Chapter 4
George had done it! Admittedly, with a lot of Devinah's help, but he had done it. The spooky haunted house was up and ready for its big reveal on Friday the thirteenth, which was today.
He woke up, spied the depressive depths of his rooms, and rolled his eyes. Nothing in his life as an accountant had in any way prepared him for this dreary world. Devinah had told him that these were the best rooms and that the King of Halloween only demanded the best. Everyone insisted that no other rooms were more suited for his kingly status, but every day the dust, gloom and spiders only further depressed him.
He had to turn all of the painting so that their backs faced him. Not only were the portraits terrifying to look at, but he could swear the eyes moved and followed his motions around the room.
Everything in this room gave him the creeps. About the only thing he did appreciate was the cosy bed. Yes, occasionally he wondered if the wriggling down by his toes was terrible, ginormous bed bugs, until he realised it was his own body shivering in fear.
Today would be a good day, he promised himself. It would be the day where he might finally have a chance to leave this place, but only if he managed this day successfully.
Then again, his success could lead to the many Mr and Mrs High forcing him to stay here. That gave him way too much to think about. Sometimes he missed his simple life of being an accountant. He returned his thoughts to the hopeful success of today's venture.
"Come on, George, everyone's waiting on your appearance," Devinah said as she knocked on his door.
It surprised her when the overly timid George flew out to greet her. The man even smiled as if he was looking forward to today's events.
Not for the first time did she look at him quizzically. There was something understated about him. His hesitancy and obvious fear of his surroundings didn't help him to appear anything like the King of Halloween.
At times, she sensed something more sinister lurking inside him, a creature that didn't show itself very often. She had seen his eyes glow an eerie red and a flash of malevolence she never would've expected from him.
The day when he told all of his advisors to not touch her was still a pleasant memory for her. Phineas hadn't come near her or tried his creepy manoeuvres since that day. Her life was much easier now with George in charge, and that was hard to believe when she saw his timidity.
Within his first few hours here, he had established a leadership that Devinah had tried to accomplish but never managed to find. If she was the Queen of Halloween they would've obeyed her, but everyone in this Holidaze knew that she didn't belong here. Devinah appreciated George more than she could ever explain.
George smiled and rubbed his hands together making Devinah have to catch her breath. Why was this man's smile so stimulating to her? Cupid, who was far handsomer, had never made her stomach twist or caused pleasant tingles to rush through her.
"Good morning, Devinah," George sounded and looked the most excited that she had ever seen him. For some odd reason it filled her with warmth.
"You look quite chirpy today," Devinah said with a smile.
George froze and stared at her. His eyes almost bugged out of his head. With a quick adjustment of his glasses, George realised that he was seeing a new Devinah in front of him.
"You look... ugh, different," George said and then closed his eyes at saying something so obvious and dumb.
"Do you like it?"
Devinah didn't want to know why she desperately craved his opinion on her changed appearance. Why should she care about his thoughts? This dopey man always left her discombobulated and she wasn't sure whether she liked it or not.
"It's funky," George said as he examined her closely.
Gone was her long, glorious hair, now she had an edgy pixie cut that spiked up in all directions. Her blue eyes now had black eyeliner defining them while glittery eye shadow only made the blue sparkle brighter. The ruby red of her lips captured his attention and he struggled to drag his gaze away. Her clothing had gone from tidy and functional to ripped and dark. Devinah now had an edginess that George envied, she now fit into this Halloween world.
George adjusted his glasses and forced himself not to scratch his itchy skin. A blush had spread across his face making him desperate to itch that skin too. He gulped in a breath, dared a glance at Devinah and quickly looked away from her engaging sapphire eyes.
"Funky, huh?" Devinah asked as she tilted her head to gauge his reaction.
"It looks one thousand percent better on you then it would on me," George proclaimed before lowering his voice, "glasses don't really encourage a dark persona," he twisted his glasses once again.
"You could be a bad arse, in fact, I've seen you do it, glasses and all," Devinah said with a smile.
"You're the spunky looking one, not me."
"When you told your advisors to stop bothering me, it was a bad arse thing. The tone of your voice and the way your posture changed, it sent a chill down all of their spines. I can assure you of that," Devinah sounded pleased and George ducked his head at hearing the way she described him.
"Get out."
"It's true. You can be just as terrifying as any of those advisors of yours," she assured him.
"We should get this Friday the thirteenth thing started," George quickly changed the subject and Devinah nodded.
"Let's scare the beejeebus out of them!"
Together George and Devinah made their way down and out of the building. Everyone had gathered around the boarded-up display and anticipation bounded through the air. The advisors stood separately but even they had an air of excitement around them.
George saw children of all different ages and species grinning at each other. Everyone couldn't wait to see the treat that awaited them on this auspicious Friday the thirteenth. George could only hope that he'd done enough to please them all.
"This is your show," Devinah nodded at George and gestured to the platform that overlooked the thrilled beings of the Halloween Holidaze, "go and introduce yourself, so we can get this party started."
"Yeah, uh, I guess it is up to me, isn't it?" George replied with a great deal of uncertainty.
"You're the King of Halloween and this will prove that to them," Devinah encouraged.
"Got to move on with the show," he muttered to himself as he headed for the spot where they expected him to make a rousing, scary speech.
When Devinah followed him, George found that he could breathe again. At least he wasn't going into this alone.
With all eyes intently watching him, George gulped. Never in his life could he imagine seeing one vampire, let alone dozens, with their fangs gleaming brightly at him. Werewolves, ghouls, ghosts with figures of all shapes and sizes stared up at him expectantly.
"Hello, uh, all of Halloween. For this Friday, the thirteenth we've brought you the most spooktacular of all things, a haunted house," George raised his voice as he sensed the excitement of the group growing.
With a casual sweep of his hand, he tugged on the cord that would reveal all of the hard work of him and Devinah. They had worked on this tirelessly to make the spookiest haunted house imaginable.
He waited for the gasps and he sure did receive them, but not in a way that he'd ever expected. These weren't gasps of wonder and delight. The gasps he heard soon turned to horrified screams, but alas not in the way he intended.
It was only when a goat butted against his leg that he could manage a response. He stared at the pleasant sight before him that in no way reflected what he and Devinah had worked so hard on. How did his spooky haunted house become a petting zoo?
Creatures ran screaming as a different goat bleated. When a dog barked one of the werewolves growled and the dog cowered. A cow stamped its hoof and bedlam ran roughshod around the animals. As innocent as the scene appeared, it definitely freaked out the locals.
"What the? Where did our haunted house go?" George pondered.
"No clue. We worked so hard on it. Who would want to spoil such a spooktacular work of art?" Devinah despaired.
George had no answer for her. All he noticed was the many disappointed looks and shaking of heads from his team of advisors. He gulped and an acidic taste burned down his throat.
When George was a kid, he remembered going to a petting zoo that looked much like this one did. He'd had a blast petting all of the animals and holding the tamer ones.
Looking around, George realised that this was actually the same petting zoo from his childhood. From the sign proclaiming its name down to all the individual animals, it was all the same. There was the baby rabbit with the two white front paws and the calf with the star imprint on its forehead. Nostalgia gripped him as he saw his childhood memories come to life before him. He allowed those cheerful moments to fill him once again.
It was only when a headless man approached him that George tucked his memories away. The headless man stalked towards him with his head tucked under his arm for safekeeping.
"Um, that's the headless horseman," Devinah whispered from beside George, "he's the one who wanted to take charge the moment the last King left, or at least that was the rumour going around when I got here."
The headless horseman was more gruesome than most of the creatures George had met so far. Where his head should have been there was only raw, shredded flesh. Blood gushed from the wound with every movement he made as he stormed towards George with blood spurting in all directions. When the man's hands raised his head to the position where it should attach, George found it hard to contain the contents of his stomach.
"This is not at all terrifying!" the headless man declared. "it isn't even slightly scary. Who's running this place?"
All fingers pointed to a nervous George, who tucked his hands behind his back so nobody could see how badly they shook. Condemning eyes bored into him and it took everything within George not to run off screaming.
"I am, and it was a haunted house," George said trying to sound firm but his voice had shuddered.
"You are an incompetent human! I cannot believe that you are the one they put in charge," the headless horseman snorted, which spurted blood everywhere.
George ducked to avoid getting splattered, "look, I made a haunted house. At no time did I bring a petting zoo from my childhood into it," George insisted.
Everyone froze and all eyes turned to George who gulped. Why had he said something so stupid?
Luckily for him, an animalistic bellow distracted everyone. George turned to see the werewolves circling as one gigantic pack. Their jowls streamed with drool at the buffet they saw before them. George stared in horror at the innocent animal about to suffer a slaughtering. The animals began to huddle together and no more made happy bleating noises. The werewolves circled ever closer and George's mind ran with what he should do next.
"That's enough!" the order made the werewolves back down and only make whimpering noises.
George had once again surprised himself when he had sounded so in control, commanding and aggressive. Never in his life had he barked out anything in such a way that made a whole group respond to him.
"Devinah and I went out of our way to make a haunted house for you to enjoy. No, I don't know how it became... this, but it was a haunted house. "
Halfway through his speech, George knew he had lost the crowd of Halloween crazed people again. This time it was from the calf beginning to bleat out an unexpected noise. That, unfortunately made the chickens start to cluck, which led to the ducks quacking and followed with a general ruckus from all the animals.
Someone amongst the Halloween group started screaming and George sighed. This day wasn't going well at all. As much as he wanted the being to scream with delight at the haunted house, was as much as he didn't want to hear the screams of beings that couldn't appreciate cute, fluffy animals.
The crowd began to surge towards where George stood with murder in their eyes. This was one angry mob that he didn't want to be a part of. The screaming had died into mutterings and it all pointed at George's incompetence.
"Get him!" the headless man, who had now vaulted onto his horse shouted.
Pitchforks appeared in amongst the assembledmany and terror slid icily down George's spine. This world didn't want to treathim as his last world had, and George wasn't quite sure what to do about that.