Frank's Fright Night Fight

By: Charlie Sokaitis

It was gross, and Frank was uneasy. The large tree of a man focused his eyes on the grim scene across the street. Right there, in the neighbor's yard, in this otherwise family-friendly cul-de-sac, was a human body. It was climbing out of the earth, wielding an axe, covered in blood, and gripping a furry little rabbit in its hand. In fact, there was a whole trail of disemboweled bunnies in the wake of the crazed attacker. 

Frank snatched the day's paper from the end of the driveway.

“Babe, every time I see that creepy body crawling out of the ground, it gives me the willies,” Frank shouted through the house as he pushed past the garage door and through the mud room.

“Babe,” Frank said again as he found his wife waiting for the bread to brown in the kitchen toaster. “You’re telling me that’s just normal around here? That’s just how they celebrate the holiday?” Frank waved his long arms in a huff as he motioned his wife to follow him to the big glass window in the living room.

“Thattttt’s a little bit much, don’t you think?” Frank pointed his crooked index finger towards the window, toward the blood-soaked scene covering their neighbor's yard.

Morgan chuckled. The fair-skinned beauty was head to toe in her morning black. The hem of her gown hid her feet, making it look as if she were floating across the room as she answered her husband's call. “Now, Frank, what did I tell you when we moved here?”

“Don’t trust the cheese?” The big oaf of a man teased.

THWACK!!! Morgan socked her husband right in the shoulder.

“That is not what I said… It may be true, but that is not what I said.” She wagged her own finger at Frank.

“You’re so violent,” chided Frank, rubbing his arm to lessen the sting.

“What did I tell you before we moved here? What were my exact words?” Morgan asked through a stern glare.

Frank let out a sigh and answered. “They take Halloween very seriously around here.”

“That’s right. They do, and we live here now, which means WE take Halloween very seriously now. Ya got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Frank responded with a single shake of the head.

“Now I know it’s early, but we are not going to be the only house on the street that looks barren when the little monsters start showing up tonight looking for candy.” Morgan gestured with her hands, arms out wide, pointing to the stark lack of decorations. “I need you to go pick up the tricks and the treats. We need a Jason, a Freddy, a bunch of dry ice annnnnnd spiders. Lots of spiders. Capiche?”

Frank wanted to argue. Frank wanted to push back. Frank wanted to just sit in front of the TV today to watch the games, but happy wife, happy life isn’t just a phrase. It’s a simple truth, and Frank wanted a happy life today.

The parking lot of the pop-up Halloween shop was a madhouse. A ghoulish-looking witch cackled past his car door. An exasperated mother chased after one of her rogue goblins running around in the street. Inside the store, it was even worse. Frank had to lean against a mask-covered wall to make room for a cart filled with body parts to pass. In the costume aisle, a small child was in tears.

“I wanna be SpongeBob!” The tiny tot shouted as he stomped his feet. Alas, there were no SpongeBob costumes left.

Some of the bigger yard scarries remained. Frank flipped over the tag on a ten-foot-tall scarecrow.

“$800?” His eyes bulged two sizes from the sticker shock.

“They take Halloween very seriously around here.” He reminded himself.

Frank was making the rounds, filling his cart, checking off the various items on his list when…

“AHHHHHHHH!!!!” Screamed a boy wearing the bloody mask of a human child’s face.

The cart crashed onto its side and spilled out onto the ground. Frank got his feet twisted up, causing him to fall hard.

“Eakkkk,” he squealed.

The teen was doubled over. He was laughing, pointing, reveling in Frank’s misstep.

A fiery anger stoked inside the grounded man. He wanted to get up, lunge at the boy. He wanted to tear the arms off his puny little body… but… He, of course, didn’t do that. Instead, the masked boy waved his friends over to join him. They were all pointing at Frank and his cart, teasing, chiding, and warning him through shouts from different voices.

“Real scary old man.” A winged voice hollered.

“Ohhhhhh a Jason, a Freddy, what is this baby’s first fright night?” Heckled a sea creature.

“Guys, guys, this is the one, this has to be the one,” the malcontented leader of the group directed. “If we see this sorry setup when we’re out tonight, break out the TP and eggs. We're gonna trash that house.” He laughed, and so did the whole group of masked disgruntled urchins.

In response, Frank made another sound. A deep, guttural growl from his shameful spot on the floor.

“Erggggggggg!!!!” The mountain of a man gnashed his teeth as the deep noise bellowed out of his lungs.

This was enough to get the terrible teens to disperse, even as they slung insults back towards Frank in the process.

The last one he could make out was a threat. It was from their leader. “We’re coming for you, old man, weee knowww wheerrreee youuuu livvvvee.” The voice yelled in retreat.

Frank's eyes narrowed, his focus sharpened, and his rage simmered. “You know where we live, huh?” Frank muttered to himself.

The giant of a man collected his things and headed for the checkout counter. The beep of the card reader as he paid for his haul was the only thing he could hear.

From the pop-up Halloween shop, Frank drove to the hardware store, another beep on another card reader. Next, he hit up the home security store. Another beep, and now Frank would have full night vision surveillance. He made one last stop, Frank’s gripping rage blinding him to the cost as his card beeped again, this time at the big box pet store.

Back at home, Frank pushed through the mud room door at business speed. “Everything ok, babe?” Asked his wife.

“It will be Morgana… It… Will be.” Frank rarely called his wife by her actual name. When he trekked back across the house, Frank had a whole host of tools and rods and pulleys spilling out of his arms.

In the garage, Morgan could hear sawing and banging and construction on a scale much larger than she had anticipated. As a show of support, she brought her husband a juice box, but she never got to give it to him. As Morgan peeked her head into the car stall, she was stunned to see sparks flying, fabrications forming, and some hard-to-place slishing and sloshing.

In what seemed like no time flat, Frank was in the yard. The Jason was creeping, the Freddy was thrashing, the spiders were set, and the dry ice was ready, but Frank continued to work. He had even started digging giant holes in some places and hanging cameras in others. 

As she watched from inside the house, drinking her husband's juice, Morgan worried that perhaps she had pushed too hard on the whole Halloween thing.

Gnawing on her own knuckle, Morgan inched out into the yard. 

“You did so much…” She said with a hint of concern as Frank’s head popped up out of a giant hole.

“Someone told me that they take Halloween seriously around here,” Frank said with a crazed look and a raised eyebrow.

“Plus,” Frank started, in a lower register. “If those ghoulish punks show up… I’ll be ready for them.”

It took a beat for that line to register in Morgan’s ear. 

“What was that?” She asked.

“Punks?” Frank didn’t respond. He was busy stomping on the shovel head with his size 18 foot.

“Frank, what did you do?”

Silence.

“Frank N. Stine, you answer me right now, or I’m going to bop you on your bolts.” Morgan hammered matter-of-factly.

“I… Ahhhhh, well… So there were these kids.” Frank stammered as he ran a hand over the long scar down the back of his skull.

“Kids, Frank? This is all over some kids?” She asked, now realizing that the effort hadn’t been for her.

“Well, they were jerks, and one of them jumped out and scared me, and all my stuff fell over.” He growled defensively. “Oh, oh, oh… and they said they were going to egg the house tonight.”

Morgan stopped dead in her tracks. “Egg our house?” Frank's wife pointed her index finger over her shoulder back towards the house as a faint red glow of rage started emanating from the witch.

“I take it some of… “ Morgan waved her arms at all the newly installed Halloween wares. “All of this is to stop that from happening?”

“Very much so,” Frank said, shaking his head, looking for approval.

“Very well, protect this house, try not to scare any of the little monsters, though. They still get candy,” counseled Frank's wife, whose eyes had darkened, aligning with her husband's broody mood.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, Frank dropped pieces of dry ice into buckets of hot water and turned on his big fans. Soon the yard was covered in spooky fog, and little families waded through it to reap their sugary rewards.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Screamed an astronaut as a spider crawled up his leg.

“Mom, I’m scared!” whispered a princess as she passed by the knife-wielding Jason in the yard.

“Trick or treat!” Shouted most of a platoon of Power Rangers, pillowcases open, waiting for a handful of candy.

The early evening went off without a hitch. Frank hadn’t been worried about that. It was still family time. Frank suspected the real shenanigans would start sometime after nine. Around 9:30, still no action, but the big man was ready. Frank was sitting in the office, his face brightened by the glow of his monitors and the view of the cameras around the house.

“OHHHHHHHwooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww” A howl ripped through the night air.

Frank was picking up the indistinguishable sounds of a large group of someones or somethings on his surveillance microphones. He was starting to see beams of light bounce off houses and trees and the road. Then in full frame, on the surveillance camera, he saw them. It was the kids from the pop-up Halloween shop.

They were all wearing different bloody baby masks, and the leader had cartons of eggs in a bag, ready for their siege of Frank's nice, new house. The group appeared to be talking strategy, so Frank turned up the volume on the mailbox mic.

“First we get the candy.” Said the leader. “I see big bars and full bags. We take it all.” He grinned greedily.

“Then we surround the house, eggs from all sides, toilet paper to follow, and howls that would make a stone statue's limestone liquefy.” His eyes had grown big, and his confidence was as full as the moon overhead.

The bloody baby-masked man took a step into Frank's yard, and a motion detector set off a chilling voice.

“Muwaaaahahahahahaha foolish mortals, welcome to the house of horrors.”

A chortle of laughter burst through the mouths of the angsty teens.

“Ohhhhhh he’s gonna get ya, ye mortals.” Fank could hear one of the boys joke.

“Ahhhhh!!!!!” Another screamed sarcastically back towards the house, his arms out wide like a scarecrow.

As a car made its way past the group, the leader shoved the scale-covered monster next, and he nearly got clipped by the fender.

“On your toes, Gillman.”

Then he grabbed the beaked boy of the brood by the feathers and pulled him close.

“Let's put the fright in this night.”

The leader emerged from the group huddle and headed towards the covered walkway of the well-decorated home.

“Everyone on me.” 

At the front door, an enormous bowl of candy was gripped tight in the arms of a cob web covered skelleton. There was a sign hanging around the bony ghoul's neck.

“Treats are for all

so take one snack

but the greediest ghouls

should watch their backs.”

“The tame and the tall really thinks he’s gonna scare someone with this, huh?” Laughed the leader of the group.

“Take it all, boys, every bar and every bag.” He ordered.

Shadow, the smallest of their group, tightened his mask and grabbed the bowl. As he lifted it, there was a click, a pause, and then an action.

When the boy turned away from the skeleton, a giant stuffed spider fell from the ceiling and landed on the thief. It was heavy, and it spooked the grubby grabber enough that he dropped the bowl, the candy pouring all over the place.

“Ahhhhahdhahahahahha… Ahahahaahahahaha,” they laughed in unison.

“Ohhhhhh he got you, Shadow,” shouted one of the boys.

“Whaaaaattttt a scaredie cat,” derided the Wolfman.

“Better watch your back, or Stuffy the plushy spider spook will get ya,” the Harpie said as he slung the stuffed spider against the wall so hard that it started to burst at the poorly sewn seams.

“Pick up the treats and let's give this bumpkin the trick, Shadow. You’re embarrassing us.” Commanded the leader.

Shadow did as he was told. He knelt to collect the sugary haul, but as he did, the stuffed spider started to move. Not in the normal way an arachnid would. Instead, the body seemed to be rippling. It was like something was trying to get out, and near one of those freshly weakened seams where a small tear had formed, something did. Lots of somethings.

“Hey,” Shadow shouted back towards the bloody baby-masked boys.

“Hey, Nyx… Nyx!” he yelled at the leader.

“What is it, Shadow? Do you have all the candy or what? I wanna start tossing yolks.” Nyx said dismissively.

“Spp.. Sppp… SPIDERS!” Shadow shouted as hundreds of creepy crawly weavers worked their way out of the stuffed toy and moved at speed towards the group.

Now the sounds changed. The laughs turned to screams. There were spiders on their feet, spiders on their legs, spiders in their hair.

“Get’em off me, GET’EM OFF ME!!!” Gillman yelled as he ran into the yard, tripping, falling, and disappearing into the mist.

The body was gone, but the screams remained: “They’re biting! They’re biting! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!” And then silence.

The rest of the bloody baby-masked boys took off, fueled by terror, sprinting from the porch and regrouping in front of the house.

“Gillman! Gillman?” Shouted Nyx, anxiously, his senses turned to ten, scanning and listening. “Gillman? Hey, man, say something!”

“Nyx! Nyx! Look!” The Wolfman howled as he raised his bloody baby-mask and pointed towards the edge of the yard.

Crawling out from under the murky mist, a horde of spiders crossed the street. Riding the leggy wave as if it were surfing was a fleshy femur and little pieces of scaly skin.

Panic ripped through the bloody baby-masked boys. Yelps, screams, and teary eyes gripped most of the group who were ready to turn tail and run.

Nyx cut through it all in an instant. “QUIET!” The boy shouted. Everyone stopped in their tracks, and then he lifted his mask to reveal that he was a she. The young boy that had scared Frank in the pop-up Halloween shop was a young girl, and she looked like malice.

For a moment no one moved. The angry teen pulled a cancer stick from her pocket, lit the cigarette, and took a deep drag. 

“You want to run? You dime-store fright-night fakers.” Her voice was low, and the black of the night seemed darkest wherever she moved.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She exhaled a thick plume of smoke.  “I’m not done. Gillman is gone? Tell his mom he couldn’t hack it on Halloween.” Chaos radiated from her eyes with a ferocity that made the rest of the group fear her even more than they feared the house that had just claimed their friend.

“Now take an egg and spread out,” Nyx ordered.

The group did as commanded.

“Muwaaaahahahahahaha foolish mortals, welcome to the house of horrors.” Their movement had tripped the motion detector again.

Nyx kicked the speaker under the mailbox and shouted towards the house, “We’re coming for you, old man.” She took another drag from her cigarette and then flicked it into the yard. “There’s nowhere to run, there’s nowhere to hide.”

The five remaining members of the bloody baby mask gang moved to surround the house.

“On my mark,” yelled the leader. Each member of the gang had an egg in hand and an arm in throwing position. “Three, two, one, fling’em far and fly’em, high boys.” On that command, the whole group launched their eggs into the night sky.

“Ahhhhhh Nyx?” Harry Mr. Hyde yelled from around the side of the house. “Anybody else's egg just… like… not make it to the house?”

Nyx squinted her eyes. Had they stopped by before it had gotten dark, she would have caught it right away. Knit from tree to tree all around the home was a creepy crawly canopy of webbing. The eggs were caught in the sticky trap, the webbing protecting the house like a makeshift force field.

“ARRRGGHGGHGHGHGHGHHGH NO NO NO… NO!” Nyx shook with anger. “Everyone on me.” She shouted, but not everyone returned.

Hyde was back, Harpie and Wolfman too, but Shadow, their little Mothman, was nowhere to be found.

“Did you see him?” Nyx asked, but no one answered. “DID YOU SEE HIM?” She shouted into Hyde’s face as she grabbed his shirt and pulled him into her dark orbit.

“I didn’t see him, I didn’t see him, I just…” Hyde trailed off.

“You just what?” Seethed Nyx.

“I… I heard… Well, I don’t know how to explain it, but it sounded like splashing.” Said the monster.

“Splashing? Show me where.” Nyx demanded, still inches from Hyde's cowering face.

The monster, masked by the face of a bloody baby, pointed down the left side of the yard.

“We go together, we find Shadow, and then we ransack this godforsaken house because that’s what the holiday demands. Ya got me?” Nyx said.

While phrased as a question, it was clear that this wasn’t an opt-in, opt-out kind of plan. The remaining monsters looked at their leader and shook their heads in the affirmative.

Morgan stopped by the office to drop a bowl of popcorn off to her hard-working husband. “I thought you might like a little sustenance while you haunt the ghouls and goblins, hun.”

“No goblins in this crew, thankfully, but defenses are holding so far.” Smiled Frank.

“See here, they’re going down the left side of the house, bad choice.” His grin grew larger.

“Was there a good choice to make?” Asked Morgan.

“Nope. But I’m excited about this one.” Morgan didn’t need Frank to voice the emotion. She could see it all over his face.

“So it looks like you did pick up a few things from your father?” The witchy woman cooed.

“People get fixated on the “mad” part, but he was a heck of a scientist. Wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.” Frank chuckled.

“Oh, oh, watch this.”

Back outside, the teens were trudging through the thick mist, moving slowly as they couldn’t see where or what they were stepping on.

“That’s the sound,” said Hyde. “You hear that sound, right? Like… Like fi…”

Mid-sentence, Harpie yelped, and Wolfman howled as both fell into the low fog to the surprising sound of a splash.

“HELP US! GET US OUT OF HERE, GUYS.” Shouted the voice of Harpie from below the fog.

“What is this? WHAT WAS THAT? SOMETHING JUST TOUCHED ME!” Growled the Wolfman.

Inside the house, Frank was having himself a good laugh, and his wife had her arms lovingly around her man.

“I’m so glad you’ve gotten into the spirit, hun. It means a lot to me,” She said as the kids on the screen waved their arms in wild, gesticulating motions.

After a bit of fanning and waving, Nyx and Hyde were able to clear enough of the fog away to see at least some of what they were dealing with.

“What… The hell?” Hyde said, slack-jawed.

Along the left side of this house of horrors was a deep hole. It was at least 8 feet wide, at least 12 feet long, and splashing around in the middle of it was Harpie, Wolfman, and what looked like one of Little Mothman's wings floating on top of the water.

“GET US OUT.” Harpie yelled.

“GET US OUT!” Wolfman followed.

“Here, just give me your hand, I’ll pull you up,” Nyx ordered.

Harpie reached up towards the leader of the group, but something slimy was wrapped around his arm. As he grabbed for Nyx’s hand, the head of this wicked wet noodle looked him square in the face. Two dark eyes, a big, wide mouth, and rows and rows of razor-like teeth.

“Don’t… move,” Nyx counselled.

“Get me out of here,” Harpie tried to squeeze through his mouth without opening it.

“Pull me out, Nyx, pull me out right now.” He said, now shaking, his hand just inches away from Nyx but his face centimeters away from a yard-bound moray eel.

In an act of desperation, or fear, or both, Harpie lunged towards Nyx. That motion was all it took to spark the feeding frenzy in this makeshift monster pool. The eel on Harpie’s arm stabbed at his mask, ripping right through the cheap plastic, grabbing a chunk of nostril as it did. In an instant, the water bubbled red. Fifty flesh-eating eels went bump in the bite as Harpie wailed and Wolfman yelped for just a brief few blood-curdling seconds before the only sounds remaining were the fishy flicks of eel tails working their way around the water.

Nyx closed her outstretched hand, stood up, and looked at Hyde. “Watch where you step.”

Hyde still hadn’t moved. Hyde couldn’t move. His soul was shivering, teeth chattering, and what he had just witnessed was the most gruesome thing he had ever seen in his life.

“I…” He wanted to protest. He wanted to go home, then he looked up at Nyx.

Any stray speck of light disappeared around her. Dark wasn’t the right word for it. She held her rage in her eyes, which had turned from white to obsidian. The message was clear: go with Nyx and he might die. Try to leave, and he would die.

“Damned if I do… damned if I don’t.” He muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” Growled Nyx as she looked back at Hyde.

“Nothing… just… watching my step.” He said nervously.

In the backyard, gravestones jutted up through the fog, and large crows lined the tall trees. The remainder of the bloody baby masked gang had learned from their earlier defeats. Hyde and Nyx fanned away the mist before each step. It was a smart move. The gravestones were more than eerie markers. There were empty plots dug six feet deep right in front of them.

“Watch for the holes,” Nyx cautioned Hyde. “It’s not going to be that easy.” She muttered to herself.

Hyde shook his head, signaling that he had seen the danger, but just as he was about to make his way around the deep hole, a high-pitched sound pierced the night sky.

The squawking murder of crows got louder and faster. Their wings started flapping furiously. A tornado of feathers flocked through the yard, whipping by Nyx and clawing Hyde with their talons. The boy lost his footing near the edge of one of the grave pits, falling the full six feet to the bottom. He landed on his back, pushing every ounce of air out of his lungs. He gasped and gasped, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t take in a full breath.

Inside the house, from their position in front of the command center, Morgan praised her husband. “Crows? How very Hitchcockian of you, my dear.”

“Sometimes the old tricks are the best,” Frank smiled as he locked eyes with his witchy wife.

In the yard, the panic continued. “Hyde! Hyde! Are you alright down there? Are you ok?” Nyx yelled.

The boy, with his back bruised and battered against the hard dirt, could see the silhouette of Nyx’s head and shoulders leaning over the edge of the grave pit. Through his blurred vision from the fall, he could also see something else, something big behind Nyx. High up in the trees, 30 or 40 feet in the air, was a huge… duffle bag? Do they even make them that size? Hyde’s head was spinning. Nothing made sense anymore, and then the bag started to open. Dirt splattered the boy's face, and a rock gashed his cheek. The iron-flavored taste of blood filled his mouth.

He raised his hand towards Nyx and managed to push a few words through his airless lungs. “Look out!” Nyx dove out of the way as three cubic yards of dirt dropped down on the boy at the bottom of the pit, covering his feet, his legs, his body, his face. Everything disappeared under the enormous weight of falling earth. Nyx tried to keep an eye on her friend, but even that outstretched hand was quickly swallowed up. By the time the big bag emptied, there was no hole. The pit had been filled, and the grave was now the final resting place of one Mr. Hyde.

Nyx jumped to her feet and faced towards the house, screaming. “Noooooooooooo!” 

The air around her stopped, the birds around her fell to the ground, the light around her could no longer escape, and the chaos inside her radiated outwards. From the yard, through the house, through Frank and Morgan, and across the neighborhood, every monster, ghoul, and ghost in a five-mile radius felt the rise of goosebumps on their skin. Something wicked this way comes, and it was Nyx. Filled with rage, she charged towards the house that had spent the whole evening tormenting her and her friends.

The girl burst through a window and into the house, a ball of glowing plasma growing in her right hand. Frank recoiled, his large body reflexively trying to put more distance between himself and the teen even as he was still seated in his chair.

Morgan, however, did not flinch. The wicked witch flicked her wand-holding wrist and fired a green bolt towards the young attacker. There was a quick pop, like a loud bubble bursting, and another sound followed after that.

“Ribbet.”

Morgan walked towards her now broken window, picking up a jar as she crossed the room.

“Ribbet.”

The witch bent at the waist and, with her thumb and her index finger, she plucked an angry-looking black rain frog off the floor of her office.

“Shame, this one had real potential,” Morgan said, looking back towards her husband as she dropped the frog into the jar and tightened the lid on top.

“Thank you, Frank, for protecting our home,” Morgan said as she returned to her husband's side, frog-filled jar still in hand.

“Sorry about the window, I didn’t think they’d get that far.” The large monster conceded.

“That’s alright, dear, it’s just the cost of doing business in a town where they take Halloween so seriously.” 

“Don’t you mean in a town where WE take Halloween so seriously?” Frank asked, staring deep into his wife's eyes.

“Well, look at that, my flirty monster man, still learning new tricks. Isn’t that a nice treat?” Morgan beamed as she leaned in for a job-well-done kiss.