All valid points, but old habits die hard. I’ve been covering for them since they were twelve, I was eighteen, and our fathers died on a fishing trip out of town together. The girls showed their grief and anger by way of disappearing from the funeral to set fire to the fishing boat that had been shipped back and parked in the middle of our driveway.
My dad and uncle are gone, my mom and aunt are just as crazy as Ginger and Penny, and if I don’t keep them out of trouble, no one else will. One of these days, they will outgrow this rebellious nature and the need to seek revenge on any man who has ever done a woman wrong. Which never fails to go completely haywire in some way, like it did earlier tonight. They don’t believe in making a plan. They only believe in making someone pay.
“You’re not the only one annoyed being stuck in here while everyone else is having fun,” Kenny continues. “One of the stars from the movie that was filmed here was going to be signing autographs at the bookstore, and I missed it. She’s one of the only autographs I haven’t gotten yet.”
“Stephanie Long?”
Kenny shakes his head when I name the lead actress.
“Robin Jenkins?”
His head whips back and forth again when I name the actress who played the best friend of the lead. We repeat the process while I rattle off the small handful of other actresses that starred in the movie, who all died quick, gruesome deaths while running away from the killer in slow motion, with their boobs almost bouncing out of their tops.
“No, none of those. It was Cheerleader Number Four, who was the prettiest one out of all the cheerleaders who died, and now my scrapbook is ruined,” Kenny complains overdramatically with a huff and a scowl in my direction, like my night hasn’t gone way worse than his.
“You do know Cheerleader Number Four is probably like, seventy years old by now and won’t be wearing a skimpy cheerleading uniform so you can ogle her saggy boobs, right?”
“Why do you always have to ruin everything?” Kenny sets aside his crossword puzzle to flip through a few phone messages on his desk, muttering under his breath about another October Eve down the drain because of the crazy Tanner women.
October Eve, the night of September 30th, is sacred in the town of Harvest Grove, population: really fucking small. Right smack in the middle of the Midwest where nothing exciting ever happens, a campy horror movie called The Babysitter’s Last Halloween was filmed here, back in the early ’70s. It was never a big hit at the box office, but over the years, it’s gained a hoard of cult-like followers that just continues to grow with each new generation. They cosplay the movie, they travel the world attending comic-cons that feature the movie, and every October, many of them come to Harvest Grove to take pictures and videos at each location where the movie was filmed.
Which is how our sleepy town turned into a Halloween tourist attraction that lasts from October 1st to the 31st every year. All of the homes, as well as the businesses, go over the top decorating for the holiday. They all make changes to their offerings to include Halloween-related items. Vendors set up tables in town to sell movie-related merchandise. There’s a tour that runs a few times daily, on which guests are guided through town to see all the locations where the movie was filmed. And there are Halloween-themed events scheduled all throughout the month for people to enjoy, no matter when they make it here.
There is nothing better than October Eve, when our quiet town comes to life to kick off the start of a new tourist season. And here I am, stuck in a tiny room, with a man who won’t even give me the courtesy of a good fight to distract me from trying not to hyperventilate when it feels like the walls are closing in with each hour that passes.
“Stop trying to act like you’re mad about missing the party. You’re just mad he’s not in town yet to bail you out.”
My pacing comes to an abrupt halt when Kenny reminds me about the real reason October Eve became my favorite night of the year not that long ago, quickly beating out the actual night of Halloween. My heart starts racing a little faster as I slump down into my chair—and not because of a panic attack this time. It’s not like I ever asked to be rescued from being locked up; it just happened six years ago by chance, and it’s become a whole thing now, year after year. It’s basically tradition at this point. A tradition I look forward to like a pathetic idiot. One that would make the women in my family disown me if they knew how little sleep I got last night because of my excitement over a man, and how many times I changed my outfit before leaving the house earlier.
I’m not ashamed to admit the fact that he’s late is the real reason I’m so agitated right now. If he’s even so much as five minutes late getting into town, I start to worry if this is the year he finally decided not to come back. If this is the October he realized this town, and all the people in it, just aren’t worth the aggravation. He’s now two hours and fifty-seven minutes late, and I hate how scared and nervous it makes me feel.
“What are the charges this time?”
Like my brain was able to conjure him just by thinking about him, that deep, no-nonsense voice I haven’t heard in a year fills the quiet room. Hearing his voice again after so long is like drinking a mug of hot apple cider on a cold autumn evening, warming me up from the inside out and making me forget all about my current troubles.
My head whips up from where I’ve been staring at an old burn mark in the carpet that never got fixed when my mother wasn’t properly frisked before one of her nights in here almost twenty years ago. A smile stretches across my face when our eyes meet, even though I’m seriously annoyed with him right now for making me worry. And even more annoyed by how much I no longer feel like panicking just by seeing him again and being able to breathe the same air as him.
My best friend for the entire month of October for the last six years, Ford Prescott, stands in front of Kenny’s desk. His six-foot-four body towers over it in a pair of dark jeans that hug his tree-trunk thighs, with the bottoms shoved into a pair of work boots, and a brown, long-sleeved Henley molded to the muscles of his upper body. With his arms crossed in front of him and the usual glower of annoyance on his face, his blue eyes slowly trail over me from head to toe, and I ignore the wave of heat that flares over my body in their wake.
He’s just making sure I’m okay and not injured in any way, like a good friend. But my stomach still flops just like it always does the first time I get a good look at him again after a year without seeing him. I blindly get up from my chair, moving back over to the cell door to wrap my hands around the bars, just to be a few feet closer to him.
“Fleeing from the scene of a crime, resisting arrest, destruction of property, and getting on every damn nerve I have for the last four hours.”
“Just another Tuesday then.” Ford nods seriously at Kenny, making me stick my middle finger up at him from behind my bars.
My stomach flops again when a ghost of a smile tips up a corner of his mouth framed by his neatly trimmed, black facial hair. It disappears just as quickly as it came when he looks away from me and puts his attention back on my jailer.
Kenny quickly stands up and holds his hand out to the man in front of him. “It’s good to have you back in Harvest Grove, Ford. Please… get her away from me.”
“Oh, eat shit, Kenny.” I roll my eyes so hard I almost give myself a headache.