154 - Halloween 2021

*I miss the corn maze and pumpkin patch. The Saturday before Halloween there’s this huge carnival set up with booths and games and rides. Then we have Santa’s Wonderland and the tree lot. Don’t get me wrong, I love it down here, but it’s just not… home. - Camille*

Last year for Halloween, they placed a bowl of candy on the porch and watched it through the doorbell camera. They refilled it three times before running out of candy and turning the lights off at the designated 8PM. With the large backyard, the kids each had a few friends over for a small Halloween party.

But this year, the restrictions were lifted. Events were being held downtown. Camille was old enough to legally drink, not that it had ever stopped her.

They did the corn maze at LSU one weekend. And the events at the Old Capital Building. The Halloween parades were back just as the balls were too. The weekend before Halloween, Darkness booked a hotel, and they went to spend the night in New Orleans.

Nicki was in what Camille described as Goth Girl Heaven. They did the midnight cemetery tour, and a ghost walk. As they drove back home, with two exhausted kids and Tink asleep in the backseat, Camille messaged with her mom as Darkness drove.

A few days later, Nicki’s phone chirped with an incoming email. Looking at it with confusion, she read off the email address. Giving her a smile that said they knew what was going on, Camille and Darkness both encouraged her to open the email. As she read the message from Sid, the teen squealed in the tone that Camille now understood why Toad said that only teenaged girls could create.

“We’re spending next Halloween in Salem?”

Darkness grinned at her as she bounced up and down, her braids bouncing behind her. Camille chuckled at her reaction. Mitch’s eyes widened as he looked at his sister.

“Wait! Does she mean the Witch Trial Salem?”

Smiling at the youngest of her kids, Camille nodded, “Yes, the Witch Trial Salem. I suggested it to Oma on our way home from New Orleans and she told me that she had already booked it for next year. She wasn’t going to say anything, but she just got something for when we fly home for Christmas.”

Mitch’s phone chimed and Darkness advised, “You should check your e-mail.”

He opened the email app and found an email from the same address. “Hey, Mitch, Your Opa and I have gotten some hotel rooms in New York and tickets to Hamilton while you guys are here in December. We also have tickets to the Rockettes and backstage passes for both.”

Laying his phone on the island, he looked up at Camille. “Is this real?”

“It is,” she assured him with a smile. “Opa has a cousin who works on Broadway, lighting or something. I don’t remember exactly what James does. But he’s part of the union and can get us tickets to just about any show.”

“This is so damned awesome!”

He was so excited about it that neither Darkness nor Camille got onto him for swearing. The alarm on Camille’s phone went off and she reached over to turn it off. She then looked at the two teens with a grin.

“You’ve got an hour until trick or treating.”

“This is so cool!” Nicki exclaimed. “I can’t think of the last time that I went trick or treating!”

“So, you better go get dressed,” Darkness told them.

Both kids ran upstairs to their rooms to get dressed. Darkness chuckled as he walked over to his wife. Cupping the back of her neck, he pulled her to him and tipped her head back.

“And what about you? Do you need to get dressed?”

“I do,” she grinned at him. “And so do you, my big, black, bat.”

Groaning, he shook his head. “How did you talk me into dressing up as Batman?”

She giggled as she stood up on her tippy toes to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips to his. He was in his motorcycle boots, and she was barefoot. The difference in their height seemed even more like this.

“I could be wrong,” she said between kisses, “but I think it was the Poison Ivy outfit.”

He gave her a light growl. “I liked the Cat Woman outfit, too.”

“Mmmm, I know. That’s why I had to go get another outfit.” She gave him another kiss before stepping out of his arms. “You need to go get dressed so that I can go get ready.”

“I have a funny feeling that I’m going to really enjoy your newest outfit.”

She laughed as she pushed him towards the stairs. “I’m sure that you will, eventually.”

“It’s the eventually that I’m not liking right now,” he called at her as he started up the stairs.

Laughing even harder, she pulled the bags of candy out of the cabinet. “But you will!”

“Quit being gross!” Mitch demanded as he came downstairs with the makeup kit to turn him into a zombie. “Moeder, will you help me?”

“Absolutely, come dump all this candy in the bowl and mix it up while I learn how to undead you.”

“That sounds funny,” he said as she grabbed her reading glasses out of her case.

She agreed as she sat down to read the back of the zombie makeup kit. By the time she had turned Mitch into a zombie and Nicki into a 90’s grunge rocker, Darkness was downstairs as Batman. He struck a Superman pose and hummed the Spiderman theme song.

Pointing a finger at a laughing Mitch, Darkness declared, “When our powers combine, you can prevent forest fires.”

Nicki ended her recording of her uncle and sent it to the family chat as she told him, “There is so much wrong with that image.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he replied, “We who are about to die, salute you.”

Laughing so hard that she laid across the island with her forehead resting on her arms, Camille stood up and looked at her husband. As she wiped the tears off her cheeks, she laughed harder as he acted like he slung spider web from his wrist.

“That’s it,” she said moving towards the stairs. “You two deal with him.”

Darkness grabbed her and dipped her backwards, “You married me.”

“A decision that I have never regretted… until Halloween 2021.”

He kissed her and then stood her back upright, turning her towards the stairs and gave her ass a quick smack. “Just remember, I am, your husband.”

“Sweet Jesus,” she laughed all the way up to the third floor.

Once she was upstairs, she quickly dressed Tink up as Bat Dog and sent him back downstairs. She pulled out the hidden stash in the closet and changed into her costume. Pulling her blonde hair into two ponytails, she sprayed on the color. The makeup and temporary tattoos went on before she pulled on the boots.

Grabbing her bat, she headed downstairs and watched her husband’s jaw hit the ground.

“Damn it, Harley Quinn, I want to be Joker.”