Sorry this took so long to get out, I wanted to make the Halloween chapter for this fic extra special and I ended up making it almost twice as long as my other chapters, word count wise. Anyway I hope you enjoy.
This chapter's song is Halloween by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
It's four in the morning when you wake up to someone standing in your doorway. You sit up and before you can turn on your light they're walking away. You groan and grab a jacket before you start to follow them. It's too dark to tell who it is. You're putting your jacket when they walk outside into the backyard.
You follow them into the rain outside. But this feels weird, you don't exactly feel the cold, wet grass under your feet, or the rain hitting you in a normal way. It almost feels like you're in a dissociative state. But you keep following them. You follow them into the woods and you start to notice some details about them.
They look dirty, very dirty, almost decaying. Their clothes, their outfits looks familiar. So does their hair. You stop walking and they turn around, still too dark for you to see.
"Who are you?" You ask, your voice not exactly sounding like your own. Lightning flashes and you see who they are. River. "No. You're dead! You're dead!"
"You killed me." He says, tilting his head. His face, half of his face and jaw is missing, exposing his face and teeth. He looks more zombie than human. It takes a few moments for you to process what's happening but you eventually get your voice again.
"You raped me!" You shout at him, not moving from where you are. He doesn't move either but you can feel his disgusting gaze on you. "I don't regret what I did! Lord knows you would have done that to someone else!" You shout at him. Pushing your rain soaked hair out of your face.
"That's what you think happened." He says, moving his head back up again. "I'll be visiting you tonight. You'll get what you deserve."
"Oh you deserved a lot worse than what you got." You growl at him. Another flash of lightning and you feel pressure on your fingers. You look down at your right hand and find your fingers contorted. Like the time he broke them with his carelessness. But there's no pain like before.
"Y/N." Someone says, you look back up and River is gone. "Y/N." They say again. You look around and find no one.
"What?" You ask, your voice echoing a bit.
"Can you hear me Y/N?" The voice asks again. It sounds... so familiar.
You open your eyes and gasp for air a bit. You're in the woods. The cold hits you first. You're in the woods, standing barefoot in the mud, drenched in rain. The sun is barely starting to rise. You're still in your sleep clothes. You're shivering when you look over and find Will at your side.
"Y/N are you ok?" He asks, holding onto your hand. You look down and find your fingers are normal.
"I um... I think I was sleepwalking." You say, pushing some of your rain drenched hair out of your face.
"Let's get you inside before you freeze or catch something." He says, holding your hand as he walks with you back home. Your feet squish and ache under the mud of the forest floor. Your clothes are sticking to your body and you feel extremely cold overall. "I guess everyone is entitled to one good scare today." Will mumbles, trying to lighten the mood.
"Why? What's today?" You ask, looking over at him.
"It's Halloween." He replies. You smile and nod your head. Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. Your first Halloween away from him and he's still found a way to bother you. But you're not going to let him ruin your favorite day of the year. You're not going to let him win.
You had to give up so much for him. Halloween parties, dressing up, watching horror movies, carving pumpkins, eating candy, really any fun Halloween traditions. But not this year. You're going to carve a damn pumpkin, dress up in a damn costume, watch some damn horror movies, eat some damn Halloween candy and enjoy your damn Halloween.
But first things first, you need to take care of your current situation.
"How did you know I was out here?" You ask, looking down at your mud covered feet.
"The back door was open when Hannibal and I woke up. Your bedroom door was also open. Do you remember walking out here at all? Do you remember anything about your dream?" He asks, taking off his jacket and putting it around you. You think for a moment about what you should tell him.
"Someone in my dream lured me out here. I didn't expect it to be real." You say, putting on the jacket fully.
"I used to sleepwalk too. I'm better now but it's still scary to have that happen to you. Did you happen to see a deer in your dream? Or something with deer antlers?" He asks, letting go of your hand briefly before going back to holding it. You think for a moment and shake your head.
"Not that I can remember. I kind of knew I was dreaming, but I didn't know exactly that I was dreaming. I think that's common in dreams and things like that." You say, zipping up Will's jacket. When you get back in the house you'll have to take a very long, hot shower, and have Hannibal make sure you didn't get hypothermia, "How deep out here did I get?" You ask, looking back at Will. He's staring ahead and seems to be deep in thought.
"I'm not sure, at least thirty minutes. Have you been having any headaches, hallucinations, or night sweats?" Will asks, looking over at you. You shake your head and look at Will carefully.
"No, it's just the nightmares and just now, the sleepwalking. Should I be worried about those things happening to me?" You ask. He shakes his head and looks back up at the path.
"No. You shouldn't worry about those happening to you. You should talk with Hannibal about this." He says, holding your hand a little tighter. You spend the rest of the walk in silence until you reach the house. When you walk in the house you quickly feel the almost painful sensation of the warm air heating up your cold body. Hannibal is in the kitchen and when you and Will walk in he's quick to look up at the both of you.
"I'm glad you found them," Hannibal says, setting down his mixing bowl, "Do you remember how you got out there?" He asks, looking you up and down. You nod your head and take off Will's jacket.
"I remember walking out of the house and into the woods in my dream. I guess I was just sleepwalking or something. I should probably go shower now." You look down at yourself and notice just how really dirty you are.
"That's a good idea." Hannibal says, picking up his mixing bowl while you walk into the bathroom. It's still very early in the morning so you quietly turn on the shower and take off your wet sleep clothes. You step in the shower and feel yourself warm up quickly while the runoff water turns brown from the mud caking your skin.
You take your time in the shower, making sure to scrub off all of the dirt sticking to your body. There's a lot of small cuts on your feet and legs from the amount of things you walked on, all of them stinging from the soap. You look down at your right hand again and remember how River broke your fingers once.
He wasn't paying attention to what he was doing and he shut a car door on your fingers pretty hard. He thought it wasn't a big deal and that you didn't actually need to go to the hospital. But after a lot of begging he finally took you there and you both found out that three of the fingers on your right hand were broken. You try to shake off the thought of him but it keeps coming back. You try to ignore the constant feeling of his words echoing in your head but no matter what you do, he's still there.
You've finally had enough and decide to get out of the shower. You wrap yourself up in a towel and quickly get back to your room. You put on a warm outfit and get back in your bed. You focus on your breathing and try to think about anything but River. It's Halloween, and you're away from him. He'll never hurt you, or anyone else again.
You must have fallen asleep because you open your eyes to find it's now eight in the morning. You sit back up and look around, making sure you're not dreaming anymore. Once you're sure this is real life you stand up and leave your room. You walk into the dining room and find Herbert, Norman and Michael standing at the table, looking down at a plain, cardboard box.
"What's up with that?" You ask, walking over to them and looking down at it.
'To Y/N, Happy Halloween'
Is written on the top of the box. You know who it's from but Norman grabs your wrist for a moment before quickly pulling away.
"What if it's another pig heart?" He asks. You just nod your head and look back at the box.
"If it's another pig heart I'm going to kill him." You say, opening the box. But inside isn't a pig heart. In fact, it's nothing gorey at all. Inside the box is a few stacks of DVD's, a bag of Halloween candy, and a note. You pick up the note and read it.
'Got these from some guy who collected them. I hope you and your boyfriends have a happy Halloween. Hope I see a few of them out tonight ;)'
You roll your eyes and take out the candy bag, handing it to Herbert.
"Can you check these for needles and stuff?" You ask. He picks up the bag and nods.
"What about the DVD's?" He asks, gesturing to them before he picks up the bag. You look back in the box and pick them up, reading the titles out loud.
"Night of the living dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Trick r' Treat, My Bloody Valentine, American Mary, Suspiria, House of Wax, Saw, The Lost Boys, Near Dark, Chopping mall, and A Nightmare on Elm Street." You say, taking all of the DVD's out of the box. "Why would he bother to do this?" You ask rhetorically. You know exactly why. You love horror movies and it's been a long time since you've been able to watch them.
"I'll go deal with this." Herbert says, holding up the bag of Halloween candy. "Let's hope there's nothing in the DVD's."
After looking through all of them there really is nothing out of the ordinary with the DVD's. Maybe Ghostface really did get them from some guy who collected them. But you don't want to think about what happened to him for too long.
After looking through the DVD's you walk into the kitchen and find out that Hannibal made Pumpkin bread. You smile and cut yourself a slice, savoring the autumnal flavor of the bread. Today is perfect for Halloween. There's still an air of fog outside and it's perfectly cool. No bugs to worry about, you can layer and wear whatever you want without having to worry about sweating, and you can just breathe.
A couple hours later you're in your room, looking at all the DVD's Ghostface left you. You know there's a DVD player in the living room, and what else is there to do tonight other than watch some scary movies. Michael is out, obviously. Will is taking Hannibal out on a special kind of date. You don't know of any Halloween parties you were even invited to. So what's better than a classic Halloween movie night.
It's only noon so you decide to wait on watching them. But what you decide to do is pull together a costume for the hell of it, take a couple pictures and just remember what it feels like to have some kind of freedom. So you get out of bed and walk over to your closet, looking for anything you can pull together to make into a costume. After a lot of searching you decide the easiest thing for you to be this Halloween is a zombie.
You take out some old clothes and head upstairs to Carrie's room. You knock on her door and she opens it with a smile.
"Happy Halloween Y/N." She says, noticing the clothes. You smile back at her.
"Happy Halloween Carrie. I was hoping you could help me with my costume. I want to be a zombie this year and maybe you could help with the clothes and the makeup and stuff like that." Carrie smiles and lets you into her room. She sits you down at her vanity and opens a drawer.
"So what kind of a zombie are you going to be?" She asks, taking out some makeup and a pair of scissors.
"Just a stereotypical kind of zombie. Nothing too fancy. Just make me look like a zombie and I'll be great."
"No problem at all. Do you want to make any fake wounds or anything? I have this book on special effects if you want to try." Carrie offers, shutting the drawer.
"Yeah, that sounds great Carrie." She walks over to a shelf in her room and picks up a book, bringing it over to you. You flip through the pages until you find one for a Zombie look. You take the supplies Carrie has and you get to work. After about 15 minutes you're ready to put on the actual makeup. "Do you think this looks good?" You ask, looking in the mirror then turning to Carrie. She smiles and nods her head.
"You look great." You look back at the make up. You used liquid latex and a bunch of cotton balls to make fake holes and craters in your skin. Now you just need to make yourself look like you're dead, "Now I've never done a zombie before. I'm not sure how I would start." You and Carrie look at the book until someone knocks at the door. They walk in and you turn to see Herbert.
"I checked the candy, and all of it is safe to eat," He looks at your makeup and adjusts his glasses. "If you're going for a realistic wound look I'd recommend making sure your skin matches the fake wounds."
"Oh I'm making Y/N a zombie." Carrie says, giving Herbert a tense smile. "You've seen lots of dead people before, maybe you can help me make them a zombie." Herbert considers this for a moment before he walks in and shuts the door behind him.
"I can try my best." He says, taking Carrie's spot at the vanity and looking at you. "How dead do you want to be? Freshly died or really undead." He asks, moving your head gently with his hand.
"I just want to look like a zombie. So probably the 'I've been dead for a couple months look' if you know what I mean." He stays silent and looks down at the makeup before standing back up.
"I'll help consult on this process. First thing's first we need to remove the warm tones from their face." Carrie sits back down and picks up some makeup. She takes a makeup sponge and starts to apply it on your skin.
"Don't get it on the inside of the wounds, just apply it generally on their skin." Herbert says, watching over the process. He continues to consult Carrie on what to do. She picks up a bunch of different brushes and makeup pallets while following his instructions. After a while Herbert gets a closer look at you again and nods his head.
"You did good, Carrie. They really do look like a zombie." You turn around and look in the mirror. Herbert wasn't lying. You really do look undead. You stop yourself before you touch your face and ruin the makeup.
"Thank you Herbert." You say, turning back around to look at him. He just nods his head and leaves.
"Of course. Happy Halloween." He opens the door and leaves. You get up from the vanity and lay out your clothes for the costume. They're an old pair you don't mind getting dirty. You start to make small cuts in them while Carrie gets to work on her makeup.
"What are you this year Carrie?" You ask, looking up at her.
"I'm going to be a clown. I have this really pretty pastel dress I made, with bells." She says, applying some makeup on her face. You smile and keep working on your costume while Carrie puts on her makeup. You finish a bit before her and stand up.
"Alright, I'm going to put on my costume, let me know when you're ready." You say, picking up your clothes and walking to the door.
"I will." She says, looking back at you. You take a moment to admire her pastel clown makeup that looks really, really beautiful. You walk into the upstairs bathroom and put on your costume. You look over your makeup and costumes happily, pulling out your phone and taking a couple pictures of yourself.
You leave the bathroom and wait outside Carrie's room until she opens the door and shows you her costume. It looks absolutely stunning. Almost like a jester outfit in a dress form. The colors being a lovely pale pink, blue and yellow, with bells on the top flaps of the dress.
"Holy sh-shoot Carrie you look amazing." You say happily, watching a smile grow on her face.
"Thank you Y/N. This took me a while to make and I'm so happy it turned out this great." She spins a little and the bells jingle. "Should we take pictures now?" You nod your head and take in the rest of her costume.
"Yeah totally." You walk back into her room and set up your phone to take pictures. Carrie hangs up a Halloween blanket for a backdrop and the two of you spend a while taking pictures together, some together and some separate. You spend the next ten minutes going over the pictures and editing them, sending some to Carrie.
"If there were a costume party you'd totally win." You say to Carrie, setting down your phone. You pause for a moment and think. "Do you like scary movies?" You look over at Carrie and she thinks before she nods.
"I mean sure. I don't usually watch them but they're fun. Why do you ask?"
"I mean I got a pretty good stack of DVD's, all of them horror movies. What better way to spend your Halloween than watching some good scary movies."
"That does sound fun. Why not, I haven't watched a horror movie in a long time."
You talk with Carrie for a couple more minutes before you go back to your room and take off your costume and your makeup. Nothing much happens for the rest of the day. It's around five pm when you get a knock on your door. You get up from your bed and open it to find Hannibal and Will, the latter dressed better than he normally is.
"We just wanted to let you know that we're going out to dinner. We'll be back later." Will says, giving Hannibal a quick look. You smile and nod your head.
"Alright, I hope you two have fun at dinner. I'll be here. Happy Halloween." You say to them.
"Happy Halloween." Hannibal and Will say before they leave. You go back to the stack of DVD's and look them over, trying to figure out what order to watch them in. You go over them mentally way too many times, trying to find the best order to watch them in.
"What are you doing?" Norman asks. You jump a little and turn around, you didn't even know he was home.
"Oh I'm just trying to decide how to watch these movies tonight with Carrie. Do you want to watch them with us?" You ask, holding up one of the DVD boxes.
"Sure. I mean I've never really been a fan of horror movies but I wouldn't mind watching them with you and Carrie. I think you should invite Billy to watch them with us. I think he'd like that." Norman says, putting his hands in his pockets while looking down at the DVD's.
"Yeah I probably should go ask him about that. Do you know if Jason would want to join us?"
"Oh Jason goes over to Camp Crystal Lake on Halloween. It's common for teenagers to go there and get rowdy. He wants it to be taken care of."
"Isn't Camp Crystal lake like 20 miles from here? How does he get there?" You ask, looking over at Norman who just shrugs.
"He starts walking early I guess. There's a way there through the woods that he takes. He prefers to do that alone though." You nod your head and arrange the DVD's one last time before you get your ideal spread of horror movies.
After asking Billy and getting him on board you set up in the living room with Carrie, Norman, and Billy. Carrie made a big batch of popcorn and she's made everyone a bowl of their own.
Now that you've got everything set up you slide in the first DVD and 'Night of the living dead' starts to play. You sit back on the couch next to Norman and Carrie as Billy sits on the floor in front of you. You notice how tightly Norman is holding a throw pillow and you put a hand on his arm soothingly.
"Hey this movie isn't that scary. There's barely any gore. It's going to be ok." You say, trying to sooth him. He gives you a tense smile and picks up a few pieces of popcorn and eats them.
"Mother never let me watch scary movies. I'm just not as used to them as you are." He says, eating more popcorn. Carrie walks back in with a gallon of cider and some cups, placing them on the coffee table. You pour yourself a glass and take a sip. Billy is mumbling to himself like he usually does as the characters pull up to the cemetery. As the movie plays Norman looks away a couple times and Billy laughs at a few scenes. The credits roll and you stand up. You look at them while taking out the DVD.
"That was um...not as bad as I expected it would be." Norman says, getting up and walking to the kitchen to refill the popcorn. You look at the DVD's and then over at Carrie.
"Should we skip the next two 'of the dead' movies and try to watch something less gorey? We can always go back to them later." You look down at the DVD's then up at Carrie and she nods her head.
"Billy likes watching movies. How about we go back to them later?" Billy suggests. You nod your head and pick up 'My Bloody Valentine'. Norman returns and as you're putting in the DVD Thomas and Bubba walk in.
"Oh we're just about to continue our horror movie marathon. Do you want to join us?" You ask. They both nod and sit with Billy. You smile and put in the DVD. You press play and the movie starts. Again, Norman looks away at some scenes and the Sawyer brothers seem to really enjoy it.
As the movies continue everyone watches them silently. Carrie, Norman and yourself jump from time to time because of the movies but otherwise the night is going great. You pause the movie when you hear the door open. Hannibal and Will walk by quickly. Both of them look a little disheveled and they're holding hands.
"How was dinner?" You ask. They look over at you and nod.
"Good." Is all Hannibal says as they quickly walk into their bedroom, shut and lock the door. You snicker and play the movie again. Eventually everyone else gets up and goes to bed, but you stay down and keep watching the movies. You feel your eyes flickering shut a bit but you keep them open as Carly and Wayne walk into Ambrose. As you're watching 'House of Wax' you feel like someone is watching you.
You pause the movie and look around the dark living room and notice Michael is standing, watching you. He's not in his coveralls anymore and he's wearing his orange mask, both clean of blood. You shudder at the thought that he'd gotten home without you noticing, cleaned himself up, then decided to watch you for however long. But it could be worse. You also notice he's holding an unopened bag of Halloween candy.
"Do you want to join me? I'm watching a movie." You say, moving over on the couch, making room for him. He silently walks over to the couch and sits down next to you. He opens the bag and takes out some candy. You play the movie again and take some candy too. The both of you watch the movie in silence as you keep eating the Halloween candy. Eventually you fall asleep and lean a bit on Michael. When you wake up early the next morning you find you're still leaning on Michael, and he hasn't moved an inch.
"Oh I'm sorry Michael." You say before you stand up and walk to bed. That was the best Halloween you've had in years.