They didn’t stop running until they had made it all the way back to Moonset Drive, stopping just short of the road to catch their breath in between the backyard fences of some houses.

  “Did you just see what I saw?” Jesse asked between gulps of air. His lungs were on fire, but all he could think about were those creatures back at the haunted house.

  Siobhan took another breath from her inhaler. “I think I saw a couple of real monsters dressed up as fake monsters.”

  “But how is that possible? Monsters don’t exist.”

  “I don’t know! They looked normal before the whole light show. Maybe-Maybe the smoke or something is messing with our heads.”

  “That doesn’t- argh!” He had leaned against one of the fences for support, but quickly recoiled when his hand brushed something sticky.

  “What, what’s wrong?”

  He held out his hand, thin strands still clinging to his fingers, connecting back to the fence. Looking closer, he could see that they were the same web covered houses they saw earlier. “This house, I think these are real spiderwebs!”

  “Gross.” Siobhan wrinkled her nose. “That must be one huge spider.”

  Jessie could feel his anxiety growing by the second. There was something deeply wrong about this neighborhood. He turned his attention to the street, where the block party was still going on.

  At the apple bobbing booth, a woman dressed as a witch had her head submerged in the tub. When she pulled out of the water, an apple was clamped in her teeth. She was so proud of her victory, she didn’t notice that her makeup had washed away to reveal her blue skin underneath.

  A young man and woman strolled through the crowd, arm in arm. Both of them were transparent, the other side of the neighborhood visible through them, and were so absorbed in each other that they didn’t notice the fountain right in front of them, walking straight through it as though it didn’t exist.

  Shuffling down the street near their hiding place, a zombie slowly made his way, completely oblivious when his arm fell off, twitching on the sidewalk in front of them like it was still attached.

  “Siobhan,” Jesse said, swallowing hard. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Yeah, good idea.” She had gone pale next to him. “I like paranormal stuff as much as the next girl, but I’d rather not be a vampire’s dinner.”

  “Wait a sec.” A thought just struck him. “What was the name of that girl we saw earlier?”

  “Who, Alicia?”

  “We should go find her and her brother. And Noah, too,” he added.

  The sun had just set, so it was unlikely any of them had gone home already.

  “Why? We should just get out of here while we still can.”

  “Because we didn’t figure all of this out until just now. They probably don’t know about… this.” He gestured to the monster party happening before them. “They could be in danger.”

  “Ugh, I hate that you’re right. Fine, we’ll look for them, but if we don’t find them in thirty minutes, we’re leaving.”

  “Alright, we could cover more ground if we split up.” It was a bad idea, but it was better than trying to find them one at a time. With how many people were here, who knows how long that would take. “We’ll meet up at the pumpkin patch.”

  And with that, they took off in different directions, hoping desperately to find their classmates before the monsters did.

  Jesse weaved through the crowd, careful not to touch anyone, keeping his eyes peeled for Noah and Alicia. Now that the sun had gone down, it was like the neighborhood suddenly sprang to life. There were more than double the people there had been earlier, as if they had been waiting for the night to arrive.

  As he ran past some houses, he saw something out of the corner of his eye and backtracked. In the grassy alley between wooden exteriors, a familiarly dressed slasher was surrounded by a group of teenagers.

  There were five of them, all dressed in punk clothing, and they had Noah backed against a wall. Jesse snuck closer, praying nobody would notice him, and as he approached, he saw that they were the same teens had seen earlier lurking in the shadows. Fortunately for him, all of their attention was trained solely on Noah.

  “We can tell you’re not from around here,” One of the teens was saying. “So you wouldn’t know about our rules. Number one: the candy tax.”

  “We’re gonna need you to hand over… mmm, let’s say half of that bag.”

  “What? No way!” Noah’s mask was off, nothing hiding his glare as he stared the teen down.

  “C’mon, be reasonable. You are coming into our neighborhood after all.”

  “I’m not giving you any of my candy.”

  One of the teens, a boy with silver blond hair and a black leather jacket, took a step forward, clearly the leader of their group. “Seriously, kid, don’t make me ask again.”

  The rest of them snarled, backing him up, and Jesse had gotten close enough now that he could see razor sharp fangs protruding where their canines should be. Noah, however, remained oblivious to the threat before him, tightening his grip on his bag of candy.

  Jesse realized he had to do something- and quick.

  “Noah!” he called, closing the remaining distance between them. “There you are. We have to go.”

  “Not so fast, fledgling,” the leader said, holding his hand out to stop him. “He’s not going anywhere ‘til he forks over the candy.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Fledgling? He’d thought he’d heard that word before, and when he noticed the faint puncture wounds on the side of the leader’s neck, everything clicked. Vampires.

  But wait… Jesse thought, running his tongue over his fake fangs. Do they think I’m one of them?

  “You should go trick-or-treating yourselves if you want some that badly,” Noah retorted.

  “And why would we do that when you’ve already gone through the trouble for us?”

  Jesse desperately searched his memories for anything Siobhan might have told him about vampires. Anything that could help. “Seriously, Noah, we should get going- “

  “Hang on a minute, Damien,” one of the lackeys narrowed his eyes, which were an unsettling shade of yellow. “There’s something weird about this kid.” He leaned in closer, and even Noah backed up under his gaze. Jesse watched in horror as realization dawned on him and his eyes widened. “Wait, this guy is hu-”

  “He’s my thrall!” Jesse blurted out.

  “What?” Noah and the vampires asked at the same time.

  “My human servant. I-I sent him to get some candy for me, isn’t that right, Noah?”

  “I don’t- ow!” Jesse cut him off by nudging him in the ribs.

  “But he should have known better than to pick a fight with some real vampires, like yourselves.”

  Noah looked like he wanted to argue, but when Jesse jerked his head back towards the teens, he finally noticed their fangs for the first time. His own eyes widened in shock.

  “This kid is your thrall?” For a second Jesse thought they might not believe him, but then they exchanged impressed looks with each other. “Sorry for calling you a fledgling earlier.”

  “Uh, I am one. That’s why he’s not totally under my control. I’m not very good with my powers.” He hoped all of this sounded believable as he made it up.

  Apparently, it was, as the leader, Damien, clamped a hand on his shoulder. He fought hard not to flinch. “Hey man, don’t worry about it. I remember when I first turned. You’ve already got a thrall; you’re doing way better than me!”

  The other vampire teens nodded in agreement, giving words of encouragement.

  “Just keep practicing.”

  “You’ll be turning into a bat in no time.”

  “Remember to drink plenty of b negative.”

  “Know what?” Damien said. “Forget the tax stuff; us vamps got to stick together.”

  He motioned with his head for his lackeys to follow him and they started to leave the alley, but not before he cast one last look over his shoulder back at Jesse, winking.

  “Nice costume, by the way, fledgling.”

  As soon as they were gone, Noah rounded on Jesse.

  “Okay, what is going on? Those were real vampires!”

  “It’s not just them,” he explained. “Everyone, this whole neighborhood, they’re all real monsters. Now can we please get out of here?”

  “But aren’t you one of them?” He looked suspiciously at Jesse’s own fangs.

  “If I were a real vampire, I wouldn’t have come to help you. We only just found out.”

  “Fine then.” Noah looked out onto Moonset, where the various monsters milled about. “You have a plan?”

  “The pumpkin patch, we’ll meet up with- “

  “Let’s go.”

  Noah marched off, dropping the candy bag he had been trying so hard to protect. He didn’t bother waiting for Jesse, leaving him scrambling to catch up.

  Hopefully Siobhan was having an easier time with Alicia.

  The two boys avoided as many other monsters as they could, while at the same time trying not to seem suspicious. They stuck to the back roads, or at least, the grassy areas behind the houses separating the streets of Gravewood.

  Fortunately, they made it to the pumpkin patch without incident. As they made their way through the crops, Jesse spotted a farm house in the distance, probably where the owners of the patch lived. It didn’t look like anyone was home, though, since all the lights were off. Maybe they were away running some other booth at the block party.

  “Hey, is that them?” Noah asked suddenly.

  At the far end of the field, nearing the forest, three figures were standing, one significantly shorter than the others. As they got closer, Jesse was relieved to see it was Siobhan with Alicia and her brother.

  “Is this some sort of prank?” Alicia was saying. “Because if it is, it’s not funny.”

  “I swear I’m telling the truth!” Siobhan pleaded. She waved when she saw them approaching. “Jesse!”

  “And you got your friends in on it, too.”

  “It’s not a prank!”

  “Alicia, listen to us,” Jesse said. “This place is dangerous. We need to leave now.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Noah pushed past them. “If the princess wants to get killed, that’s her business. Let’s just leave her.”

  “Yes, please, leave us alone. Keep us out of whatever weird occult ritual you’re doing now.”

  “It’s not a ritual,” Siobhan snapped. “Don’t believe everything my sister says.”

  Alica leveled her with a stare. “You’re literally asking me to believe that this place is filled with ghouls and ghosts or whatever.”

  “Yeah, she’s right.”

  They all jumped at the new voice. Jesse spun around to find its source, but there was no one else nearby, aside from the security guard at the checkpoint from earlier, which he could now see was a zombie, who was currently absorbed in reading a newspaper. No sign of the owner of the voice. That is, until it spoke again.

  “I mean, real monsters?” Jesse looked down to see a particularly large pumpkin with a face carved into it. It looked like a regular jack-o-lantern, but as he watched, its mouth began to move. “Who would be dumb enough to fall for something like that?”

  Alicia let out a high-pitched scream before Siobhan quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Jeez, you’re loud.”

  “Okay, I believe you guys,” she said, removing Siobhan’s hand.

  “Great, now can we finally leave?”

  “No, you can’t,” The jack-o-lantern said matter-of-factly.

  “What, are you going to stop us?” Noah crossed his arms.

  “No. But the barrier will.”

  “Barrier?” Jesse looked around the field once again but couldn’t see anything that looked like a barrier.

  “The barrier right in front of you, of course.”

  “This is stupid, I’m going.”

  Noah started walking away, towards the woods, but he only got a few steps past the patch when he smacked head-first into something invisible, stopping him in his tracks.

  “What the-?” He pounded the air in front of him, but whatever it was didn’t budge. He gave it a hard kick as well; nothing. The zombie guard raised an eyebrow at him.

  He returned to the group. “We’re stuck here.”

  “No, no, try it again,” the jack-o-lantern said, fighting to keep the laughter from his voice. “I’m sure it’ll work this time.”

  “Okay, that’s it-” He raised his foot to smash the pumpkin’s face in, but Jesse rushed between them.

  “Woah, woah, hold on.” Jesse kneeled down to speak to the pumpkin. “You know a lot about what’s going on, don’t you?”

  “I know everything,” he proclaimed proudly.

  “Then how do we get past this barrier?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You little-” Noah raised his foot again.

  “But the witch does.”

  “Witch?” Siobhan asked.

  “Bella Cardenas. She lives in the neighborhood, but she’s a human like you so she probably won’t try to kill you.”

  Jesse chose to ignore that last part. “And she can help us?”

  “Maybe.”

  How could a vegetable be so infuriating?

  “Ashton!” Alicia suddenly shouted.

  “What?” Jesse asked.

  “My baby brother,” she explained, looking around frantically. “He was here just a second ago. Where did he go? We can’t leave without him!”

  Sure enough, the little boy was nowhere to be found. As he searched the path, Jesse spotted a pair of small footprints in the dirt, leading back to the neighborhood.

  “He went that way,” he pointed. “But how did he get so far without any of us noticing?”

  She cursed. “He’s always wandering off. I told him not to do that tonight.”

  “Sister of the year,” the jack-o-lantern remarked.

  Alicia pointed at Siobhan. “You distracted me with all of your monster talk!”

  “Sorry, I was trying to save you!” Siobhan defended.

  She threw her hands up, clearly losing her patience. “I can’t stand around here anymore. I’m going to find Ashton.”

  Without another word, she ran through the pumpkin patch, headed back towards the block party.

  “Wait, it’s dangerous to go by yourself!” Siobhan called before taking off after her.

  “How much do you want to bet they’ll be eaten?” The jack-o-lantern said.

  Jesse ignored the barb. “Tell us where to find Bella.”

  He scoffed. “Why should I do that? I’ve already helped you plenty-”

  “Helped?” Noah interrupted.

  “You haven’t even asked for my name! So rude.”

  “What is your name?” Jesse asked.

  “Brom.”

  “Brom?” he repeated.

  He rolls his eyes, or that’s what Jesse assumed he was doing. It was hard to tell without any pupils. “Kids these days! I’ll have you know I was named after my great, great, great- “

  “Yeah, that’s great.” Noah stooped down and picked him up, right off the stem. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Put me down!” Brom demanded.

  “Come on,” Noah said, hoisting the pumpkin in his arms. “Let’s go catch up with the others.”