A Twist in the Tale – Halloween 2023

Do you like Halloween stories? This one was written for RJ Scott’s Halloween Advent 2023.

(No specific content warnings.)

Down in the Cellar

I drop low to the ground, my stomach on the spiky wheat stubble, hoping Carlos doesn’t turn and see me. I hadn’t planned to follow him. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to. Yet, here I am, thirty feet behind him as he crosses the open field. His presence rouses a flock of birds feasting on the fallen grain and they rise into the sky, wheeling in kaleidoscope patterns against the clouds.

A thin autumn wind lifts a lock of his dark hair and plasters the T-shirt against his back. He shivers, but keeps on going. Toward the old Silverstein house.

Somehow I knew, even before this moment, where he was headed.

Three times now, I’ve seen him out of the window after he snuck from our bed, making his way across our fields toward the north fence. And then today, with a lame excuse about checking the horses, he turned that way again as soon as he thought he was out of my sight. There’s not much else this direction, not in walking distance.

Why? There’s nothing on the Silverstein property but a black-streaked, tumbledown mansion and overgrown grounds. Nothing but loss and desolation.

Local kids say the house is haunted, but in our boring podunk town, kids’ll say anything to spice up their lives.

If there’s been a ghost haunting it for real for the last two decades, we’d have more than faint rumors among stoned teens. Right?

And yet the Silversteins haven’t sold the place, never tore it down, just left the smoke-damaged house standing, year after year, its top story blackened and warped.

Miles Silverstein and Carlos were tight in high school, the outsiders in our little whitebread county where everyone’s grandparents knew each other. When the Silverstein house burned and Miles died, Carlos left town to stay with his grandmother. I was eighteen then, to his sixteen, and only realized too late I’d wished I could comfort him. He was gone.

Long gone, I’d figured, and not coming back.

I’d looked around me in the years that followed, but none of the men in this little town did much for me. At least, none I suspected I could have. Some of the guys here are hot in that corn-fed, work-muscles, cowboy way, but I like my teeth, thank you very much. I didn’t take chances. A trip to the city now and then did me fine.

Then one day, here was Carlos— Doctor Carlos, at that— back to assist in his mother’s medical practice, and grown up very thoroughly.

With dark eyes that looked me up and down and gleamed in a way I couldn’t mistake. We were careful, but not slow. Good thing my folks moved to town a few years back and I had the farmhouse to myself. My four-poster bed has some loud creaks to it.

We’ve been real good together. I thought we were good. After a month, I “rented Carlos a room since living with his mom was tight quarters.” Or so we told anyone who cared to ask. Most don’t ask, which is probably as good as we can hope for progress around here. By now, they’re getting used to us.

But he’s been sneaking out more and more in the last few weeks. Busy as he is doctoring, you’d think he’d sleep soundly and enjoy his downtime with the guy who’s eager to help get his rocks off. Instead, he slips out of bed in the night, or goes to “check on the horses” before dinner, and is gone an hour. When he comes back, there’s an odd musty scent to his skin. Not another man’s cologne, but something earthier. Something strange.

I don’t own Carlos. He has a right to a private life that doesn’t include me. If he’s still grieving Miles, if this is some kind of pilgrimage… except I saw his face as he headed out today. He didn’t look grief-stricken, he looked eager.

I should turn around and go home and quit spying.

I don’t, though.

As Carlos walks steadily toward the old mansion, I stay put, my stomach plastered to the prickling stalks, and watch him. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t seem afraid. Of course, he’s been doing this for weeks. Any hesitation he had at first, he’s probably long past.

The front door’s boarded up and he bypasses the steps, heading along the side. One of the window shutters hangs broken and askew. He puts his hands on the sill, hoisting himself up with a ripple of those biceps I put love bites on last night.

Carlos can’t still be in love with a ghost, right? I hope Miles, or whoever or whatever is in that house, notices the welcomed, encouraged brand of my teeth on Carlos’s gorgeous skin. He loves me now.

One time I saw them together, kissing, when they were fifteen. Didn’t look like their first time.

Miles is dead.

I should’ve brought up my worries to Carlos. Asked point blank where he was going on those secret trips. Or invited him to talk about Miles, which he never did. Had to be hard, coming back here where he’d lost his first boyfriend. Maybe his first love. I figured he’d know I was always up for listening when he was ready, but maybe I should’ve said so in words.

The shutter rasps as Carlos hoists himself to sit on the window ledge, then swings his legs over and drops inside. Two steps into the dim interior, I lose sight of him.

Go home.

Instead, I stand, brush the chaff off my jeans, and walk as silently as I can toward the house. The birds wheel overhead with loud cries and I hope he thinks they’re still mad about his presence.

When I reach the front, I go round to the nearest window and peer through the crack between the shutters. A little light leaks in the gap, enough to give hints of a dusty wooden floor and smoke-tinged upholstered chairs. No Carlos.

The open window he entered by is a dozen yards to the right. I slide along the wall, watching my feet so I don’t trip in the weeds and brambles that choke the once-neat garden. Ducking below the level of the windowsill, I rise just enough to see past the edge of the crooked shutter. More light gets through this bigger gap, enough to see clearly, despite the coming dusk. The room’s lifeless. The door at the far end stands ajar.

I straighten to peer in, scanning the space. This room also still holds furniture— a bookcase with dingy hardcovers and a wingback armchair with stained cushions. One arm is ripped, stuffing tumbling to the floor. Mice maybe, or birds looking for nest material. The floor under the window shows water damage and a glitter of broken glass, but amid the thick dust farther in, I see footprints. Carlos’s work boots. I recognize the tread from six months of barn chores together. Some prints are older, others fresh, and they cross each other, heading for that open door and back.

Not the first time he’s been here, or the second. And only one set of footprints. Living ones, anyhow.

I’ve come too far to turn back now, and I’m not afraid of ghosts. I check the sill for glass fragments, then haul myself up and in. Setting my feet carefully on the floor, I push to standing. The smell of smoke lingers after all these years. The air’s dusty with a dank undertone that speaks of mold.

Three steps, and the diamond-shaped lug-prints of my boots join the stripe-and-cross of his. He’ll know I’ve been here. I fight a sudden urge to sweep the floor and leave.

No.

Whatever’s going on, we need to talk about it. If it wrecks six months of falling in love— I press a fist to my mouth, the faint scents of hay and horse wafting from my sleeve. Please don’t let it wreck us.

Straightening my shoulders, I walk across the room although I’m still keeping my tread as light as I can. The hallway beyond is dark and I take a moment to let my eyes adjust. The layout of the house suggests anything interesting— kitchen, living room, stairs— will be off to the left but I can’t make out footprints. I remember my phone has a flashlight app, or, y’know, the background light which might be less visible from wherever Carlos has gone.

I pull my phone out and stare at the date as it lights up. “October 31.” Halloween, or the day of the dead. No, wait, that’s tomorrow. But tonight, the veil between the worlds of life and death thins, right? Is that why Carlos is here, hoping to help Miles cross over? Carlos once said his grandmother was some kind of occult something. I wish I’d paid more attention.

Halloween mostly isn’t real spooky around our town. It’s candy and pumpkins and TP-ing Pastor Larson’s apple tree because he hands out religious tracts to anyone gullible enough to trick-or-treat at his door. Mr. Brown does a haunted-house thing with his front yard, and its awesome for the middle-schoolers but a bit threadbare for anyone older. There are no real witches, no real zombies, no real ghosts.

Right?

A board creaks underfoot and I freeze, holding my breath. There’s a dead hush to this place, a feeling of isolation so complete it’s like the outside world doesn’t exist. I don’t even hear the birds anymore. I run my faint light over the walls and closed doors, seeing nothing but abstract shapes of smoke stains on the pale walls. The acrid scent is stronger, and for a moment I imagine the crackle of flames, the rolling, killing cloud of black from a fire upstairs…

Stupid. Don’t let your imagination fake you out.

The glow of my phone fades, but I saw enough to know Carlos’s tracks lead left, so I follow along. There’s gray light at the end of the hall. I reach the two-story entryway with daylight leaking in the upper window.

Miles’s room used to be upstairs. I can’t say which one— I only visited downstairs a few times for birthday parties— but Carlos’s footprints head away from the staircase toward the back. The dust up the treads to the next landing lies thick, disturbed only by tiny tracks that might be a squirrel or a rat. No familiar boot prints.

I reluctantly turn away from the comparatively bright second story, and follow my boyfriend’s trail down another dim hallway.

Passing through what’s probably a dining room, I end up in the kitchen. The major appliances are gone, so I guess the Silversteins didn’t abandon the place untouched. There’s another door just barely cracked open with the hint of a staircase descending beyond it, and the faint light below is an unnatural shade of blue-green. I freeze, trying to see more, but the door blocks my view. Just a few wooden stairs and that glow that flickers now and then.

An old straight-backed chair stands beside the open door, and on the chair sits a neat pile of clothes. Carlos’s clothes. I recognize the blue T-shirt he had on, the red socks tucked into the tops of his boots. His footprints continue through the doorway, naked soles and five toes pressed into the dust. On top of other barefoot prints. He’s done this before too.

He’s down in that weird greenness. And he stripped naked to go down there.

I choke back a rough breath, touching the blue shirt that still holds a hint of his body heat. Without meaning to, I lift it. His briefs are there underneath. I hold the shirt against my face, inhaling his scent. No cologne, just male skin, with a unique undertone I’d know anywhere. Why did he go down completely naked? I allow myself one more breath and then fold the shirt back neatly on top of his jeans.

The words “sky-clad” drift up to my mind from somewhere. Someone talking about how witches do their rituals in the nude. Fantasy isn’t my thing. Paranormal stuff tends to make me want to laugh. Like there’s not enough weird in the real world, right? An echo of teen-boy chortles in that memory suggests it was some stupid male-bonding moment from school. That doesn’t mean it’s not a correct answer.

Maybe Carlos is a witch or whatever, and he has to be naked to conjure the dead. The idea’s not much more ridiculous than me following my boyfriend into the abandoned death-place of his first lover…

Death place. Home of tragedy. That reminder strikes pain, deep inside me. I barely knew Miles. He was a vital part of Carlos’s life.

What the hell makes this any of my business?

I’m turning to go when a weird snorting, scuffling sound from down the cellar stairs stops me. That noise has a bulk, a weight behind it, alien and threatening. That’s not Carlos walking around barefoot. There’s a harsh scrape, like a knife on stone.

I freeze, listening.

Another scrape.

Ghost? Demon? Is Carlos fighting with something?

Fuck this. I edge past the half-open door and peer down. The lower floor’s almost dark, with that eerie blue-green glow emanating from one corner. Something big is moving down there, a bulk I sense more than see, something lumpy and shaggy, making the glow flicker as it passes the corner.

Where’s Carlos? What is that thing?

I take one step down, trying to be stealthy, and my foot drops into a rotten spot in the tread and tips me forward. Shit! I grab for the rail, but miss, crash, and slither face-first down the stairs into the darkness.

The lumbering thing below charges at me. I roll in a ball but not before I see a hint of long narrow snout, and razor-clawed paws reaching for me. With my face tucked in my arms, I freeze, playing dead. The claws brush my skin roughly but I don’t feel pain.

Then there’s rustling, grunting, and something that sounds like Carlos saying, “Ouch!”

Coward! Help him! I unroll and scramble backward, groping for a weapon, anything, but the monster’s nowhere to be seen. On the floor in front of me, skin pale in the green glow, is Carlos, sprawled out naked, hair messed up, breathing hard.

“Did you kill it?” I demand. “Or get rid of it? Are you okay?”

Carlos sits up with a groan. “I’m… yeah… no. Troy, what are you doing here? Are you all right? You fell down the stairs.”

“Me?” Now that the worst adrenaline’s fading I’m sore as hell and my left wrist throbs, but that’s nothing. “It had claws.”

“Um. Yeah.”

“What was that? What’s the weird green…?” I let that question trail off as Carlos stumbles to the glowing corner, picks up his cell phone, and switches to a more powerful white light. Uncertainty shuts my mouth as he hurries over, playing the light across my body and face.

He kneels beside me, patting down my spine, arms and legs, and over the back of my head with his free hand. “Are you sure nothing’s broken? What’s the date? Who’s president?”

“It’s fucking Halloween,” I say between gritted teeth, because yep, starting to ache but I also hate how ordinary he’s acting. “And I fell down a rabbit hole and saw a monster fighting my naked boyfriend.” Hopefully fighting? Is that better than having sex? He doesn’t seem hurt.

Carlos’s laughter doesn’t make me happier. “Sorry,” he says. “Just, rabbit hole is funny.”

“Don’t bullshit me!” The white light of his phone gains a little refracted halo and I rub at my eyes with my good hand.

“No, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Carlos touches my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to. Just a bit shocked, I guess. You know me, humor’s my go-to.”

That’s one of the things I love about him, that he sees life though a lighter lens than I do. When I get bogged down and serious, he’s good at lifting me up. I’m not sure what will lift this, though. “Was that monster thing… Miles?”

“What? No! Miles is in—” He cuts himself short.

“Is in,” I repeat slowly, over my racing heartbeat. “Not was?”

Carlos stays silent. I grip his wrist and slowly turn the light in his hand onto his face. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose with his other fingers, a sign he’s really unsure about something. He lets me play the light over him. I see nothing unfamiliar, nothing unusual, except that he’s naked, unaroused, and sitting on a very dirty floor. I turn the phone back up toward his eyes and they’re wide dark pools I can’t read.

“What’s going on?”

His sigh could blow out a hundred candles and his shoulders slump. “I was going to tell you. Eventually. I just hadn’t worked up the nerve.”

“You’re still in love with Miles.” The ache in my wrist is nothing compared to the ache in my heart. “You’re trying to—” I wave at the damp concrete floor and crumbling wood paneling. “—to what? Get him back somehow?”

“No. Oh no.” Carlos sits down in front of me, his face inches from mine. “Tell me the truth, Troy. Do you love me? Really? Through thick and really, totally, fucking thin?”

He deserves more than a rote answer, so despite my pounding pulse and the hairs on my neck standing up at the thought of a monster in the darkness, I stop and look at him. Those hands have touched every part of me, inside and out. My mouth knows how every inch of him tastes. But more than that, we’ve held each other in the night after bad dreams, and laughed till beer came out our noses at bad jokes. “Yes. For better or for worse.” I looked at rings a month ago, before he began slipping away so often.

I want to ask if he loves me back. I don’t. I just wait.

Carlos leans forward and brushes my lips with his. “Good. Because there was no monster and Miles is fine, married off in Oregon.”

“I— He—” My brain stuttered. “He died. And I saw a monster.”

Carlos kisses me again, harder, then sits back on his heels. “You saw me. I’m an anteater.”

“You’re a… it had claws and a snout.” Nothing’s making sense in my brain. My head spins and I wonder if I gave myself a concussion after all. Or maybe I’m unconscious and imagining all this. I reach out to brace myself with my bad arm and flinch when my wrist takes my weight.

“Hey!” Carlos wraps an arm around me, supporting me. He smells that way again, of wet earth and something sharp. “Did you break it?” He takes my hand in his. “Let me see.”

I lean on him and let him feel my wrist and rotate my hand, skilled fingers pressing and bending. It hurts, but I’m kind of distant from the pain. After a minute, he says, “Might be a sprain. I don’t think anything’s broken but we can run by the clinic and get an x-ray—”

“An explanation.” I pull my hand free but don’t have the strength to move out of his hug. “That’s what I really need.”

“You’re going to laugh. And not believe me. So I think we need to get the burden of proof out of the way first thing.” He turns me, and has me sit with my back to the base of the stairs. Setting his phone in my lap, he says, “Now watch.”

Then he walks to the middle of the room. I track him with the cell phone light.

And there, on the dirty concrete floor, Carlos lies down and… becomes something else.

His back hunches, his neck thickens and the front of his face elongates. It’s grotesque, seeing his strong body warp and twist, but then thick gray-flecked fur sprouts from his skin.

I drop the phone, then scramble for it because I need light, don’t want to be in the dark with… him. That. Whatever Carlos is turning into. The beam of light trembles across his big, hairy bulk with the shaking of my hands. He gets to his feet. Four feet. Front legs tipped with long claws. Pointed snout. It ambles toward me—

I throw the phone at it. The phone hits it in the face and lands on the ground screen down. Suddenly I’m in near-total darkness with that. Him. It? “Carlos. Carlos? If you’re here can you… Can you undo? Can you be you?” I’m babbling. I don’t dare reach for the phone, because I don’t want to get closer. Then I remember I have my own. I dig my phone out and the fall down the stairs didn’t break the screen. I fumble on the power and don’t even try for the app, just turn the light of what is, ironically, a photo of the two of us, forward at… Carlos. Or almost Carlos, fur receding from his skin, arms slimming down.

When he looks fully human, he still lies there, breathing hard. Lies motionless for so long I overcome whatever paralysis has struck me and crawl forward. “Are you all right?”

“Tired.” His voice sounds thin. “I don’t usually shift that often in the space of an hour.”

“Shift.”

“From skin to fur and back.”

“Fur like…”

“What you saw.”

I want to deny it. I’m rational, practical. I don’t believe in fairies, ghosts, or monsters. But there’s a tuft of loose gray hair on the floor by my hand. I say, “Yes. I saw…something.”

Carlos rolls to his back, then sits up, bracing himself with his arms. “Giant anteater. Myrmecophaga tridactyla. My clan of anteater shifters has a long history in Brazil. Not in the US, so much.”

“I guess not.” Does Arizona have anteaters, or is that just armadillos? “Shifter? Like…“

“Like werewolves. Only not wolves.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles in my chest. “You’re a were-anteater. I’ve been fucking a were-anteater.”

“And very well, too.” The words are clearly humor but Carlos is eyeing me closely.

My phone goes dark, and I shake it quickly to life. Carlos reaches out and turns his over too so the room brightens.

I have so many questions I can’t come out with anything rational. I ask, “Why are you here? Was Miles a were-anteater too? Or no, a were-dragon maybe, to survive the fire?”

“He wishes.” A little smile tips Carlos’s mouth upward. “He’s a rabbit.”

“A what?”

“A rabbit. You know, poofy tail, long ears.”

“But—” I run aground again on what I want to say. “Does he still live here? As a rabbit? No, you said Oregon, but not dead.”

“He was badly burned in the fire.” Carlos’s tone is soft and steady. “A human would’ve died or maybe lived with massive scarring, but we shifters are good at healing. If we don’t die, we usually can heal any injury. Unfortunately, the paramedics had seen his burns. He couldn’t stay here, or even show up six months later looking like nothing happened. So his parents transferred him by private ambulance and told everyone he died. No one was surprised. They moved away to be with him, claiming grief, and he got a new name out in Oregon.”

“Didn’t you move to Oregon with your grandparents? That’s what your mom said, anyhow.”

“I moved in with Miles’s folks. It was the best thing for both of us. I couldn’t stay here, watching all the people who bullied Miles in life pretending to be so broken up about his death. Plus I’d have been the only local non-wolf shifter with Miles and his folks gone.”

“Only? But your mom?”

“She’s human.” Carlos gives me a twisted smile. “Shifting’s a dominant trait. Mine came from my dad’s family, but after the divorce, Mom moved us away. She knew the Silversteins, they financed building the clinic for their town and brought her in to run it. And here we were in the boonies.”

“Until Miles… didn’t die.”

“Right. But he was hurt bad. Miles really needed a friend in those first weeks. We heal fast, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain while doing it. His folks invited me for both our sakes.”

“Convenient, both of you in the same house once he healed.” I’m ashamed of my stupid jealousy almost immediately. “Sorry, don’t mind me.”

“We were mostly friends,” Carlos says. “We fooled around for a while, sure. Two gay boys, two shifters, in a straight normie world. But we were never serious. I still call him now and then. He has six baby bunny-shifters already. They run to multiple kids.”

“So he’s bisexual then? I thought you said he was gay.”

“No, he and his h—” Carlos breaks off. “Sure, let’s go with that. He and his spouse are welcome to chase little spawn around and repopulate the shifter world. Not for me.”

“You don’t want kids? For real? I thought maybe you were humoring me.” We’d brought the topic up a couple of times, like I guess most folks do when they’re getting a bit serious. Carlos is great with the kids in his practice so I’ve been a bit dubious about his lack of interest.

“Really don’t. Maybe ten or twenty years down the road we can talk about fostering a queer teen, if the situation arises. But I see enough babies at work. Happy to come home without them.”

“Oh. Good.” Some of my other questions come crowding back, and one of them tops the list. “So if Miles didn’t die and there’s no ghost, why are you here? Why the sneaking out in the night? What’s going on?”

Carlos almost never blushes, but even in the thin light, I can see the color rise in his face. “Termites.”

“Um, what?”

“Termites.” He waves at the moth-eaten wood paneling around us.

I blink.

“Look, I don’t have to eat in anteater form, but I like to. It pacifies that side of me, keeps everything in balance. There are a ton of ants around, more than enough to have a snack any day of the week. But there’s something about the flavor of termites, even the scrawny northern ones. Mm-mm. Practically addictive, like chocolate but even better.” He leans forward, looking at me, then snorts. “Your face. Honestly Troy, I’m not going to feed them to you. Or even eat them in skin, although I’ve wondered what they’d taste like to a human.”

“Like yuck. I can pretty much guarantee that.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And that weird green light? Were you trying to freak me out? Pretend to be a ghost and keep people away?”

“Nothing that complicated. Anteater eyes do best with green wavelengths. I wanted just enough light to see by, but not to drive the termites deeper into the walls.” He stands, dusting himself off and comes to me, reaching down. “Let me help you up, make sure you’re not more hurt than you think.”

I hesitate a second, and see a flicker of pain in his eyes. I don’t want to hurt him. This is my Carlos, and okay, there’s more to him than I suspected, but I’ve got some past flaws I haven’t told him yet either. Nothing like being a fucking were-anteater, of course…

I realize I still haven’t reached back, and there’s a tremble developing in his fingers. Fuck this. He’s mine. We’ll learn about each other together. I take his hand with my good one, let him haul me up and support me, while I gingerly try out bruised knees. Youch. But I’ve had plenty of injuries in my day and I can tell it’s just bumps and aches. “I’m good.”

“I’m glad. You stopped my heart when you fell down those stairs.” I hear him take a short shaky breath.

“Were you worried I was, like, some kind of were-hunter attacking? Are there hunters who might hurt you?” I haven’t let go of his hand and suddenly I need to hug him. I pull him close and he wraps his arms around me.

“I knew it was you, Troy. My sense of smell is very acute. I was so damned scared you’d killed yourself.” His voice rasps and he practically dents my ribs with the force of his hug. “Fuck. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Shh. I’m fine. Shh.” I kiss him under the ear. “I worry about you too.”

“There’s no were-hunters, well, nothing organized. You get individuals every now and then out to expose the paranormal, or to save poor defenseless normie humans from us. The Old Ones deal with them.”

“Old Ones?” I can hear the capital letters in how he said that, and I’ll have more questions later, but for now that raises another worry. “Are we going to get in trouble for you telling me this stuff? I’m a normie human.”

“Not if you’re a safe ally. Not if you love me.” I feel his lips brush my temple.

I ease him back enough to look into his eyes. “I love you, for better or for worse, in skin or in fur. Or do you call it hair? Pelt? Fuzz—?”

He claims my mouth with his.

As he kisses me, a tiny bit of lore from my science-class days comes back to me, and I desperately need to lighten the mood. So when we separate, I tell him, “Hey, I have a question.”

“Yeah?” He looks so serious in that harsh cell-phone light.

I kiss his nose and ruffle his mussed hair. “If I remember right, anteaters have a tongue that’s, like, two feet long?”

“Something like that.” He’s still wary.

“So can you shift just one body part? Like, when you’re licking my ass, can you give yourself an anteater tongue? That’d be awesome.”

He blinks twice, then breaks into the wicked grin that always makes me weak at the knees. “That two-foot-long tongue is covered in very sticky saliva like glue and has tiny spines pointing backward. Still want to give it a try?”

“Oh, ouch.” Relief and amusement make me break into laughter, and he joins in. My laugh shakes now and then, and I’m still wobbly climbing those stairs, but I have Carlos’s strong arm around me and his sweaty, earthy, well-loved body at my side, as we head up out of that basement toward the last light of Halloween day.

##### the end #####

If you enjoy my shifters, check out my werewolf series starting with the free novel Unacceptable Risk.

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