Jonathan Legcheese yawned as he awoke. The golden light that rained heavily through
his window nearly blinded him, and he grimaced beneath its glow. He blinked his eyes, allowed his other four
senses to kick in, and then he smiled.
Today was October 31st, and everybody knew what that
meant. Elated, he slid off the side of
his bed gracefully like a snake, as if he had no bones in his body. He just lay there for a few minutes, grinning
and planning what he would do today.
When he finally rose to his feet,
he examined his surroundings. His walls
were pink, but he didn’t care. When his
friends laughed at him and called him a fruit, he demanded that pink was by far
the coolest color in the world. Nailed
into the walls were numerous shelves painted bright purple, aligned with toy
ponies that had long, glistening hair.
He liked ponies.
Jonathan yawned again and walked to
his mirror. He was only 15, but a full
beard drooped from his chin like an icicle.
He thought it was the awesomest thing ever. His nose was huge; indeed, people often asked
if he kept his spare change in there.
Above his honker, stretching across his lower forehead like a long strap
of Velcro was his massive unibrow that he was so fond of. His hair reached up, up, ever upward toward
the sky, like expiring rosebushes praying for one last drop of water. And his ears….Well, his ears will be left
alone for now.
He left his room and entered the
family room. Now what he expected to see
was his family hovering around numerous boxes of Halloween decorations. It was a tradition of theirs to get up early
on Halloween morning (even if it was a school day) and put up decorations in
their front yard. Instead, he found his
mom reading the newspaper (upside-down, I might add) on her recliner while the
news blared on the TV, spouting some nonsense about a talking horse in
Oklahoma. The smell of muffins wafted
out from the kitchen, but the scent was not of the Annual Pumpkin Muffins for
which his dad was so famous; the smell was that of regular, boring muffins. His dad walked into the family room from the
kitchen, saying something about having misplaced his apron.
“What the heck?” Jonathan remarked
loudly.
His dad turned and looked at
him. “‘ey, Johnny boy! You’re up early for such a normal day!”
Jonathan frowned. “Did I oversleep? Isn’t it Halloween?”
His dad raised an eyebrow—well, his
entire eyebrow. “What in your great
uncle Horace’s name are you talking about?
Hittin’ the shrooms again?”
Jonathan peered out the front
window. “What the mother? It looks like
any other average day!”
“Didn’t I just say that?” His dad
began to fume. “Are you callin’ me a
liar?” “That’s it, I’m gettin’ the belt.”
“No!” Jonathan’s mom shouted,
restraining her fuming husband.
“Johnny’s just playing, right Johnny boy?”
Jonathan looked at his parents
helplessly and then turned away and ambled back to his room. On the way there, he glanced at a calendar
hanging on the wall. It was clearly the
month of October.
When he reentered his room,
something felt different. He grabbed a
bazooka hanging on his wall and loaded it with a heavy shell. “All right,” he said. “Whoever you are, get the heck out of here.”
“Dang it!” yelled a voice. Jonathan cocked his head to the side as
Michael Jackson crawled out from under his bed.
“You have to ruin everything, you know that?” asked the plastic
black-white man. “We’re through, you
hear me?”
Jonathan shrugged and put the
bazooka back on the wall while Michael Jackson left his room. He sat down at his desk and turned on his computer
with a 42” screen. After bringing up the
correct program, he visually-called[1]
his best friend, Stanley Pharmacist.
When Stanley answered, the computer showed his face.
“Hey, Stanley,” Jonathan greeted
him. “What’s today?”
“Ith October 31tht, you thilly
gooth,” the kid replied with a terrible lisp.
“Exactly! And October 31st
is…”
“Oh, ith your birthday?” Guilt
swept over Stanley’s face. “Dang it! I
can’t believe I forgot again!”
“No!” Jonathan’s brow
furrowed. “It’s Halloween!”
“Hollow-what now?”
Jonathan punched the screen, and
blood began pouring down his hand like a waterfall. “What’s going on here? Today’s Halloween!”
“You’re juth being a thilly gooth,
thilly,” giggled Stanley. “Did you take
thothe Prozacth again?”
“No, Stanley,” Jonathan
drawled. He clicked the Esc button and
stared at his bleeding hand. “What is
going on? I know it’s
Halloween! How can everyone forget the best
holiday ever? I have to figure this
out.”
He tapped his fingers on his desk,
spaced out for a moment, and then returned to the family room. “Mom,” he said, “I want you guys to stop
this. It was funny for about one
billionth of a second, but then it just got stupid. I think including Stanley in your little joke
was going a bit too far.”
His mom looked at him with
disappointment. “I thought I told you to
take your pills last night. You know you
can’t function properly without them.”
Jonathan sighed. “Mom, this is really dumb.” He laughed. “Ok, I laughed. Happy?”
His mom raised an inquiring
eyebrow. “You really don’t think it’s just
another normal day?”
Jonathan nodded.
“Well, walk around the neighborhood
and check for yourself,” his mom suggested.
Jonathan cursed and left his
house. It was slightly cold, just as it
was every year on Halloween. Leaves were
scattered across peoples’ front lawns and the streets, and the sky overhead was
unambiguously blue. The rising sun’s
light was creeping over some hills to the east, flushing into the Vacaville
Valley and creating a beautiful panorama.
As Jonathan walked, ice crystals were emitted from his mouth with every
breath he took, dancing around like mists in a thin fog.
He soon came to the house of his
former girlfriend, Awana Humphfree. When
he rang the doorbell, she answered the door, and he was taken aback by her
beauty. Her spiked hair had been dyed as
red as blood. Her face was long and
furry like that of a Cocker Spaniel.
Facial hair jutted from above her upper lip. One of her eyes was green, the other
blackish-hazel. Her ears were festooned
with heavy earrings shaped like walruses.
She was extremely emaciated, not weighing a pound above 75 pounds.
“Johnny boy,” she breathed,
blushing. “It’s so nice of you to drop
by.”
“Aw, shucks,” replied Jonathan,
averting his eyes to a pebble on the ground.
He toed it without thinking. “I
like your hair. It’s…red.”
Awana laughed, snorting in the
process. “Can I help you with
something?”
Jonathan chortled
pathetically. “Um…what’s the date?”
“It’s October 31st, you silly
goose.”
“Yes!” He got excited. “Yes, October 31st! And what
holiday falls on the 31st of October?”
The girl scratched her head. “Um…what? There’s no holiday today, Johnny
boy. Believe me.”
Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “Did my family make you do this?”
“Do what?” Awana asked innocently.
Jonathan shook his head. “Never mind.”
On his way back home,
a lady in her 80s approached him. He
tried to dodge her, but she had the speed of a wildcat and blocked his
route. She seemed to be very determined
to halt him.
“What’s the problem, lady?”
Jonathan asked. “I need to get home, so
move.”
“Is that the way you teenagers
speak to your elders nowadays?” the lady asked with a slurred voice. “In my day, elders was looked up to, like
they was something special. Now they
just cast aside like spare pennies.”
“I keep my pennies, as a matter of
fact,” Jonathan retorted proudly, puffing out his chest. “One day, they’ll make me rich.”
“In my day, 200 pennies could make
you rich,” stated the old woman, her voice still slurred.
Jonathan smirked. “How long ago was your day, anyway?”
The lady smiled, revealing her
radiant, toothless gums. “In my day, we
didn’t ask our elders how old they was.
If we did, oh boy, we’d get the whip cracked on our back.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Look, I really need to go, so if you have
nothing important to say to me, can you please move?”
“Shut thy mouth and hearken unto
me!” shouted the lady, her words suddenly controlled. “Thou hast sensed these eerie change of
events. There is a reason for this.” She pointed to the top of a hill in the east,
where a black mansion stood below pregnant clouds and jangling lightning. “If thou travel thither, then the solution to
the problem thou seek will be thine.
Thither dwells the man Cornelius, and yea, he will deliver the answer to
thee.”
“Two questions,” said Jonathan:
“what the heck’s with the Old English you just decided to start speaking; and
how do you know about this Cornelius guy?”
The lady scowled. “In my day, we younglings didn’t ask so many
friggin questions. Now leave me, you
silly goose! Dang kids get in my way
twenty-four-seven, I tell you.”
After he walked past her, Jonathan
heard one last “in my day” behind him as he made his way home.
When he opened the front door, his parents
were playing hopscotch with invisible squares they had drawn on the floor with
their minds. As soon as they heard him
walk in, however, they stopped and looked at him with questioning eyes.
“What?” asked Jonathan.
“Oh, admit it,” his mom
demanded. “It’s just another normal day,
and you know it. Now stop acting like a
silly goose.”
Jonathan pointed a dreadfully
threatening finger at her. “I’m gonna
figure this out, or my name isn’t Colonel Sanders.”
“It isn’t,” his dad reminded him.
“It’s a simile.”
He strode into his room again and
sat on his bed. Somehow, his computer
was on again, still showing Stanley. The
lisping kid apparently didn’t realize that he was being watched, and he was
doing the salsa and singing, “It’s a Small World” through a fork/microphone to
his pet goldfish, Dennis. The goldfish’s
name had always sounded familiar to Jonathan, but he could never quite recall
what cartoon he had heard the name from.[2] He shut off the computer and gazed out of his
window.
The black mansion sat there,
shuddering as thunder bellowed above it.
Lightning lashed at the black clouds, as if attempting to force them to
cry onto the building. Jonathan thought
about what the lady said, and it slowly started making sense to him. But his thoughts were interrupted when he
heard: “Ith a thmall woold after all.
Ith a thmall woold after all. Ith
a thmall world after all! Ith a thmall,
thmall wooooooooooooooold!!!!!!!”
He turned off the volume on his
computer and thought deeper about the ancient lady’s words. Could it be possible? Could this Cornelius guy have a solution to this
strange event? He was thinking about
traveling to the hill, but then he realized how stupid he was being and said,
“Crazy woman just wants me to run all over the place! Well, I’m not gonna do it!” He crossed his arms, sat for about 10
seconds, and then cursed and decided to talk to Cornelius after all.
After about 27 hours of walking
from his house and up to the very top of the hill, he arrived at the
mansion. He knocked on the door wearily,
and it opened by itself, creaking heavily.
“Dang Scooby Doo doors!” he
yelled. “They all open by themselves
after you knock!”
He sauntered in, holding his
bazooka at the ready. He had one rocket
loaded and another five sitting in the backpack on his back. If anything tried to kill him, he was taking
it down with him. He made his way down a
dark hall with many doors on either side of him. All of a sudden, a door at the end of the
hall opened, and a rugged man sprinted out, looking around in panic.
“Come back here, Saddam!” shrieked
a voice.
George Bush dashed out of the same
door and reached for the former tyrant of Iraq.
Unfortunately, Saddam opened another door and entered. George Bush followed him, holding an AR34
Assault Rifle.
“I knew he was hiding in Vacaville
all this time,” Jonathan muttered.
He looked around him, trying to
decide which door to enter. Finally, he
picked a pink one and proceeded.
When he entered, he
found a broad staircase that led up for as far as he could see. Already tired from the 27-mile journey from
his house to where he was now, the ascent seemed to take forever. But when he finally reached the top, he was
in a small, dark room on the top story of the mansion. He staggered to a window and peered out,
looking down upon all of Vacaville.
“It looks a lot more beautiful from
above, doesn’t it?” asked a voice.
Jonathan swung his bazooka toward
the voice and fired a rocket. He noticed
an old man on a rocking chair, who held out one hand with his palm—marked with
a red “S”[3]—and
muttered something. The rocket
disintegrated before it could hit him.
“Who is you?” Jonathan asked,
frantically groping for another rocket.
“Stop making yourself look stupid,”
ordered the old man, rising to his feet.
“If you keep shooting at me, I’ll just reverse the rockets’ paths.”
Jonathan loaded the bazooka. “I-I’ll kill you!” he threatened, heaving the
weapon onto his back. “No old man’s
gonna tell me what to do!”
“Apparently, you like listening to
old people,” the man reminded him. “Some
of them are very smart. Many young people
just overlook their intelligence.”
Jonathan aimed. “You say one more word, and I’ll put a circle
the shape of Canada in you!”
The man rolled his eyes. “Canada isn’t shaped like a circle, you
idiot. I can’t believe I have to help
you here.”
“What the heck are you talking
about?” Jonathan demanded.
The man sighed. “I know what’s going on out there. I know why you’ve come. I can help you, and I guess I have to, since
that’s what I do in my book.”
“What book?” Jonathan shouted.
“Put the bazooka down,
Jonathan. This isn’t World War II.”
“How dare you insult me!”
cried Jonathan. “Die!”
Another rocket was fired toward the
old man, but he suddenly pulled a pendant[4]
from a pocket and held it up. Lightning
lanced out of it and struck the missile, disarming it. The same lightning zapped the bazooka from
Jonathan’s hand and cast it outside a nearby open window.
“How long are we going to do this?”
the man asked wearily. “I think you
should just accept that I’m going to help you, even if you don’t like it.”
“Fine,” Jonathan acceded
reluctantly. “But how do you know my
name?”
“Because I made you up,” the man
replied. He hesitated. “Forget I said that, and just listen to what
I have to say. Not many people live in
the Vaca Mountains. There are a few
people here and there, but much of the land is unpopulated. Also, there are numerous, uninhabited caves
up there, but few know about them. This
one man, Professor Aponowatsomidichloron[5],
realized this 10 years ago, and he journeyed into one of these caves with evil
intentions.
“He found a spot at the end of one
cave and started building this lab.
Using Einstein’s equation of energy equals mass multiplied by the speed
of light squared[6], and
some other equations that had nothing to do with what he later found, he
managed to find how to make every person in one city or town think the way he
wanted them to think.”
Jonathan gritted his teeth. “I think you’re lying,” he accused. “I’m gonna tell Grandma!”
“You have no grandma. You only have two parents and a sexually
confused half-girlfriend.”
“How do you know?” Jonathan
jeered.
“Because I wrote you.”
“Screw you, old man, screw you,”
said Jonathan, “and your flopping feet.”
The man looked down at his
feet. “I think they’re kind of
nice. Except that one with the toe
that’s a little green around the edges.”
Jonathan’s eyes widened. “The Man With The Green Toe![7] Kory Labarga?
What the heck? Everyone thought
you had died in that plane crash!”
Kory sighed. “No, people are just ignorant. I even announced on Animal Planet that I
wasn’t going on an airplane until I had finished all of my books.”
“No one watches Animal Planet
anymore, just like hockey,” Jonathan noted.
“Some people watch hockey,” said
Kory. He rubbed his chin. “No, never mind.”
“I’m sorry I shot those rockets at
you,” Jonathan apologized. “If I had
known who you were, I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.”
Kory was still staring at his feet.
“Are your feet really that
interesting?” asked Jonathan.
“No, I just can’t stand your
face. Why did I make you so ugly?”
Jonathan sulked. “So why did you tell me about that
professor?”
“You’ve noticed that it’s October
31st, and that people think it’s just a normal day, haven’t you?”
Jonathan nodded.
“Well, Professor Aponowatsomidichloron used his invention to make
everyone think that. And since you’re
the only one who knows that today is
Halloween, you have to go to that cave and destroy—well, whatever is
making people think the way they’re thinking.
You’ll know it when you see it.”
“What about the old lady?” Jonathan
inquired. “She knows what day it really
is.”
Kory looked at him with a confused
countenance. “Old lady? What are you
talking about?”
“An old lady told me to come
here. She said I would find the answer
to why everyone thinks it’s just a normal day.”
Kory’s expression transformed from
confusion to fear. “That is rather
disturbing.” There was silence for a few moments as he fell deep into thought.
“Whatever. What’s important is that you
fix the madness that is going on in the town below, before it spreads. Look, you can’t succeed on this mission by
yourself. You’ll need companions.”
Jonathan hopped up and down. “You’re coming with me!” he exclaimed
joyfully.
“Are you stupid? I can’t come with you! I have to finish my current book. Plus, my hips aren’t what they used to be.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jonathan
remembered. “So who are you talking
about?”
Kory whistled sharply. “I’ve written so many books that I’m now able
to take some of the things I’ve thought up and bring them to life. See, this red ‘S’ on my palm is just like the
one on Sage’s when he pulls the Sword of Legends from the slab of
limestone. And the pendant in my hand is
the actual pendant from that book I wrote with my friend in middle school. On your journey, you’ll need companions
familiar with traversing through caves and mountainous terrain. And so to you, I give these allies.”
Strangely, six creatures walked
into the room from a door in response to Kory’s whistle. The first in line was a pumpkin with arms and
legs. The second was an actual ghost
wearing a blue button-up shirt. Behind
him there was a witch with green skin, hovering on a broom. Fourth in line walked Frankenstein’s monster,
his arms held out menacingly as usual. A
pitch-black cat followed him, its tail flicking here and there. And last in line was a dark bat with sharp
fangs, fluttering its wings elegantly.
“These are the Halloween Friends[8],”
Kory introduced.
“Oh, I remember them!” Jonathan
cried. “I actually read this book of
yours before! What was it called
again? Oh yeah: ‘Happy Halloween!’ I loved that book when I was a kid! You wrote
it back in 1997, if I remember right.
Oh, that was a good book.” He looked
at the six friends. “But please, forgive
me. I’ve totally forgotten your names. What are they?”
“Pumpkin,” said the pumpkin.
“Ghost,” said the ghost.
“Witch,” replied the witch.
“Frankenstein’s monster,” responded
Frankenstein’s monster.
“Cat,” said the cat.
“Bat,” answered the bat.
“Good names,” Jonathan lied.
The Halloween Friends stood behind
him. Kory looked at them proudly. “Seven companions,” he said. “So be it.
You shall be the Fellowship of Halloween![9]”
The companions cheered wildly. But Jonathan stopped early and looked at
Kory. “I have one more question before
we leave, Mr. Cornelius.”
“Go ahead,” Kory permitted him,
trying to avoid the boy’s ugly face.
“Why has everyone been calling me a
silly goose lately?”
Kory was startled by the
question. “Well, just look at you!” he
said. “You are a silly goose.”
E N D
?
[1] At the
time of this writing, things like Skype and Facetime were new or nonexistent,
respectively. “Visually-called” was my
attempt at capturing the idea of two people communicating on a visual level
between two computer screens.
[2] This is
a reference to a popular children’s cartoon that began in 2001, called Stanley.
In the show, the main character
has a pet goldfish named Dennis, with whom he often consults about
matters that confuse him.
[3] This is
a reference to a novel I wrote in 2005, called The Prophecy: The Quest for Vengeance. In the second book of the trilogy, the
protagonist, Sage Zaedrum, ascends a mountain filled with numerous trials that
he must overcome. When he reaches the
top, he pulls a sword from a small island in the center of a mountaintop
lake. Power surges through his body, and
he falls to the ground. Proof of his
empowered status arises when skin on his palm is magically removed in the shape
of an “S.”
[4] This is
a reference to a novel I wrote in 2002, called The Pendant. In this book,
the two protagonists—Blare and Chris—find a pendant that is imbued with awesome
and terrible powers. One of its
abilities was to use lightning to defeat its user’s foes.
[5] Note
that this long name ends with “midichloron.” Though misspelled, this was
intended to reference the microscopic midi-chlorians from the Star Wars
universe. These tiny life forms, if
existent within a person, permitted him to channel the Force. That these life forms are present in the name
of my story’s antagonist implies that he has access to power. But just as is true of the Force, any
individual can use power for good or for evil.
Our antagonist chose the latter.
[6] Also
known as “mass-energy equivalence” in the special relativity branch of
physics. In this concept, the mass of
any given system, multiplied by the speed of light squared, is equal to that
system’s energy content.
[7] My
“green toe” was a senseless joke that I told to my friends around my
neighborhood when I was a kid. I often
said things like, “I don’t know, I think I’m a pretty cool guy…except for my
green toe. That thing is a problem.” I
assure you, all of my toes are perfectly normal in color.
[8] These
characters are from a story I wrote circa 1997, called Happy Halloween. In the
story, the six companions face various random adventures such as getting lost
in the mountains, stumbling into a cave full of bears and advanced technology,
being rescued by birds on the edge of a cliff, and escaping from the house of
their next-door neighbor (who so happened to be a kidnapper).
[9] This is
a reference to the movie, The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
In the movie, Frodo chooses to travel to Mount Doom to destroy the evil
Ring that Sauron (the story’s antagonist) crafted. After meeting with a council in the safe
haven of Rivendell, it is decided that Frodo shall travel with eight
companions. The lord Elrond, a sort of
leader-figure in Rivendell, says, “Nine companions. So be it.
You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring!”
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