A Hallowe'en Tale

by Arty

"Hey, John, why so down?"

This was Julie; my best mate; well one of them; she was cute. We had almost gone out together, but drawn back and now we were just good mates. Not that I didn't lust after her occasionally, you understand.

"I'm not. I was just wondering where our esteemed tutor-group tutor had got to."

I checked my watch. There were 10 minutes of registration period left, before lessons were supposed to start. Actually I had none this morning and normally I only came in for the afternoon - another 6th form perk - but today I felt like some company and I needed to use the library anyway.

"Oh. I heard we had a new girl starting; she's probably giving her the tour. I thought you knew, otherwise why are you here?"

"I was pining for your luscious body."

"You weren't pining yesterday evening! That was you with Mary trying to give her a hands free tonsillectomy wasn't it?"

I grinned; Jules wasn't jealous, well, not much.

"So tell me about the new girl?"

But before she could tell me more, the door opened and the aptly named Mrs. Wolf entered the room. She was followed by the new girl. She seemed shy and looked pretty in an unconventional way, it was hard to tell as she staring very hard at her feet. Then she looked up and caught me looking at her.

Our eyes locked. I'd never believed anyone when they said that; but they did. I couldn't explain it; I couldn't stop staring at her and she, apparently, was equally as unable to do anything but return my stare. I became aware that some one was punching my arm.

"Breathe! You idiot! Breathe or you'll faint." Suddenly I noticed that my peripheral vision was going. With a great effort I concentrated on returning my breathing to normal.

"Is everything all right, John?"

"Sorry Mrs. Wolf, I'm OK now."

"In that case, I'd like to introduce you all to Alice."

The new girl smiled shyly at us and I managed to look at her without becoming entranced again.

"And the idiot sitting next to me is John, the 6th Form Committee Chairman, who would normally say a few words - it's hard to stop him - but it since he seems to have lost the power of coherent speech, I'll say it. 'Welcome to the 6th form.' Oh yeah, I'm Julie, this idiot's treasurer and right-hand woman."

"Th… thanks."

"Look, come and sit over here with us, before John's drool floods the room."

I roused myself at this outrageous remark.

"Oi! I was not drooling." Mrs. Wolf interrupted any further repartee by asking the tutor group if we knew where Tim was. A chorus of half-hearted explanations along the lines of 'had too much too drink last night' was finally brought to a halt by a knock on the door.

"Come in!" The knock was unusual, most people who went visiting at this time of day, just opened the door with a cursory knuckle rap, usually made by knocking on the door frame as the door was half-open. A hesitant first-year was revealed as the door opened.

"Please miss, I've got a note from Mum about Timothy."

"Oh I was just asking about him, is he alright?"

"The doctor says he has the 'flu, an' he won't be well enough to come to school for ages." This was delivered in a breathless rush by Tim's sister who was still a little overawed by the presence of all these 6th formers, normally 1st years only got to see us in ones and twos. Since I was nearest the door I jumped down from my seat on a desk and took the letter from her. I glanced at Mrs. Wolf, who nodded slightly.

"Thanks Andrea. Tell Tim when you get home that we're all thinking of him and we hope he gets well soon."

"Tell him not to worry about his course work, I'll see that we set up a home-study pack for when he's better." Mrs. Wolf added.

Andrea nodded and ran off, grateful to have bearded the lions in their den with so little harm to herself. I passed the letter to Mrs. Wolf, who read it and tucked it into the register and prepared to leave the room. The bell went for the first period. Alice was looking lost and apprehensive.

"Do you know what you're supposed to be doing this period?"

She glanced at the timetable, "It says 'Free Study'". I thanked whatever Gods were looking after me that morning.

"Look, I'll take you to the 6th form centre; we can't stay here or Mr. Jarret will rope us into teaching the 2nd years French. I don't know about you but my French will set the 'Entente Cordiale' back half a century."

She smiled and nodded, and we followed the rest of the tutor group out of the room, by this time a gaggle of 2nd years were hanging around the door waiting to go in. A few of the girls started to giggle when they saw me, and half-whispered comments about Alice and me followed us down the corridor.

"Sorry about that. They don't mean anything by it."

Alice smiled again, "It seems I'm in the clutches of the School Casanova!"

"I'm no monk, but if you believe the gossip I've been out with all of the 6th form and half the staff as well!"

"So. You and Julie are you…?"

"Oh no. We nearly did, but we decided not too. She said it was like kissing her brother." I tried to smile at the memory. "So we decided to be mates; anyway she's been attached to Martin for nearly two years now - it looks like true love - I've learned to live with it."

We had reached the door to the 6th form centre - our little haven of peace and… The sounds of some raucous thrash metal assaulted our ears.

"SORRY ABOUT THIS." I shouted as I raced to switch off the second-hand sound system that some generous parent had endowed us with. "OK which dickhead left it on this time?" I asked the room. "Didn't you hear the bells?" No one answered and half of them looked quite sheepish. "I wouldn't care one way or the other, but you've missed registration and now I'll get in the neck at the next liaison meeting. If they decide to take this thing away I'm not fighting it this time!"

The silence stretched and became uncomfortable, they were in the wrong and they knew it. I sighed with exasperation. "You know the rules we agreed to: 'Not in lesson time.' Which one of those four words do you not understand?" No one met my eye.

I turned to Alice, "They're OK really, it's just they have to be slapped down once a week or so." I turned back to them. "This is Alice, take it easy on her for a week or two OK?" They nodded, relieved that I wasn't playing the heavy chairman any longer. "I won't introduce them all individually but collectively this lot are the 'Monday Morning Mafia' or the 'Three Ems' and I get more grief about them, than about everything else put together - why I agreed to stand for the committee I'll never know and why I let them vote me in as chairman is beyond me…"

"You love it and you know it!" Said a familiar voice from the doorway.

"Take no notice of Jules; she's just jealous."

"Yeah, I still have to go to all the meetings, but I don't get followed around by a gang of adoring 2nd years!"

"Well if you'd just ditch Martin and go out with me we'd kill two birds with one stone."

"In your dreams! However, much as I'm enjoying this, some of us have work to do. Nice to see you again Alice; just remember that every second thing he tells you is a lie and you won't go far wrong." And with a wave she left the room letting the door bang shut behind her.

I steered Alice over to a couple of chairs in the corner and we subsided into them. "So, Alice, where're you from?"

"We've been living abroad mostly, my dad's job means that we move around a lot. We've just got back from Romania."

"Oh the land of Vampires and Werewolves."

She jerked her head up.

"Sorry I shouldn't have interrupted - it was a stupid line anyway."

"'S Okay, I'm just a bit jittery; this is all so different from where I've been for the last year or so."

"What subjects are you doing?"

"Well I did Maths in a year last year so I'm doing Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry."

The Gods were having a field day with me - my subjects too - I was in for some serious bad luck to offset all this good luck.

"Those are my subjects too! So just 'stick with me kid' and I'll see that you don't get lost."

We chatted some more; she was easy to talk to and she seemed to open up with me after a while too. I still had difficult looking into her eyes, it was all too easy to forget to breathe; I was going to have to do something about that; I'd lost one girl already by not being clear about how I'd felt about her and I was not going to make the same mistake twice. So I gathered all my courage and started to speak.

"Look, this is going to sound really strange - but I promised myself that the next time I felt anything like this I'd say something - do you believe in love at first sight?"

"Oh thank God! I thought it was just me; when I saw you for the first time I just…"

By this time she'd grabbed my hand; the electric feel of her skin against mine was like nothing I'd ever felt before.

"How do you feel about going to see a film with me tonight?"

"I think I'd love it. We don't have to go out though, my parents aren't at home this evening."

"We don't have to…"

"Oh yes we do, if I didn't think we'd be together tonight, I'd just drag you off behind the bike sheds now. And that would give everyone entirely the wrong first impression of me. I've never felt anything like this before."

And that was it; as simply as that Alice and I became a couple. Apparently the collective groan from the 2nd year girls was heard the other side of town. The local gossips had a field day complaining about the 'foreign jezebel'. Well at least that's what Jules told us - though she is prone to exaggerate these things. Of all my friends she seemed the happiest for me and she and Alice were soon great friends also.

Being October the Hallowe'en dance was the next function on the 6th form agenda. Generally Jules and I organised these things and this year was no exception but Alice was also keen to help. The school was enlightened about drinking and one of the school governors was a police inspector so we had this rule that since beer was available from the bar, no booze was allowed to be brought in. Of course we had to jump through procedural hoops - we didn't sell drinks, we sold raffle tickets. All of the tickets were 'winning' tickets and the prize was a drink. So I got the drinks from the local wholesaler; though we needed a teacher to collect it - I wasn't eighteen yet. Then there was the hire of glasses, not to mention the food. And the 'raffle' tickets had to be designed and printed - obviously they had to be different from last year's. And finally the invitations themselves needed designing and printing. This had been set in motion before Alice had arrived at school, so the first time she saw the invites was also the time that she learned when it was scheduled for.

"I'm sorry John, I can't come to the party, not on that date; it's a family thing."

"Can't you ask if you can skip it this year?"

"No, I'm sorry; if it had been any other date, I'd have loved to come."

"Oh well I suppose…"

Jules broke in, "Oh come on Ally." She wheedled, "Last year he danced with me the whole night. My feet were black and blue. Martin thought I'd been caught by a herd of cows on the way home it was so bad."

I treated that with the disdain it deserved.

Alice's resolve wavered. "Perhaps I can come for the first couple of hours…" she thought for a bit. "I can't promise anything but I'll ask my parents."

So we left it at that and our lives jogged along until the night of the party.

"ALICE! I ABSOLUTELY FORBID IT!" I could hear the roar of her father from halfway to her front door. Suddenly the path was flooded with light as the door opened and a figure ran toward me.

"Come on! Lets go before he catches us." Not knowing what else to do I ran after her. Catching her up I pulled her into an alleyway.

"In here. It's quicker, if you don't mind the dark."

We ran along the path, it was really dark away from the streetlights and the moon wasn't due to rise for another couple of hours or so. Which was a pity as it was supposed to be a full moon tonight. But Alice didn't seem to have any trouble seeing where she was going so I just held her hand and followed her. Suddenly she stopped.

"What's the …"

She turned and kissed me. "Shhh. He'll hear us." Further discussion was halted as she continued kissing me; the kiss heated up and after a while I forgot about everything else, except the way our tongues seemed to spark each time they touched and about the fire she was lighting in my body. After an eternity, she stopped.

"Good he's gone; lets go."

"Who's gone?"

"My Dad of course; you didn't think he'd let me just run away in direct defiance of his wishes without, at least, trying to stop me, did you?"

"No but, I thought you'd cleared it with your parents?"

"They'd never have agreed. But - this is important - I've got to be back home before nine 'K? I'm risking a lot for you tonight so don't let me down."

"Of course, I'd do anything for you."

Being a teenager this sort of promise was easy to make, but since the consequences didn't directly affect me, it wasn't as easy to keep.

The party was great; being the chairman did mean that I had to help out here and there and Alice had a great time hanging out behind the bar; we still managed the occasional dance and the DJ was good about mixing slow and fast dances. All too soon though, my happiness was shattered as someone shouted,

"Come and look the moon's about to rise!"

Alice looked at me and hissed. "You promised!"

I looked at my watch, it was still showing 8:42pm I showed it to Alice, then I realised I'd been babysitting the night before and the kids had been playing with my watch, they must have changed the time and I hadn't realised.

"Come on we can still make it."

Alice moaned, "It's too late! I'll never make it back in time."

"We might as well try." I grabbed her hand and dragged her out the back entrance, shouting to Jules that she was to hold the fort until I got back. We ran across the playing fields as if the very hounds of hell were on our tails. Behind us the sky was getting brighter as the first sliver of the moon began to rise above the horizon. Alice was groaning.

"We'll never make it."

"Come on! We definitely won't if you keep stopping."

"You don't understand. I can't help it."

Even with Alice's slow progress, the shortcut across the fields and cutting through the hedge had put us within yards of her house. We were just approaching her front door when Alice uttered an unearthly wail and collapsed to the floor. The moon had, by now, risen fully and I could clearly see what was happening to her in the moonlight. And what was happening was the strangest thing I had ever seen. I could swear that she growing larger and her shape was changing, even as I looked her dress split and fell away from her. I looked not a little lustfully at her exposed body, and then I realised that her fur was growing shorter before my eyes! All too quickly the transformation was complete and my lovely Alice was transformed into this tall pink … monster … where was her fur? What were those two 'things' attached to her chest? She started to speak, but the words sounded strange, as they would, since her face was much flatter and her muzzle had disappeared.

"Shhh! It's all right Johnny, I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but we werehumans don't eat people and tomorrow I'll be the same old Alice that loves you. Come on in you might as well meet the rest of us now that you know."

I sighed and followed her to her front door; she had to stoop to get in. I wondered if our children would have this problem too and how much it would cost to have the ceilings raised.

-Fin-