Oktober Mermaids

Elm Halloween Bash of 2018

Nowadays vampires develop blood allergies. It's a side effect of vaccination. (Or at least, Banshee Belle believes vaccinations cause blood allergies. Then other banshees wailed the rumor around.) 

Because the Elm Halloween Bash needs to be friendly to children with allergens, the blood-cinnamon hard candies are replaced with candy horns, which are horn-shaped and horn-colored bite-sized chews that taste like wax.

"Vis is visgusting," Vampire Veera gags. "Vere are the cinnamon hard candies?"

"You talk like a warlock," Ghoul Gayla groans.

Veera and Gayla are publicly romantic, kind of like how Belle spends most of her time sitting in Werewolf Wilber's lap. No one knows if Veera and Gayla love one another, though—or if it's just part of the vampire-ghoul relationship. 

After all, the only reason Gayla's alive is because Veera drains blood into her neck—and there's no avoiding that that's a sexual thing—so it's open for interpretation. Mermaid Mana thinks it could be a platonic exchange, even a business arrangement; she regularly argues that at the bar across the street from Uni.

Veera and Gayla are college freshmen, so for sophomores like Belle and Wilber, or a senior like Mana, trying to figure them out is part of the Elm Halloween Bash fun. On the north side, the bash is all about buckets of candy, rooms of funny mirrors, and shrilling children; but on the south side, it's about kegs, fortune telling, and young adults probing the boundaries outside their childhood home.

Since Mana is confined to the saltwater, natural stone pool in the backyard, the rest of the party drifts out there. It's Mana's house; no one would have the nerve to exclude her.

As Veera and Gayla weave through the crowds of werebeasts, fey, and elemental spirits to reach the canopied pool chairs, Belle shifts on Wilber's lap so she can stretch upright, hollering, "Over here, ladies!"

That's the other tricky part of Veera and Gayla. Sure, Belle's cool with lesbians—and Wilber's at least convinced himself he's overcome his homophobia—but wouldn't it be easier, Mana argued once, if they were just two women in a platonic relationship?

Veera and Gayla sit in two pink-and-yellow-striped plastic chairs. Today, Mana finds out.

Wilber glances at the mermaid who's swimming from the dark of the natural rock pool, up to the solar-lit edge near their chairs. The five friends uncork a bottle of champagne, pouring into a mixture of flutes, wine glasses, and a coffee mug.

"Veera," Belle says. "We're going to a couple's retreat this year. We were wondering if you wanted to go with us?"

"Vhy yes," Veera replies.

During that glance, Mana interrupts, "With Gayla?"

"Vell of course,"  Veera says. 

Then it hits her. 

She checks for affirmation in the mermaid's eyes. Yes; this is the manipulative way adult life will check her identities now. 

♦

Author's Note

First draft: October 18

Word count: 455 (without author's note)

Inspired by: @WattVampires contest, "The Haunted Neighborhood," second prompt, "Let's get the party started!" which reads: Every year, Halloween night on Elm Street is unique. Monsters from across the world visit from one night of revelry and mischief! The vampires, the werewolves, the ghosts, ghouls and banshees! All descend on Elm Street for trick or treating! Can you imagine such a scene? What would the monsters be wearing? What would their candy be like? What would they say to one another?

Read more here:
https://my.w.tt/XZue5pKwPQ