Halloween Event (Finale): End of the Night

“No, you dumbasses you’ve got to burn the corpse!” Vi yelled, throwing popcorn at the screen as the film’s survivors left the Slasher’s body behind.

“Does that really work or do they just heal from that too?” She wondered, for purely scientific reasons.

“Think it depends on the type of Slasher.” Tommy shrugged. “Those magic-y ones are sometimes immune, but this is one of those physical stalker guys so it should put him down for good.”

“Either way they shouldn’t just be walking away from the fucker!” Vi groaned, more into this than her or Tommy. “I mean at least cut his head off, or something!”

“You’d think people would realize bullets only do so much good against Deviants.” She sighed with a shake of her head.

“Oh, feeling the Deviant superiority already?” Tommy grinned. “Guess you M.A.D.s really are all megalomaniacs. Hate to break it to you hermanita but a bullet would put you down just as easily as it would me.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She glared before tossing a handful of popcorn at her brother. “It’s just like, do guns work on anything other than low level M.A.D.s? I mean they don’t stop Slashers, Deadmen, Malcontent, Creeps, or really any of the stuff we see in the movies.”

“Has to do with Deviant physiology.” Vi chimed in dryly as she watched the survivors try and fail to call Sanctuary, the Hero’s Guild, or even the police due to people forgetting to charge their cell phones.

“Uh, what does?” She blinked.

“Looked it up once when I saw some Sanctuary agent with a sword.” Vi explained looking bored as the Slasher’s body was discovered missing save for a bloody smear on the floor. “Apparently, things with a healing factor and super strength have this weird thing going on with their muscles where the density is high enough to prevent bullets from going all the way through and their healing factors will just push the bullets back out through the path of least resistance, since each individual bullet registers as a single instance of healing.”

“Okay, but how does that explain the sword thing?” Tommy wondered, looking morbidly fascinated by this.

(Like we’re not.)

“Something about surface area damage.” Vi answered with a thoughtful look as she tried to remember whatever morbid biology report she’d read. “Since the exit wound is usually worse than the entrance wound, and their muscles prevent that, the best way to circumvent a healing factor is to create wounds with a greater surface area to slow the healing by making it spread itself out over each instance. From there you then focus on tearing up muscle, breaking bones, and whatever else will disable them for a few minutes until you eventually outpace whatever is powering the healing.”

“Which is why enough bullets would work in putting something down, but a melee weapon could theoretically do it faster.” She realized, as she played the scenario out in her mind and the whispers began to fill in the blanks for her.

“Right.” Vi nodded, eating a handful of popcorn as another survivor bit the dust in a bloody fashion.

“You know, sometimes I’m a little scared of what’s got to be in your internet history.” Tommy admitted. “I mean with My it’s just the regular teen browser history of smut and porn-”

“Hey!”

“-but you… yours has got to hit like a serial killer red flag or something.”

“I’m not that bad.” Vi tried to defend with a sheepish look.

“No, no, you’re totally one of those people who secretly collects serial killer trading cards or something.” Tommy continued, unimpeded.

“Wha- So does Maya!” Her big sister argued, attempting to throw her under the bus.

“Yeah, but those are junk cards I got in pursuit of my M.A.D. deck.” She reminded said sister with a touch of vindictiveness. “In fact, even though I don’t know what Slasher cards I’ve got, since you’re such a big fan of them I’ll go ahead and give you all of them if you want them.”

Vi made a face before throwing popcorn at them. “Fuck both of you.”

“Sorry hermanita but you’re just not my type.” Tommy sighed with a mournful shake of his head.

“Yeah, well… you’re no one’s type.” Vi threw out petulantly, as Maya heard something in the background.

Tommy snorted. “I can guarantee that’s false.”

“Oh, what you’re some kind of don juan now, hermano?” Vi scoffed, before teasing, “We got to be worried about any sobrinos on the way?”

“Hmm, I hope not. He’s a bit young to be a father.” Their own father cut in as he entered the living room looking worse for wear. “And like to think we raised you gremlins better than that.”

All three of them fell silent for a minute as the rest of their family followed in, both of their parents looking run down, with their father frazzled and their mamá’s makeup running. “Uh, are you guys okay?”

“Um, uh, it’s been a rough night.” Their dad answered with a wry grin as Vi and her got up for their rents to take their seats.

“Yeah, I guess that was the case for all of us.” Tommy nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “So how bad was it for you guys? We at least got out before the Masks started fighting.”

“There was a… Creep invasion at the police station.” Their dad explained as their mamá leaned against him, refusing to let go of Seamus even as he struggled in her grasp.

“Another one?” Vi grimaced, likely remembering the summer festival.

An event she remembered, but stood out less prominently than Decker’s warning about the, (Halloween Haunt…)

“Mm-hmm, we were safe in the main room with all of the officers but apparently before everything went sideways Izzy and Autumn wandered off and-”

“Wait, where is Izzy?!” She blinked, noticing that her hermanita hadn’t followed their parents into the living room.

A loud pop and hissing caused her to jump, the sudden sound having given her a bigger scare than anything the horror movie had, as she turned to find said sister cracking a soda. “Here, I was grabbing something from the kitchen.”

Though upon spotting her she noticed that Izzy was the only one who’d gone to the police station not looking worn out.

(Not true. Seamus is just looking annoyed at mamá) Her inner madness noted.

“Anyway, we ran to this cool guy who killed two of the Creeps and saved Seamus before helping the cops out with something.” Izzy continued the story, looking a lot more calm saying all of that than she should.

“Saved Seamus?” Vi repeated, looking like she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer.

Their mamá held Seamus closer to his frustration.

“One of the Creeps got in and lunged for your brother before the… uh, guy that brought Izzy back, uh, dealt with it…” Their father elaborated, looking uncomfortable at the memory.

“Well, I guess… I guess it’s a good thing there was a hunter there…” Tommy offered, looking just as frazzled as he’d been when he’d suddenly discovered Maya was an M.A.D.

“I don’t think he was a Hunter.” Izzy chimed in with a curious look. “I mean, he looked like a teenager, maybe around Maya or Tommy’s age?”

“That young?” Vi frowned. “Was he a Mask or something?”

“I don’t think so.” Izzy considered before shaking her head. “I mean, I don’t think he used any powers when he ripped those Creeps apart but I might’ve missed something with all of the blood.”

“Blood?” She asked.

“Yeah, like he shoved his hand in one of the Creeps and ripped it apart and he tore another one’s throat out with his teeth.” Izzy explained just a little too calmly.

Getting a bad feeling she held a hand out to her brother. “Uh, Tommy, can I see that uh, charm, talisman thing?”

“Uh, sure…” Tommy nodded, giving her his necklace.

Accepting the necklace. “Izzy, can you put this on for a second?”

Izzy gave her a look before shrugging. “Sure?”

When Izzy put the necklace on there was a brief flash of light from it before- “Was that supposed to do something?”

“Uh, it flashed green so according to the instructions that means she’s clean.” Tommy told her, being the only one to figure out what she was worried about. “It flashed blue for me, which meant residual but fading?”

“Okay, what was that about?” Izzy asked, taking the necklace off.

“Sorry, it’s just you… you were talking a bit calmly about watching something out of a horror movie.” She told her little sister while pointing to the horror movie, right as someone died on screen. “I was worried he did something to your head to keep you calm.”

“What? No.” Izzy scoffed, looking amused. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”

“I’d like to agree with you but uh, watching him spit someone’s throat out makes me a little, uh, cautious sweetie…” Their father chuckled wryly, having pieced together what was going on. “You uh, you mind explaining how you know that?”

“Because, he’s just… I mean look at him! He’s harmless.” Izzy told them.

“I don’t know killing Creeps is kind of the opposite of harmless.” Vi pointed out.

“Wha- I…” Izzy looked around in disbelief, before turning to their youngest sibling. “Seamus was that guy from early scary? The one you gave the candy to.”

Seamus frowned, putting far more thought into the answer than a toddler should before nodding with a smile. “He was cool.”

“See, even Seamus could tell that he was harmless.” Izzy crossed her arms and nodded as if a toddler's opinion proved her completely correct before grinning a little bit as she seemed to think about something. “Heh, really was kind of cool…”

She stared at her sister for a moment taking in the signs and in a stroke of maddening insight, she made the most horrific and mentally scarring revelation of the night. Beyond her social anxieties, beyond the Deviant attack she was forced to flee from, beyond the possibility of another one of her sibling’s minds being tampered with, or even the Creep invasion and the risk to her family’s lives, she realized…

(Ah, Izzy has her first crush!)