Midnight

By Denise Randall

This is boring, Sierra thought, crossing arms over her chest. Normally that would have lifted her ample bosom higher, but the boned bustier of her dominatrix outfit prevented the move. She ran a hand over her slicked back blonde hair, as she felt a strand dangle loosely against her cheek. Shaking her head, she felt the long ponytail bob and tickle her bare skin where the bustier plunged low at her back. Gentle tinkling sounded in her ear as the myriad dangling jewelry along her lobe tangled and danced with their neighbors.

Her eyes wandered across the upscale living room, seeing the many teenagers shifting across the area rug imported from Persia. The weave was as soft as silk under her stocking feet. It would be a wonder if the piece remained intact and unstained when the party ended. The furnishings were a dead giveaway to the standing of the family who lived here.

This party was the same thing, different month. Benson was the richest kid in class, spoiled and pampered to the point of nausea. The whole school knew it, but the man insisted on flaunting it on a regular basis. Funny thing was, everybody still leeched off his generosity – or was that stupidity? The only difference between this party and the drunken fests of months past was that everyone was in costume.

He invited half the school each time his parents left for vacations or business trips to exotic locations. The other half of the school just crashed the party – her included. Benson didn’t give a damn; he thought he was the most popular boy in school. If money equaled popularity, well, she wanted to be rich too.

She thought Halloween would be different; that Benson would trot out at least one thing that wasn’t hackneyed and overused. Yet the keg sat in the corner with the same teenage lushes hanging about it, all the cliques were readily identifiable by their position in the room, despite heavy make up and elaborate costumes. Peering about, Sierra could only point to a mere three Halloween decorations in the room and they only looked out of place and forlorn.

She even was without Evelyn to keep her company this evening, much to her dismay. This was the first party of the senior year that Evelyn wasn’t at her side. A pang resounded through her nerves, blackening her mood.

Sierra sighed as she reminisced about their relationship. She thought Evelyn had been a life partner; they had meshed so well from the day they had met. They had been told that they were going through an “experimental” phase, one they would get over. Many of the girls in high school tried relations on both sides of the fence, only to settle into a “normal” heterosexual relationship as they got into real life. Sierra didn’t ever feel like Evelyn, or her bent toward other women, was a phase.

She truly loved Evelyn.

Catching her with another lover - a male lover - had been a major blow to Sierra’s ego, and it was worse to find that Evelyn wasn’t a lesbian at all, she was bi-sexual - or so she said. The blonde sighed once more; frustrated by the idea that Evelyn didn’t want to be exclusive. Her dreams of a life with the girl fizzled. Evelyn informed her in no uncertain terms that Sierra had been reading too much in their relationship. While Sierra hadn’t been experimenting, it seemed Evelyn had.

“Fuck her,” Sierra said out loud, sucking down another mouthful of piss warm beer. Suddenly she wished all the people in the room would go to hell.

Lowering the glass, Sierra noted that the door swung open. This late in the party, a new entrant was always reason to stop activity.

The girl who stepped through the frame was dressed in black from head to foot. Her head was tilted slightly down, making a veil out of her chin length straight black hair. The woman stopped three steps in, lifting her head and looking about the room. She was beautiful. Her face was slightly egg shaped, and her skin was smooth and unblemished. Shadows gathered around her eyes and along the lightly defined cheekbones. Lightly pressed together lips were full and just slightly less pale than her other features. Her eyes were filmy white and blue with no discernable pupil. The contacts must have cost her a fortune.

Sierra didn’t recognize her, only able to say that the slip of a girl wasn’t from school.

The pale beauty’s hands emerged from the buckle and strap covered leather jacket, and even Sierra caught herself following their motion down to their resting place at either bodysuit clad thigh. Her fingertips were covered with what looked like those metal finger-gloves she sometimes saw other Goth kids wearing. They were dull bone color, and striated with darker lines, like cracks. Each ornament came to a ragged point. Around each of the girl’s hands was wrapped soiled gauze, edges dangling here and there like she had been poorly wrapped. That wrapping seemed to extend a ways up her arms. Her legs from the knees down were similarly wrapped, and she noted spots where something green had soaked through, or that was the impression achieved by a little bit of FX work. Sierra found herself wondering what the girl was trying to be – the intent not clear by either her attire or by her make up. She looked like some strange cross between a Goth vampire and the Catwoman, or perhaps some kind of mummy.

The blonde frowned when one of the men approached the girl, an unexpected wave of jealousy moving through her. To be possessive of a girl she had never met before startled Sierra.

“Hey good lookin’, if your after a good time, you’ve come to the right place,” drifted to her ears, which were starting to burn and were probably red against her own light skin tone.

Sierra saw the new entrant’s shift in focus, and threw herself against the wall in shock and horror when one of those bone-fingered hands lashed out. Gouts of blood shot from a ruined throat.

The woman leapt over the falling boy, landing on all fours with her fingers tucked under, like a gorilla. Sierra watched from where she was plastered against the wall, and could hear the woman’s nails clicking against the floor in quick succession. As she shifted on the balls of her feet and the knuckles of her hands, Sierra realized the girl wasn’t wearing ornaments. There was pull and flex at the edges of those digits, and with sick horror she became aware that the skin – split and oozing – overlapped the bony protrusions. The knuckles were fused so that there was only one bend on each finger. What she thought before was finger gloves were in fact bone, grown out through the tips of the fingers, and somehow growing to the wicked sharpness Sierra had seen used against the pliant flesh of the woman’s first victim.

People began to react, some screaming and running for an exit. The creature was quicker than those trying to escape, cutting them down before they could even get within ten feet of the front door.

Sierra decided in that moment, it wasn’t human

Sierra stifled a scream that threatened to burst from her throat frightened by the mounting carnage. She did not wanting to draw attention to her “hiding place.” What seemed like hours later the shrill screams of the dying faded, and the house was still. Sierra found herself the only one still standing – or breathing for that matter. She was unable to do more than pant to get her breath, feeling lightheaded.

She started when that ivory skinned monster rounded the corner, her black hair once more hiding her dead eyes. Sierra held her breath, hoping to avoid detection, her heart hammering in her chest as she realized that the beast was headed for her. She wanted to move, to risk an attempt at escape. Sierra only remained because she knew it would be an effort in futility – and fear froze her in place.

The pale shadow closed the distance between them, reaching out one bloodied, clawed hand to her face, and Sierra cringed. She was surprised when cold bone and flesh only cupped her cheeks, and icy lips pressed against hers.

Her body betrayed her, her earlier attraction and her longing for companionship worked to override her horror at what she had witnessed this thing do. Lust welled in her, and she found herself returning the affection. The leotard clad body of the creature – demon or whatever it was – pressed against her, eliciting an ache for more.

Sierra found herself sharing a French kiss, her tongue sliding between those chilly lips and into an equally cold mouth. The pale woman pressed her firmly against the wall kissing her deeper, sucking her tongue further between slightly blue lips. Her body sang for more, to be touched in places Evelyn helped her find.

Her joy and rapture was cut short as a sharp pain erupted in her mouth. Simultaneous and multiple stabs of agony burned through her nerves as the woman’s teeth cut all the way through meeting each other in the middle. Sierra swallowed what seemed a cup full of her own blood as the creature backed away.

Her fear returned as the creature swallowed what she had bitten off and then grinned. Blood lingered on the surface of pointed interlocking teeth; conical, equally sized, and nearly snakelike in their perfect symmetry. The bony hand trailed against her cheek, before the creature lifted the index in front of her now pursed lips. A low hiss escaped her and then the hand fell, before she disappeared into the night.

Sierra blinked, her throat going raw from so much blood oozing down her esophagus, as the clock in the hall struck midnight. All around her was still and silent. She tried to scream…to release her terror into the witching hour, but nothing answered her.

A/N: This is pretty much a yearly tradition for me at Halloween. I created this story probably as far back as 2005, updated it in 2007, and even created a comic based on the story. I welcome you to the twisted little story based on a dream I had about a demon dressed in black leather possessing bone claws and standing amidst the rubble of a ruined building. If the ending doesn't answer your questions, it's all right, they're not supposed to. This was supposed to be up to the imagination of the reader as to what is actually going on - why did Midnight attack this party? Was it because Sierra wished for it? Why then did Midnight spare the girl but take her tongue? They're your interpretation! I'd love to know your guesses however!

Good news too! I'm in process of finishing up the SEQUEL to this tale, called Master of Fates...I hope to have it done polished and ready to publish on HALLOWEEN! Be on the lookout for it! And definitely look for Midnight on Drunk Duck, Halloween christens the start of the comic version of Master of Fates with the help of my friend Jonas Deimel who was kind enough to help me out with pencils and inks!