Trick or Treat

“Dude, he is so going to hate us after this.”

“That’s the whole point! The best pranks are when you make the person really, really, mad.  It’s more hilarious that way.”

“But he’s been trying to hook up with this girl for months…”

“Stop being a wuss, you know it’s going to be awesome.”

The high school boys sat around the table with plans laid out in front of them.  It was the night before Halloween and they had plotted the best Halloween trick of all time.

“Let’s go over this one more time.” Ansel said.  Ansel was the president of the photography club at Harrison High and was in charge of record the event.

“Okay, Jake is going to take her out in his car to Autumn Peak to go ‘star gazing’.” Jeff started, “I told him that my dad’s radio station plays the best romantic music after dark without many commercials, so he is going to play it for them when they get to the peak. Meanwhile, I will be going to the station to distract my dad away from the mic.”

“While Jeff is doing that I am going to get into the recording studio and make the announcement.” Chris said. Chris was the lead soloist in all of the schools musical productions and had the best voice out of the group.  On a normal day this would have made the other boys jealous because Chris could always get the girls with it, but right now, it was exactly what they needed. 

“I will be at the top of the peak waiting for Jake to drive up and will be listening to the radio on my phone.” Kevin chimed in.  His parents owned a store and he had the best access to props. 

“And I will be waiting outside of the girl’s house like a stalker waiting for them to come back. Seriously though, what if someone sees me and I get arrested?” Ansel asked.

“Don’t get caught, duh.” Jeff responded, “Alright, we have all of the ground work laid out, now we just have to put it into motion flawlessly.”

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“So did you figure out how you are going to get your dad away from the studio?” Chris asked.  He and Jeff were standing outside of Kix 103.7, the town’s major radio station, waiting for the signal from Kevin that Jake and his date had reached the peak.

“I figured if I pretend to have some kind of teenage break down in the lobby they will make him come out to see me.  In the confusion you will have to sneak to the back.” Jeff replied, checking his phone for the text.

“Consider me stealth itself.” Chris said confidently.

“Dude, you’ve been spending way too much time in your English class.” Jeff laughed, “They are there, let’s go.”

The two boys made their way toward the station and entered the front door to see the secretary behind the desk. They walked up to her and Jeff cleared his throat.

“Oh, Jeffery, how nice to see you.” She said smiling at the boys, “How can I help you?”

“I need to see my dad.” Jeff said tearfully, he was trying to make his voice as pitiful as possible.

“Oh honey, you know he is busy right now and can’t come out.” She said sympathetically.   

“It’s really important.” Chris said in his best acting voice as he placed his arm around Jeff’s shoulders. Jeff had looked down mournfully and was doing his best to make his eyes water, Chris wasn’t the only one who could act. “He just got dumped by his girlfriend and told me he didn’t have anything to live for anymore.” Chris whispered to the woman as if in confidence, “I thought his dad should talk him down and I did all I could to get him here.”

“Oh no,” the woman whimpered, “You two stay right here and I will get him out here.”  She marched quickly through the doors into the rest of the building.

Chris and Jeff exchanged sly smiles.

“Good improv man.” Jeff whispered.

“I figured it had to be big or she wouldn’t have done all she could to get him out here.” Chris whispered back, “I hear footsteps, start crying again.”

“Jeff, what is going on?  You know better than to disturb me at work.” The middle aged man said as he walked through the doors.  He looked like an older version of Jeff, just with better facial hair.

Jeff started to sob and said sloppily, “She dumped me, dad.  I loved her so much and now that she is gone I don’t have anything worth living for in my life.”  Jeff grew more and more hysterical the more he talked.

“Calm down son, who dumped you? I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.” His dad had moved closer and placed his hand on Jeff’s shoulder.  This gave Chris a perfect opportunity to move away from Jeff.  The secretary was engrossed in the conversation and was making what Chris guessed was supposed to be sympathetic sounds.  He started to slowly move around her.

“I was going to introduce her to you, but you always have to work nights and she kept putting it off and now I guess I know why and…” Jeff started to sob again, much louder this time. His dad ushered him to the chairs by the front window as the security guards came out of the back to see what the ruckus was.  As they left the doors, Chris swung past them into the back of the station.

Chris could hear Jeff’s wails getting even louder and more violent and couldn’t help but snicker. As he approached the studio he say the other workers start to move toward the door.

“It’s alright, we set up a playlist for the next ten minutes. We should really see what is going on.” A woman said as she exited the sound booth with another man. Chris hid in a doorway until they had pasted and made his way quickly into the studio.  He grabbed the microphone and found the switch that changed the station from radio to announcer, silently praising all the times they had come to the station on field trips for school. He knew this place as well as he did his own house because of them.

He moved to the microphone and put on his best man voice. “Attention ladies and gentlemen, this is breaking news.  A convict has just escaped from Birch Mountain Penitentiary and is on the loose in the area.  This man is a maximum security prisoner and everyone is advised to stay in their homes until he can be found.  The man is a six foot Caucasian male with a hook for a hand.  That is right ladies and gentlemen, he has a silver hook for a hand.  He is known and the Hook Handed killer by police and is very dangerous. If you see any sign of this dangerous killer alert police immediately. Again I repeat, stay in your homes until the criminal can be found.”  He switched off the sound and went back the playlist the attendants had set off.  He moved quickly back to the lobby because he could hear that Jeff’s cries were not as loud as they were before.  Their part was done, now they just had to meet up with Ansel.

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Kevin was shivering on top of the mountain. He wished he could sit in a warm car like Jake and his date were.  Kevin was wearing a jacket, but that was nothing compared the nighttime winds blowing on the top of Autumn Peak, he guessed it must have been called that for a reason.  He sat there watching Jake and his date start to get comfortable together.

“Man, this is disgusting, I don’t want to watch this anymore.”  He glanced at his phone to make sure for the tenth time he was on the right radio station, “Hurry up guys.”

He stood there for another five minutes in the freezing wind, then the announcement came on.  He could barely recognize Chris’s voice.

“Attention ladies and gentlemen, this is breaking news.  A convict has just escaped from Birch Mountain Penitentiary…”

It was finally his turn.  Kevin grabbed the hook from the bag he got at his parents store and pulled out the jar of fake blood as well.  He expertly added the blood to the hook and threw on his black hood. 

Sneaking up on people in the mountains is not as easy as anyone would think, with the twigs and rocks everywhere, so Kevin had to move slowly.  This worked out to his advantage thought because he could see that the girl was getting more and more agitated.  She kept gesturing to Jake about leaving and Jake just kept trying to go in for more kissing.  She finally shoved him away and Kevin was so close he could hear her voice going even higher pitched.  He carefully placed the hook on her door handle and moved back into the bushes, just in time for him to see Jake drive the car back down the hill.

He texted Ansel to tell them they were finally leaving.

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Ansel was hunkered down in his car across the way from where he saw Jake pick up his date earlier that evening.  Tailing Jake wasn’t very hard since he was so preoccupied with the evening’s future events, but now Ansel was very bored.  He kept glancing at the neighboring houses to make sure that the neighbors weren’t staring at him, he also kept an ear out for sirens, because there was no way he was getting arrested tonight.  It was late enough that most of the parents with little trick or treaters were gone, and now it was pretty much just pre-teens and teenagers roaming the streets. Ansel was very careful to not look like a psychopath.  Soon he saw Jake and Chris making their way to him, walking casually down the road as if they hadn’t just hijacked a radio station for a Halloween prank. 

They got into the car and started to tell Ansel everything that happened at the radio station.  This was much more entertaining than just sitting outside a house like a creeper.  Ansel was finally starting to feel the thrill of the prank.  Then his phone went off.

“Kevin says they drove off and that he was ‘successful in his mission’.” Ansel cheerfully told the others.

“Oh man, I can’t wait to see his stupid face!” Jeff jeered.

“We should be quiet until they get here though, we don’t want to give away our position.” Chris said.

“Yeah, I am going to get the camera ready.” Ansel said as he pulled out a camcorder.

When Jake finally pulled into the driveway of the house they could tell he was mad that the evening didn’t go as planned, but like a gentleman, he went around the car to open the door for his date.

“This is it.” Jeff whispered

Jake reached for the door handle and then screamed and jumped away from the car.  The girl got out of the car and started screaming right along with him. The bystanders either looked at the pair concerned or just wrote them off as dumb kids on Halloween.  But in a cheap little car, three boys were laughing so hard the car was shaking.