Making Fantasia (KF Prequel): The Nightmare After Christmas

Chapter 3: Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

Chapter 3: Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

As the evening progressed, the trick-or-treaters became older. Toddlers were replaced by tweens; tweens were replaced by teenagers. Most of them were animals.

Actually, all of them were animals.

"Look at Flat Face pretending to be a bear. Hey! Flat Face! C'mere!"

Nessie swerved as a woodchuck snatched her fake tail. She darted into the cemetery, but a blue jay fluttered into her face. Stumbling, she dropped her violin.  A deer bit her hood, twisting her to the ground.

Candy spewed from her bag as the animal cubs condensed.

"Look at these!" The Woodchuck splayed her delicate foxy ears. "What a freak!"

"Do they come off?" laughed the Blue Jay.

"Pull em! Pull em!"

Nessie scampered on her hands and knees, whimpering as they yanked her hair. 

"Whatsa matter Flat Face?" The Woodchuck held her ears like reins. "Gonna cry? Gonna cry to your human mommy – "

Loch pounced into the brawl, incisors glinting. His fingernails sunk into the woodchuck's chest, and he relished the squish of tissue splitting around his knuckles. Snarling, he chased the cubs into the forest, hurling stones as they fled.

"Get out! Dirty animals!" Loch sucked woodchuck blood from his fingertips. He ran a tooth under the nail. "Nessie, ye okay?"

Nessie was on her knees, candy strewn. Her hood was lopsided. A fuzzy bear ear was hanging by a thread.

Loch crouched. Slipping a hand under her hood, he rubbed a silky, red ear.

"Remember what Uncle Nick says. Dinnae let them see that they get to you." He nipped her nose. "Yer beautiful. Just like the Unicorn Queen. Okay?"

Nessie's ears lifted. If she had a tail, it would have wagged.

"C'mon." Loch retrieved her fiddle. "Let's get yer candy and go home. Where's yer bag? Ah I see. Bastards threw it over – "

Loch reached for a burlap sack, flung over a grave. As he touched the burlap, it flapped off the stone, uncovering a hive of maggots.

Loch recoiled. Hand on his stomach, he leaned over the grave, looking for the bag.

Something slithered, kicking up leaves. Burlap flicked in the corner of his eye. Loch spun, expecting Nessie's bullies to have returned with reinforcements.

His heart stopped. The burlap was draped over Nessie's shoulders. Fingers extended from the threads as the sack billowed into a monster.

Nessie cried. The monster had her by the throat. 

Loch's entire body tensed. He stared without seeing, cognizant only that his sister was in danger. Limbs shaking, he moved toward the monster, but pain ripped through his calf. Buckling, he looked back: a dagger was in his leg. Three gremlins held his ankle as he tried to escape. Loch recognized them as the witch, devil, and skeleton who had traded candy with Uncle Nick.

"Trick or treat!" The gremlins wailed. Together, they sunk the dagger deeper into Loch's muscle. "Smell my feet!"

"Give me something good to eat." The burlap monster chewed Nessie's ears. "If you don't, I won't be sad..."

His sockets lifted gleefully as Merida and Robin sprinted into the clearing. Summoning the gremlins, he vanished into the graveyard with their children.

"I'll just make you wish you had."