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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Verastahl on 2024-10-31 22:30:11+00:00.
“Wake up.”
I felt myself coming up from some vast darkness, like a small balloon slowly rising to the surface of a vast, black sea. I couldn’t move, or even blink, but my eyes were already open, so I could see that I was on our front porch facing toward the front door and the steps leading out into the yard. Whatever was stopping me from moving, it didn’t prevent me from feeling everything. My eyes were dry and burning, and my throat felt raw and strange, like I was in the middle of choking on something. And I was sitting in a chair—I couldn’t move to see it, but I could feel the hard wooden slats of a rocking chair under my legs and the flat planes of the armrests against my forearms and elbows.
And that voice. Was that Ellen?
“Time to wake up now. The trick-or-treaters will be coming soon, and I want you to understand what’s happening before they do. I had to slip a sedative into your food earlier—I couldn’t risk you struggling or damaging something while I got you all fixed up—but only the paralytic should be left at this point.”
It was Ellen. What was she talking about? Why was she doing this?
“Now don’t worry. Part of my preparations was to give you a breathing tube. At the dose of paralytics I’m drip feeding you, I couldn’t risk you suffocating to death, now could I? And rest assured, no one will notice the tube or the I.V. That’s one of the reasons I picked such an elaborate ghoul costume for you. The mask and clothes will cover all of that, and I have a drape right behind your chair.”
Mask? But she was right. I couldn’t look around, but at the edge of my vision I could make out the edge of what could be eyeholes of a mask. And didn’t my face feel like something was against it in spots?
“I’m speaking to you through wireless headphones I’ve taped into your ears to make sure you hear everything. I’ve recorded it ahead of time—all of this is so well-planned…well, I’m very proud of it. I’ll have more little messages for you later on, but for now, we just have to wait for the first kids to come. I can’t wait.”
None of this made any sense. Ellen was a doctor, so I didn’t doubt she could do what she was describing, but why would she? In the three years we’d been married, we’d barely had an argument, much less anything violent. And now, what, she was drugging me and tying me to a chair dressed up like a monster? Fucking why?
It couldn’t be money. She made five times as much as I did. And I’d never seen any sign of problems between her and Angela—just the opposite. She’d taken to her new step-daughter right away, and they’d gotten very close in the last couple of years. None of this made any sense.
My mind was still spinning with different questions and scenarios when the first trick-or-treaters arrived, and before they could even ring the doorbell, Ellen was out on the porch in an elaborate witch costume I’d never seen before.
“Hello, my pretties! Happy Halloween! I have oodles of candy for you, but first, who wants to beat up on this nasty ghoul on my porch? I keep telling him to go, but he wants all my candy. All your candy. So will you go over and hit him for me? Maybe he’ll finally go away.”
The two kids, a ghost and a soldier, both looked uncertainly between her and me. I could tell they couldn’t see there was a person underneath, but she was still making a strange request. Maybe they would just…
“Are you sure its okay? Is he going to like, try to grab us or something?”
Witch Ellen shook her head with a cackle. “No, nothing like that. If I did my job right, he won’t move a muscle.”
Nodding at her and then glancing at each other, the two boys crept over closer to my end of the porch. The ghost wrinkled his nose and then glanced back at Ellen. “I hear a weird noise.”
It was probably the fucking breathing machine. Everything I heard was muffled, but maybe the kid was bright enough to know what it was or tell something was wrong.
Ellen grinned. “That’s just the ghoul growling because he knows you’re fixing to make him leave. He can’t hurt you, but he’s grumpy about someone showing him who’s boss.”
The ghost nodded uncertainly, turning back around just as the tiny soldier punched me in the stomach. It didn’t hurt, not really, but it was uncomfortable, and it focused my clouded mind on the fact that I could still feel quite a bit. I had to get out of this fast, before she did something worse to me. Straining with all my will, I tried to move at all or make a sound. But nothing seemed to change.
And then the ghost kicked me in the shin.
This did hurt, sending a thrill of anger and fear through me at the surprise and the sensation. The ghost and soldier had already scooted back across the porch and were collecting their candy, but I was still reeling from the pain and the inability to fully react to it. Strange as it seemed, not being able to yell or grab my leg was worse than the pain itself—it seemed to stretch everything out longer, make it sharper. I was so caught up in it that I didn’t even notice when the next kids came up.
She got them to stomp on my feet.
This went on for another thirty minutes or so before the earbuds in my ears flared to life again.
“The sacrifice of safety has been completed. And your process of enurement has begun.” There were three black candles on the baker’s rack next to the front door, and as Ellen’s words curdled in my ears, she lit the left most one.
There was nothing else said at the time, which was good, because I don’t know how much I would have been able to focus on. My legs and feet and hands were all aching from hits and kicks and pinches. Some kids refused to come near me, or they’d get close and then back away again without hurting me. But only some. There were still plenty that didn’t mind letting out some aggression on the bad old ghoul in the rocking chair.
I kept hoping that someone would notice that I was real, that there was a person under the costume. They’d notice my eyes, or how my skin felt when they twisted it, or something. But even if they did, they may think it was just a weird costume and I was in on it for Halloween, even with trick-or-treating being done three days early. Still, that might be my best hope. That or Angela coming home and finding me like this, so long as she didn’t get hurt. Either way, I’d just have to put up with kids punching and kicking me for awhile longer.
Ellen gave me a wink, almost like she could read my thoughts, and then she ducked inside. When she came back out, she was carrying a small table with a tray on it. On the tray was a neat row of sticks. She set it all down between the front door and my spot before turning to the next batch of three children, explaining to them that she’d brought out some special-made ash wands that would help them get rid of her mean ol’ ghoul. And that these wands weren’t made for waving.
They were made for poking.
The harder the better, and the one that poked the hardest would get the best candy.
It seemed like this lasted longer than the punches and kicks, and it was way more painful. My eyes would water some, but she was quick to moisten my eyes with drops and then wipe them and my tears away before the next group came up. Some of these later trick-or-treaters were older and bigger, and there were at least a couple of times that it felt like they’d broken through my skin and punctured something, but I couldn’t be sure. The ends of the “wands” were blunt and rounded, and my costume felt thick. Knowing Ellen, it was probably dark too, which would make a bit of blood easier to miss.
There were times when the pain was bad enough that I would swim out of consciousness a little. It was tempting to just sink back into that black ocean, but that’d be a death sentence. I had to keep trying to fight off the drugs she was giving me, keep looking for any opening or mistake. The porch seemed dark where I was, but if I could get one of the kids to see my eyes, maybe they’d know I was in there and something was wrong.
“The sacrifice of mercy is completed. And your enurement draws to a close.”
She lit the rightmost black candle.
Fuck. This was all clearly building towards something, but what? Was she really going to kill me? I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts by the screen door squealing as Ellen came back out with a butcher knife from the kitchen.
“Who wants to stab the ghoul?”
“Now as you can see, I’ve carefully marked red circles on the ghoul. Only stab him in those spots, okay? And only once. If you stab him anywhere else, he won’t go away and you won’t get any candy.”
The football player standing in front of me looked at her doubtfully as he gripped the knife. Fuck me, he was big. He’d probably just come from Goddamn practice to get some candy.
“So, um, I can just stab him? Like it won’t hurt the, um, doll or whatever?”
Ellen waved away his concern with a waggle of black nails. “He’s replaceable. But that’s also why you only hit a red area. Limits the damage.” Giving him a sly smile, she patted him on the chest. “Unless you’re too scared of him.”
He stabbed me somewhere in the shoulder. Not as hard as I’d expected, and somehow not as painful as the wands, but still worse in a way. I could feel some core part of my body screaming at me to protect it. That my life was spilling out now, and I had to stem the flow. My vision blurred a little, but tears never really came. Instead, I just stared out as the football player gave the knife back to Ellen and went…
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