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Gerry was having a difficult time telling if he was in the right place. The neighborhood looked like any of the ones he had passed on his way here. Nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary. And from the information he had, it very much should . Subtlety had never been one of the Spiral’s strong suits. Gerry felt like he should at least sense something by this point. How long had he been walking through the dark streets with the same buildings to both of his sides?
Suddenly, he stopped. Frowned. How long, indeed? He hadn’t seen any trick or treaters in a while, despite there being supposedly a lot around regularly. A point that had, after all, been a big part in Gerry finding out about something here being supposedly wrong. He blinked, looked around. He had been at this crossing before, a couple minutes ago.
Noise. Children's voices. Screaming? Gerry was having difficulty figuring out what direction it was coming from. He was still surrounded by empty streets.
One house Gerry’s eyes seemed unable to focus on, slid right off. Except not the whole house. The door. Gerry knew it was there, he could see it. Or at least he thought he could. His eyes seemed to forget to see it. He frowned, approached. He had still not seen any children, but this was at least a start.
Approaching something his brain wasn’t registering wasn’t a particularly easy task, but Gerry wasn’t new to this. By the time he stood before the door — a shade of yellow rather unusual — Gerry had a headache from forcing himself to really look at what his brain clearly did not want him to see. And from up close, it was rather obvious that something about that door wasn’t quite right. Gerry couldn’t put his finger on it, but he didn’t need to. He felt rather satisfied for having been right with his guess. This was clearly the Spiral.
Gerry considered how to proceed for a moment, before deciding to simply knock. His free hand was clutching his knife. Gerry very rarely found it particularly helpful, especially with the Entities that were less physical , but it was still a soothing presence against his sweaty palm.
The door didn’t open as much as it simply was open. It was only a crack, and Gerry momentarily doubted his assessment of the closed door from before. He grit his teeth, trying to focus.
There were eyes in the dark gap of the door. Gerry knew that he should not be able to see them from where he was standing. He was less sure of the darkness of that gap. He thought he wanted to say something, but couldn’t remember what.
“You didn’t say the words.” The voice echoed, felt a lot more palpable and close than a voice had any right to. Especially if it was coming from behind the yellow door in front of Gerry. Gerry opened his mouth to respond, but was silenced by the awareness of being watched, of those eyes he wasn’t seeing taking him in, making his skin tingle. The voice seemed to hesitate — how Gerry could tell he didn’t know — before adding, “I do like your … costume.” Quieter, “And there’s a lot of candy still …”
Gerry stepped back despite nothing moving, years of living the way he did making instinct kick in before any actual threat presented itself. The words didn’t even make sense, and yet they seemed to be words that preceded action. And any form of action from one of the Entities meant danger.
Gerry registered his urge to run, but didn’t move. Something was moving through the gap in the yellow door, something vaguely pale. The mass seemed too big to fit through the narrow gap, yet somehow the door did not open further. It was a fist, Gerry realised. He only realised because it started to unfold, too-many-knuckled fingers, strangely spindly but also not . Colourfully wrapped candy rested in the too-wide palm of that hand, probably stuff Gerry would recognise if his head wouldn’t be busy trying to comprehend what he was looking at. The arm attached to the hand and disappearing through the gap in the door was surprisingly thin. Something yellow seemed to flicker through the gap in the door for a moment. Gerry’s pulse was too loud.
He took a step back, slowly, not taking his eyes off the hand. “What are you doing?” he asked, still cautiously. He wanted to fight back, or run, or do anything but entertain it — obliging the Spiral rarely went well, but he had learned that the same was true of not obliging his curiosity. He was burning with it.
Whatever was behind the door seemed — insofar as it seemed capable of seeming anything — a bit taken aback at that. The fingers twitched, and something that Gerry thought might be an eye — or possibly a mouth, or a strand of hair, or an abstract shape — blinked at him from the gap.
That strange voice again. “I am …” it sounded like someone had taken the idea of glass and melted it down, spun it out into filament and thrown it in an echo chamber. It sounded like it was coming from his bone marrow and also the walls and also nowhere. It said: “Helping.”
Gerry highly doubted that that was what it was doing. He raised an eyebrow, wordless, still not entirely sure whether he shouldn’t just walk away.
“Participating, if you prefer?” said the thing behind the door. “Bargaining?” a giggle had made it into its voice. Not a happy one — not even really amused. Its tone was hard to parse. Always an undercurrent of something that Gerry wanted to call amusement, but wasn’t, really, because there was no mirth to it. No lightness.
Gerry was quiet.
“I was … curious,” it said, tapping a finger against one of the candies in its palm, as if in thought. “The … custom … I think it occurs around this time each year?” Distaste colored its words, dripped from them, wrapped around the word time like it wanted to devour it. “The exchange. It seemed,” and it giggled again, “fitting to my nature, when deceit is an option, to partake.”
Gerry thought he was getting it, but it seemed so strange that he was hesitant to ask. And it didn’t seem done rambling anyway. If anything, it was growing agitated.
“I would not have taken them into — taken them! I do not like to abide by rules but there would have been … enough to feed on … without … I was trying to feed them …”
A few pieces of candy dropped to the ground and Gerry did stumble back, startled — its hand, or its body, or what went for one, had glitched, lost form for a second and it was shaking its palm, trying to dislodge a colorful sweet that looked like it had gotten stuck in its skin, flattened, robbed of dimension.
It shook loose after a moment and hit the ground with a crack too loud for its size; the sidewalk split, run through with a thin spiralling line.
“Were you trying to … get trick-or-treaters?” asked Gerry, disbelieving.
Something like a sigh ran through the thing in the doorway — the frame itself seemed to shiver. Gerry felt dizzy. “Yes,” it said after a moment. “But they kept running away.”
Gerry stared. Tried not to think about its voice, or the way the door was still only ajar, dark, hesitant. He wasn’t certain when his ears had started ringing, and his mind felt like it had been turned to thick cotton and shoved somewhere in the back of his skull, out of reach. “I don’t believe you,” he said, and turned on his heel and walked away, breathing deeper the further he got from the door, blinking colors out of his eyes.
But he did. The thought did not leave him all evening, and with the lights out over his little flat he couldn’t keep it at bay any longer; the sound of its voice, the shivering relief of that heavy sigh.
It had sounded upset. Not genuinely — nothing it had said had sounded genuine; nothing it had said should sound genuine. But if not genuine, then as if it believed itself to be genuine, and that was, if anything, stranger still.
It bothered Gerry. He hadn't had any expectations following up, but he certainly hadn't imagined that . Whatever that even was. The creature itself was less disconcerting than the suggested honesty in its voice. And that, to Gerry, was a little concerning.
He debated how to proceed for a while. Obviously, the creature was still loose, which was less than ideal and not what Gerry had intended. That was a good enough excuse to return to that neighbourhood again, right? Certainly a better reason than that strange mixture of curiosity and pity in his stomach. Gerry tried to ignore it as he set out two days later.
It was easier to find the door this time despite Gerry being close to sure that it was not the same house. Part of him briefly wondered if this was even the same part of town. The door still felt inappropriately yellow among its surroundings. Gerry knocked, unsure about what exactly he was doing.
The door opened silently and only slightly, like last time. Gerry still found it strange it didn't creak. His ears did ring strangely at the motion. Had that happened the other time?
“You’re back.” It didn’t sound surprised. The eyes were back, looking at him in what might have been curiosity.
“I am,” Gerry answered once he found his voice again. Then frowned. It hadn’t been a question, had it?
Silence, maybe a pensive kind. It was difficult to read two consistently changing eyes in a dark void from an angle that should have made it impossible for Gerry to see them. Sometimes, they looked round.
“Did you change your mind?” The same impossible hand poked out of the gap, closed into a fist.
Gerry thought the voice sounded hopeful, if hope were something sticky stuck between his teeth. He licked his lips. “Will you stop if I accept?”
“Stop?” It sounded like it was frowning. Its hand disintegrated for a moment.
Gerry nodded slowly, trying to keep his mind focused. “Stop scaring the kids. And just generally —” he motioned to the neighbourhood. “Stop being here . Bothering people.”
“I don’t bother people.” It sounded very sharp all of a sudden and Gerry took a step back. “They just run.”
Gerry shook his head. The more they talked the less he could follow the conversation. His brain felt all fuzzy. “I take your candy, you leave these people alone. Deal?”
He was aware he was being insane for trying to strike a deal with a being of the spiral. But Gerry couldn’t help still feeling like it was, in some way, upset about the situation. And Gerry had always been bad at ignoring people in distress. And now that Mary was gone he felt like he shouldn’t . It was the least he could do after all the bad he had done while she was still alive.
What did it matter that what he was speaking to right now was most certainly not a person ? It was upset. And Gerry wanted to help — both it and the people that had been complaining about its presence.
“But I want to... participate ,” it whined or hissed. Whatever it was, it made Gerry’s bones rattle.
“You are . If I take the candy —”
“You didn’t say the words.”
Gerry sighed, took a deep breath. He realised his heart was racing. When had that started? “Fine.” His voice broke and Gerry cleared his throat, confused. “Fine,” he repeated, held out his hand, palm up, “Trick or treat?”
It felt awkward. Not just because Gerry knew he was too old for this game, but also because he had never done it before, knew it mostly from TV. He felt strangely nervous, and it didn’t feel like the creature behind the door was the reason for it. At least not on its own. Gerry couldn’t be sure.
There was a long moment where nothing seemed to be moving. Had it been this quiet before? Gerry felt the urge to hold his breath. Then its fingers started to unfold again in a distinctly unhuman way — too mechanical, too fluid — and Gerry couldn’t remember when its hand had fully come through the gap in the door, but he didn’t question it. Only watched, rapt, as sharp-looking fingers gave way to the colourful wrappings from last time. Its hand was dangerously close, but Gerry didn’t move. It shook some of the candy from its palm into his — Gerry wondered if he imagined some pieces falling right through its skin again.
The candy felt surprisingly ordinary in Gerry’s hand. Somehow, he had expected it to be heavy. Or maybe come alive in his hand. It didn’t.
The creature’s hand disappeared behind the door again — not fully, it seemed to be holding on to the edge of it as it watched Gerry with interest. Somehow Gerry felt like he knew what it was waiting for. He shrugged, unwrapping one of the small chocolates in his hand. It behaved as any chocolate Gerry had interacted with up to that point. He only hesitated a short moment before popping it into his mouth.
It tasted just left of what Gerry would have expected. Like chocolate, definitely, but not … fully. He frowned, chewing slowly, trying to pin down what else it tasted like. It felt familiar. Maybe? He couldn’t be sure . It was rather frustrating. Gerry barely noticed himself unwrapping the next chocolate after the first one was gone and he was still clueless.
Gerry only remembered what he was doing when he looked up at the door only to find a spiralling mess of blond curls peeking through the gap, the eyes now in the context of a face — or at least part of it. And Gerry at least assumed that what he was looking at was a face — both hands now holding on to the door’s edge as it watched him from above its knuckles, the lower half of its face still hidden behind the door. Gerry thought it looked surprised, as far as luminescent kaleidoscopic eyes could express such a thing.
“You’re eating.” It sounded like a vague concept of surprise.
“Wasn’t I supposed to?”
It frowned. Its pale eyebrows were off-centre, one more lopsided than the other. “I...guess.”
“They’re good,” Gerry said, unwrapping another one and biting into it.
Its eyes widened unnaturally. “Are they?”
Gerry raised an eyebrow. He felt a little lightheaded. “You never tried?”
It shook its head, hair dissolving into fractals at the edges. Gerry held out his hand again. “Have one.”
The thing hesitated only a moment before it started squeezing — flowing, glitching, Gerry couldn’t tell, it was painful to watch — through the gap in the door. What ended up standing in front of him by the end looked surprisingly human, if you ignored the occasional glitching, the fact that every part of the body seemed just a little off-kilter in a different way. Gerry blinked once, twice, but the creature did not come into any better focus. Something just seemed fuzzy about it. Its grin was too wide for the round face it was trying to be part of.
Its fingers touched Gerry’s hand as it delicately picked up one of the chocolates. It didn’t feel like skin at all, which was quite disorienting because it looked so much like skin. Gerry was still musing about that when it spoke. “What’s your name?”
He looked up, confused. Blinked. How had he gotten here? “I’m Gerry.”
“You can call me...Michael…” It sounded uncertain as it put the candy in its mouth, wrapper and all. Gerry opened his mouth, but it spoke first. “If...you wish.”
He watched, confused, as it started chewing as if its voice hadn’t just flickered when it introduced itself. It seemed to light up faintly. When had it gotten so dark? Gerry absentmindedly ate another candy, never leaving it out of his eyes. Or at least trying to. It was a lot to look at, too much movement and lack thereof, too many colours.
It was staring at him. Gerry held out his hand again. “Want another?”
It — Michael shook its head, but its long fingers still picked another candy from Gerry’s hand. Gerry thought it was smiling when it chewed it, which made no sense because despite it eating the grin had not moved from its face.
Gerry didn’t know how much time had passed, nor did he remember when or why they had sat down. He had blinked and the next moment he found himself sitting on the porch in front of the yellow door, Michael perched on the edge of the stairs to his right, a pile of candy between them.
“I .. .participate,” it mumbled suddenly, something like thoughtfulness in its voice. Gerry couldn’t tell if he was getting better at reading it as the night progressed or if it had something to do with the increasingly cotton-like state of his mind.
He nodded in agreement, feeling like his head might float away if he didn’t move it carefully. “You do. Maybe we can find a better way next year … a …” He frowned, finding it difficult to remember words and how to say them suddenly. “A safer way. A more … fun way. Where people don’t run. Because you don’t scare them.”
Michael looked skeptical about it, maybe. Gerry was unsure how skepticism looked in that moment. Gerry watched it wrap something that looked like caramel rock candy around its finger. He felt like that’s what his brain felt like in that moment. When had he started referring to them as a ‘we’? Why was he making plans with the creature behind the door for next halloween?
“Are you going to leave?” he asked, frowning. He wasn’t sure if that had been his intended question.
Michael hesitated, looked away. Gerry assumed it was a yes.
“Am I going to leave?” he asked instead, eating another chocolate. Somewhere in his mind he remembered that Michael might eat him. It didn’t alarm him as much as it should have. Gerry was mostly curious.
It looked at him again with its disorienting eyes. “I can bring you home.”
It sounded like a threat. But everything it said did.
“I think I can find my way by myself, thanks.” Gerry wasn’t sure of that at all. The candy pile never got smaller between them. His tongue was numb.
Michael frowned. “I won—” it dissolved a little, glitching in and out. “won’t... harm you.” It looked like it might be melting as it spoke.
Gerry nodded, handing it another chocolate, hoping it understood the gesture as a reassurance that he might believe it. Faith was a difficult thing when his mind felt somewhat removed from himself. Michael did accept the candy with something akin to a smile. They went back to eating in silence. When Gerry looked up, there were stars, and he was nearly sure he wasn’t imagining it. Michael hummed beside him, following his gaze. It sounded relaxed. Gerry breathed out. He thought he might be relaxed, too.