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“Fitting, but very creepy,” I muttered to
myself. The bird cocked its head in the other direction. I had the
impression it had heard my words and was slightly offended by them.
I giggled faintly and sped the rest of the way to Joe’s, more than
a little unnerved by the experience with the bird and the weird
prickling between my shoulders that refused to let up.

The walk back to Baker’s was less
stimulating, no creepy ravens hanging out in trees and no eyes
glaring at the back of my head to be had. Mr. Baker bid me a good
evening and warned me to not be carried off by “hobgoblins and
other tomfoolery” as he headed out the door. The next hour was
rather quiet, so I used the time and restocked some of the ghost
books that had been picked up by Halloween goers and general
paranormal enthusiasts. I had just placed the final book when the
bell over the door jangled and a rather interesting group of
trick-or-treaters tumbled in.

“Told you she’d find a costume,” Jeff
said.

I stared. I stared some more. The group
grinned and did a slow twirl to show me every angle of their
costumes. They had decided to do a common theme or story, but I was
at a loss as to what it was. They were all wearing ripped jeans,
skin tight shirts with various ripped up jackets on top, and Ryan
had weird little tufts of fur sticking out of some of the holes
with a tail hanging out of the back of his pants. Kat looked sullen
and unemotional, which was strange since she’s one of the most
vibrant people I’ve ever met. Jessica was leaning on Danny, who
tried to look sullen, too, but failed miserably and only succeeded
in appearing slightly constipated. It wasn’t until Jeff moved and
the light sparked off his skin that I finally understood.

“Ghetto Twilight?” I asked, amused. The group
broke character and started to laugh, which had an interesting
effect on the air because glitter began to cascade off in a sparkly
explosion.

“Ya’ll look like the glitter aisle vomited
all over you!” I said and poked Jeff’s arm, which covered my finger
with the twinkly stuff.

“It pretty much did,” Ryan said. “They went a
little crazy and got carried away when they were trying to
sparklefy themselves.”

“Is sparklefy even a word?”

“It is now,” Kate giggled.

“The hard part,” Jeff said, “is trying not to
sneeze. If I do, I look like I’m expelling pixie dust.”

“I could use some pixie dust and happy
thoughts about now,” I said. “I think it’d be fun to go flying
around and see things.”

“Speaking of seeing things, I’m impressed
with your gypsy ensemble,” Ryan said and stroked his chin as he
gazed at my colorful self.

“Thank you!” I said. “I have to confess, I
have no idea where the skirt or the coin scarf came from, but
they’re fun to wear and the scarf makes some rather nice sounds and
give the costume just the right touch.”

“Not bad for a quickie,” Jeff said.

Kat opened her mouth and had just started to
quip “That’s what” when everyone else nearly jumped on her and
yelled “DON’T SAY IT!!!” She subsided with a grump, and I looked at
the floor to find that a small pile of glitter had started to form
around everyone’s feet. Great, I’d have to vacuum after they left,
but first things first!

“All right, I’m in a costume, where’s my
candy?” I demanded.

“Now is that any way to ask?” Danny teased.
“You know the magic phrase.”

“Ugh. Fine, fine. Trick-or-treat!” I said.
“Now gimme!”

I was the proud owner of several pieces of my
favorite chocolate and peanut butter candies after a round of
teasing laughter. The group stayed for a little bit, but soon
succumbed to the lure of more sugar and chocolate to be had, and
they left in a cloud of glitter. I sighed with a fond smile and
went hunting for the ancient vacuum cleaner that Mr. Baker kept on
hand in case of “unfortunate events”. And I felt sure that a
massive invasion of glitter would be considered an Unfortunate
Event of Epic Proportions. What I didn’t know was just how
difficult glitter was to get out of carpet, so it took me a while
before I felt confident enough to put away the vacuum. Every now
and then a small sparkle would show up in the rug as proof of the
group’s Ghetto Sparkly passing, but it wasn’t too noticeable unless
you were looking for it.

A few more costumed customers came in, but
not many, and I was able to close up shop on time. A sharp wind had
risen and it blew through me with a chill that reached all the way
through my skin and deep into the bone as I locked the door behind
me. It made the walk to my car a little more unnerving than usual
as leaves began to drift through the air and a few bare branches
rattled against each other. Slightly spooked, I glanced behind me
into the trees, but saw nothing more than shadows.

I fought a shudder and climbed behind the
wheel and heaved a sigh of relief as I engaged the locks and called
Mom to let her know I was on my way home. True to Mom form during
Halloween, she warned me about making sure I didn’t run over any
trick-or-treaters.

“Mom, it’s eleven on a school night. I highly
doubt there are going to be many trick-or-treaters out at this
time. Most of them should be in bed by now.”

“You never know. I’ve seen teenagers still
out and about, though they’re usually finishing up.”

“All right,” I said, “you made your point.
I’ll be extra . . .,” I was interrupted when my phone beeped and
signaled an in coming call. “Can you hold on? Someone’s calling in
and it might be Maria.”

“Sure, honey, let me know if it’s her,” Mom
said, and my heart warmed at the knowledge that Mom took no offense
to me having to cut her off in case Maria was calling.

“Hello?” I answered when I switched over to
the other call.

“Oh thank god, Jane, have you seen
Maria?”

I barely recognized Mrs. Dupree’s voice,
because it had a frantic, breathless quality to it that I had never
heard before. The woman just didn’t DO frantic. Even when one of
her many caterers were behind schedule for one of her famous
parties her voice always remained cool and collected. My stomach
immediately cramped in response.

“No, Mrs. Dupree, I haven’t seen her. She
left the house?” I asked, fighting to keep down my own rising
panic.

“She was feeling a little better today, and
said she wanted to take a walk around the block. I made sure she
had her cell phone with her, and she called me a few times to let
me know where she was, but I haven’t heard from her in over an
hour. I keep calling, but it just goes straight into voice mail.
You really haven’t seen her?”

“No ma’am, I haven’t,” I said and my stomach
dropped further and further. “But I’m going to drive around and
check all her old favorite places, see if I can spot her.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said, and I was
horrified when I heard her voice hitch on a sob.

“Have you called the police?”

“I did, but they said she hadn’t been gone
long enough to warrant a search. They promised that they’d alert
the cars already on patrol and tell them to keep an eye out for
her, though. I’m going to drive around the other side of town, see
if I can find her. Call me if you see her?”

“Yes ma’am, no problem,” I said and switched
back over to Mom. I quickly filled her in, and she had me promise
to keep in touch with her as I searched.

“I wish I could help, but I can’t leave the
boys alone,” she said, her voice thin and worried.

“It’s all right, Mom, they’d probably set the
house on fire if you left. And you can’t take them with you,
because they’d never settle down. I just . . . I’m scared.”

“Oh, sweetie, I know you are. You’ll find
her; I’m sure she probably got overly tired on her walk and had to
sit down somewhere. Maybe she dozed off or something. Easy enough
to do if her phone battery is dead.”

“I know, that’s what I keep telling myself,
but it’s hard. And I keep thinking that, if she IS passed out
somewhere, someone’s going to walk by and try to hurt her.”

“I know. Let’s go ahead and say good-bye so
that you can concentrate on searching, and I can prevent the boys
from blowing up their room again.”

“The chemistry set?”

“The chemistry set.”

I managed to choke out a laugh. The twins had
gotten a chemistry set for their last birthday and instead of
following along with the experiments that came in the instruction
booklet, they were determined to forge their own path.
Unfortunately, their own path had the potential of causing massive
amounts of property damage and Mom was constantly running
interference to prevent them from giving the house a new skylight.
We said good-bye and hung up, and I turned my attention to finding
my missing friend.

I lost track of how long I slowly drove up
and down the streets, eyes squinting into the darkness in a
desperate attempt to separate a small, human shaped shadow amongst
all the other strangely shaped shadows. The random streetlights
scattered about were no help at all. Whenever my eyes would adjust
to the darkness I’d come upon one and would suffer from temporary
blindness as my eyes fought to readjust to the sudden light, only
to have said light vanish again.

It was painfully obvious that Maria wasn’t
anywhere in the neighborhoods that I searched, so I quickly turned
and headed back towards Baker’s and the park. It was a long shot,
but I was desperate. A sick, nauseous feeling had taken up
residence in my stomach, and if someone had picked her up and meant
her harm, then the park was the best place to go as a good portion
of it was well secluded and distanced from prying eyes.

I parked and climbed out. The cold wind that
had been my companion when I left the store still made a nuisance
of itself and I rubbed my hands over my arms in a bid for warmth. I
reached into my car’s trunk and pulled out one of the jackets that
seemed to collect there whenever I wasn’t looking. Half the time I
was convinced that they bred more jackets under the cover of
darkness, but I had yet to prove it.

I buttoned it up before I shoved my purse
into my book bag, and then shoved my book bag into the trunk and
locked the doors. I turned and gazed at the darkened park, unable
to suppress a slight shiver as it ran down my spine, but I sucked
it up, squared my shoulders, checked to be sure my cell phone was
in my jacket pocket and made my way into the darkness. I found that
the jacket muffled the clinking sound of the coined scarf I had
tied around my waist. I should have left it in the car since the
tinkle-clank was jarring in the dark silence, but this way the
noise was minimized and I was able to keep my ears focused for a
response to my occasional call of Maria’s name.

The longer I walked, the more I began to both
worry and despair about my friend. Blood dripped from the ends of
my fingers as I scraped them raw with my nails, the pain a small
distraction from my increasingly dark thoughts. I eventually
stopped calling Maria’s name, nervous that I was going to attract
the wrong kind of attention since people that tended to hang out in
a heavily wooded park at eleven thirty at night were usually up to
no good. I mentally kicked myself for venturing out without some
kind of weapon, especially since I knew from my many walks through
here that the park was one of those weird cell phone “roving dead
zones” where no one, no matter who their carrier was, could get a
signal in certain areas.

A soft scuffling sound off to my right made
me freeze in place as I held my breath. The woods were denser
around me than before, the shadows darker, which told me I had
wandered into the fringe of the park, where the maintained foot
paths and grassy areas gave way to the wilder undergrowth of the
forest. The wind had died down, and while the chances of that
slight scuffle having been made by some small animal were high, I
still strained to hear if it repeated.

I was about to give up and move on when I
heard the sound again, slightly louder and accompanied this time by
a vaguely familiar voice. I narrowed my eyes and tried to place it,
but the only thing I could really tell was that it was male and I
knew I had heard it at least once. If Maria was in the woods with a
guy, it could only mean trouble.

That raised a very big problem, though, and
it all came back to the fact that I didn’t have a single weapon. I
set about to remedy the issue, and quickly found a baseball bat
sized branch that I was able to fit my hands comfortably around. I
gave it an experimental swing and winced a little at the way the
rough bark bit into my skin, but I didn’t have time to dwell on
minor pains when my friend was possibly in danger. Nor was I going
to dwell on the fact that I might be going head to head with a man
who would be larger and stronger than me if it came down to a
fight.

I drew in a deep, shaky breath, and set off
in the direction the sounds had come from. I took care to hug the
shadows and tried to avoid anything that would make noise. This
slowed me down, but I figured if Maria were in trouble then I
wanted surprise to be on my side and not alert anyone to my
presence.

The voice got louder, and I could make out a
few words here and there, but it was still too low for me to really
make out much of what was being said. I rounded a tree, and froze.
I was still hidden in the shadows, but I felt as if every single
part of me were exposed by a spotlight.

Standing in profile roughly ten yards away
from me was the large bulky build of the gas station cashier. He
had his hands on Maria’s shoulders, and alternated between running
them up and down her arms and passing them over her chest. Maria
stood placidly in front of him, with her chin hanging tilted
forwards and her shoulders slightly hunched. She didn’t show any
sign that she was aware of what was going on. If this was one of
her “blank out” periods, then it was the first one I had seen while
she was standing up. She resembled a large, life-sized doll instead
of the warm and vibrant friend that I had known for so long, and
the fact that she showed no signs of “waking up” despite what the
brute of a man was doing to her terrified me.