Halloween Inheritance

Hello all! This was something I wrote for a contest for the Library of Shadows subreddit. Hope you like it.​The ticking of the grandfather clock echoed her footsteps, beating in time with each step she took. She loved the clock. It was a huge and majestic piece, rich dark colored wood that shone in the softest light. The sounds of the swinging pendulum were heavy and soothing, filling the house no matter how far you were from it. Her earliest memories of the house always had the clock as a never ceasing presence.The chimes followed as she walked down the hall, balancing a tray in her hands. The rich aroma of chocolate and vanilla filled her nostrils, warring with the pleasantly acrid tea that fought for dominance. As she approached the closed door she could hear a soft burr of voices. Two people spoke, but she could not hear the words. The voices fell away when she touched the door handle.“Time for your afternoon snack,” she said as she pushed the door open. Her grandfather sat in the chair by the window and did not respond. No one else was in the room and she shook her head, thinking she imagined the voices. She walked to him, focused on keeping the tray level.“Chocolate chip cookies and black tea, your favorite.” She set the tray down and only then noticed how motionless he was.“Grandpa?”Her eyes widened at how still he was, how pale he looked. His chest was motionless, unmoved by breath. The heavy white-gold amulet that he always wore did not move, glinting in the sunlight from the window. Her hand trembled as she reached out to touch his hand.His head turned as his hand came up to grab hers. His bellow of laughter could not hide her shriek. The laughter trailed into hacking coughs, and despite clutching his chest his face was creased with merriment that only grew at her look of indignation.“Grandpa!” she growled slapping his hand. “You scared me! Again!”“I did!” His voice was heavy with self satisfaction. “When are you going to stop falling for that?”“It’s not funny.” She tried to stifle her annoyance as she poured out a cup of steaming tea, her heart beating wildly in her chest. However she smiled as she saw her grandfather’s face warm, becoming less pale. “You’re so happy when you scare someone.”He winked at her. “It’s fun. I’m quite good at it, too.” Another fit of coughing prevented further speech. His temporary good health had dissolved. He waved a hand at her look of concern. “I’m okay pumpkin. Just tired.”“You need to rest.” She took the newspaper off his lap and glanced at the headline. “You shouldn’t torture yourself like this, reading all the bad news.”“It’s all my fault,” he sighed softly. He chewed a cookie, washing it down with a sip of tea.“It is not,” she replied, throwing the newspaper aside. “You didn’t kidnap anyone, how is it your fault?”He did not reply, instead offering her the plate of cookies and smiling when she took one. The pair ate and drank together.“By the way, were you talking to someone earlier grandpa?” She squinted at him when he looked far too innocent. “I thought I heard you talking.”“Just to myself pumpkin,” he replied. “I had a question and decided to ask the smartest person in the house.” He chuckled at her snort, eyes twinkling.She waited to leave until he started to doze off. Once she closed the door behind her, she thought she could hear the two voices talking again, but the tolling from the clock drowned out the sounds.The girl left her grandfather’s house to run errands. The town was decorated for Halloween, only a day away. Pumpkins of various forms were everywhere, and garlands of webs clung to walls and trees. There were some already in costume wandering about, witches walking with princesses, superheroes striking poses.She did notice one thing that was odd this year: more people dressed like zombies. Not the usual ones she was used to either, the green or pale-skinned ones with fake gore and ragged clothes. These zombies were the kind of pale that came from lack of sunlight, almost like marble. They appeared famished, wasted. Their eyes were overlarge and lacking sclera, a socket of inky purple colors that swirled when she looked at them. She shuddered, partly from the effect and the fact that contact lenses always made her skin crawl. She never understood how people could touch their own eyes.These zombies were everywhere. They clustered at street corners, gathered in the square. Packs of them wandered the shopping aisles at the grocery store. As she shopped the girl thought no one noticed them but her. Every so often they would just look at her, watching her every step. They did not approach her, in fact they seemed like they could not. Yet whenever she walked close, their heads would turn to follow her.As she left the grocery store she paused, looking back at the zombie like person she walked past. His features were even more grotesque up close, elongated and asymmetrical. That was not why she paused. He looked familiar, but not from personal acquaintance. She frowned, thinking hard to figure out why he seemed familiar.His head turned at her closer scrutiny. The empty black eyes undulated and looked at her without seeing. A buzzing sound spilled from his long mouth, like static from an untuned radio. Pale wasted skin drank in the afternoon sunlight but grew no warmer, appearing colder instead.She shuddered. Though his features unsettled her, she knew where she recognized him. His picture had been plastered across her grandfather’s newspaper. He was one of the kidnapped youth. If you shrank his stretched features, he would be that smiling boy whose family was desperately seeking him. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped, instead turning to leave as fast as she could. As she hurried away from the store she felt his flat eyes following her.As she put away the groceries at home, she let the sounds of the clock soothe her worries away. She always felt safe here. Her head came up as the chimes rang. They seemed especially loud. When the chimes ceased she noticed her grandfather in the doorway, leaning on a cane with one hand and his other touching his amulet.“Oh Grandpa! How did you sneak up on me?”He smiled but the smile did not reach his eyes. They narrowed slightly as he looked at her, concern and something else buried in his gaze. “I have my ways. Tell me girl, are you okay?”“Yeah I’m fine.” She shrugged. “Just a weird day. I know Halloween is soon but there were a lot of people in costumes today. Some really weird ones.”“Weird how?”The girl noticed the odd tone in his voice. “Well, there must be some kind of group costume or something ‘cause there were a lot of people dressed like the same thing. Like this...zombie monster thing? I honestly don’t know what they were, they looked super creepy.”At his gasp she rushed to his side. “Grandpa, you’re not well. You have to rest!” She grabbed his arm and she winced at how thin it was, how hot it was. “Come on, let’s sit down okay?”“No, it’s too late,” he moaned. He clutched the amulet in his hand. “Oh what have I done? I left it far too late. There’s no more time.”Tell her.Her eyes widened and her head whipped back and forth. She heard the voice this time clearly, and it was a familiar one yet it was not hers nor her grandfather’s. “Is someone else here Grandpa?”“No, I can’t. I won’t!” He did not address her. “I swore none of my family would bear the burden. It’s too much.”You must. They come clawing from OutSide. If you do not, all is lost. All is wasted.An explosion rocked the house making her scream. She grabbed her grandfather to shield him but almost let go as she felt how hot he was. He radiated heat in waves and it almost burned her. The house shook again and a low moan seeped through the walls, the sound made her shriek again.“Pumpkin, you must stay inside. Do not come outside!” Her grandfather broke free from her arms and he stumbled to the front door. The amulet grew in his hands and the girl gaped as it became a large white mask. Before she could stop him, he threw the door open and put the mask over his face.Each step he took outside he changed. He grew in height, his limbs became longer and thinner. His skin turned to bone and his warm brown eyes became pools of darkest night.“Beasts!” he yelled, his voice deeper and more primal than moments prior. “Away with you. This is my realm, not yours. You never succeeded before and you will not succeed tonight!”The girl followed him, going stiff at the sight. Their home was surrounded by the zombies she had seen during the day, but they looked even more grotesque now. No longer human-like, instead like things clad in human skin. Heads bent at impossible angles with otherworldly light pouring from eye and mouth. Thick, oily tentacles sprouted from where their limbs should have been. The eerie moan spilled from their gaping maws and the sound made her ears ache. It was the buzzing she heard earlier, amplified a thousand times.Look at you. A voice emanated from the zombies and it reverberated over itself, like thousands of voices said the same words but at different times and cadences. So old, so weak. A far cry from what you used to be Jack, the so-called Spirit of Halloween. A Pumpkin King? A peasant more like.She screamed as the things flung themselves at her grandfather. He swung his arms, shouted words she knew not the meaning of, sending the beasts flying. For a moment he stood strong and unyielding, the rock that broke the waves of zombies.However one immense creature sent her grandfather to the ground with a swing of its multicolored tentacle. His body shivered, changing back to the frail old man that she loved. The mask tumbled from his face and fell between her and him.Put me on.“No, don’t,” her grandfather whispered, barely heard from the beasts howling with triumph. “Please don’t.”You must. If you do not the world will die screaming. Not screams of fright from joyful scares. Screams of true unceasing horror.“Don’t put it on,” her grandfather begged as the monsters crawled closer to him. He wept from fear and the monsters grew stronger from it. Yet she saw in his eyes that the fear was not due to them, but for her. “You don’t know how hard it is, how painful it is. I swore I would never let anyone I love sacrifice themselves like I did.”If you do not, everything your grandfather has done will go to waste. All his years of service, all his sacrifice, for nothing.Her lungs did not want to work, her mind reeled. Tears slid down her face as she was caught between the mask and her grandfather.He will die in a way far worse than any in this realm. The beings of the OutSide hate him and they will rend his soul shard by shard. He will die in agony over millennia, and be cast into oblivion.“I don’t care,” he whispered as the beasts crawled ever closer. They reached out to him with tendrils that changed color. “Please, I don’t want you to do this to yourself.”“But I do.”The mask fit over her face as if made for her. She screamed as power from the beginning of time flowed through her. She screamed in pain as her bones burned. She screamed in terror as she saw what would happen if the OutSide came to be here on Earth. She screamed in ecstasy as she saw what she could do to prevent it.A leap on overlong legs took her to her grandfather. A sweep of overlong arms severed the tendrils and they dissolved into nothingness. A mane of pumpkin orange hair fell from a face of alabaster white and she laughed louder and wilder than she ever had before.Jack? The voices trembled as they spoke.“Jackie!” she corrected with pure pleasure. “Jackie Skellington, the Pumpkin Queen at your service!” via /r/WokCanosWordweb https://ift.tt/2Ui1eJL