The Haunting Legacy

All Hallows Eve… Time and Year - Unknown

A lonely horse galloped and trod independently away from a squalid cave, carrying a figure across their back. Driscol had escaped with their life… though unconscious, they rode away from the caves glow. One rider on its back – its roped restraints had been torn by its powerful terrors, but the passenger fixated… to remain… indefinitely. It dashed in a certain direction… far and away from this dirty grotto. Soon another followed suit, then three more, each one striding with more unburdened frenzy than the last. From where the horses had bolted resonated a blinding light that exploded upwards, seemingly seeking to penetrate further than the planet’s lonely spin. The illuminations further expanded…outward, as well as upward, turning most of the runaway horses into flakes of dust. And then, it stopped. Darkness ruled over the land again, barring a lonesome flickering of a solitary flame from within the caves frame. Verene, Eithne, Gillies, Lorcan, Aidan, Gilmore, and Shanley… every single one of them laid motionless on the ground, beneath the silent flicker of the dying flame. The sun had long vanished and the stars had been enveloped by the gruesome mist that had begun to cover the surrounding area. It closed in… a message from the stars… as it quickly and closely encased the cave… and all those who resided within it… for this year, at least.

The Lone Wolf… Shanley – 2026

Scurrydale, a house name adopted from another. The dull autumn of Southern England had before offered droplets of rain, but tonight stood dry and still. Inside rested a figure that hid behind a ghoulish pale mask. Expressionless and numb it sat, awaiting the dying light of the last day in October to fully fade. 365 days ago a fresh target had been scoped out, and tonight Shanley had no choice in the matter. Fifteen minutes of silent stillness inside their invisible solace passed as if time was even more uncontrollable than the fresh crumbling of skin that rippled and disappeared beneath their dank mask.

The moon escaped from the whizzing clouds, seizing Shanley’s hidden figure within their baggy clothing. The figure no longer stood upright, instead… it hunched over and growled with yearly menace. Halloween night was here. The figure swung their frame left to right and sprinted away to a nearby house that was all alone, glimmering beneath the moonlight, and wide open. Inside, the house was dusty and mangy, dim with light, and whispering with cold dashes. Shanley’s hidden figure let out a monstrous howl, followed by a barking collage of resentment. The figure stood upright and ripped away at every last inch of fabric that covered its concealed frame. The cloak was no more, rather… mere fragmented pieces of waste sprawled around on the already furry ground. The behemoth stood at 9ft tall, when it didn’t arch it spine, and it let out another gruesome roar amongst the empty looking house. The yell echoed around, as Shanley stood still, furry, scarred, grey, and shaking with unyielding rage. The mask was intact for a fleeting moment after, before its claws grasped at it and ripped hard, catching its face and deepening a wound. The gaping claw mark healed over quickly, restoring the hopelessly pale complexion and the grisly sagging that fell inside of the greying circles of blooded fur around its face. Its mouth, as wide as its face, opened, releasing a face full of daggers that muddied the expression over the rest of its face. Another howl fell into a high pitch cackle, looming beneath a haunting shriek so loud it smashed the mirrors in the hallway. A figure appeared… small, compared to Shanley’s, but cloaked just as they previously were. Shanley stood uncharacteristically still.

‘How long it’s been, Cognate’, spoke the cloaked watcher.

A scurry of howls escaped Shanley, until they dropped into the ground, beneath the shutter that abruptly opened before them, and closed all the same. The cloaked figure stood still, holding their hidden expenditure on a button beside the wooden-framed home.

‘Back to where you started, to where you can wreak no havoc. Be buried, and watch no more for the eternity… and then forever more’.

The cloaked figure jabbed the button harshly inward, lifting the building upward into the sky, and invisible as it sunk into the passing clouds. The house was no more, leaving behind a shallow grave, and Shanley’s undying figure within it.

Two Way Street… Gilmore & Aidan – 1983

Red plastic cups were passed around liberally to the guests at ‘Ben’s Halloween Bash’. The party that promised to be the party of the year for college-bound residents of Bakers Ferry Eagle Lane Street, Salem, Oregon. Two invitees entered, unnoticed by the liquor lips and wavering eyes in the party’s beating rhythm. The costumes were long-nosed and ghastly, drawing waves of jealousy from the hoard of cup holders who couldn’t match the detail… neither the horror. They were unrivalled, all alone at the top tier of impressiveness… until the parties host finally arrived. Ben, dressed head to toe in a skeleton costume, devoured by a dark cloak that topped off the outfit and peaked its frightfulness. The witch twins didn’t budge, instead they concentrated their energy on the large bowl of punch that remained unguarded. They dipped a flask into the orange liquid, emptying their spell, and reddening its core, temporarily. Gilmore twirled a straw into the mixture, bumped by a man dressed in a mummified toilet roll knock off.

‘Amateur’, Gilmore and Aidan said together, watching the boy canter off with their own four eyes.

Minutes passed, before the spell grew air born. Each droplet of potion that entered another person passed on. Saliva, through the air, or by a spill onto the skin, the spell would be ready in mere moments… and the twins could feast again. And it had worked… quickly and sufficiently. Everybody collapsed into the ground, even a pesky set of parents who nosed in on their adult daughter being free had grown victim. Gilmore and Aidan cackled together, de-masking themselves to reveal their true form… … but… another…

‘One who stays awake – un-allured from our spell’, said Gilmore in a decrepit moan.

‘We must feast… vanquish them now, Cognate’.

Gilmore’s request was quickly accepted by Aidan, though the two could barely be told apart… perhaps Aidan’s nose ran steeper… or vice versa.

‘Vanquish their soul!’

This time they yelled, as Aidan’s approach was quicker than a blink of an eye.

(But an eye cannot blink with no eyelid).

Aidan reached out their pointy finger to the cloaked skeleton, but shattered into pieces upon their touch. The skeleton looked at Gilmore the instructor. They skated around them, quicker than Aidan’s approach had been. They grasped their own red plastic cup and dipped it into the bowl of punch. The cup reached its mouth and it poured at it, releasing gulping sounds with its quick consumption of the drink. Punch fell to the ground quicker than it left the cup.

‘Impossible’, protested Gilmore, ‘the spell cannot be consumed by no mere mortal’.

The cloaked figure removed their outfit… and as Gilmore looked at it, their figure froze and quickly shattered where it stood, leaving shards of piercing former form on the ground. The cloak widened over the facades back, as they swept up Gilmore’s remains and fluently poured them into the punch. Suddenly, everybody in the room awoke, unaware of the cloaked host leaving the room, oblivious to their drinks new innards… and even more heedless to the door locking behind them…

Three’s a Crowd… Lorcan, Gillies, Eithne – 2001

The boat trip was settled for night time… October 31^st… so read Lorcan’s invitation that was still clasped in the depleted body of their adventurous mailman. Lorcan looked refreshed… his body re-fuelled… so read the fresh gapes in the mailman’s neck and the quarry of gore running down his face. Lorcan wiped at the blood that tickled down his chin, devouring it again behind eyes so black that nobody was really home. He delicately plucked the invitation from the mailman’s cold hook, shutting the wooden frame against his face… letting him rest… before supper time. Lorcan stretched his skinny frame upwards, reaching the dust and the cobwebs that had settled in a home away from life… away from light. Lorcan packed a small briefcase, before one last suckle from the mailman’s veins… and left, into the night, atop the boat, travelling to a mystery land.

The boat was larger than expected for Lorcan, so read his unencumbered expression. Atop the vessel he wondered, as night turned into… later that night. Into the waters swallow, the boat hovered, as a fresh wave rocked his still frame unbalanced. He crossed his hands gently across his chest – whites of his eyes completely black with poisoned bondage.

‘Thirsty Lorcan – always the thirsty one, Cognate’.

Lorcan looked around, dizzying himself at the hopeful discovery of the crackly voice that appeared as if from nowhere. No avail, the voice’s origin escaped detection.

‘You must learn to tame your hunger – especially with strange mailmen who come to your door’, repeated the voice.

From behind Lorcan’s twirling frame bit a chill, and a cloak stroked his pale neck. Lorcan turned around and looked at the figure – all dressed in black, cloaked off to the world, but a voice that travelled with so much ease.

‘What do all the monsters have in common?… They all fear one monster all the same’.

Lorcan fell backwards with the ships sudden jolt, though the waves beneath were serene and still. Suddenly, two doors on the ship burst open… revealing two more pale figures – tied up and hissing with dissents.

‘Gillies… Eithne’, said Lorcan, in a gentle tone that rang with politeness.

‘The journey is long, Cognate… you will get thirsty’, said the cloaked figure.

Lorcan rushed at the cloak and bit down on where a neck ought to be. They froze on the spot, whitening with the image of their teeth shattering and sprinkling onto the ground beneath them. Lorcan blurred out a small indiscriminate sentence, climbing back to their knees as their teeth grew back… even sharper. The doors burst off their hinges and spiralled into the breezy sky.

‘The Journey is long… you will all be thirsty… soon enough’.

The cloaked figure disappeared into the ocean, as a fresh shuddering wave rocked the boat again. Lorcan looked inside the open doors, filling with temporary waves of pleasure at the primed dinner on the bulky vessel. He looked at the map… his eyes lit up with the destinations allure, ‘three’s a crowd’.

He looked back to the open doors, the boat trembled again… Gillies and Eithne were not incapacitated anymore…

The Forgotten Cognate… Time and Year - Unknown

October 31^st… the day of the spirits… the day all the monsters can hide in plain sight. But in a time forgotten the monsters have ran and hid, crumbled and disappeared, plunged beneath constraints… driven by their own creator. Cognate’s… BE GONE… the one creator remains… fixed in time… fixed on today’s date. If you’re unlucky enough to read this on October 31^st you best pray that the night is short… but your prayers only reach the one… they carry them and consume them, replacing the gruesome with the fearful in the day where they can play. You pray this day is short… Verene sees all… Verene hears all… every squeak under your bed, every bad dream, every star that goes out at night… Verene is all. They are the monster in the dark, the killers in the streets, the mummies in the tombs… awaiting lift off… to consume them all again. I know more than most, the horse’s keen gallop made sure of that. I write fast, maybe illiterate, maybe not fast enough. The scratch at my window, the first year it has ever rang that awfully… be ready Verene… you have never faced a monster quite like me. 9pm… October 31^st – here we go again…

Driscol terraformed and seeped from its skin… ripping and tearing at it until it bled solid with thick tar. Gore seeped its way onto the carpet, dripping onto the empty room below, as the moonlight seeped into the window. The window stopped its scratch, quickly smashing with the image of Driscol impossible to see through it… and in stepped a cloaked figure… right on schedule. Driscol had transformed, like it did every single year on this date.

‘You wouldn’t forget me’, said Driscol in a beautiful deep and enchanting whisper.

They had four legs, with muscles impossibly lean across their entire hind. Their head, massive and dominating, with sharp defences across its front and spiralled across its arched back. The moonlight bounced off the sharpened spikes, bouncing to the cloaked figure, whose cloak began to simmer with its sharp reflection. The cloaked figure dropped their disguise. Verene. A dilapidated skeleton, withered from its flesh long ago and absent with organs that had fallen long… long ago. The skeleton ached with rackety splinters, archways of wounds protruding from where those organs once stood.

‘But I know why you have left me for last’, said Driscol.

‘I don’t want to hurt you… you weren’t made like us. You have beauty within you… I let you live all these years’, said Verene through crackling skeletal lips.

‘I may not have a heart, but I once did’.

Driscol stood beside them as Verene turned to walk away. As they stared longingly at the celebrations of monsters below, Verene felt a sharp stabbing pain protrude through their chest. They gawped at the spike that had penetrated their heartless ribcage. They turned with a gaping hole in their chest and crumbling bones began to fall apart from their core.

‘Time creates a monster of us all – be happy now for one day you will dissipate like me. This is no night to hide behind your mask, Driscol. You are a horror… be that horror’.

Verene stood as their body crumbled beneath them and turned into a heap of dust on the floor. Driscol galloped away into the night… Halloween night… The one night that will never die.