The Patriarch

Part One

You had worked for WEEKS on this costume. It was your greatest Halloween costume achievement to date, and you hopped around like a little kid as you glued the last bits into place and stepped back to look it over. 

Fan-flipping-tastic. 

You're not sure how you'd managed to do it, but the horned animal skull you'd made looked extremely convincing. You bounce around a bit more before finally getting a hold of yourself and try to calm down. It was still the day before Halloween, and you still had a bit of stuff to do to be ready. You glance at the clock and grab your keys; time to run out for a few last minute things for your Trick or Treat booth. You look at your costume one more time on your way out, and you smile. This was going to be so much fun.

A few hours later, you come home with a few bags of candy to give out, and a few bags of candy for yourself. You'd even picked up a movie and some popcorn for this evening; an old favorite you'd been meaning to get a copy of for years. You giggle as you get things set up for your nice little Halloween party for one.

A little while later, you're curled up on the couch under your favorite Halloween blanket with an enormous bowl of popcorn and the remote. Just as you press play, you hear a weird noise outside your back door. 

Pausing, you crane your neck to see past your costume on its mannequin out the back glass sliding door. You're not sure, but you feel like you can see something moving around out there. 

You slowly stand and walk cautiously to peek outside. You flip on the light, and see nothing. A gust of wind blows, and some leaves rustle past. You sigh and shrug. You leave the light on and go back to your movie. The rest of the night goes without incident, and you go to bed excited about the following day.

The day of the 31st passes incredibly slowly, and you literally scream when you finally get home and start setting things up. You were going to go out and wander around the neighborhood in costume, so you had to get your unmanned Trick or Treater booth set up. 

You grab everything for it and get it ready in what feels like record time. Dusting off your hands, you turn to go back inside, when you see something out of the corner of your eye. It was pretty big, but when you turn to look directly at whatever it was, it's no longer there. 

You stare at where it had been for a moment before shrugging and heading inside; it was probably one of your friends trying to prank you. The weird part was that it had looked a lot like your costume. But then again, you hadn't exactly kept your design a secret. 

Oh well. You go in and start getting ready; it was going to take a while to get everything put on.

About an hour or so later, you emerge from your house in full regalia: skull helmet mask in place, voluminous black cloak with dramatic feathered collar, and sharp clawed bone gloves. You weren't too concerned about what was under the cloak, since you planned on keeping it closed, but you wore black so it would match. 

You lock the door and look out into the street, the first few folks out in costume already in the orange light of the sunset. You grin under your mask; this was going to be so much fun!

You spend the next little while wandering around spooking folks, which always made them laugh. You got quite a few compliments about how realistic your costume was, and it made you really glad of how much work you'd put into it. 

You waved back at the latest group of trick-or-treaters as you step around a blind corner. The main downfall of this mask was the way it inhibited your peripheral vision: you run heavily into somebody and are almost knocked down from the impact. 

Swinging your arms wildly, you catch your balance, and immediately apologize to whomever it was you hit before actually seeing them. As you straighten your mask, you look forward.