Lucian's First Trick

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  • Dedicated to Samuel
                                    

“I don't know about this one, Dad.  The light's not on.”  He stood on the sidewalk looking up at the porch of the house next door.  Unlike every other house on the street, it was dark, same as every night.  Not once from his bedroom window had the boy seen the glow of a TV, or a light in the bedroom.  “Let's just go home.”

“Lucian, it's your last year trick-or-treating,” his father said.  “You said you were going to hit every house on the block.”  A glowing iPhone illuminated the man's face.

Lucian shrugged.  He took a step toward the house, then froze, as he heard the sound of voices shrieking from across the street.

“Hey, Lucy-N!  You got some 'splainin' to dooooooo!”  It was Elmo Jenkins, threepeat douchebag champion of the world, doing his best Ricky Ricardo.  

Lucian looked to his dad.  His dad looked to his phone, now held sideways, thumbs typing away, frowning vaguely.

“'Sup, Peanut Boy?  You get me any Reese's Cups yet?”  Elmo raised his fingers to his mouth in a crude gesture, wagging his tongue at Lucian and rendering his costume a sudden obscenity.  

How many years had Elmo threatened Lucian because of his peanut allergy?  Lucian did the math.  He was eleven now, so...four years?  

Lucian held up four fingers in Elmo's direction.  As the bully's face registered delighted surprise, Lucian lowered each of three fingers, except for the middle one.  He danced it around in the air, merrily for a moment, before putting it away as his dad looked up from the phone.

On the porch of the house next door, the light flickered on.

“Go on,” Lucian's dad said.  “Light's on now.”  In a whisper he added “Maybe we'll finally see what the old recluse looks like.”

Elmo grabbed his crotch and made lewd gestures from across the street, his cronies snickering.  

Lucian stole up the steps to the front door before he lost his nerve. The door creaked open as Lucian approached.

“Hello?” he said.  No answer.  “Trick or treat?”  This time he whispered, and looked over his shoulder to see if he'd just given Elmo more ammunition for making fun of him.  Who says “trick or treat” anymore?

“Come in, child,” the old lady said, her bony hand grasping Lucian by the wrist and pulling him inside, before he could whip his head around and register her appearance.  A confluence of teeth and darkness, the smell of smoke like a million cigarettes and Grandma's church at Christmastime.  He pulled away from her grasp, but she was quick and powerful and he felt himself fly forward with a jerk, like that time his dad had taken him to the Harry Potter theme park, and they'd ridden the 3D ride.

Lucian caught his breath, stumbling away from the woman and landing hard on his bottom, his trick or treat bag spilling onto the grimy hardwood floor.  As much as he wanted the candy, he didn't dare scoop it up from the mess of ooze and sticky goo.

“What the hell?” he said.  “What was that?”  He stood and tried to take a look around the dark room.  It was candlelit, but just barely.  They were deep into the house now—somehow the old crone had pulled him inside.  She was cloaked in a black flaxen robe, the kind he'd seen in a number of boring Halloween specials every year.

She laughed.  “Oh, you're better than I thought, little boy.  You've come for a treat, I think, and--”

“That's cool and everything, nice costume, but I gotta get back to my dad,” Lucian said.  He tried to squeeze past her, and it shouldn't have been difficult, as slight as she appeared to be under the robe.  She reached for his wrist, but Lucian pulled away.  His hand flailed, striking a thick glass jar, and he cried out in pain as he bungled past the woman.

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⏰ Last updated: Nov 29, 2012 ⏰

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