Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The backyard looks like I married a pumpkin patch in Vegas and divorced it in the same hour. And honestly? That’s the vibe.
Pumpkins are everywhere. Not tastefully arranged—everywhere.
Big ones, tiny squat ones, knobby ones with warts that look like they’re growing tumors.
I stacked three into a lopsided totem by the fire pit.
I carved obscene words into half of them and cats into the rest, because if the veil is going to snap shut tomorrow, I want the afterlife to know I was both vulgar and whimsical.
Candles spill from their mouths, dripping wax like drool. The fog machine I dragged onto the lawn wheezes smoke across the grass, curling around bare feet until it looks like we’re standing on swamp water. I strung orange lights through the trees so the whole yard pulses like a glowing ribcage.
The fire pit in the center is already going, flames chewing at the logs like they’ve been starving all year for tonight. Every time it crackles, sparks leap into the sky like a standing ovation.
And me? I’m barefoot in the dirt, cider sloshing in my skull-shaped cup, muttering to the pumpkins like they’re a jury.
“This is it,” I tell them, pacing. My robe flares around me like I’m both cult leader and tipsy bridesmaid. “Halloween Eve. Our dress rehearsal for the apocalypse. We’re not going out quietly. We’re going out sticky, smashed, drunk, and covered in guts.”
They grin back at me. Of course they do.
The back door bangs open and Bonehead emerges, grinning wide enough to split the night. He’s shirtless—naturally—with flour still dusting his forearms from whatever kitchen battle he lost earlier, and he’s holding two fat jack-o’-lanterns like bowling balls.
“Smash now?” he asks, eyes sparkling.
“Smash always,” I decree, and he howls like a Viking getting the axe he ordered for Christmas.
He charges the fire pit. The first pumpkin meets its death on the rim, exploding into orange gore.
Seeds and stringy guts fly across the stones, slapping wetly onto the grass.
The second pumpkin he slams down so hard the top half bounces into the fire.
The flames roar, devouring it like they’ve been waiting all night for dessert.
Bonehead throws his arms up, chest heaving, grinning with feral pride. “Champion!”
I shriek so loud the neighbors probably add me to their prayer lists. “Yes! Ten points for splatter! Style points for making the fire moan! God of Gourds! King of the Patch! My pumpkin daddy!”
Bonehead beams, wiping guts off his chest with the back of his hand, looking every bit like the cover model of Seasonal Destruction Quarterly.
The door creaks again. Skully strolls out, cigarette dangling, tray of neon-green shots in his hand.
His jacket is open, eyeliner smeared, and his smirk says he’s already regretting being alive tonight.
“You two are unhinged,” he mutters, setting the tray on the patio table.
Then he snatches a pumpkin off the fence, tosses it toward Bonehead, and says, “Bet you can’t spike it straight into the fire. ”
Bonehead doesn’t even blink. He catches it, roars, and spikes it like a football. The thing explodes midair, half in the pit, half across the grass, a wet splatter of orange gore painting the night.
Skully wheezes, doubling over. “I was kidding!”
“You don’t kid with Bonehead,” I inform him primly, snatching one of the shots. The liquid glows radioactive, smells like regret, tastes like sugar and paint thinner. I throw it back anyway. “You challenge him, he destroys.”
“Like my liver,” Skully mutters, grabbing his own shot.
And then Marrow. My perfect, undead courtier, stepping into the yard like he’s arrived at a masquerade instead of my backyard rave.
He’s carrying logs for the fire, hair tied back, sleeves rolled, looking ruinously elegant even with grass stains on his boots.
He kneels at the pit, places the logs with surgical care, then dusts off his hands as the flames climb higher.
“The fire is eager tonight,” he murmurs, like he’s offering commentary at an opera.
I launch myself at him, cider sloshing over my wrist, kiss him hard enough to smear my lipstick across his perfect mouth. “The fire’s horny,” I correct. “Just like me.”
His eyes flare in the firelight. He hums against my lips, and for one dizzying second, I swear even the pumpkins blush.
We settle into a rhythm. Bonehead turns smashing pumpkins into a sport—over the fire pit, into the fence, overhead like a wrestler slamming his opponent. I shriek encouragement with every blow, nearly dropping my cider in my enthusiasm.
Skully leans against the patio post, cigarette bouncing between his lips, commentary cutting through the chaos.
“That one looked like a hate crime against squash. That one looked like Gallagher if he fucked up. That one—” he points as seeds rain down on his shoulder—“that one just personally assaulted me.”
Bonehead roars with laughter and grabs another.
Marrow tends the fire like a priest, adding logs, rearranging the glowing pumpkins around the pit so they watch like an audience of saints. His mouth curves faintly every time Bonehead splatters one just right.
And me? I’m dancing barefoot in the dirt, cider in one hand, pumpkin guts smeared across my thighs, laughing so hard my ribs ache.
I feel the tick-tock gnawing at the edges, but the noise is louder—the fire crackling, the pumpkins hissing, Bonehead’s roars, Skully’s heckles, Marrow’s calm voice threading through.
For now, the clock can starve.
The pumpkin massacre bleeds into drinking hour because of course it does.
The backyard looks like a crime scene where the victims were all gourds and the murder weapon was Bonehead’s enthusiasm.
Seeds stick to the fog-slick grass, orange pulp streaks the stones around the pit, and I’m half certain the neighbor’s dog is going to develop a taste for jack-o’-lantern flesh after this.
“Game time!” I shriek, clapping my hands so loud it makes the raven plush in the window fall over. “If we’re going down, we’re going down drunk and smart. Horror trivia or die.”
Skully groans theatrically, collapsing into a lawn chair like he’s being forced to testify. “Baby, that’s not a threat. That’s my kink.”
“Shut up and pour,” I command, snatching the tray of green shots off the table.
They slosh neon like liquid kryptonite. I plant them on the blanket in front of the fire, spread eagle, referee-style.
“Rules: I ask questions. You answer. Wrong answers mean you drink. Right answers mean you also drink, because fuck you, that’s why. ”
Bonehead is already holding three shots like he’s double-fisting juice boxes at daycare. “Me win,” he declares proudly.
“You’re going to lose,” Skully says, his smirk sharp. He lights his cigarette off the fire pit, blows smoke into the night, and tips his chair back on two legs. “Unless the question is, like, what color is blood.”
Bonehead frowns, serious. “Depends.”
Marrow lowers himself gracefully to the blanket across from me, folding his legs, expression serene. He looks like a professor about to dismantle us all with calm facts. “Ask, my love,” he says, and the pumpkins flicker like they’re ready to take notes.
I clear my throat, drunk already on the power of being the game master. “First question. In Halloween, what is Michael Myers’ weapon of choice?”
“Knife!” Bonehead bellows before I’ve even finished.
“Correct,” I say sweetly. “Drink anyway.”
He slams back all three shots like a war crime.
“Second question. In The Shining, what word is written all over the walls?”
“Redrum,” Skully says, bored, flicking ash into the grass.
“Correct. Drink anyway.”
He sighs, tips the shot into his mouth, grimaces like the liquid betrayed him. “God, that tastes like antifreeze.”
“Third question. In Nosferatu, what is Count Orlok’s favorite meal?”
Marrow’s smile is faint, reverent. “Blood at the throat. The seat of life.”
“Correct,” I declare, swooning like he just proposed. “Drink anyway.”
He downs it neatly, not a drop wasted, eyes locked on me like I’m the real question.
By the fifth round, Bonehead is answering everything with smash and still somehow isn’t wrong.
“What’s the monster in Alien called?” I ask.
“Smash,” he insists, chest puffed.
“Technically,” Skully snorts, “that’s what it does.”
“Drink anyway!” I crow, shoving another shot into his hand.
By the seventh round, Skully’s heckling Bonehead so viciously he forgets his own answers.
“In Scream, who’s the killer?” I demand.
Skully smirks. “Everyone, eventually.”
“Drink anyway!”
Marrow, patient, supplies the names with surgical clarity, but I make him drink too, because perfection doesn’t get to skip intoxication.
The blanket turns into a battlefield of empty cups. The fire roars. The fog machine wheezes like an asthmatic dragon. I’m bouncing on my knees, hair flying, cackling like a game-show host with a gun.
“Final round!” I declare, holding up the last shot like a sacrament. “Winner takes glory. Loser does a dare.”
Bonehead lurches forward, eyes wide. “Dare?”
“Dare,” I confirm.
His grin is so stupid and wide I nearly fall into it.
The question is simple. Too simple. “In Friday the 13th, what’s the killer’s name?”
Bonehead opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Mask man.”
Skully nearly falls out of his chair laughing, cigarette bouncing dangerously. “Oh my God. Jason, you idiot. Jason Voorhees. Mask man,” he mutters, shaking his head.
“Mask man scarier,” Bonehead mutters, sulking as he downs the final shot.
“That means you lose,” I sing-song. “Dare time.”
His eyes go wide with anticipation. “Dare?”
I grin wicked. “Smash a pumpkin with your head.”