Trick and a Treat

Written by Tara Tainton

Friday, 24 April 2009 19:07

Mike was counting down the days until Halloween, the very best holiday of the entire year. His trick-or-treating days were over. That was baby stuff. This year, he was newly 15 and finally old enough to be invited to Jason’s annual Halloween party. He would finally hang with the cool kids.

“What are you going to dress up as, Mikey?” his older sister screeched at him almost every day now. He hadn’t thought much about the answer, but he knew it was going to be something awesome. “You’d look great in an Elmo costume like you used to insist on wearing every year until you were seven. Remember? Or maybe you could pick up one of those big, white T-shirts at Wal-Mart that read, ‘This Is My Costume.’ How cool would that be?” Mike figured he hated his sister Sabrina more and more each day.

It was bad enough he was only allowed to go to the biggest party of the year with his sister. Even worse that she made him realize having a great costume idea was of utmost importance. If he looked like a dork in front of the coolest crowd in school, he’d be a dork for life.

When only a couple weeks remained before the big event, Mike was plagued with a recurring nightmare. Every night, he’d wake up swimming in his own sweat and terrified by dreaded visions. Every dream invented a new way that Mike would make an ass of himself at the party. He’d knock on Jason’s door, be invited to join the really rockin’ party, and he’d step through the doorway. With a big, eager smile, he’d face the excited crowd as every teenage guest turned to greet him.

Yet, before he could manage a simple “hello,” his schoolmates’ smiles would transform into grotesque and gaping caverns. One by one, they’d begin to laugh in a circle around him until he couldn’t hear anything but one, horrific, resonating growl. In that instant, Mike would look down at his own body and realize he was dressed in one of many childish and completely ridiculous outfits… or he’d completely forgotten to wear anything at all.

“Nooooo!” wrenching itself from his own mouth would wake him inevitably.

By the time Halloween loomed just a week away, Mike was sure that teenage life and the process of being recognized as a man couldn’t possibly be any more painful. One random morning, he awoke after another broken sleep, raised his hands to rub his tired eyes, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

He immediately jerked his clenched hands away from his face, sat straight up in his bed, his eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets in sheer terror, and slowly stretched his fingers open to inspect his unexpectedly itchy palms. A few fear-induced curse words flew out of his mouth.

He rubbed his palms against the bedding around him as hard and frantically as he could. A second look at them found them red and nearly raw but still not recognizable as the hands he’d known all his life.

Tiny but obvious patches of brownish hair dotted the palms of his hands in splotchy patches. Furry tufts rose from the skin between his thumbs and index fingers, more matted clumps had sprung from the lines of his previously smooth palms, and bits of random hairs even dotted the undersides of his fingers.

He suddenly smacked himself surprisingly hard with his right hand. He thought he must be stuck in another nightmare. No such luck. The mysterious hair remained and nothing, absolutely nothing, he could think to do managed to remove any of it. He raced around the house, hiding his fright from his parents and sister as well as possible and desperate for an explanation.

As the clock in the hallway threatened he’d soon be late for school, Mike resolved to hide his new affliction with a pair of ski gloves, incredibly grateful that the weather had just turned a bit cooler. He hopped on the bus, survived another day of school, and soothed himself with the hope that he’d wake up the next morning without a single ugly hair visible where one shouldn’t be.

But it was still there. In fact, he was absolutely certain that his problem was growing worse. Each morning, he’d wake up, quickly check his palms, and start to tremble. He was completely out of ideas for hiding, removing, or explaining the rapid, uncontrollable, and hideous growth of inhuman hair.

By the fifth morning of arduous torture, Mike found that not even his nightly, meticulous trimming of each hairy tuft managed to make his hands look normal or human again as new bunches never failed to appear. His palms were nearly completely covered now. There was hardly a bare spot of skin remaining.

Revealing his monstrous hands to his parents was impossible. He’d have to go to his sister and hope she had just one ounce of compassion for her little brother.

“Oh my God!” Sabrina cried out, covering her mouth with both of her own hands at the sight of her brother’s furry paws. Mike thought she’d never stop laughing and pointing. She almost fell over onto the floor of his bedroom.

Finally, she paused for a deep breath and offered, “Oh, what’s the big deal? I told you this would happen. You never listen to me.” Mike stared at his sister blankly. “Remember? I warned you that wanking off would give you hairy palms. Everyone knows that. You got yourself into this mess, you idiot!”

Suddenly, Mike’s memory of a particular scene from a few weeks before came flooding back to him. Another horrible day, another waking nightmare. His sister had walked in on him while he was lying in bed, grunting, and beating off. He’d tried desperately to forget.

“Hey, look at it this way, little bro.” Sabrina pointed at the palms Mike hardly recognized anymore. “You now have the perfect Halloween costume. You’re a perfect Yetti! You’ll be the most realistic Big Foot anyone at the party has ever seen.” With that, Sabrina trotted off down the hall, leaving Mike feeling even more embarrassed and ashamed than before.

His life was over. He knew it. He couldn’t face his parents this way, knew even the family doctor would just laugh at him, and wouldn’t be able to hide his hands forever. Maybe he’d just kill himself. That would be cool: leaving the land of the living on Halloween.

The night of the party that Mike had waited impatiently all year for finally arrived. And Mike hardly had any will to live remaining. He’d considered the possibility that forcing himself to abstain from masturbating for the rest of his life would alleviate his affliction, maybe even cause all the hair to slowly disappear as his palms returned to normal. But really, what was life without masturbation?

He was close to tears when Sabrina pounded on his bedroom door. “Let me in, Mikey. Don’t make us late for Jason’s party!”

“I’m not going!” Mike yelled back at her.

“Come on. Don’t be stupid. Everyone loves Big Foot. You’ll be the life of the party.” If she tried to hide her chuckle from Mike, it didn’t work. “Mikey!”

He relented, got up from his bed, and opened his door. Sabrina handed him a brown paper bag with the top folded closed.

“I got you something for Halloween, dork. Consider it a treat from your big sis.”

Mike could care less at this time in his life, but he peeked inside the bag anyway. Confused, he dumped the contents in one of his hairy palms. A bottle of super glue and an obviously cheap teddy bear with most of its fur ripped off landed heavily in his hand.

Mike’s eyes darted up to meet his sister’s. His mouth fell open. “That’s right, stupid. You’ll believe anything,” his sister stated. And she walked away.