Page 16 of Trick or Treat

"What the fuck was that, Nix?"

"The bitch fucking bit me, so I cut her throat," he says casually, tucking his cock back into his pants and wiping his blood-soaked blade on his tongue.

"Mhm, tasty." He grins, the girl's blood staining his teeth as he leaves her there to bleed out in search of the other girl, and of course, I follow right behind him.

six

Always Watching

November

Scarlett

River and I decided not to go to the cops after discovering the finger under my pillow and blood smeared all over my windowsill. Because of what happened to Carli, we assumed it was someone who witnessed the incident and wanted to fuck with us, which neither of us found amusing.

There have been no sightings of Shawn, and the cops, like Carli, haven’t done much to find him. River is losing his mind without him around, even worse than he was after what happened to Carli. Melanie and I are perplexed, but we’re afraid to question him. For the past week, he has been nothing more than a shell of a man, and I’m at a loss as to how to help him, so I try to avoid him as much as possible.

I can feel Melanie's eyes on me as I sit on the couch and flip through pages in the manual from the prison I’m trying to work at, but she says nothing, which irritates me even more than her constant, incessant glares. Even though Halloween has long passed, she sighs heavily as she watches reruns of the same two horror films. She sighs once more and taps the remote with her nails in an effort to get my attention. I slam thehandbook shut and look at her, my eyes narrowing and squinting from tiredness.

“What, Mel?” I huff, hearing the annoyance in my voice, so I know she can hear it too.

“Have there been anymore fingers? Or body parts in general?” she asks curiously, referring to the single finger we found under my pillow a week ago, a grin appearing on her pink painted lips.

“No, and you know that, so why are you asking?” I roll my eyes, making it a point to show her—not just tell her—how annoyed I am with her shit.

“Please don’t sit here and act like you tell meeverything. I know there’s something you and River aren’t telling me," she scoffs, pointing her finger at me.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, Scarlett, but this is too fucking weird. First, Shawn kills Carli by accident, and we bury her body in the cemetery; then he goes missing, and some random finger ends up under your pillow?” She hugs the couch pillow against her chest and grins, living for the horror surrounding the nightmare of our lives.

I shrug, taking a generous sip of wine from the coffee mug in front of me, trying to block everything out and wanting to forget about it for at least one night. “You were there, Melanie. Nothing else happened. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“So you think Shawn’s dead too, right?” she says calmly, as if she knows something that I don’t.

“I’d like to think that he isn’t, Mel. But where is he?" I look out the window, catching a glimpse of Salem at night and the danger that lurks in the shadows.

The thought of not knowing what’s out there waiting for me sends shivers down my spine. In the alleyway across the street, something flashes in the dark, but I only have to blink before it vanishes. I rub my eyes and sit up straight, fixating my sight ahead, but nothing’s there when I focus.

“What is it, Scarlett?” Melanie looks out the window, trying to see what I’m looking at, but I can’t even be sure myself.

My spine tingles in fear, but I can’t look away. “I don’t know. I thought I saw something.” My throat dries, my hands get clammy, and my eyes stay stuck on the window, getting lost in the darkness outside.

“You look fucking possessed, Scar, damn. You’re scaring me now.” She tosses the pillow at me and gets up, stomping toward her room, leaving me clutching my coffee mug filled with wine and staring out the window into the eyes of the unknown.

Nixon

“She fucking sees me.” I stand here with a grin on my face, flashing it toward Silver as he obsessively stares at the girl in the window.

“Good, I want her to see us," he sneers.

Even though he’s wearing his mask, I can tell he’s smiling just by the way his shoulders slump and he carries himself. He’s infatuated with this chick, and he doesn’t even know her.

A gust of chilly fall wind blows, scattering an array of colorful leaves around and kicking up loose dust as it whips by us. We stand here watching her for a few minutes before Sil makes a move, and even then it’s like pulling teeth to get him to walk away with me.

“What the fuck are we doing here?” I ask, annoyed and ready to explore the night.

“Itold you that you could’ve stayed with the guys,” he bites back, walking ahead of me as we leave her apartment, swinging the bag with the kid’s head in it in his hand.