Chapter 1 - --

Happy Halloween

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Trick or Treat. Trick or Treat. Trick or Treat.
I don't know what to say to them, staring at them. Little children in clean plastic all sharp around the edges, holding out pumpkin-shaped buckets and plastic bags full of misshapen candy.
I hold out the tray of candies, watch them pick at it, bobbing their heads and grabbing the pieces they want (do they really taste that good? They all taste the same to me) and dropping them into their bags and saying, thank you, thank you, thank you as they leave.
I stare down at the tray of mussed-up candies, then set it down on the floor, backing away from the door. What are they doing, like that? I don't really know why they do it, why...?
I wish she were back. Isabel, (but no one calls her that, she re-named herself Ira and says when she gets her car, she's going to put that on her license plate and on her window and on her mailbox when she gets a house, far, far, far away from me and all alone and happy and with a garden and a short little white fence around her personal garden,) my little sister, my little Isabel and Ira, with her wide happy eyes and her mischievious grin.
When she's around, I feel better, because I have someone I can talk to, someone who'll grin and agree with me and smile, not like mother, who looks at me carefully, cautiously, like I'm not her son, like I'm a creature she doesn't know, maybe a chimera, a snake pretending to be her son but she can tell, can't she, that I'm not? I don't know, don't want to know, don't want to talk to her anymore, face her, face her with her wary, wary eyes and her forced smiles and her silence around me.
I watch her, watch her fussing with Isabel Ira in her costume (she's dressed up as an angel, with springy plastic, translucent wings and a little shiny halo attached by a stick to her head, and her white, white, all white outfit and her long hair let down and that sweet, mischievious smile on her face,) I can see the way my mother loves her, that's her daughter right there, and me, she doesn't know who I am.
But that's okay, I guess.
It was like that, always, even before... Even before he went away. Coby.
Even before he died.
Coby, (Coburn was his real name, but he said no one was called 'Coburn' anyways, that was the old, old, old way to say it and he never wanted it to be 'Coburn', just 'Coby' like most normal kids, even if he said he was never normal,) Coby my older brother who was my brother and my best friend and my mom and dad and close relatives and the people that I hung out with at school, the people I loved to try and be and to be impressed by and to try and impress.
Coby, my brother, who died last year in a car accident, when he'd gone out with some boys I never knew of and then something went wrong (I always thought it was because of a stray rabbit, a rabbit in the headlights that stood like a deer, petrified with with eyes shining bright like red in those bad photographs that mom tries to take,) and now he's dead and we don't use his room any more, just leave it locked there all black and dark and closed off, and occasionally, when I pass by, I swear I can still hear the music he used to play, all those rock bands on his radio and the stations he'd listen to, I'd once sat down outside his door and just laid my head back and listened, listened, listened to his music, it was Coby's music, Coburn's music, labeled all over, my brother's music.
And now he was gone and Isabel Ira was out Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, Trick or Treating, and mom was trying to ignore me with her silent eyes and dark eyes and her lips drawn tight like she was eating something nasty but was too rude to spit it out, I saw her wrinkle up her nose just slightly at me, but I didn't care, it'd all been like this, even before Coby stopping coming home, stopped coming home from that night with the friends I didn't know, stopped coming home from the rabbit like deer in the headlights with eyes red like the photographs...
* * *
I'm glad that it's late now, and no more of the kids have come up to our door asking for candy, candy, candy which type of candy do you like best? (I don't know, do they taste different to you?)
So I went back up to my room to go to bed, and mom goes on doing whatever it is she does all the time, downstairs working with lots of papers sprawled around her on her desk, or on the computer, typing, typing, typing away.
I pull on my boxers and a large, loose tee-shirt and lay down on my bed and close my eyes, but I'm just pretending to go to sleep and I close my door and wait and wait and wait, and it takes me a while but I realize that I'm just pretending because it's been a while and I'm still awake, still awake, still awake and just pretending to be asleep.
I open my eyes again because no one knows I'm pretending so I shouldn't pretend anymore, and I sit up, stare at the dark room that I think was mine but looks so different now, what's in my closet? Is there anything under my bed?? I want to check, drop my head over and look under and reach a hand in, but I'm afraid that if I do, Mister Bones or something else I know but can't say right now would grab me and drag me under and I'd never come back, and mom would never care with her silent eyes and the way she looks at me (am I different somehow? Do I look different?? I knew for a while now that there's something different about me, but I don't know what it is...)
I get up, pull on my jeans and look around, then climb up on top of my bed and pull off the screen of my window (it has a glass part and a screen part, and I have to pull up the glass part to get to the screen part so I can take it out,) I figured it out long ago and told Coby, and he told me, this was an ultra secret escape route to get outside without mom or the spies or Isabel Ira knowing, although maybe it'd be okay for Isabel or Ira to go, 'cuz she's our little sister, our only little sister, only little angel sister with her grin and her eyes and her halo attached by a stick...
I put the screen next to my bed, then poke my head out, breathing in the fresh, clean, cool cool cool air. It's cold, but I want to go out anyways, so I do.
It's so secret and special, the way Coby taught me this. I grab the branch of the thick, fat tall tree we have in our backyard, grab it and climb out on hands and knees and inch along the branch wobbling and bouncing underneath me, using a smaller branch as a line, like on a bridge. I want to giggle, laugh, that mom doesn't know where I am, what I'm doing, but then again, she wouldn't care, would she?
I climb my way down the tree trunk, bare feet slipping then finding the right places to grab onto, the little whorls and knobs and jutting-out-places, like little steps the tree grew out just for me, just for me and Coby and our ultra secret way of running away (though we always came back before morning).
I shuffle my feet in the cool cold slightly-wet grass, circling around away from the lights until I'm out on the pavement, the sharp sharp sharp pavement with specks that glitter in the daytime, like the find dusted mica in the soil that Coby taught me how to see, Coby who doesn't like to be called Coburn and who showed me the ultra secret escape from our house so we can run away, Coby who never came home one day...
I walk along in the cold and the quiet and the darkness, it's really cold and I can't feel my feet or my fingers but I keep walking because I don't want to turn back and go home to mom, who looks at me as if asking, who are you? You're not my son, are you??
So I walk along and I hum softly to myself and I smile and think about Isabel Ira and Coby Coburn and how didn't see either of them today and maybe I should be lonely but no, they were off doing things they liked, weren't they? Isabel Ira was the little angel with her mischievious grin and her cheerful eyes and she was out getting candy, candy, candy that tastes good to her, and Coby was never coming home for now he was with his friends and they were running into an accident and they were seeing the rabbit with the red eyes like the photographs...
I circle, circle, circle around, until my legs are kind of sore and I'm near my house again, with all the lights dimmed down, I walk up the doorsteps, the stone smooth stone doorsteps, and I stare at the doorknob that I barely ever used, the one that the police had knocked on when they'd come and said, I'm sorry, there's been an accident, it was about Coby (Coby who doesn't like to be called Coburn), and mom was crying and Isabel Ira was sent back to bed and I just stood there and mom ignored me, ignored me like I wasn't her son because I guess I wasn't.
I stare at the doorknob, then I giggle, laugh a little breathlessly as I stand in front of it, in my jeans and loose tee-shirt and bare feet after walking in circles and circles and circles.
"Trick or Treat," I say, "Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat."
No one replies though, I don't see myself at the other end open up the door and hold out the tray of candies and let me pick which one I like best (which one DO I like best?) so I turn and walk back, and I go up to the next silent quiet door and I smile and I say, "Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat", all around the circle I was walking, until I come back to my house again and I almost want to smile some more, where am I with my tray of candy?? I try to think but I can't remember, did we give it all out or did we have leftovers? Will I have some candies to pick from and eat tomorrow??
I look up at the door with the familiar doorknob the police knocked on, but there's no point to saying "Trick or Treat" again, so I walk around back and go to the tree where Coby and I used to play, our ultra secret way of escaping our house but getting back by morning, so mom never knew and never cared, at least not for me.
I look up the tree, fat from the bottom and thinner up top, at my own window where I took out the screen (after I pushed up the window) so I could get out and climb down and do everything I've done.
I'm tired, though, so tired, tired, tired, so I sit down at the bottom of the tree instead of climbing up to bed, (don't worry, I'll be up and tucked away before morning and mom will never know and never care), and I close my eyes and lean my head back like I had that one time in the hallway upstairs next to Coby's black and empty now room, and I listened to his radio rock music that was Coby's, Coburn's, labeled his all over, all over, all over.
And I think, just think that maybe, just maybe maybe maybe, I can hear it, just faintly, those old old rock songs he listened to and had labeled as Coby's, Coburn's, all his...
I blink my eyes open, and I think I see someone near me, someone standing in front of me, looking down at me.
I look up at him, and I think he's real, because he's all weird-like, weirder than the Mister Bones under my bed and other things that I know but can't name, and he's looking down at me and he's so real, I feel a wind and his hair moves and his shirt moves and a little charm-like string with a cross upside-down at the end of it in his hand swings a bit, like a windchime should, maybe that's where Coby's rock radio music is coming from...
I blink again, but he's still there. Real, real, real as me, real as little Isabel Ira in her plastic springy angel wings and halo attached by a stick.
He's got pale, pale, pale skin, pale almost white, milky and soft, silvery. It matches and melts into his silvery, silvery, silvery hair, so odd, so odd, I don't remember anyone with silver hair who isn't old, because he's not old, he'd be maybe Coby's age, just maybe, and he's tall and grinning just slightly as he looks down at me (am I different? Is there something funny about me??) and he's wearing purple and black and he's melting into the background of our backyard like his face and his hair does.
He leans over me a bit, slow, steady movements, smile still on his pale lips, (what's so funny?). But I like his eyes, his eyes are yellow and bright like a cat's, but not like a rabbit's red in the photographs in the headlights of a car an accident and Coby's never coming home again... And he's got this weird stuff on his face, weird but pretty, a red line down his left eye on the inside, like the scar-like triangles clowns have on, and there's a deep red slash-line of a cross along the outside of that left cheek of his, it's bright on his pale face, his pale pale pale face that's kind of familiar, kind of reminds me of something, someone...
I reach up and I touch his cheek, his skin is cool, cool, cool almost cold like the grass under my jeans and feet, dark and slippery and slightly wet.
He flashes me a quick smile, touches my hand with his own, cool cool cool hand and long fingers and that charm-like string with the upside-down cross at the end glittering and tapping, bumping against me, I want to lean closer and see if I can hear Coby's radio rock music in it, like in a windchime...
He kneels in front of me, still holding on to my hand against his cheek, still smiling at me with those pale lips and his bright yellow eyes in his familiar face, and maybe I should be afraid but I'm not, I like this feeling, I like him whoever he is, he's pale and cool and tall and smiling.
"Trick or Treat", I laugh, sitting up a bit straighter and smiling at him, (he won't think I'm different, will he? He won't think I'm odd, special??).
"Trick or Treat", he says back to me, whispered in my ear as he leans closer, hand coming up beside me, pressed against the thick knobbly tree trunk with steps grown out just for me, like trapping me there, one arm above my shoulder and the other still holding my hand to his cheek, where he's smiling, the other side bright with his red upside-down triangle like a clown's and the deep slash-like cross.
"What's your name?" I ask, staring at his eyes, his bright yellow familiar eyes, and he says, "Morbid."
I blink, look at him, then smile. "Morbid," I say. "That's a nice name. Morbid."
I know it's strange, it's strange but it's cool too so I like it, it's weird and odd and different but they think I am too, and I'm thinking, maybe being different isn't that bad? Is my difference a cool kind of difference like Morbid??
I want to tell him my name too, but I can't, I have to wait for him to ask me for it so I can give it to him when he asks, but he never does, just grins and keeps my hand pressed up to his cool cool cool cheek, smiling and grinning and breathing softly, softly, so softly I'm not sure if I hear it or not, like with Coby's radi rock music, sitting out in the hall and listening to it muffled from under his door.
I think about Coby a lot suddenly, about the way he showed me how to sneak out in our ultra secret way and come back by morning, the way he won't come back any more, and I have to say, I missed you, I missed you so much Coby, Coby Coburn with your music that's labelled all yours, all yours...
And then I hear him (Morbid) whisper in my ear, leaning close against me and still holding my hand up to his cool cool cool cheek, "I missed you. I missed you so much, I'm so sorry."
I close my eyes and listen to his soft soft voice, breathing whispering like perhaps a windchime from far away, like Isabel Ira when she whispers a secret about something bad she did or how much she hates this one girl in her class, and I love it, it's soft like a lullaby, soft and sweet like a windchime.
"I know," I say, "I know, it's okay. It's okay, I forgive you, okay?"
He (Morbid) pulls back, looks at me almost sadly with that face of his, that familiar familiar familiar face, so familiar all of a sudden I want to say more and lean up and grab him and never let him go, but I can't, feel like I can't move, can't move at all.
"Okay," I hear him (Morbid) say, "Okay, okay."
I grin and smile and laugh just a little, is it just me or is the sky turning slightly purple in the background, like his (Morbid's) shirt, deep deep deep purple melting into black??
"I forgive you," I say again, looking away from the purpling sky, and I smile almost apologetically and I twitch my fingers in my hand touching his cool cool cool cheek, just slightly, grinning.
I reached up my other hand slowly and touched his silky soft hair, running it down past the piercings in his ear (I want to get some piercings like that, Coby did, but I never got to) and touching his neck, his cold cold cold skin, cold and almost clammy but I love it anyways.
"I forgive you," I say, "Now can you come home?"
I see his (Morbid's) eyes flicker, come slightly closer together then open up again, sad and hurtful, and I want to cry because I know what the answer is, know but can't say it like Mister Bones and the other monster things that'll grab me when I reach my hand under my bed and try to prove to myself that no, they don't exist, when they really do...
I stare past his shoulder, and the sky's turning orange and pink and blue and other colors I forgot and can't think of the names of, (but no one will care, right? That's not different, right??).
And then he (Morbid) leans closer, and he finally lets go of my hand on his cheek and he touches my cheek instead, hand cold, cold, cold almost clammy but cool and I like it and it feels so nice, he leans over and he kisses me, kisses me on the lips (how surprised I am!) and I feel him cold and clammy but warm and alive and wonderful, so soft and gentle and kind and lovingly gentle, caressiong soft and bright and red and full and deep and strong, his lips so real so real he must be real on my lips, caressing and gentle and warm...
He pulls away at last when I thought I was stuck in this forever, and he touches me gently, softly.
"I'm sorry," he breathes into my ear, leaning close close against me, "It's been so long, I'm so sorry, I missed you so much, I missed you..."
I feel something hot running down my cheeks and I don't understand, I feel the soft tapping bumping of that upside-down cross entwined on his cold cold cold hand bumping against my neck and my collarbone, I want to bring it up to my ear and hear the rock radio music once more, drifting like a windchime from afar...
"Coby."
I stare straight at him, whisper it, I want to touch him again, touch him and hold him and never let him go, his dark purple shirt and black shirt and silver hair and yellow bright eyes and the deep red cross and upside-down triangle like a clown on his left cheek, and I look up and I know it's Coby, Coby Coburn Coby my Coby my big brother who won't ever be coming back...
"I'm sorry," I hear him whisper, "I'm so sorry..."
I smile, grin, laugh, sadly, but happy, sad but happy and sad.
"It's okay," I whisper back, like I'm Isabel Ira sharing a secret on something bad she (or I) did, "It's okay, I forgive you, it's okay."
I see him (Coby, my Coburn Coby) smile sadly right back at me, cold cold cold clammy hands touching my cheek.
"Okay," he breathes softly against me, cool and warm and cold, cold, cold clammy cold.
I look behind him, just quickly, quickly quickly so as to not snatch any of our time away, and I see that it's day, day day morning day and it's past our ultra secret escape and mom'll find out and not care, and I'll sit down in the hallway next to Coby (Coburn's, Morbid's) black and forbidden room and listen to his (Coby's) radio rock music like the windchime, like the upside-down silver cross around his wrist and entwined in his fingers...
"Happy Halloween," he whispers, and then he's gone.

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AN: Well, a gift for Halloween. Was in the mood, and I'd originally had part of a story up with that picture of Morbid that I drew, so, heck, why not? [It is a day late though, I know, I was so busy, that's all...]
Anyways, I tried a different style for this, and I blame it on the book I'm reading right now, with an authoress that writes like that... [Mister Bones in here actually isn't mine, if anyone can place him (Hint: the style of writing has something to do with it) I'll be real pleased, but I doubt it anyways...]
Really, really mild Shonen-Ai, and I guess it'd be incest? Dunno, but I always kinda dug incest... eheheh! ^^;
Still, I rather liked this, and the way the style goes, I barely need to edit! ^_^-
And there's something I found fun with doing the triplets and repetition... Interesting, to try out different styles.
Anyways, the real reason I was doing this was because little kiddies don't know the 'real' Halloween, that it's when the borders between the spirit and living worlds are the weakest and the spirits can cross over, and I wanted to do something about that... So, well, here it is. [^^;; Eheheh...]
...Enjoy.

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