Forever Knight was created by Parriott, et. al, and owned/copyrighted 
by Tristar/Columbia.

Permission granted to archive this puppy on the fanfic site.

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HALLOWEEN: Good Little Boys (01/01)
Copyright 1997
by Bonnie Rutledge

    
     Even on Halloween, good little children were in bed by midnight. 
Those left after the clock struck twelve turned to smashing pumpkins 
and lacing their baby-sitter's mailbox with rotten eggs. Those left 
after the witching hour were born to hang and bound for long-term 
prison stays before they turned twenty.

     "Do it, or I'll kick your ass so hard," Eleven year-old Bobby 
told his best friend, Max, "you'll be tasting crap on your cornflakes 
for a month."

     Ah, the sweet innocence of youth.

     "The hell you will!" Max shouted, then grabbed his best friend by 
the hair and tried earnestly to pound him flat. Max was a very expressive 
child. Physically expressive, that is.

     Sammie, second-best friend to both other boys and pissed to know 
it, called them the names for every offensive body part he could think 
of, then ended his rant with the most damning words of all, "You suck!" 
Sammie was a verbally expressive kind of kid.

     Back to Bobby. Bobby didn't express much, though at the moment, 
his nose oozed real blood to blend with the fake stuff he'd smeared 
over his chin hours before so he'd look like a flesh-eating zombie. 
Zombies kicked ass. It had also been Bobby's idea to break into the 
radio station as a dare, and, dammit, those babies were gonna do it, 
even if he had to turn into an ass-kicking zombie to make them. The 
nose-bleed was the final straw.

     Bobby bent down to pick up his Official Toronto Blue Jays baseball 
bat from where he'd been kicking it around the ground with his feet 
earlier. After scratching his butt and winding up, he smacked homeruns 
into Max's, then Sammie's, stomachs. Both other boys doubled over in pain, 
Max throwing up the half-pound of chocolate he'd gobbled in the past hour 
all over Sammie's sneakers.

     "We're going to CERK," Bobby announced, tapping the wood against 
one hand for emphasis. "Anybody got a problem with that?" The only answers 
to his query were the muffled coughs and whimpers of the other boys. "I 
didn't think so," he concluded, just like the smug little thug he was.

***************************************************************************

     The pack of boys eased down the dark hallway, the eerie blue glow 
that seemed to haunt every corner of the station illuminating their 
faces so that the children resembled demonic smurfs. A lighted sign 
hovered above a closed room at the other end of the floor, broadcasting 
its occupant was 'On Air.' This information was also evident from the 
flowing speech sounding over the speakers bolted along the walls.

     Bobby, Sammie and Max couldn't help but listen to the Nightcrawler's 
broadcast. They were trying to sneak around the joint, so they weren't 
exactly tap dancing and throwing plates. 

     "What is it about modern Halloween that so enchants the masses?" 
the radio personality's voice rang in their ears. "I say it's the 
masquerade. What a perfect opportunity to pretend to be what you are 
not, to delve into your most secret fantasies and share them with the 
world with no fear of censure for what you are. Halloween...it's just 
a night. The sun comes up just as any of those other, countless mornings. 
It's only a costume...nothing to frighten you from snuggling content 
in the dark. None of the horror is real...Or is it?"

     The boys weren't adoring fans. 

     "What a wuss," Sammie declared. "A pop-tart chewing, flower 
sniffing, royal girlie of a wuss. You still got that bat, Bobby? We 
should smear him. There's three of us and a blunt object...not a problem."

     "Shut your mouth, you turd!" Max hissed. "He'll hear you!"

     "What are you, Max? Sc-sc-sc-sc-scared?" Bobby taunted. Max's face 
reddened at the slur, his face appearing purple in the lighting. He 
body-slammed his best friend and proceeded to bludgeon his head against 
the floor.

      Sammie sneered at the sight of his second-best friends trying to 
kill each other on the radio station carpet. "You girls are so stupid. 
Tell you what - when you get tired of hugging each other, join me. I'll 
be kicking ass on the Nightcrawler down the hall." Sammie turned, bending 
down with the intention of redeeming the baseball bat from its spot on 
the floor. 

     The bat was gone.

     "Dammit," Sammie groaned, assuming it had gotten kicked into 
the shadows at the beginning of the other boys' skirmish. Crawling on 
his hands and knees, Sammie felt along the floor as he moved from the 
blue-lighted areas into the blackness.

     After a minute, his fingers encountered something. Not wood, as 
he expected, but leather. A shoe. <And shoes,> Sammie thought, <go on...> 
The boy looked up with the speed of a tortoise. A pair of eyes gleamed 
with lime-colored fire out of the darkness.  

     Sammie shouted, making a sound resembling, "Uhhhnngghhh!!!!" 

     He fell backward, retreating in reverse gear as fast as crawling 
would move him. Suddenly, Sammie brushed up against warm, flushed skin.

     "Aaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!" three young screams pealed at once. 
Bobby and Max had stopped their tussle at the sound of their second-best 
friend's wail, waiting in silent anticipation to know if they should fight 
or take flight. When Sammie bumped up against them, all the boys freaked 
out, then froze in panting fear.

     Smooth steps echoed along the hallway. Something was coming at them 
from the darkness. Something big. Something menacing. Something with green 
glowing eyes and a rumbling snarl. One of the children, or maybe all of 
them, began to whimper in fear.

     The man-thing entered the area lighted blue. He was clothed entirely 
in black, and there was a sliver of silver in the shape of a sword fastened 
at his neck. He glowered at the boys as though he couldn't decide whether 
they were dinner or his next pair of shoes. Each boy swore he was at 
least eight feet tall.

     The man lifted one pale hand, a ring on the pinkie finger, and dangled 
the missing baseball bat above their upturned, mouth-agape heads. The 
Nightcrawler's voice came to them, the whisper of a hiss added to his 
speech as the pricking tips of a pair of fangs peeked past the man's lips. 
"Looking for *this*?"

     The children ran as though their lives depended on it.

     Lucien Lacroix chuckled at the patter of their retreating 
footsteps as he tossed the bat from hand to hand, testing its weight 
and grip. <The next time Nicholas got out of line...>

     "I'll smear him." 

     His laughter echoed throughout the CERK station as he strolled 
back to the broadcast booth.

************************************************************************

     "His eyes were bugging!" Max shouted, fighting back his shivers as 
the trio ran down the street.

     "Screw the eyes! What about those teeth?! Damn! He was going to 
eat us!" Bobby cried, a combination of outrage and terror lacing his 
squeal. "The Nightcrawler's a friggin' flesh-eating zombie!"

     "Zombies don't talk, you asshole," Max argued.

     "Do, too!" Max hurled his body at Bobby at this protest, and, 
pretty soon, they were smashing skulls again.

     Sammie kept walking, sniffing back tears as he went. The smell of 
urine surrounded him - he'd been that scared. Sammie kept walking. After 
half a block, Bobby's shout rang out after him. "Where're you goin', 
Sammie?"

    " 'M going home," Sammie yelled back.  They didn't try to catch up 
with him. After all, he was the second-best friend.

     Sammie huddled onto the subway, remembering every frightening  
detail about the encounter with the Nightcrawler as he rode across 
town. <The fangs...the snarl...the eyes...He was going to eat us!> 
Then the words of the earlier broadcast came to him. "It's Halloween. 
It was just a costume," he muttered as the train reached his stop.

     Arriving home, Sammie crept into his bedroom. As he tore off his 
stained, smelly clothes, he repeated the words in his head, <The horror 
isn't real...isn't real...isn't real...>

     He climbed quietly into bed. The lights of his clock-radio glowed 
at Sammie in the dark, urging him to click it on and prove that nothing 
was real. Gingerly, he reached out an arm and flicked the switch.

     "...wishing you a safe trip home and dreams of your *best* friend...
the Nightcrawler. From CERK, 490 AM, goodnight boys. Sleep tight, don't 
let *anything* bite."

     Sammie shut the sound off, then curled his head under his pillow 
as he cried himself to sleep. 

     He was damned if he was ever going to go out after dark again.

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Fin

Happy Halloween!

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