Crossover with Trick 'r Treat.
Little Bo Peep picked a gobbet of human flesh from between her too-long, too-sharp teeth, made a half-hearted attempt to wipe away the gore smearing the lower half of her face, and belched. She giggled, leaning heavily on her pink and white shepherd's crook, and took a swig from the small be-ribboned hip flask she produced from somewhere amidst her ruffled petticoats. Snow White shot her a weary look, pocketing the shiny red apple she'd been tossing from hand to hand as she moved to steady her friend.
"What does it say?" she asked the tall blonde in the pale blue ballgown.
Cinderella kicked off her one remaining plexi-glass slipper, her long, hairy toes flexing as they clawed the wet earth beneath her feet. Her tight-laced bodice was torn at the seams and the heavy skirts of her dress were tattered and bloodied. She held her head high, the shattered remnants of a crystal tiara glittering in the tumble-down curls of her ruined up-do.
"It's a death threat," she said, smiling with all her beautiful teeth on display. "It's a death threat written in gorgeous calligraphy on hand-made paper pressed with lavender, and it contains some very well-done illustrations of what exactly will happen if we don't leave town and never come back."
She held the note out for inspection, dangling it carelessly over one shoulder without taking her eyes off the challengers, and Snow White snatched it up with one manicured paw. She laughed, and the sound was deep and lovely and infinitely cruel.
"I like these," she said. "Can I keep them? I've never had a love note quite like these."
Syndi Teller's white-gloved finger tightened on the trigger of her sawn-off shotgun.
"Sure, you can keep them," she said. "If you like, we can even have the artist sign them for you. Isn't that right, Sara Sue?"
Sara Sue started, the muzzle of her own weapon jerking wildly. She mumbled something, too soft to hear, and the fairytale girls howled with mirth.
"Oh, you are a delight," said Snow White. "I could just eat you alive."
Cinderella nodded.
"She could," she said. "I keep telling her, we come for the men, only the men, but she insists that you all taste the same."
"It's all meat to me," said Snow White. Her tongue, long and pink, slithered over jutting fangs and swept a wide circle around her mouth, brushing the bridge of her nose and the underside of her jaw as it passed.
Behind Syndi, Melanie Monroe made a small oooh-ing sound, half impressed, half grossed out. Janet nudged her.
"What?" Melanie whispered. "You have to admit, that was cool."
Janet's hands were sweating beneath the neat white gloves, her grip on the rifle stock slippery and uncertain. She grimaced.
"Are you going to flirt with every monster girl we meet?" she hissed. "How are you going to get into the Ladies if you can't even chase off a pack of werewolves without hitting on them?"
Melanie shrugged.
"I'm still not sure I really want to join," she confided. "I don't mind taking a stand against the forces of darkness to protect the town; it's just all the crafty stuff you do beforehand. I just don't see why saving the world requires that much glitter."
Syndi's eyes widened. Pointing the muzzle upwards, she raised a single finger at Cinderella.
"Can I have a minute?" she said.
Cinderella shrugged, the movement sending jagged tears through the smooth satin of her costume.
"Go ahead," she said. "Like I said, we didn't come here for you."
"Thanks," said Syndi, turning to face the three women who flanked her.
"Seriously?" she asked. "You're having this conversation now? Melanie, you were given the handbook before we left, I know you know it's against the rules to question a superior officer's use of discretionary glitter while in the field, even if you're only a temporary recruit. Janet, I know you think it would be fun to have your best friend along for this, but beautification is a sacred undertaking and we don't pressure people into signing on for bedazzling and monster-slaying for exactly that reason. Sara Sue..." she paused. "Sara Sue, can you please stop looking like you're going to cry every time someone speaks to you? It's freaking me out."
"Sorry," said Sara Sue in a small voice. "It's being around this many new people. It's making me nervous."
Melanie stared.
"You're kidding, right?" she said. "You can sketch these furry bitches right out of existence with a flick of a pencil and you're upset because of a couple of strangers?"
Sara Sue looked up, a flash of annoyance passing across the visible half of her face.
"I've told you, I can't do that," she said, her tone sharp. "It's basic conservation of energy, I can't destroy things, I can only change them."
At this, Bo Peep stirred herself from the drunken contemplation of the night sky.
"Change them into what?" she said, seemingly genuinely interested. "Could you make me a bird?"
Snow White sighed.
"You can't be a bird, Janet," she said.
Bo Peep - Janet - scowled.
"I can be a bird if I want, Maria," she said. "If beret-girl over there says I can, I can be whatever I want."
She waved at Sara Sue, who flinched and shrunk back behind Syndi.
"Beret girl!" she shouted. "I want to be a bird! Do me a bird outfit right now!" She smiled, inebriated and enticing. "Do it and I'll bite you. You can hang with us from now on. We're way more fun."
"Sara Sue, do not make her a bird," Syndi ordered. "You, Cinderella-"
"It's Danielle," offered Cinderella.
"Danielle," Syndi corrected. "Please tell your Pack to stop trying to poach my Ladies."
"I want to join the Ladies!" shouted Bo Peep-Janet, throwing down her candy-cane striped crook. "I quit Lupa! I hate being a fairy-tale princess! I want to do glue-guns and paper crafts and wear fancy bonnets!"
"You can't join the Ladies," said Cinderella-Danielle, rubbing her temples with furry black-nailed fingers. "You can't quit being Lupa. If you want a different costume theme next year, we can talk about that, but-"
"I wanted a different costume this year!" Snow White-Maria cut in. "You said we had to be fairy-tales again because Laurie wanted to go as Red Riding Hood, but she's not even here! I wanted to do sexy fast food but you made me do princesses! I was going to be an attractive carrot!"
"I want to be a bird!" screamed Bo Peep-Janet. "You and Maria get to be princesses, I'm not even a princess! I'm just an idiot with some stupid sheep!"
"Back up, Ladies," Syndi whispered, raising her shotgun again. "Make for the treeline, but slowly, and don't take your eyes off them."
Melanie turned to Sara Sue.
"Could you make them a bird?" she asked. "A bird costume, I mean."
Sara Sue shrugged.
"I guess," she said. "I drew most of the wardrobe for the Eerie Amateur Dramatics Society, so I don't see why not. Attractive carrot might be hard, though."
"It's just an orange mini-dress with a green hat shaped like a leafy stem," said Janet. The other three looked at her and she blushed. "What? I thought it would be funny. You know, red hair, carrot top, get it?"
"I can definitely do that," said Sara Sue. "If you still wanted it, I could probably do that right now."
"I think maybe werewolf Snow White would kill me," said Janet, nodding at the three women on the other side of the clearing. The other Janet was crying. Maria was methodically tearing her Snow White costume to shreds.
"Hmm," said Syndi, drumming the fingers of one hand on the heavily-varnished stock of her gun. She risked a glance at Sara Sue.
"Could you really pull an entire outfit together that fast?" she asked.
Sara Sue nodded. Syndi's gaze flicked back to the costumed fairy-tale figures.
"What about two?" she asked. "A bird and a sexy carrot. Could you get them both done in time for someone to wear them as costumes tonight?"
Sara Sue's free hand went to the worn stub of pencil around her neck. She swallowed hard, then nodded.
"Okay," said Syndi. She cleared her throat, loudly.
Danielle looked up at them, yellow-green eyes measuring the increased distance between Eerie's people and her own. She took a step forward, her hands reaching beneath her long hair to the small tattoo at the nape of her neck, the bones of her face distorting as the wolf's muzzle flexed beneath the woman's skin.
"I might have a deal for you," said Syndi. She handed her shotgun to Janet and walked forward. Melanie flashed her a double thumbs up and she closed her eyes, trying to beat back the rising panic and the sensation of having made a terrible mistake.
Danielle watched her come.
"We'll take you and the one in black," she said, her voice a low rumble. "Not the red-head, not the one that smells like paper and chalk."
"You'll do no such thing," said Syndi, then reconsidered. "Well, not to me. Melanie can make her own mind up, I guess. But anyway, the Ladies didn't show up tonight so you could swell your ranks with a few extra recruits. We're here to stop you feasting on the relatively-innocent flesh of Eerie's menfolk."
"Oh yes," said Danielle, her voice heavy with scorn. "With your very pretty stationary and your very detailed diagrams."
"That's still on the table, sure," said Syndi, leaning casually against a tree. At her throat, a heavy silver pendant gleamed in the light of the full moon, a pair of gloved hands holding a bowie knife and a glue gun respectively. She ran one finger across it, following the delicate chain to the clasp at the back, and unfastened it. The necklace slipped down into her outstretched palm and she slid it into her back pocket, her eyes never leaving Danielle's.
"There," she said. "Now if you can zip your skin back up, maybe we can talk."
Danielle ran both hands through the heavy sweep of her blonde hair, pulling it up and off her neck. Turning her back to Syndi, she ran one dark claw up the thin seam in her pale human flesh, pulling together the two halves of a "nil desperandum" tattoo until the join was barely visible.
"Satisfied?" she asked, observing Syndi over one hairless shoulder.
"For now," said Syndi. "But I know two of your pack who aren't, and I think I can help you with that, for a price."
"I'm listening," said the werewolf queen.
Syndi jerked a thumb back in the direction of the waiting Ladies.
"I've got a girl out in the woods tonight who'd rather be at home in front of an easel and an unenthusiastic new recruit who doesn't understand the need for auxiliary glitter," she said. "You've got an angry shepherdess and a pouty Snow White who don't like their costumes. If Sara Sue can whip you up a sparkly bird and a suitably alluring vegetable, I'll show you where to get the best cocktails in Eerie while listening to some surprisingly good local bands."
"On the condition that tomorrow morning we get out of town without ever having spilled a single drop of blood inside Eerie's city limits?" asked Danielle.
"Yes," said Syndi. "And also you buy us all breakfast before you leave."
Danielle nodded slowly.
"Okay," she said. "Let's see what you can do." She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, high and shrill. The ragged fairy-tale girls slunk over, their colourful silks in tatters. At the same time, Syndi beckoned Sara Sue over to where they stood. She came slowly, head down, and Melanie and Janet followed, their knives drawn.
"We're going to try something different," said Danielle. "I think you're right about the group costume thing having run it's course and if you want to be a bird or a scantily-clad root vegetable, you deserve to get that chance."
"It's too late now," said Maria sulkily. "All the shops are closed. I'll have to wait 'til next Halloween to be a sexy carrot."
Syndi looked at Sara Sue, who squirmed.
"Not necessarily," she whispered, flipping the pages of her sketchbook and turning it to show the rough pencil drawings depicting brightly-coloured birds and carrots in various states of undress. Werewolf-Janet gave a wolf-whistle of appreciation, then frowned.
"I can't wear a drawing," she said.
"Pick the one you like best," said Melanie, slinging an arm over Sara Sue's shoulders. "Trust me, you'll be able to wear it."
The werewolves pawed through the sheaf of papers, chattering excitedly to each other.
"I want this one!" said Bo Peep-Janet, holding up a sketch of a woman gloriously arrayed in peacock feathers and not much else. She frowned at the drawing. "But more sparkly," she added.
Melanie sheathed the long hunting knife and rummaged in her workman's belt, eventually pulling out a rack of stoppered tubes that glittered and shimmered in the moonlight. Janet passed Sara Sue a stick of glue, handing over her own emergency glitter supplies as well.
"Sparkly, we can do," she said.
Danielle sidled close to her, bending low to murmur softly in her ear.
"Can you get her to make me a sexy convict outfit?" she asked.
Syndi grinned.
Teller Family History
First Date by
froodle, in which a young Edgar Teller shows off one of his earlier inventions
Popcorn by
froodle. Friday night is always movie night in the Teller household.
The Teller Home for Displaced Youth by
froodle, in which Edgar harbours some doubts about his new home town
Lawn by
froodle, in which Marilyn Teller contemplaces some yardwork
Tornado Day, Revisited by
froodle, in which Syndi learns exactly what it means to be Miss Tornado Day
Wildlife by
froodle, in which Simon and Marshall go to the beach
Culinary Delights by
froodle, in which Syndi's terrible cooking may or may not have been an accident
Camping by
froodle, in which Syndi cannot sleep
Artist in the Family by
froodle, in which an immortal creature takes a liking to Syndi
Without Due Care and Attention by
froodle, in which Syndi finally becomes mobile
Waiting In by
froodle, in which there is an ice-storm and a handyman does not arrive
Brunch by
froodle, in which Marilyn does not appreciate Edgar's help in the kitchen
Handmade by
froodle, in which the Tellers receive a Christmas package from Marilyn's mother
Poor Life Choices by
froodle, in which Syndi loves her brother anyway
Lillian by
froodle, in which Marilyn's mother has concerns
Visitor by
froodle, in which Marshall's grandma comes to stay
Nap by
froodle, in which Marshall has a quiet moment in the Secret Spot
Fresh Sheets by
froodle Tradition by
froodle, in which Dash and Marshall decorate a Christmas tree
Hometown by
froodle, in which Mars and Syndi visit New Jersey
Janet
A Ghost in Pink by
froodle; Janet's family during the year she was Lost
Jogging by
froodle, in which Janet Donner adapts to life in regular Eerie
Plans by
froodle, in which Janet Donner deals with Daylight Savings Time yet again
DST by
froodle, in which there is a lighthouse
Figurehead by
froodle, in which Lake Eerie's ghost pirates encounter the lighthouse
The Weremarsicorn 'Verse
The Dance Contest by
froodle, in which werewolves and unicorns hold a dance-off in order to prevent a war
Day of the Marsicorns by
froodle, in which there are stuffed animals and Dash is unhelpful
Cleanup by
froodle, in which Simon and Mars deal with the aftermath of a werewolf-unicorn-hybrid transformation
Full Moon by
froodle, in which Marshall must deal with another side-effect of his curse
Scratches by
froodle, in which there are werecats and cutie marks
Phases by
froodle, in which the werecat returns
Aftermath by
froodle, in which we bid farewell to the Old Hitchcock Mill once and for all