Walpurgis Hallow

Black Birthday

                Alice woke up on a cold Friday morning, her alarm clock reading 8:00 AM. She tossed and turned in the sheets, her tendons and bones crunching as she finally sat up. She pulled the bat-covered pajama shirt she was wearing tighter, shivering. Her dreams had not exactly been peaceful, but the fact her pillow was now halfway across the room was more than evidence enough of that. She had dreamed of being unable to save Eddie from Nightmare Land, and the sheer frustration of it all was seen in the tangled mess of sheets that had been her bed.

The other dream she had had been about Cindy and Linnea and even herself. They had found themselves looking into mirrors, and seeing warped reflections of themselves. Cindy's reflection wore her cheerleader uniform, but had blood splattered on her face and a sadistic smirk. Both of her pigtails were intact, and something that looked like it might have been Alice lay dead at her feet, Eddie lying equally broken nearby. A bloodstained baseball bat lay nearby. In Linnea's mirror, the Skull Maiden looked back at her, a lean and hungry look in her eyes. She cooed sensually above a dead Cindy, with Alice cowering in fear beside hers. Alice's mirror showed her possessed self, a feral beast of a girl, naked and bloody, shrieking and hissing above Eddie and Cindy's mangled corpses.

She had told herself it was only a dream and meant nothing. They had learned in the amusement park that none of them were monsters, despite their fears. Ozzy King was dead, she told herself, and he would never prey on them with their fears ever again.

The phone ringing knocked her out of her nightmare-induced haze. She got up, sighing gently as she walked over and picked it up.

"Hello?" she said, still half-asleep.

"Happy Birthday, Alice!" Eddie exclaimed, sounding entirely too happy and energetic for eight in the morning.

"Ugh...Eddie...what day is it?"

"Friday the 13th of October, baby! It's your birthday!"

She checked the calendar. Sure enough, it was exactly the day Eddie said it was. It was her birthday, or as it read on the calendar, "the accursed day of my spawning." She erased it and wrote "Happy Birthday!" It seemed sunnier that way.

"So, Eddie baby...what are we doing today?"

"Well, Cindy and Linnea are with me right now, and we're kinda waiting outside."

"Jeez, Eddie! Some of us like to sleep in! You're seriously using Linnea's cell phone to do this?"

"You can come out, provided you're dressed and stuff. I mean, you aren't like, wearing that corset and garters set of yours, right?"

"Eddie! Do you have to broadcast our sex life in front of everyone?!"

"It's called a birthday suit for a reason, kiddo."

Alice bit her lip and blushed. She secretly liked how frank and open Eddie was, but still, she was kind of embarrassed about being probably the kinkiest of her friends. She didn't even get paid to take her clothes off like Linnea had once upon a time, but even Linnea blushed occasionally when details of her private life came out.

"I'm wearing pajamas, but it's cold as hell out there. Can I at least shower first?"

"Look, can you just let us in at least, Cindy and Linnea are freezing."