I never actually realized how long this short was until I sent it to myself in an email... This is a Dragon Keeper short story that does not contain any major spoilers. Enjoy! PS: If you've read the post on my other blog, sorry. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year. PPS: Copyright © 2013 by Jumi Nanakida/Lavender Hope All rights reserved. Please do not use without permission from the author. Sorry guys. Just a precaution.
"Have you ever been here for Halloween?" Lori asked the keepers in training. It was coming up soon and she wanted her friends who came from Valdea to experience the spooky holiday.
They were staying in the abandoned warehouse for the moment and Lori felt that it was a good place to express the holiday theme. Lori was sitting at a table in the main room, along with Griffin, Riley, and Jay. Rachel, Zack, Meghan, and James were sitting a little farther away at another table. Kevin was leaning against the doorframe of the only other built-in room in the warehouse; they called it the Office.
Rachel looked surprised. "It's coming soon, isn't it? I can't believe I forgot about it!"
"No way am I going to go trick or treating, so don't even ask." Kevin said decisively.
"You're such a spoil-sport, Kevin." Rachel said with good humor. "We don't have to go trick or treating. There are other things we can do on Halloween." Like Lori, Kevin and Rachel were born in this world; whereas the others were born and raised in a parallel world called Valdea.
"What's Halloween?" Griffin asked.
"It's a day where people dress up in all different kinds of costumes and there's candy, games, contests, spooky stories, haunted houses, and did I mention candy?" Lori chattered excitedly. "It's also probably the only day of the year where your dragons can be in plain sight."
"What do you mean?" Zack asked. He didn't think they would ever be allowed to let their dragons roam around without having to be sneaky.
"People won't think twice about seeing something as bizarre as a dragon on Halloween. As long as they stay small, you can just say you made them if anyone asks."
"And just how will we explain the flying?" Kevin questioned, skeptical as usual, though his question did give a pause to the rest of the group.
"We could have the dragons ride on our shoulders." Riley suggested.
"That's just as bad as grounding them. We can't do that." James said with concern.
"Alright, fine." Lori interrupted. If trick or treating with the dragons is out of the question then- "We'll just have to think up something else we can do." Lori finished the thought out loud.
"How about a party? We could give this place a nice Halloween twist." Rachel suggested.
"Or it'll make a good haunted house. We could use the crates to create a maze." Kevin countered.
"Sounds scary." Jay, the youngest of the group, murmured.
"It's not that bad when you know it's all fake." Lori responded with a smile.
"That just ruins the point, though." Kevin interjected. "People are supposed to be scared."
"Why don't we ask the dragons if they want a party or a spooky maze?" The way Meghan said it, the suggestion seemed more like a statement than a question. There were a few murmurs of agreement.
"Wait!" Lori exclaimed. "If we want a haunted house, either some of us are going to know the layout already, or we'll need other people to set it up. Wouldn't it be unfair if some know what's coming when others will be surprised?"
"I have an idea!" Jay was starting to catch on the Halloween mood. "We'll make a haunted house and invite Aaron and Sierra to try it out. Our goal can be to scare them."
"It'll be a failure for sure then." Riley sighed. "You know how Sierra is. She probably won't be scared at all. She's the master of illusion."
"It'll definitely give us a challenge though," mused Zack. "If we succeed, Sierra will be impressed."
"But if we don't," Griffin started.
"She'll still like our effort at least." Jay intervened.
There was a pause as the thought settled into their minds. Rachel looked around at the others. "So, everyone in?"
The collective smiles that were slowly spreading on each face was answer enough. "What are we waiting for?" Lori asked with excitement. "Let's do this!"
* * * * * *
Halloween Day
While some kids were going house to house, dressed up as princesses, pirates, ghouls, and ghosts, Riley and Lori were leading two unsuspecting protectors to their haunted warehouse.
"You still won't tell us what this is about?" Aaron asked for the fourth time on their trip. He was trying, and failing, to get an answer; but he was finding the secrecy amusing nonetheless.
"Nope, you'll find out when you get there." Lori smiled knowingly. She subtly signaled Riley, who slipped away to a hidden spot and whipped out a walkie-talkie; one out of several that Lori had bought just for this purpose.
"Camouflage to Shadow, do you copy?" Riley whispered into it.
He got an answer instantaneously. "Shadow to Camouflage, what is it?" Kevin's voice sounded from the receiver.
"Subjects are on the move, be in position. Over."
"Roger that. Over."
After the conversation ended, Riley tucked the device away and caught up with Lori, who was taking a detour to give those back at the warehouse some extra time to get ready. She was excited; it was all going according to plan. Riley caught her eye and gave a slight nod. The others were informed.
Good, Lori thought, now let the show begin.
When they finally reached the warehouse, a shadowy figure was guarding the entrance. Kevin chose the garb of a grim reaper; black cape and a scythe. The hood of the cape covered his the top half of his face in a spooky way, leaving only his pale skin and mouth showing in the dim light. On the other side of the door, a black dragon was coiled up in wait.
As they approached the door, Kevin spoke with a husky tone. "Welcome," he rasped as the door opened from the inside, "to the Maze of Terror."
"Right, this is where we must leave you." Lori turned to face the adults in a serious manner. "You must get through the maze to the other side of the warehouse. No using powers, and no cheating." Then she smiled brightly as she wished them luck and walked with Riley to the side of the building. They crawled in through a high window and onto the catwalk inside, watching everything from above. From the walkie-talkie they heard Kevin's voice whisper, "They're in."
Lori asked for the walkie-talkie, which Riley handed to her. "Keeper to Fire, you're up. Over."
From the moment the door opened, Aaron was impressed. Making objects move on their own was his ability, and watching things move without him using telekinesis gave him a different vantage point; the view of the audience.
The kids used crates and cardboard boxes to make the walls of the maze. The crates were already in the warehouse, all they had to do was rearrange them to make walls. They also had to use the crates that made up the divider between their sleeping room and the main room, causing the warehouse to become it's original length and shape. There weren't enough crates so the kids also had to borrow empty cardboard boxes from a nearby hardware store, getting permission to use them. The walls were close together, giving off the narrow and tight space feeling. Outside the maze, James had put jars of sunlight here and there throughout the rest of the building. Getting the light while the sun was setting gave it an orange glow instead of yellow. He made them less bright by putting a cloth over each jar. It made the scene all the more spooky, not to mention adding more of a dim lighting to an already dimly lit setup.
Aaron and Sierra continued walking down the first line of the maze. Suddenly, on each side of them, fire erupted, one row at a time, from the touches connected to the crate walls. Earlier, Lori had asked Griffin to make guards for the torches so they could stick out a little from the wooden crates, but it made the flames closer to the middle of the path. It startled the maze takers, but didn't scare them.
Zack was in a high position where he could see that first part of the maze, but no one down there could see him or his dragon, Fireblaze, who was on the other side; Riley had made sure of that. Even if Riley didn't have a dragon, Zack was still proud of his little brother's gift.
As soon as he got the signal, Zack and his dragon went to work lighting up the torches row by row from the top of the walls. He ran as quietly as he could. Once they were all lit up, he took out his walkie-talkie and whispered, "The torches are set. Over."
Back on the catwalk, following the progress of the two protectors, Lori gave a nod in response; though it was more to herself than Zack, who couldn't even see her. Before she had even pressed the talk button, Kevin's voice spoke through the speaker. "Already on it," he said. Lori rolled her eyes in amusement. Of course he'd be the one to start right away.
"I'm ready too," came Jay's voice.
Back in the maze, Aaron and Sierra had no choice but to follow the flickering torches. Just by the look on her face, Aaron could see that his partner wasn't scared at all, but he also noted that nothing scary had popped out yet.
As soon as he had the thought, a breeze blew out the first couple of torches in front of, and behind, them; leaving them in a dark spot of shadow. Before they could continue through the maze, Aaron and Sierra felt another breeze pass by from behind; following a shadowy figure. It moved from the light and into the far edge of the shadowed spot.
This is where the freaky laughter comes in, Lori thought as the rest of the building became eerily silent. She waited a moment to let the quiet sink in, then gave Griffin the signal to start the CD track.
In the maze, Sierra was starting to wonder if the shadowy figure was actually Kevin's doing, or if it really was a person. It was so quiet in there, any sound would have been heard from anywhere in the building. Then came the laughter of playing children. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.
They paused in that dark patch, tense and listening. Aaron gently touched her arm, causing her to give a small jump of surprise. She was so focused, Sierra forgot Aaron was with her. "Hey," he said, "let's keep moving, okay?" She nodded, too cautious to speak. Each time they got closer to the flaming torches up ahead, the first pair on each side would mysteriously go out and the ones behind them would burst back to flames. It was like walking under a dark cloud that followed them. The small breeze was still blowing from behind and the shadowy figure was following at a distance; keeping out of sight long enough to confuse their senses. They could still hear the quiet laughter of children.
As they started getting into the last stretch of the maze, Lori was ready for the best part to come. "Keeper to Zombie Queen," Lori whispered into the mic, "how are you?"
"I still can't believe I let you talk me into this," muttered the response. At the last hour, Lori asked -begged- Jade to help with the final scare. Dressed up as a bloody, decaying zombie, Jade was supposed to come out of the shadows and "chase" the adults out of the maze.
"At least you're not a sparkly princess like the year before last, right?" Lori whispered encouragingly. Before she could get a snarky reply for bringing that up, she added, "Get ready for your part. Over."
As abruptly as it came, the sound of children laughing suddenly stopped. A moment later, harsh breathing could be heard. It was coming from the dark circle of shade Aaron and Sierra had recently moved out of.
They turned to face the noise. Stepping into the light was the shadowy figure, which dissolved and became the rotting corpse of a walking dead. The detail was astounding. With just Rachel's help, Jade looked like a terrifying, realistic zombie. It helped that she also stumbled and moaned like a real one.
As she was causing the two maze participants to keep moving towards the last few yards to the exit, Lori was still up on the catwalk wondering what else she needed to get that final touch.
Riley noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning to look, he tried not to panic as he watched a six inch long, dark red centipede crawling up the back of Lori's shirt. "Uh, Lori," he whispered, not wanting to scare her or alert the people down below to their presence.
Lori turned to him, seemingly oblivious to what was crawling up her back, and shushed him. It wasn't until it was at her shoulder that she noticed it. Several things happened at once afterwards. First, she screamed so loudly and wildly that the sound seemed to have come from a horror movie itself. After a millisecond of screaming, she jumped up and shook herself; all the while continuing to scream and running down the metal stairs to get to the ground floor. Riley, jogging a ways behind her, noticed the centipede on the floor of the catwalk, crawling towards the wall. He jumped over it and picked up his pace to catch up with Lori.
Back in the maze, everyone stopped whatever they were doing when they heard the blood-curdling scream.
That sounded like Lori, Jade thought as she turned to where she heard feet pounding on the metal stairs. There came Lori, screaming and running like zombies were chasing her. She streamed past Jade, Sierra, and Aaron and out the exit. They stayed frozen to the spot, looking at each other with a mixture of surprise and confusion. Moments later, Riley ran up, panting for breath. He looked at the two protectors, gave a nervous chuckle, and said, "Uh, boo?"
After things settled down, and explanations were given, everyone was standing outside the warehouse. Lori still gave sudden twitches and shudders every so often since the centipede incident. Sierra was speaking.
"If I was to grade you for scariness, it would be an F; however, you get an A in teamwork. Congratulations and well done." Sierra smiled. "Who's idea was it to use each Keeper's ability throughout the maze anyway?"
"That would be Lori," Jay said with pride and excitement. "She planned everything. Kevin and I had the idea for a haunted maze."
"Hey, I had help. Don't go and give me all the credit." Lori said as she playfully nudged Jay with her arm, finally getting over the after chills of the centipede.
Without a dragon, no powers, and yet still so talented, Aaron thought. She was able to get everyone to cooperate well enough. She has a lot to learn though.
Somewhere in the distance, they all got spooked by the sudden sound of the city clock strike midnight.
"Alright, everyone to my house. Take showers then it's off to bed, got that?" Sierra called to the group. Tired murmurs responded, then Sierra continued, "And since you worked well as a team tonight, you can take tomorrow off from training; and I'll take you out for a treat." She smiled as excited whispers cut through the sleepy atmosphere, then they all headed back to her house for a good early morning's sleep.
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