Mark got the call from Sam just after lunch. He had gone to pick up some groceries and had stopped at a local deli for a sandwich and coffee when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Hi Mark. Could you pick up some stuff for the Halloween party? Love U :3” The text wasn’t remarkable, but what stuck in Mark’s head was the use of the kitty face emoji. Sam wasn’t much for using them when she texted him, she kept that reserved strictly for her friends at work and social media… He finished his turkey on rye and stood up to leave, slipping the phone back in his jacket pocket. Another buzz, another message from Sam. It was a brief rundown of what she wanted: candy, decorations, liquor, etcetera… and it was again punctuated by kitty cat faces. Mark brushed a hand through his short black hair as he went to his car. Why was he letting this bother him? It was literally nothing… but still out of character for the woman he’d been dating for two years.
As he wheeled over to a supermarket winding down from the midday rush, he thought back to the costume she picked up. A witch outfit, but the hat had little orange kitty ears on it. Sam was always a big fan of Halloween… but she was especially into it this year, she even picked out a pair of black cat ears for him to wear ‘for fun’. Mark wanted to turn them down, get a costume that wouldn’t emasculate the fuck out of him. Maybe he could still do that before the witch hat made his girlfriend any crazier…
“What an idiot you are…” Mark scolded himself as he pulled into the first parking space he saw. “You’re being ridiculous… just get the supplies and have fun… it’s Halloween, people are coming over… It’s just a party.”
As he went down the aisles, picking up the items on the list, the events of the other day played out in Mark’s head. The place was a quirky little costume shop Sam’s friends had told her about. Mark never saw those friends himself but they were Sam’s own little social circle… thought it did strike him as a bit funny that all the pics she had on her phone was from another party… very realistic costumes, too. The place was bigger than it looked from the outside. He could have spent the whole day browsing with Sam had she not seen the witch outfit… and that hat.
The way her blue eyes lit up as she picked it up, the way the black velvet looked with her blonde hair, the little orange cat ears with tiger stripes. It was cute, alright, and it looked good on her; but Mark didn’t quite get why she was so smitten with it. And then she bent down, taking something from a bin and presenting it to him. “And here, we’ll match!” With a giggle, she handed him a pair of black cat ears on a cloth cap. The ears were a velvety material, soft and warm, with pink on the inside. Again, it was cute but… it wasn’t him. But still, Mark wasn’t about to spoil the day over a hat, so he played along, tried it on… even meowed at Sam’s urging. The memory of them in the costume store made him stifle a chuckle as he got a spool of fake cobwebs. Sam had a talent for spreading her enthusiasm around. Hell, he didn’t even like the cat ears and he was having fun with them that day. His phone buzzed again; another message from Sam, another kitty cat emoji. How long was Mark having to deal with her newfound cat fixation?
The message read simply: “Waiting for you :3”
Mark shook his head and smiled. As he finished gathering his items, he hummed to himself. It had been a while since he felt this way, this must be what that fabled ‘contentment’ was like. He did self-checkout after seeing a line of three different families and seven different whining kids at the one available lane, a voice on the intercom announced a spill in the dairy aisle as he headed out to his car. The radio was playing some seasonally-appropriate fare, and in between each song the DJ urged trick-or-treaters to stay safe with the usual advice. The drive home was uneventful, but that’s how Mark liked it. The leaves had already turned color, and Mark could see people out in their yards raking them into big piles.
He pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. As he got out, the air felt still. Something felt off, though Mark didn’t know what it was. It didn’t take him long to dismiss the feeling. There was a jack o’lantern sitting by the door, bearing the scars of his and Sam’s botched carving of its face. Mark called out Sam’s name as he opened the door, only to be met with a silent house that smelt of cloves and hairspray.
Now, this discovery took all the little niggling worries Mark tried to ignore and put them together. Something was up, either Sam had worked a surprise into her plans and didn’t tell him, or something less wholesome was afoot. He stepped into the kitchen and set the bags down, calling out again once again, to no avail. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”
He heard something stirring within the house, a faint shuffling noise coming from the direction of Sam’s room. That feeling Mark had turned sour. If this was a prank, it wasn’t funny. And if it turned out to not be a prank, Max didn’t want to think about that. Not at a time like this.
Then he heard a faint moan.