.
“The… this house belongs to… that new guy, what’s his name?” Ryan snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to recall.
“I don’t know… Mr. Hill or something…?” said Terrence.
“Is he sleeping?” guessed Bryce, as Aaron pressed the bell one more time. “What time is it, anyway?”
Just after that, they heard a voice from inside the house, slightly muted. It was clear that the man was quite awake, but far inside from the door. “Candy’s out! Get out…!”
They could only look at each other for a few seconds. Bryce himself was thinking of pressing the button again, but the tone of the man was clear to them, that it would not be pretty if they insist. He saw that the others didn't dare trying for the second time as well. Eventually, they left the house.
“I’m starting to get bored for this.” growled Terrence. “It’s not fun anymore.”
“What can we say? It was horrible… I would do the same if I were visited…” said Bryce sympathetically.
“Who are they?!” roared Terrence. “They ruin everything!”
“Just Halloween, though…!” added Ryan.
“Please, if they ruin Christmas and New Year as well, I’d ask my parents to just move out…” said Aaron.
“What if we investigate it ourselves?” suggested Bryce. For a moment, he was actually panicked by himself, spitting his idea out through his mouth, but regardless, he continued as bravely as he could, “Find out who they actually are, where they gather around, and yank their asses?”
As response, his friends stared at him for a few seconds in silence. From their expressions on their faces alone, it was clear to Bryce that they objected to his idea.
“How…?” Aaron was the one to speak up.
They all stopped strolling at sidewalk, not too far from the house of the new resident, and altogether formed a circle.
“Well…” and then he paused. Aaron’s question was just a word, but it did make him think about it more thoroughly.
“And if we find out these guys, somehow, how would we… yank their asses, like you said?”
“H-Hang on… let’s think about it one by one. First…”
It took him some time to come up with a plan, but eventually, he said, “In these last three years, they’ve started it every night in Halloween, around nine o’clock… right?”
“Look at his face…” chuckled Ryan.
“Point is!” roared Bryce. “What time is it now?”
Terrence looked at his expensive watch. “Few minutes to nine o’clock.”
“So, if they start their action, we should follow them. Maybe they have a place to gather after it…” suggested Bryce; the moment he got the grasp of his plan, the more confident he became.
“I don’t know… Bryce, this is… this seems bad…”
“But this can’t keep happening. No one has managed to catch either one of them.”
“But for some reason, we can?” said Aaron. “The police haven't managed to even find them…”
“At least we try — I don’t see any of them patrolling the streets. I don’t think if they even care.” said Bryce, vivacious.
They all said nothing — only Ryan seemed intrigued with the idea. So Bryce decided to persuade them further, with a wide smile on his face, “Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure? You mean, we should just go to Ryan’s house and sit down watching boring movies?”
“Adventure…?” said Aaron, full of doubt, and even concern. “I prefer safe adventure…”
“If things go wrong, we can just run away. We’ll use our bikes. What do you say? Ryan?”
“Okay… but how long?” replied Ryan.
“At least until ten o’clock. They’ve never done it really late at night, right?” answered Bryce. “And then we’ll go back to your house. What about you both?”
Instead of replying, they just looked at each other. It was clear that they wanted to say no, but unable to do so, for some reason. It took them a while, until Aaron said, “How about we put these candies in his house first? We can’t carry all these while… doing whatever it is.”
“Okay, fair enough,” said Bryce, smiling widely. “Come on.”
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