The man in the door wasn't what John was expecting. He was thin, not too tall, wearing a ratty suit, and he was definitely human. Sweat beaded his brow, he offered a twitching smile and couldn't hold the effort. Drawn and pale, he didn't look good. "Can I help you, sir?"
"Yes, yes! Please! I'm sorry for troubling you." The man paused and wiped his brow, his gaze darting around searching the dark corners, of which there was always one around in this toontown of Hallowe'en. "I hate to trouble you, but you see, I'm here alone and, well, I'm not feeling very good right now. Toons don't understand. Maybe I'm allergic to something here. Please, help me." The man was trembling, his hands quivered as they went over his pale face.
John opened the door wider to let the man in. Grateful, he stumbled in and collapsed in an armchair. "I'm Ray." The man offered. "Thanks." Ray took a cup of water John had handed to him, who sat down between him and his wife.
Ray took a gulp of water and calmed a bit. "I came here about two weeks ago. First vacation in years. Too much work, too much stress. Mandatory vacation they said, go or be fired. So I took the vacation. I thought ToonWorld would be the best place to go for stress relief. No worries here, right? 'Laugh it off' and all that, they say in the ads." John nodded, encouraging Ray to keep talking.
"Well, it was, um, must have been five, six days ago, I ended up here in Halloween Town. Great idea, I thought. Haven't played around in costume and gone nuts since I was a kid, right?" Ray wiped more sweat off his forehead. "I think it was going well, I picked up a costume and just started having, having fun. Thing is, I, I can't remember what the costume was. I was going along on a nightly Trick-or-Treat run, and then...then...I, I can't remember. Then I wake up back in my hotel room, and I'm feeling sick."
"The toons, they, they can't help me. All they offer is a band-aid, or, or they tell me to go see the Doctor. I did, I went to see him. Well, I, I went up to the place, and it wasn't a hospital doctor, it was a mad scientist! Oh! I high-tailed it back here, I didn't need that k,kind of help!" Ray gulped down the rest of the water, his jittery hand held the cup in a death grip.
John glanced back at Carrie, she was sitting up straight against the wall with her legs pulled close, her latex pumpkin costume a mass of folds and creases all around her. Like some strange ballroom gown. John returned his gaze to Ray. "Don't worry, you'll be OK. Just relax. If it's a fever, just keep drinking water and rest."
John poured himself a glass of water and drank it down greedily. That was some good water. He felt a rumble in his stomach.
Ray smiled back at John. "By, by the way, what costumes, what are you going to be for Halloween?"
"We're pumpkins."