Part Two

"Are you Willie Nelson?" Old Man Derwin asks me as we stand on his porch steps holding out sacks for him to fill with candy. Phoebe has insisted I carry my own bag, which has an arched back black cat on it hissing at the moon. I'm not sure why the cat is so pissed at the moon. The moon has nothing on the idiot who thought up this holiday in the first place. Who was it? Satan? Because anyone who came up with a night where you walk for miles on end with your kids in ridiculous costumes, going house to house across wet lawns, begging for enough sugar to keep them up for seventeen days straight is straight from hell.

"How's that?" I ask. I can barely hear out of this thing. The only sounds I can clearly make out are sweat dripping off my eyebrows, my claustrophobic panting that sounds more Vader than Chewbacca, and the thud of my heart, all as a direct result of asphyxiation.

"Willie Nelson!" he shouts. Jesus, heard that one. So did the entire neighborhood. I half expect Willie to come running home for supper.

"Willie Nelson?" How the fuck does he think I'm Willie Nelson? I have hair on my ears and forehead. Come to think of it, maybe Willie does, too. But, since when did Willie Nelson ever wear a British parliamentary coat and hot pants?"

"Are your ears broken in there?" he asks.

"Kind of." I pull out some matted fur that got stuck in the ear hole. Ahh, better.

"Free the Willy!" Phoebe yells out at the top of her lungs.

"No, Phoebe! It's not Free the Willy, it's just Free Willy!" She always gets the title inappropriately wrong.

"Why is that different, Daddy?" she scrunches her nose and looks up at me, scratching at her blonde Elsa wig that's now halfway off her head.

"I'll tell you when you're thirty." I'm not getting into that talk tonight. "And don't ever say that to a boy!" I try to straighten her wig, but my paws won't cooperate. I think I made it worse.

"What happened to Willie?" Derwin asks, oddly invested in his worry for the singer's well being.

"He got caughted in a net...," Phoebe explains, demonstratively using her hands. "And he had to jump in shows, which made him sad and do naughty and then a little boy who also did naughty one time said "No, no. He's not a bad one! He wants to be free." She twirls around. "But, mean, bad guys wanted their millions and millions of dollars, so Willy jumped biggest jump ever, tooted goodbye and swam with the fishes." She punctuates the story with a wave bye-bye. "Until he did number two."

"You said he did number two," Teddy says, laughing. He sounds just like Elliot.

"Is Willie Nelson dead?" Derwin asks.

"She's talking about the whale," I say, trying to clarify.

"You're a whale?" he asks.

"I'm a Beast. The Beast. From Beauty and the Beast." By way of a galaxy far, far away and the eighteenth century British government.

He just looks at me for a minute. The minute goes on so long, I momentarily think he's had a stroke.

"I still say you make a good Willie Nelson."

"I'll think about it for next year." Get me the fuck out of this place.

He puts a handful of candy in each sack. I have to say they're awfully generous with their loads, although they're quite Butterfinger heavy this year. I prefer a chocolate without all the crispy add-ons. Vanilla chocolate, so to speak. Vanilla... God, I miss, Ana. She wouldn't be wearing panties under her hoop skirt right now.

"My mommy needs candy," Phoebe says. "Put in more!"

"Phoebe, be polite," I say, looking down at her. She's a demanding little thing like her mother. I look back to Derwin. "She's collecting for my wife who has a stomach issue."

"Who are you collecting for?" Derwin asks, looking at my sack.

"Chester." I point to the robed rodent on Phoebe's shoulder.

"What's this? Ana's sick?" Grandma Derwin asks, shuffling out the door, her glasses hanging on that chain and resting on her enormous breasts. I can't keep my beady wookie eyes off of them. Not because they're attractive, but because they look like they might fall to the ground at any moment and explode.

"It's a little thing-" I say.

"She's got stomach problems," Derwin tells his old lady. "Probably ulcers. They're taking up a collection for her."

"No, we're not taking up a collection. And it's not ulcers. Phoebe's just getting extra to surprise her."

"She needs chicken juice, too!" Teddy says.

"Teddy, it's called soup. And she has enough of that at home."

"What about a banana loaf?" Grandma asks, struggling to find her nose as she lifts the glasses to her face. A banana loaf?

"That very kind of you, but-"

She scurries inside before I can finish talking and comes out with a loaf the size of a small bear. How does she just happen to have this on hand? She struggles with it, which tells me it's not light and fluffy and probably contains a lot of nut meat. Fitting.

"Give this to Ana," she says, handing it to me. I nearly drop it trying to balance it between my paws.

"Thank you, Mrs. Derwin. I'm sure she will love it." Halloween reminds me every year why I don't talk to the neighbors. I wouldn't even call them neighbors. Our property is so big, all these idiots are practically in another town.

"Look at these children!" she says, her glasses finally off her breasts and on her face. "What are you supposed to be?"

"Princess Elsa," Phoebe says. "And this is my movie star brother." She points to Chester, whose robe is halfway open, making him look like the Hugh Hefner of rodent-kind.

"I'm a trash man," Teddy says, proudly.

Suddenly there's gunfire! I throw myself over the kids in protection.

"Die! Die! Die!" The voice sounds more lispy kid than hardened criminal.

I look up to see a brace faced boy holding a space pistol with sound effects, dressed as some futuristic vigilante. I stand and give him the once over.

"What are you supposed to be?" I ask, as he continues to fire his pistol into my Chewy gut.

"The President of the Intergalactic Empire of the Plutonian-Martian Alliance!" He said that with so much projectile spit I almost thought it was raining.

"Hostile takeover, huh?" He just looks at me. "Come along, kids," I say to my own, ushering them away from the visiting outer space dictator. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

#######

"That house sucked!" Teddy says as we leave the Cole abode. Fitting, since that's probably what they give their kids for Christmas- coal.

"Teddy! Language!"

"All they gave is erasers with ponies on them."

"Well add them to your trash collection."

"Good idea!" He stuffs them delightedly into his trash bag.

"My feet hurt, Daddy!" Phoebe says, dragging her red soled kitten heels through the grass.

"It'll teach you to not wear your Louboutins long distances."

Talk about covering ground. More like covering mud and rocks and puddles the size of small lakes. Every step I take makes a gigantic, sloshy print. There's so much mud on my feet and legs I'm beginning to look like I escaped from a swamp. I wonder if early tomorrow morning someone will see my footprints and claim a Big Foot sighting. Or the Return of the Jedi.

Teddy jumps in a puddle, splashing his sister.

"Hey!" she shrieks and jumps in another one, splashing him right back.

"Stop with the splashing! You'll get dirty!"

"But, I'm a trash man. We're already dirty," Teddy says.

"Trash men pick up garbage, they don't live in it!"

"Can I carry your candy, sir?" Taylor asks, approaching us as we make our way to dry land that is the sidewalk. It's like we're in middle school and he's asking to carry my books.

"No, I'll manage with my own sack." I hand him the banana bread. "Carry my loaf."

"I got six butterfingers and a jolly rancher pop," Teddy tells Phoebe, looking at his loot.

"I got seven butters fingers and a sour melon stick." Phoebe looks up to me. "What do you got, Daddy?"

"Twenty-eight blisters and a headache."

"Hey, Grey!" Joe Mortimer yells from his porch, waving like an imbecile as we make our way up his walk. How the fuck did he recognize me? I guess the kids and Taylor.

"Joe." I nod. The cheap bastard wears the same shirt every year- a bright orange sweatshirt with black writing that says 'I'm here for the Boos'. If he wasn't such an alcoholic, it might be funny.

"Love the biblical costume!" he says, with a thumbs up as we reach the door. "Are you Moses?"

"Nebuchadnezzar." I roll my eyes, but he can't see them behind my hairy brows.

"Oooh! That's a good one!" Idiot.

"What are you giving out this year?" I ask. Last year he gave out Snicks bars, which is the generic brand of Snickers and costs half as much. They try to fool you by similar packaging and writing, but it tastes like cardboard and ass peanuts.

"Nature's candy!" He holds up a bowl full of boxed raisins.

"Eww!" The kids say in unison. What kind of asshole gives raisins on Halloween?

"Here's one for the pretty princess," he puts one in Phoebe's bag, oblivious to the fact she's contorting her face in disgust. "And one for the Dutch boy," he puts one in Teddy's bag.

"Trash Man!" Teddy says, annoyed.

"And one for the Neo-Babylonian King." He puts his hand deep into my sack, holding it there for a few seconds too long.

"Hey! What are you doing in there?" I can feel his fingers moving around, like he's trying to decipher by touch what's in my load.

"Just making sure your raisins are secure in there." Yeah right. I know his game. He steals my shit every year. I assume because he's too cheap to buy his own name brand candy, he wants mine.

"Get your hand out of my sack," I say, pulling his wrist out fast and revealing the evidence of his crime. A Butterfinger between his butter fingers.

"Why are you holding my Butterfinger?"

"It must've gotten caught on my raisins." Yeah right. Just like that new iPod got caught in his pocket as he was leaving Electric City last August. Or his dick got caught in the maid's vagina by his soon-to-be ex-wife.

I grab my candy, throw it back in my sack and move the kids along.

"Daddy my wig is itchy!" Phoebe scratches at her head as we make our way down the sidewalk. Her wig? Try every inch of my body. It's so bad it's ceased to itch anymore, it's just numbed. "Here!" She pulls it off her head and hands the thing to me.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

"Holdy it it till I get the itchies out."

"Hey!" I hear a voice shouting angrily in the distance. I turn to see a man running my way, dressed in a white t-shirt, white jeans, white sneakers and two large cardboard pieces on each side of his body cut out in the shape of bread slices. What's he supposed to be? White toast?

"Are you talking to me?" He's coming right for me, so I assume he is.

"You destroyed my trail of light," he says, stopping in front of me, trying to look at me eye to eye, but his view only reaching Chewbacca's nipple.

"What?" I briefly wonder if he's a member of some religious cult all dressed in white, but I don't know of any religion that wears slices of bread.

"The grass nearly caught on fire! Lucky for you it was wet from the rain earlier or the whole neighborhood could be evacuating instead of having fun!" What in the hell is this man saying to me? Something tells me he doesn't know much about having fun.

"I think you're confused." Or certifiably psychotic. Although he doesn't seem physically dangerous, being that he stands 5'4" and weighs less than my banana loaf, I place my body in front of the children to shield them.

"You knocked over my bags!" He points to the ground and bag upon bag lining the lawns and driveways, candles illuminating the jack-o-lantern cut-outs from inside the paper. The last ten or twelve are knocked around on the grass and sidewalk, blown out wicks and sand scattered along the path.

"What is all this?"

"My luminaria. I spent five hours lining this path! Until your Sasquatch feet took them down."

"How do you know I did this?"

"There's sand and candle wax all over your paws." I look down. He's right, there is. And there's a black mark on my left foot. I think my toe was briefly on fire and I didn't realize it.

"What kind of idiot puts candles in bags of sand and lights them where children are walking?"

"The entire state of New Mexico at Christmas."

"Well, this is the state of Washington at Halloween!"

"Sir, perhaps we should move along," Taylor says, bumping my arm with the loaf.

"No Taylor. I'm not letting any man dressed in some sandwich getup intimidate me," I say, waving the Elsa wig in the air like a flag for my rights.

"I'm a fluffernutter!"

"Don't talk about your pornographic jobs in front of my children!"

"A fluffernutter is famous sandwich on the east coast," he says, rolling his eyes so far up in his head that I think they might get stuck in the missing gap in brain. This man has serious problems.

"You're big on what other state's do. Perhaps you should set up residence in one, light your shopping bags on fire elsewhere and leave Seattle to me."

"Perhaps I should light a sack full of something else and leave it in your car hood."

"Why, I-" I start to lunge. He's gone too far by threatening the R8.

"Sir, the children!" Fuck. Taylor's right. I can't fight with this idiot in front of them.

"Listen," I bite my tongue, brushing the fur down on my arms that got ruffled. "I'll watch my feet. Just get out of my face." I grab the banana bread out of Taylor's hands. "Here's a loaf for penance." I shove the thing at him.

He leaves, picking up the remnants of his lost bags along the way, and clutching his loaf like a lady love.

"Kids, I'm sorry about that. Daddy got a little angry. If Mommy asks, I was teaching you a valuable life lesson.- always fight for what you believe in-"

I turn around and they're gone!

"Oh my god! Taylor where are the children?!"

"I don't know, sir. They were there one minute ago!"

"You're supposed to watch them!"

"I was too busy watching you."

"Well, isn't that fucking romantic! Now, my kids are missing!"

My whole life is flashing before my eyes. I've never been so scared. How could I be such a terrible parent to take my eyes of my kids for even one second?! They could've been kidnapped! Or worse. If anything happens to them...

"Phoebe! Teddy!" I take off running with Taylor not far behind, screaming their names over and over at the top of my lungs. "Check their tracking devices, Taylor!" Thank God I have location detectors on my entire family at all times.

"They're not far, sir!" he says, reading his blackberry as he catches up to me. "Only half a mile."

"Half a mile?' I run faster. "How did they get that far?" What if they got picked up by a car? I'll kill the fucker!

Suddenly a large contingency of grade school superheroes come flying towards us, taking up the entire sidewalk and half the lawn, all carrying full sized chocolate bars in bright yellow wrappers. I wave my hands in the air, trying to tell them to get out of the way, so I don't knock them all down.

"Ahhhhhh!" Wonder Woman screams as I make my way toward the crowd. "There's a monster coming to eat us!" It takes me a second to realize she's talking about me.

They start shrieking and running in all different directions. I'm trying to avoid them, but once I dodge one in the west another comes flying at me from the east.

"Get him!" A little boy dressed as the Hulk picks up a luminaria bag and throws it at my leg. My left wookie shin bursts into flames.

"He's from hell!" a girl, ironically dressed as a little red devil, says, pointing to the flames coming from my fur. I knock my leg against a tree to try and put the fire out, but it doesn't work. The bark goes up in flames, too.

"Taylor, do something!" I yell. How do I put out a fire? I remember the lesson I taught the kids-' 'stop, drop and roll'. So, I do just that.

"Sir!" Taylor says, watching me as I roll in the grass. It's not working like the emergency card said it would.

He runs to the side of the house as my matted tufts and the old oak burn.

"Hey, that's my tree!" That fucker Hofsteader, who had the pending yellow background check, says as he runs from his house carrying a bowl of caramel apples. They're probably poisoned.

"My leg is on fire, who gives a fuck about your tree?"

"I do! It's historical!"

"Well, I don't want my leg to be!"

Just then, Taylor rounds the corner holding a long hose and sprays me, the tree and Hofsteader down, finally putting out the flames.

"You're gonna pay for my tree!" Hofsteader says. "And my apples!" He looks into his bowl at the runny caramel mess. I probably saved lives tonight by ruining them.

"I don't have time for your fucking tree or your wet apples! I need to find my children!"

"OOoooh, he said a bad word!" A little shit in a turtle suit shouts out from the kiddie crowd of onlookers.

I pull myself up from the ground and take off again. My smoking leg leaving a trail behind me.

"2017 Cedar Lane!" Taylor calls out as he follows me.

"What are you saying?"

"That's where they are!"

I run faster.

"Sir, the sign says "Don't walk!"

"What did you say?" I can barely hear him.

"Don't cross the street!" he says, as I do.

A Land Rover comes barreling into the intersection. I hold my arms up, caught in headlights. The woman screeches to a halt, but it's not quick enough. The fender knocks me down.

She gets out. "Oh my God! Did I hit a dog?"

"I'm the Beast!"

She screams as I stand up and start running again. Hell nor high water nor a little hit-and-run will stop me from getting to my kids.

"There's the house!" Taylor shouts. "The one at the top of the hill!"

"That's Dr. Reardon's house!" The family dentist. What the hell? Why would the kids run to the dentist?

And mine aren't the only ones. Swarms of children are making their way up and down the pathway to the house. All leaving with chocolate bars as big as their heads. It looks like something out of Pinocchio, where the kids were all lured to Pleasure Island with the promise of fun and candy and no parents or rules, but then got turned into work donkeys. Yes, I'm far too familiar with Disney movies these days.

I barrel up to the door, children screaming as I cut through the crowd, looking for my own.

"Teddy! Phoebe!"

"Daddy!" It's Teddy!

I turn. He and Phoebe are running up to me, carrying those giant yellow candy bars.

"Kids!" I take off my mask and fall to my knees on the porch steps, pulling them into my arms. I'm even happy to see Chester.

"You must never scare your father like that again!" I kiss their cheeks, holding them like I never want to let them go, because I never do. I won't even let go of them when they go to college. "Where did you run off to?"

"My friend Anthony Decosta ran by while you were fighting with that bread guy and said we had to get here before they all run out," Teddy says.

"What?"

"Dr. Rear-end's giving out the big chocolate!" Phoebe says, stuffing the bar into her face.

"It's Dr. Reardon. And don't say anything like that in public again." Odd... Dr. Reardon usually gives out toothbrushes and hands out cartoon cards about the evils of sugar. And now, he's giving out the most of anyone...

"Is that you, Mr. Grey?" I hear Reardon's voice calling from behind me.

I stand, holding my mask under my armpit, the Elsa wig in my hand and my sack on my wrist.

"You're late," he says. Why do I suddenly feel like I'm living the beginning of a horror movie?

"What do you mean, I'm late?" I ask, facing him. I jump when I see him. He's wearing Dracula fangs and his doctor's coat with his name and dental group address emblazoned on the the right side of his chest.

"Your cleaning. Six months and twenty-seven days tomorrow." What kind of weird fuck knows the history of my dental cleanings off the top of his head? Does he always speak so low? Should I be alarmed that my left foot has no feeling in it?

"Who taught time to fly?" I laugh.

"Not the tooth fairy." He doesn't.

"I'll have to get on that."

"You don't want it to get away from you, especially after a night like tonight. Sugar can work fast on enamel."

Is that some sort of a threat?

"You should check out our new offices. We've expanded." He hands me a glossy brochure with his picture on the cover, smiling brightly as he fills some poor kid's cavity. He's enjoying himself a little too much. "We've got state of the art new equipment. A waiting area with a tropical fish tank. Even televisions sets with cartoons for the kids to watch while I fill.

"This renovation must be costing you a lot."

"We're having to think creatively to make a few extra bucks." He laughs. "Would you like some chocolate, Mr. Grey?" He holds out a bar.

It suddenly hits me. He's thinking creatively with the neighborhood's children by stuffing candy in their faces in hopes that they get fresh cavities and have to see him for fillings in his new digs. What a sick fuck!

"I know your game, Reardon." I push the candy bar away.

"What game?" He pushes it back.

"Don't think my children are going to be used as pawns in you're schemes." I push it back into his hands and step away so he can't force his bar into my sack.

"Schemes? What schemes?" He has the audacity to look insulted as he continues to hold the bar.

"How many of those did you pass out tonight? Huh?"

"I don't know. It was something special I wanted to do for the kids."

"More like something special you wanted to do for your pockets."

"Excuse me?"

"What happened to the tooth brushes? And the floss? And the cartoon man with painful rotted teeth who warned against too much Halloween shenanigans?"

"No kids wanted to come to my house then."

"And now they're flocking here for your big chocolate!"

"Mr. Grey, I don't appreciate your attitude."

"And I don't appreciate your borderline criminal activity."

"Come along, kids." I take both of them by their gooey, chocolate covered hands and lead them down the hill, away from Dr. Evil.

"This kinda tastes funny, Daddy," Phoebe says.

"Yeah, but not ha-ha," Teddy adds.

"Let me see that." What has the man done to it?

I take the bar from my daughter and look at the wrapper. Fuck. I think I made an ass of myself... It's sugar free.

"Taylor, remind me to make an appointment for a cleaning on Monday."

"Yes, Mr. Grey."

"And kids, don't tell you're mother about any of this."

"Where are we going now, Daddy?" Teddy asks.

"The party at the school."

We just have to walk over a mile back to the SUV. As if things couldn't get worse, I look up. Fuck. It's starting to rain.

To be be completed in Part III...