Season 1, Episode 3 - The Ring Dings VII - "The Halloween Spirit"

The Next Day, Thursday (The Night of the Raid)

As Reed and Audrey reached the bottom of the apartment steps, Reed took a quick look around. The street seemed mostly deserted, but a few Brazilian-made Model Litoral compact cars still roamed the streets. Elizabeth Pond was a peaceful place - curfews didn't happen that often.

Something was off about that curfew announcement, Reed supposed. What kind of government announces a curfew at nine that's effective at ten?

She sighed. Our kind of government.

But she spotted no police officers or troops or, most fortunately, no Staties, so she motioned for Audrey to continue forward.

"You know, this is kind of nice," Audrey whispered as they darted across the avenue, arriving within the safety of the shadows of the trees lining the other side of it.

Reed didn't understand. "What's nice?"

"This." Audrey motioned with her hands.

"...you act like I know what this is."

Audrey spread her arms wide, taking it all in. "You know, the night. The atmosphere. It's a quiet autumn evening, we got the world to ourselves. I mean, look around you. Lonely streetlights with their orange rays, illuminating lights from inside those cozy apartment complexes surrounding us, and look, right now, we're passing through Curley Park under a moonless sky. I'm talking about this."

"..."

Audrey gazed upwards at the twelve stars that could be seen above the city, through its smog and lights. "I thought you love nature, Reed. This is the sort of feeling nature gives you. Just a moment in a sea of time."

Reed looked back at her, a dry eyebrow raised. "...you oughta be a poet or something."

"Ooh! When we get back to the apartment, I can show you some of my writings."

"...sure."

The pair passed through the exit on the other side of Curley Park and crossed another tree-lined avenue, carefully avoiding those orange rays of the streetlights that didn't seem like anything particularly special to Reed. Far above them, the empty moon and a rolling patch of clouds greatly aided them in their journey.

Finally, a block away from the Bay Mart, Reed suddenly raised her hand. Audrey kept moving.

"Stop, Audrey," she commanded when Audrey was about to pass her. "Didn't you see my hand?"

Audrey crouched behind Reed, who herself crouched behind the corner of a brick building.

"How was I supposed to know that that means stop?"

"A hand raised is the universal sign for stop," Reed said. "And we even learned it in class."

"You actually paid attention in a class?"

Reed shrugged. "I have my moments. It was our first-year hand signal communications class. I wanted to see if you could swear in sign language."

"Can you?"

Reed wryly raised a particular finger and pointed it at Audrey.

"Haha," Audrey mocked. "Now, why did we stop?"

Reed gestured with her heard around the corner of the building. Audrey peered over her shoulder.

The Bay Mart store front was visible from their hidden corner. Unlike most convenience stores, this one had its lights off by the current time of somewhere around 11 PM, rendering the inside dark. But, thanks to a nearby streetlight, the two could see the outlines of figures milling about in front of the store. Given that outline included long trenchcoats and bolt-action rifles, the two realized they were looking at soldiers, most likely from the local Army barracks.

"That's unlucky," Audrey supposed.

"It really is," Reed answered with a sigh.

All of a sudden, a third soldier arrived, explained something urgent to the pair, and all three ran off, leaving the store front and road empty behind them.

Audrey exhaled. "Huh, now that's lucky."

"Sometimes life works out for you. Now, let's go."

Reed took a cautious step around the corner, determined the coast was clear, and silently sprinted across the street, past the store front and into the adjacent alleyway, Audrey close behind her.

10 Minutes Ago (The Night of the Raid)

Clayton and Hanai sat in an Army jeep about a block away from the target building, pulling their jackets just a tad tighter around them. Every night in October felt slightly colder than the last; sure, there was that last summer whisper of warmth that if you looked hard enough for, you could find and feel, but the nights seemed to go the way of winter before the days did. It was seventy that day; low forties that night.

The 18th Platoon had cordoned off both ends of the avenues that connected to the fronts of both Hayman Office Supplies on one side and the Bay Mart on the other. It was a long avenue, and essentially every member of the personnel that night was young and inexperienced. It was a quiet night, too quiet, the only sound coming from the movement of foot soldiers to get into position - at an uncomfortably slow pace.

Captain Kelb had the Army deploy first, to set up a screen. Soon after, he would lead the charge with his Military Police, with Isaac and Alfie in the vanguard.

Hanai had his eyes closed and his palms pressed together in front of him, meditating deeply. After a minute of this, he sighed and looked for the moon in the sky, only to remember it was empty.

"Still only one Rddhi user detected," Hanai confirmed. He grunted, cursing the limits of his abilities. He was a Class 4 at sending lava around - his detection skills had left a lot to be desired.

"You can relax, Hanai. It'll be alright," Clayton said, his voice carefree. "And I got the shield up. Whoever's inside shouldn't be able to detect us anyway."

Hanai shook his head. "I just don't like it. It should be us to lead the vanguard!"

"What, you itching for a fight that bad?"

Hanai shook his head. "I don't like the idea of sending in a new Rddhi user and a defector into battle."

Clayton looked into the rearview mirror and brushed his sandy hair with his fingers. "Isaac's not that new anymore. He fought those sewer guys."

"I didn't agree with that, and I still don't agree with this either. He needs more training. At least with the sewers, he had a Class 3 and another Class 1 with him. But here? He only has a New Yorker of unknown loyalties."

"He has Kelb and the MPs," Clayton pointed out. "And if there's any trouble, that's where we come in."

Hanai sighed. "I guess you're right. I just wish Kelb would hurry up."

"The waiting's the hardest part."

As they settled into silence, Hanai's stomach grumbled.

"Didn't eat beforehand?" Clayton asked.

"I didn't have the time. I miscalculated how long my rice would take to make. I swear, if I had just three more minutes...that's the double-edged sword of washing your rice."

Clayton eyed him curiously. "You seriously wash your rice?"

Hanai didn't understand. "Of course! How else can you taste the soul of a staple crop without washing it first?"

"There's literally no difference in the taste."

"That's not the issue! There are more aspects to food than taste! There's presentation!"

"It looks the same."

Steam came out of Hanai's ears. "That's not the issue! There are more aspects to presentation than appearance! It's the love behind it, the careful hand-craftmanship that allows the inner beauty of each individual rice grain to burst forth in an explosion of culinary art!"

"You're washing out rice in your sink, not painting the Mona Lisa."

"This is an outrage! Are you seriously saying you don't wash your rice?"

Clayton just gave him a confused look. "Why would I?"

Hanai crossed his arms. "You are a disgrace to the culinary world."

Clayton shrugged and laughed. "Hey, Fargo," he called out to a nearby private.

Private Fargo immediately came over the jeep and saluted. "Second Lieutenant Wesley!"

Clayton waved away the formalities. "Do you like to wash your rice before you eat it?"

Fargo's crisp formality gave way to slight confusion. "Uh...Lieutenant?"

"Your rice, Private," Hanai said, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. "Do you wash it before eating it?"

"Uh..."

James Fargo, just a lanky youth barely out of high school, had been told in boot camp that the Rddhi users could occasionally be eccentric, but the two high schoolers in the jeep seemed to be staring him down with the intent of either patting him on the back or kicking his ass, depending on his answer.

Fargo scratched his chin. "Uh...to be honest, I don't eat rice."

Both Clayton and especially Hanai looked deflated.

"There goes your promotion, Private," Hanai said darkly.

Fargo couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

Clayton snapped his fingers. "I know. Fargo, go fetch Axelman and Loper for us. They'll settle this."

Hanai held his hand up. "Clayton, they're in position, holding up part of the line-"

"Uh, I saw Axelman making rice while we were stationed outside the tunnels," Fargo explained. "And he didn't wash it."

Clayton looked smugly over at Hanai.

Hanai touched his glasses, his brows narrowed.

"Get Axelman and Loper, Private Fargo. Get them now."

Fargo gulped and saluted before running off.

With the three soldiers long gone and the way to the store open, Reed and Audrey darted across the avenue. They arrived in the alleyway, taking a moment to crouch in the shadows and catch their breath.

"Reed, I know you don't enjoy personal contact, but letting me hold onto your sleeve would really comfort me right now."

Reed raised an eyebrow. "Why the hell would you want to do that?"

Audrey looked around her nervously. "You know everything I said about the quiet autumn night or whatever? Sitting here in this alleyway has made realize the inherent duality of man and nature. It's night, Reed, night! Night's fun when you're lounging around in your home or walking around a well-lit street with friends, or being somewhere safe and public like a safe public park, but we're skulking around a locked store in a dark alleyway past midnight! That's dangerous, Reed, dangerous!"

"..."

"And that's not the worst part!"

"...there's more?"

"It's a Halloween night, Reed! This is the time when spooks and ghouls and spooky ghouls and ghosts come out and roam the world of the living, taking back mischievous boys and girls with them to the underworld!"

Reed opened her mouth to say something, but she remained quiet, letting herself take all that in.

She raised a finger. "There are a number of things wrong with everything you just said. First off, just to get this out of the way, you mixed up your holidays, and if there's one thing I take seriously, it's holidays. A monster taking away bad children is Krampus or whatever, which is a Christmas thing, not Halloween. Maybe Day of the Dead, but to be perfectly honestly with you, I don't know how that holiday works. But I think you're thinking of Krampus, which, by the way, is just a marketing ploy."

"Santa's a marketing ploy," Audrey answered.

"Santa is a jolly old elf and international symbol of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men," Reed corrected. "Santa's a symbol. Krampus is a marketing ploy."

"Krampus is just as real...or fake, I guess, as Santa himself," Audrey explained, crossing her arms. "He's an Eastern European legend. He comes with Ded Moroz."

"...what the hell is a Dead Morose?"

"Take that back right now!" Audrey demanded.

Reed held her hands up defensively. "What the – heck – is a Dead Morose?"

"Ded Moroz," Audrey corrected. Her eyes lit up as she began her explanation. "He's Slavic Santa. He visits all the good little girls and boys, bringing them gifts. He's like Santa, but Eastern European. Talk about a jolly old man."

"Jolly old elf."

"Man, Reed, man. Get out of here with your blasphemy."

"Santa Claus is a saint, if anything you're blasphemizing him by placing this Ded guy over him."

"Oh, you better watch out, Reed. Keep shit-talking Ded Moroz and Krampus is sure to give you a ass-whooping this Christmas."

Reed shooed her off with a wave of her hand. "That'll be the day. But anyway, that was only the first of your holiday misconceptions."

"I didn't make any misconceptions."

"Yeah, you did. The first was Krampus. The second was about Halloween."

"Huh?"

Reed sighed. "You said tonight's a Halloween night."

"So?"

"That's not how it works. There's only one Halloween night. It's not like how Christmas covers an entire month. You can call December 13th or hell, even something like December 4th a Christmas night, because Christmas covers the whole month. Halloween doesn't. You don't call October 4th - which is today, I might add – a Halloween night. It's an October night."

"Halloween does too cover the entire month," Audrey said, standing her ground. "Why do I start seeing Halloween decorations when October starts? Because it covers the whole month. Now Thanksgiving, that doesn't cover the whole month. See the difference?"

"Leave Thanksgiving out of this, it's underappreciated as it is."

"Don't you feel the spookiness, Reed?" Audrey asked. "You feel the Christmas spirit when December starts. October's the same way. You feel the spookiness once it starts."

"See, that's what I never understood about Halloween," Reed supposed. "It's easy to feel Christmas spirit. Christmas spirit is just being nice to people or whatever the hell it is. But what if I don't scare easy? I feel like making your whole holiday about spookiness really limits its appeal. I know Isaac isn't the biggest fan of horror movies. How's he supposed to get into the Halloween spirit?"

"He could watch not-that-scary stuff that still has that Halloween feel," Audrey suggested. "You know, like children's movies or Halloween episodes of TV shows. We should watch the Ted Last episode!"

"There's a Ted Last Halloween episode?" Reed asked.

"Yeah, you know, the one with the Halloween party."

"Ah."

A sudden gust of wind made Audrey grab hold of Reed's sleeve, knocking Reed off balance. Audrey tee-hee'd as Reed picked herself up off the ground.

"Are you really that scared?" Reed asked, dusting herself off. "I think you got ghosts wrong, too."

"In what way?"

"Why would there be ghosts wandering the streets?"

"They're ghosts! What do they have to do besides wander?"

"They haunt, Audrey. Ghosts haunt, not wander."

"They haunt the streets by wandering them."

Reed sighed. "That's not how ghosts work."

Audrey put her hands on her hips. "Then how do they work, Ms. Hibiscus 'I-Know-Everything-There-Is-To-Know, Though-I'm-Really-Just-Talking-Out-Of-My-Ass' Reed?"

Reed just gave Audrey a blank look.

"...wow. But anyway, ghosts are ghosts because they have unfinished business in the human world, right?"

"Yep."

"So, why would they wander? They're tied to a particular place because they got shit to do." Reed raised a finger. "They got shit to haunt."

"So?"

"So? So they'd be haunting wherever that unfinished business was. You see, when a person dies and turns into a ghost, they're tied to wherever they died. Die in a factory? You'd haunt that factory. Die on a cruise? You'd haunt that cruise. Ghosts don't wander like you think they do."

"What if they died on the streets?" Audrey questioned. "If you get hit by a car, what do you haunt?"

Reed thought about it. "I'd say they haunt the car. The street didn't kill you, the car did. Ergo, you'd haunt the car. There are tons of B movies about haunted cars. I've never seen a haunted street movie. There's haunted lakes, haunted cabins, haunted pizza places, but never one about a road itself. Ergo, no haunted streets."

"Stop saying ergo, trying to sound smarter doesn't make your points stronger," Audrey protested. "Alright, so what if someone died in this alleyway?"

"...then the alleyway would be haunted," Reed admitted. "But nobody died in this alleyway."

"How do you know?"

"What, do you think every spot on earth had someone die on it? I bet there are a lot more locations that are death-free than ones that are haunted. What's the difference between this alleyway and your apartment? I bet nobody died in it either."

"...I never considered that somebody may have died my apartment..."

Reed sighed, seeing Audrey's lips tremble and her eyes water.

"Look, think about it this way," Reed said. "I'd say a school is much more likely to be haunted than a house."

"Why's that?" Audrey asked, sniffling.

"Roughly, a house has one family live in it for an entire generation. That's, what, two to ten people at the most? What are the odds of one of those ten dying in that house? It's very low odds, Audrey. Compare that to a school. Hundreds of students are in a school, with a new hundred or so every year. Someone's much more likely to die at a school."

"...I live in an apartment, not a house. And I go to school too! Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"I'm just saying, I'd argue your own house is somewhere the least likely to be haunted. Well, unless someone did die in it, in which case I'd argue it would be the most likely to be haunted. Houses are conducive to hauntings, so...yeah, I guess I'd get that checked out if I were you."

"What about your apartment?" Audrey asked. "Aren't you scared?"

Reed let out a low chuckle. "If a ghost ever tries to fuck me with in my own home, he has to mess with these...if you can't see, I'm flexing my arms right now."

Audrey poked at one of Reed's scrawny arms. "Dang, I'd be so scared if I were a ghost."

Reed recoiled from the contact, making Audrey laugh.

But then that laughter got choked up in fear. "Wait a minute. Your logic is that a school is more likely to be haunted because of the amount of people there, right?"

"That's right."

"So...think of how many people go to a convenience store, Reed! It's like a paranormal buffet in there! I bet at least five people have died in that store."

Reed chucked again. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey. Think about it. You're in a convenience store for what, like five minutes? You have very low odds of dying within an average five minute timespan, I bet. Schools, you're in there all day. And you got dorms."

Reed smiled reassuringly.

"But a convenience store? Who the hell lives in a convenience store?"