Chapter Fifty-One: Trick And Treating Woes

(Trick Or Treat, Freak, Pt. 3)

"Trick or treat!"

The old woman who'd opened the door cooed at the six children gathered on her doorstep, wearing their widest grins as one boy wielded his video camera and the singular girl among them waved her wand, the shiny foil ribbons attached fluttering in her wake, while the only boy not wearing a jumpsuit smiled broadly and lifted up his sack, sending a mental command to the bird on his shoulder to not move and give the woman before them a heart attack.

"Oh, well aren't you cute, little exterminators!" the old woman cooed, making Will's, Mike's, Lucas' and Dustin's faces fall flat. But the boys didn't have the time to process the soul-crushing disappointment of someone not recognising who they actually were as the woman turned to Alistair and Cami, gushing, "And look at you two! An adorable fairy and... zombie?"

Alistair kept his smile up even as he felt the pain of no one recognising he was actually a ghost while Cami beamed wider.

But the disappointment of not being recognised was alleviated as they saw the old woman only had a bowl of Three Musketeers nougat, which they grabbed and put into into their sacks—or plastic pumpkin basket, in Cami's case—Alistair's grin turning genuine at seeing the nougat candy he loved second to Mars Bars.

However, only Dustin shared his excitement. Everyone else was thoroughly disappointed in receiving just Three Musketeers, but wisely didn't say anything until they walked away and a new bunch of trick and treaters came to the old woman's doorstep.

"I swear, if I get another Three Musketeers, I'm gonna kill myself," Lucas grumbled, which prompted Dustin's innocent, but still defensive, question of, "What's wrong with Three Musketeers?"

"What's wrong with Three Musketeers?" Lucas repeated back, eyes wide in disbelief as he stared at Dustin.

Alistair, sensing that Lucas and Dustin were going to bicker, walked a few paces back to where Cami was, the curly-haired girl humming under her breath and moving her head to imaginary music.

"Uh, hey," he said, and Cami looked up at him, a dazzling smile already on her face, showcasing the gap between her front teeth.

"Hey!" she said back. 

"So," Alistair said, fiddling with his shirt hem. He wanted to say words, but they felt like they were stuck in his throat, like he was rendered speechless by the girl dressed in a sparkly dress in hues of green, pink and purple with glittery wings attached to the back, specks of glitter from the wings catching in the curls of her hair and glinting in the glow of the streetlights. He could feel Hugin's annoyance with him over that, and had to remind the raven not to move, again.

Cami tilted her head and nudged Alistair in the side with the plastic star atop her wand. "So?"

Clearing his throat, Alistair restarted again.

"So... you enjoying trick or treating so far?" he asked. Immediately after he wanted to reel the words back in. Why did he have to say such a stupid thing, of course Cami was enjoying trick or treating, what was wrong with him?

Cami seemed to not mind, because she smiled as if to assure Alistair he hadn't sounded as stupid as he knew he had, and said, "Yeah! Yeah, I am. It's different, form when me and my sister would go trick or treating in New York—it's smaller. Maybe that's why our parents said it was cool for her to go to this party and let me trick or treat with you all. Not that I don't mind, I'm liking trick or treating with you and your friends! I just miss trick or treating with my sister."

The girl blew out a sigh. "Sorry, that sounded pretty selfish."

Alistair smiled. "No, no, it isn't! Before I went trick or treating with Will, Mike, Lucas and Dustin, I used to go trick or treating with my sister, too. I miss that sometimes too. But after, either our aunt or her friend Eddie picks me up after and we go home and watch horror movies and eat candy and popcorn together, so that's nice, too."

"We do the same!" Cami exclaimed, beaming. "Valerie puts in Alien and both of the The Thing's and The Blob and forces our parents to watch them with her! I get kinda scared, but she also puts Star Wars in, so that's nice to watch with her."

Alistair grinned. "We watch Alien and The Thing too! We also watch Carrie because it's Rowan's favourite and Halloween as well, because you have to watch it on Halloween."

Cami smiled. "We should have a movie marathon sometime! Just let her know nothing too scary—I don't like horror."

Alistair kept his smile up, even as Cami's comment felt ironic given the inter-dimensional monsters and he could literally raise the dead and see ghosts. "Sure."

Cami smiled, before she looked at the four boys ahead of them and her expression shuttered. "Does Mike hate me?"

Alistair stared. "What? No way."

"I just... I feel like he's been very cold to me, especially tonight. I don't know what his damage is, but I feel like I'm trying and trying to fix whatever made him hate me, and he just... won't stop hating me," Cami went on, twirling her wand self-consciously. 

Alistair sighed; he had a feeling why Mike was being so rude toward Cami. "Well, Cami, we had this friend—"

A sudden scream pierced the night and Alistair's blood went cold.

"Alistair?" Cami asked, but it was muffled as the rest of the world faded away and he was back there, in Mr. Clarke's classroom and the Demogorgon was disintegrating and El was killing it and sacrificing herself and she was screaming and Alistair could do nothing—

"Holy shit!"

And like a switch flipped, Alistair was back, back in reality and when he looked, he saw that Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will were staring at a girl dressed in a blue boiler suit with a mane of fiery red hair, wielding a fake knife and pumpkin basket, a grin on her face.

Max.

He'd almost forgotten Dustin and Lucas had invited her to join them. And judging by the knife and the Michael Myers mask in her other hand, she had scared his friends, that they were the ones who screamed. 

It wasn't El. No one was was screaming from pain because they were killing a monster and killing themselves in the process. No one was in danger.

Everything was fine. Everyone was safe. Everything was fine.

"You should have seen the looks on your faces!" the redhead crowed, that wild grin still on her face. "And you?"

Alistair turned, seeing she was looking directly at Lucas, the one who had mostly screamed, and he grinned, realising she'd heard his scream for the first time.

"Who screams like that? You sound like a little girl," Max said before she turned and walked away. When she realised the Party wasn't following her, she stopped and said, "Hey, you guys coming or not? Ooh, I heard we should hit up Loch Nora. That's where all the rich people live, right?"

With that, she turned and Alistair grinned while Will, Lucas and Dustin got visibly excited and hurried after her, Mike following a step behind, looking even gloomier than usual.

Alistair was about to follow her when Cami grabbed his arm.

"Hey, Alistair?" Cami asked, her voice soft as the brunette boy turned to her.

"Yeah?"

"You okay? You looked pretty freaked out earlier," she questioned, brown eyes full of concern.

"I'm, uh, fine. I'm fine," Alistair answered, before he marched forward to join his friends and Max, Cami following behind him, scowling at himself, resisting the urge to kick the road.

Stupid anniversary effect. Stupid random flashbacks. Stupid Upside Down and Demogorgon and Brenner and Hawkins Lab.

However, regret soon twisted inside Alistair's stomach at snapping at Cami—not helped by the glare Hugin sent him—and he turned to mumble, "I'm sorry, Cami. Last year was... insane. Sorry."

"It's okay," Cami replied. "Your friend, Will... he got lost in the woods, right?"

"Yeah," Alistair murmured, saying the lie readily, knowing where Will got lost was much darker and more horrifying than simply getting lost in the woods.

Cami bit her lip, before she bumped him with her arm, a smile once more affixed on her face.

"Come on! I want to get this good candy Max claims there is before you friends get it all."

Alistair grinned. "Oh, no way is that happening."

Together, the two ran after the rest of the Party, catching up with them. When they did, Alistair jogged up ahead to Max, coming to her side as he greeted, "Hey!"

The redhead turned to him, giving him a quizzical look. "Uh, hey?"

Alistair pointed to her costume. "Michael Myers, right?"

"Yeah," Max confirmed. Looking at Alistair, she asked, "Wait you watch Halloween too?"

"Uh yeah! My big sister is a huge horror geek—we all are, to be honest—and that movie's a staple to watch when we're watching horror movies on Halloween," Alistair answered. "She dressed up as Carrie tonight, because Carrie's her favourite horror movie."

"Nice," Max said with a grin. She jerked her head to his costume. "What're you? A zombie?"

"Nope! I'm a ghost! Could you tell by how dead my face looks?" Alistair answered, grinning as he waggled his hands.

"Maybe if you say 'Boo' more and wore a chain around your ankle," Max criticised, but a smile was tugging at her lips. Her eyes alighted on Hugin and they widened. "Whoa! Did you tape a dead raven on your shoulder?"

"Nope! Just a puppet I made," Alistair lied, patting Hugin's head. Hugin's annoyance came over through the bond, but Alistair ignored it.

Max's eyebrows were raised in skepticism, but she shrugged. "It looks cool."

"Thanks."

Max gave a ghost of a smile.

Alistair stuck out a hand. "In case my friends didn't introduce me, I'm Alistair, but they usually call me Al."

Max looked at him, before she took his hand. "Max. It's nice to actually meet you and know you're not a stalker."

Alistair chuckled nervously. "Yeah, that was a pretty bad idea."

"Oh, you think?" Max drawled sarcastically. She frowned, and added, "Hey, is your sister's name Rowan?"

"Yeah," Alistair confirmed. "How'd you know?"

"My stepbrother wouldn't shut up about her after she yelled at him and slapped him yesterday morning and he found out her name," Max answered, mouth twisting at the mention of her stepbrother like the mention of him was poison in her mouth.

"That sounds like Rowan," Alistair muttered. "But yeah, Rowan's my sister."

He looked at Max and added, "I promise she's not as scary or angry as she seems—well, she's almost always angry, but not like angry angry. She only gets that pissed off at assholes, and if she was like that at your stepbrother, he probably deserved it."

"Good to know. And yeah, he did."

They smiled at each other.

Alistair looked back, where he saw Cami talking to Will and drawing his normally shy best friend out of his shell, and could see the almost begging looks in Dustin and Lucas' eyes at him in talking to Max again.

"Uh, hey, I'm gonna chat with Will and Cami for a bit," Alistair said, Max nodding as Alistair doubled back to where Will and Cami were, allowing Dustin and Lucas to talk to Max again, staying with Will and Cami—and ignoring the glum look sent Cami and Max's way via Mike—as they continued heading into Loch Nora, something Alistair was still in disbelief at; given his family's status as being a trailer park family, him tramping into the affluent streets of Loch Nora, even on Halloween, seemed like an impossibility his mind could not comprehend.

He just hoped the candy was as good as Max claimed it would be.

***

Max was right. It was as good she claimed it to be.

A wide grin almost split Alistair's face in half and definitely cracked the makeup Rowan had painstakingly applied earlier, but he didn't care as he stared at the haul inside, that among the candy he and his friends had gotten in the middle-class suburbs of Hawkins, the full-size candy bars stuck out like diamonds or gold amongst the dirt. 

And with the almost gleeful ease the denizens of Loch Nora gave them out, it once again reminded Alistair just how gullible rich people were, even if they gave him and Max judging looks for their costumes, like they didn't expect a kid with fake blood pouring down his chest and a dead raven with some of its bones exposed attached to his shoulder and a girl dressed as a fictional murderer should be appropriate costumes, or should be walking alongside their society-appropriate ones.

It kinda made him almost wish Rowan was here trick or treating along with them in her full Carrie regalia and make the rich people even more uncomfortable. She'd probably wear a shit-eating grin and flip them the bird when their doors closed.

Whatever. He didn't care. Besides, he'd gotten a pretty decent haul thanks to those marks anyway.

"Another full-size? I swear, rich people are suckers," Dustin mused aloud, echoing Alistair's thoughts as they walked away from the latest rich house they'd gotten the candy from.

Alistair grinned and nudged his friend. "Yeah, they are. How do you think my aunt's able to con these people so many times?"

Dustin grinned back as Cami and Max gave him quizzical looks—they mustn't know about his aunt's... illustrious career yet—before Dustin seemed to realise something, turning to Max as he asked, "Wait, you're not rich, right?"

Max scoffed and answered, "I live off Cherry Road."

Alistair knew that street; while not as poor as where Will lived or the trailer park, it wasn't as rich as Maple Street.

"Oh," Dustin muttered.

"No, it's fine. The streets are good for skating," Max said and Alistair piped in, "And you're really good at it! I tried to skate a couple of times, but I kept falling off my ass. Rowan and Eddie would laugh, but my sister was always the first one with bandages and Eddie was seconds away from driving me to the hospital if I broke a bone or got a concussion, and my aunt right behind them to smuggle me out of the hospital so we didn't pay for the bills."

Max snorted. "Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah! They'll deny it, but they would do anything to make sure I'm safe or got treated for injuries," Alistair affirmed. "Kinda smothering, but it's nice."

"Must be," Max murmured quietly, and Alistair remembered her stepbrother, how much she hated him. Did he not care if she got hurt badly from skateboarding?

"Yeah, totally tubular!" Dustin exclaimed, making Alistair, Max and Lucas look at him with perplexed looks. Dustin looked back at them, mostly Max, and questioned, "What? Am I not saying it right? Or is it like totally tubular?"

"No, it's like, it's like totally tubular," Lucas said with his own terrible impression of a skater accent. That incited him and Dustin to say "totally tubular" in different variations of the same terrible accent as Max laughed. Alistair smiled before he lagged back and said to Cami, "Hey."

"Hey," she replied back with a grin, before she looked to Max and added, "She's cool."

"Yeah, she is," Alistair agreed. Behind him, he heard Mike grousing and he rolled his eyes.

"Come on, let's catch up to them and not be tainted by Mike's doom and gloom," Alistair said, grinning as Cami snorted, before she frowned. 

"Isn't he your best friend?"

"Yeah but after last year, we... kinda drifted apart," Alistair said, his heart clinching at the admission as he looked back at Mike, his frown returning as he knew what Mike was talking about. He didn't like Max or Cami being here, must have felt they were intruding in the spot El had. Which, too bad, Mike. He missed El, too, but Max and Cami were completely different from El—Max was fiery and sarcastic and reminded him a bit of Rowan, and Cami was like pure sunshine, ready with a big, gap-toothed smile and radiating positivity and kindness and wanting to be friends. They weren't taking her place if they weren't carbon copies of her.

Still, a part of him couldn't really blame Mike, that he was hurting. But the larger part knew he shouldn't take it out so unfairly on Cami and Max.

He saw Mike move away, a dark glower on his face as he stormed to where Max, Lucas and Dustin had disappeared to. Alistair grabbed Cami's hand, gently tugging the girl along as he said, "Come on, let's—"

"Watch it, Zombie Boy!"

Alistair turned, and his heart spiked at seeing Will being harassed by three older boys, dressed in more horrifying costumes than his. Another loomed close to his best friend and growled, "Trick or treat, freak!" and the third yelled, "Boo!"

Will stumbled back and fell down.

Rage burned in Alistair, rage like his sister's, like apparently his mother's—a rage that was hereditary. And the curly-haired boy ran to Will, stepping in front pf him protectively, glaring at the bullies.

"Hey!" Alistair yelled. "Get away from him!"

The older boys sneered at him.

"Aww, looks like Zombie Boy has a little hero," one mocked, pointing his fake weapon at his chest. "And it's another little zombie!"

"Yeah, whatcha gonna do, kid? Moan at us?" another boy sneered and they laughed.

Alistair's eyes narrowed in a deathly glare, anger broiling inside him. And if Rowan's anger was a volatile storm, his was an avalanche, slow to anger but once it did it was devastating for those caught in its path.

"I don't know," he murmured, and his lips twisted into a cold smile, as the temperature chilled and the ground rumbled underneath. "Maybe show you what a real zombie looks like."

The air seemed to shudder at the words as his eyes burned death-cold and the three older boys froze.

"What the fuck?" one whispered, fear making his words tremble.

His friend scrabbled for his arm. "Come on, man! Let's get the hell out of here!"

The other two didn't need to be told twice, and they ran, away from Alistair and Will.

Away from the threat Alistair had made. Away from his eyes that had changed to empty white.

Alistair gasped as the cold faded and his eyes returned to normal, staring at the retreating backs of the older teens.

At that, panic drowned his anger.

What had he just done?

Alistair's chest squeezed in panic. How could he be so stupid? How many times, even after the lab more or less said they wouldn't jump out of the bushes and abduct him and Rowan, that his aunt had warned him and Rowan to never use their powers in public, especially him? How many times did Rowan also warn him how dangerous it was? How many times had he heard the fear in their voices and saw it in their faces, that if Rowan's powers were revealed, she'd either be considered a freak or a superhero, but his, with his power of seeing and raising the dead?

He'd be burned at the stake with screams of Satanist hurled at him as the small-minded people of Hawkins lit his pyre.

And even without that... how could he use his powers to do that, to scare others? Alistair never wanted to scare people with his powers, knowing just how terrifying they were (especially if he could do more than raise animals back from the dead...), and he just threatened to use them, to do the very thing he was fucking scared of to do.

What had he just done?

And yet, Alistair knew why—Will. And, if he was being honest, he'd do it all over again for Will.

Wait. Will!

Alistair whirled, ready to help Will up and ask if he was okay, but froze.

Will wasn't on the ground.

Instead, he was standing frozen in the middle of the street, ignorant to the looks thrown his way, staring at something.

Alistair's blood turned to ice. 

He's having another episode.

And as he watched, Alistair's eyes widened in panic when Will took off running.

"WILL!" he screamed, making chase after him, jostling Hugin. The raven didn't move, feeling Alistair's panic and worry as he followed Will, distantly hearing the shouts of his friends, Mike's footsteps pounding on the asphalt of the road as he ran after Alistair and Will.

When Will turned a corner and raced down stairs and hid behind a wall, Alistair was right behind him and grabbing Will's shoulders, shaking him.

"Will!" he yelled, panic making his voice waver. "Will, are you okay? Will, can you hear me? Will, wake up! WILL!"

But Will couldn't hear him, locked away from Alistair's desperate pleas, unable to see or hear him, just like when he was in the Upside Down.

But that didn't stop Alistair from trying, shaking Will harder, fear setting in—fear that Will wouldn't wake up, that something could happen to him, that Alistair would be unable to save his best friend again—yelling, "Will, it isn't real! It's just a flashback! It can't hurt you! Come on, Will, wake up! I'm right here! I'm right here! Wake up, Will! WAKE UP!"

But Will didn't wake up.

Alistair stared at Will, fear, panic and helplessness colliding inside him, colliding with the desperate urge to wake Will up, and just as he was about to slap his best friend, Mike appeared and grabbed Will's shoulder.

The boy jolted, eyes flying open, wide and terrified and unseeing as they darted around frantically, his chest heaving with scared, quick breaths, still in the grasp of the episode, before he saw Alistair, staring back at Will with a mirrored look of panic and fear, then at Mike, also panicked with a tinge of worry.

"Will!" the dark-haired boy said, voice trembling. "What's wrong? I couldn't find you and I saw Al running after you. Are you hurt?"

Will looked between Mike and Alistair, and stammered, "I-I..."

Mike and Alistair shared a look, and despite the rift in their friendship, in this moment they could agree on one thing.

Will needed help.

"Holy shit," Dustin breathed, eyes wide, as their other friends finally arrived, his, Lucas', Cami's and Max's faces showing different expressions of concern. 

"Is he okay?" Lucas asked.

"I-I don't know," Mike stammered and Alistair added in a quivering voice, "He started running, and I..."

He couldn't say what was next, how he'd tried to wake Will up from whatever trance he'd gone under, panic and fear coursing through him how Will wouldn't wake up, how terrified Will still looked even now, whimpering from fear.

"I'm gonna get you home, okay? Al and I are gonna get you home," Mike said, and Alistair nodding, feeling that tentative truce again. "Hold on."

Mike lifted one of Will's arm around his shoulders and Alistair swung the other around his, careful to not jostle Hugin, helping Will up. 

Dustin moved in to help, saying, "Alright, take it easy," but Mike pushed him away with a curt, "I got him. Al and I got him."

"Mike?" Dustin asked, but Mike glared at him.

"Keep trick or treating. I'm bored anyways," Mike snapped as he lead Will away, Alistair by his side. He sent his friends an apologetic look, but went with Mike and Will, heading back to Mike's house.

As they made the walk back to the Wheeler house, Alistair let go of Will as Mike did the same, and Will looked at Alistair, and the curly-haired boy saw remaining vestiges of terror on his face, of what he had just seen.

And Alistair was getting the sinking feeling Will's episodes were not the flashbacks the doctors claimed they were.

***

So... *hides behind a barricade*

I enjoyed writing Alistair and Cami's and Alistair and Max's full interactions at last! I love their friendships an unhealthy amount 🥰

And yeah, one of my least favourite parts of the episode—those older boys picking on Will and Will's "episode". And yeah, while it isn't as stated as Rowan's is, Alistair does get a protective rage whenever he sees his friends picked on or hurt, and he would raise a zombie despite being terrified of people being scared of him for his powers—and, of course, starting a witch hunt on him because of his powers and say he's a Satanist—but he would raise a zombie for his friends (especially Will...)

And the scene at the end. I have to admit, I was drawing a bit on what happens in s4, so I'm sorry for the pain and the parallels

Also, we're back with the teens for the next couple of chapters! Though warning, next chapter is gonna be... a lot, and there's gonna be an intense, possibly triggering scene near the end, so... be careful 

Next chapter will be soon!

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!