Epilogue
Iwake up dead. Again.
But this time it’s official.
No flickers. No ticking clock. No oops, am I hallucinating my own skeleton?
Nope. I sit up in bed, and my sheets whisper like coffins sighing open.
My heart is gone, my breath doesn’t fog the mirror, and when I poke my thigh, it jiggles like it always did but without that annoying living ache.
Finally. Maintenance-free thighs. Death is the best spa treatment I’ve ever had.
The room is mine—but perfected. Eternalized.
Halloween’d. My fog machine never sputters anymore; it just rolls an unbroken river of mist across the carpet like I live inside a rock concert hosted by Dracula.
The bowl on my nightstand keeps filling itself—candy corn, Reese’s pumpkins, wax lips, the good shit, never the circus peanuts.
Even my jack-o’-lanterns are upgraded: no rot, no mold, no fruit flies.
Their grins stay sharp forever, like they’ve been Botoxed for hell.
Outside my window is not a morning, not a night.
It’s an eternal bruise-sky, orange and purple and black, like a sunset that never gets tired.
Leaves fall on loop, crunching perfectly when you step on them, no matter how many times they’re trodden on.
Kids in costumes run by on sidewalks that don’t end, like the neighborhood itself was built on an infinity mirror.
Every porch has decorations. Every house fogged, webbed, glowing.
No cowards. It’s like the entire suburb finally obeyed me.
I laugh—a bright, feral little laugh—because of course this is my afterlife. Of course I manifested Halloween Purgatory. Other people get pearly gates or lakes of fire; I get a Target seasonal aisle that expanded into a whole dimension. My dimension.
And I’m not alone.
Bonehead is in the yard, shirtless, dual-wielding pumpkins like dumbbells.
Every time he smashes one, it respawns whole.
His joy is so loud the whole block hears him.
“Infinite. Pumpkins!” He crushes one against his skull and roars like a frat boy who just found religion in gourd violence.
I lean out the window, blow him a kiss. He drops the pumpkin, catches my invisible smooch, and headbutts the gourd into a pulp shower. Romance.
Skully’s sprawled on my couch inside, beer in one hand, remote in the other.
The afterlife TV is only horror movies. He’s half-heckling, half-quoting the lines before the characters even say them.
“See? She goes in the basement. She dies. Dumbass.” He glances at me, smirks.
“Guess eternity really is your brand, Baby. Figures. Death couldn’t even get you to tone it down.
” He clinks his bottle toward me like it’s a toast. “Cheers to infinite October.”
And Marrow. Sweet, horrifying Marrow. At my desk, quill scratching.
His parchment never runs out, and his ink is blood that never dries.
He’s writing a verse about me again. Always about me.
He doesn’t even glance up when I walk past; just murmurs, “Your laughter gilds eternity, beloved.” My whole body clenches like he bit me with words.
He always does this—turns obsession into scripture until I want to bite him back.
They’re permanent now. Flesh, not flicker. No clock. Just mine.
We wander the streets together, four monsters thick.
Bonehead carrying three jack-o’-lanterns under each arm like trophies.
Skully dragging spray paint cans that never run out, already tagging gravestones with neon obscenities.
Marrow gliding beside me like he’s still courting me at some Victorian séance.
And me—their queen, dripping in bone-print thigh-highs and a crown I didn’t even put on, it just appeared, because afterlife knows who runs this place.
Other souls stare. Of course they do. We’re ridiculous.
Hot. Terrifying. A fucked-up parade float of obsession.
A fairy-winged girl eyes Skully too long, and I hiss, actually hiss, sharp and feral.
I even have fangs that manifest on command.
Skully smirks, Bonehead beams like I just won Best Girlfriend Award, and Marrow whispers about jealousy as eternal proof of devotion.
The best part? We can flicker back. We’re not cut off.
The boys figured it out the second night—how to peel through the veil like sliding a knife into skin.
Skully’s already plotting: “Imagine the jump scares, Baby. Us in mirrors. Us in closets. Urban legends by next Halloween.” Bonehead wants to throw cars for fun.
Marrow wants to haunt graveyards just to leave cryptic poetry carved into stones. I want to do it all.
And when we finally collapse back into my giant bed—the bed’s bigger now, obviously, afterlife upgrade—it’s chaos.
Candy wrappers stick to our skin. Chocolate smears places chocolate shouldn’t be.
Bonehead eats his way down me like I’m a trick-or-treat haul.
Skully fucks me like eternity is just foreplay.
Marrow worships with tongue and teeth, muttering sonnets between licks.
We’re feral and funny and filthy and in love. Eternal foreplay lighting from the jack-o’-lanterns, fog creeping across the mattress, ghosts howling outside like background singers.
I’m their queen. Their chaos. Their candy.
And if other girls get wedding rings, well…
I got my tombstone engraved with Trick or Treat.