It was the night before Halloween in Wellsboro and the boys were gathered in a semicircle outside the hardware store, straddling their bikes like they were a hardened motorcycle gang rallying outside a dive bar. There were four of them – Chris, Mike, Cory, and Jack. As the oldest, just one month shy of sixteen, Jack had always been the de facto leader of the group, and tonight was no different. On his orders the boys had filled their backpacks with eggs, toilet paper and as much of their parent’s liquor as they could get away with.

“Alright…” Jack spoke in a hushed voice. “Here’s the plan… we’re going to go to Oak and teach those condescending fucks a lesson. See how they like their precious mansions when they’re covered in yolk and TP.”

“Condescending? Biiiig word for you bud, someone’s obviously being doing extra credit with Mrs Andrews.” Chis snickered, looking to the others for approval.

“Yeah? I heard it from your mom, shit for brains. Now listen up, this is important…”

Chris looked defeated but joined the others as they pulled in tighter to hear the rest of the plan, they were still at the age where a ‘your mom’ retort ruled supreme.

“Here…” Jack reached into his backpack and pulled out a pile of red masks, dishing them out to his friends before donning his own. “Got ’em from Razzles. Those Oak streeters won’t know what’s hit them.”

They were cartoonish Devil masks made from cheap shiny plastic. Jack had bought them, not only because they were the cheapest thing in Razzles joke shop, but also for the fact that they looked low effort yet dangerous. He wanted people to see them and fear them. The rest of the boys dutifully put on their own masks and began pedaling.

Their destination, Oak Street, was the evergreen neighbourhood in Wellsboro. Nothing bad ever happened there; their lawns were always manicured and their houses remained pristine. Even last year when the worst storm the town had seen in fifty years tore it’s way through the streets, the entirety of Oak emerged without so much as a scratch.

The residents were the town’s old money families, entrenched in almost every facet of Wellsboro life – much to the chagrin of every aspiring business owner that didn’t have Oak heritage. This would have been a slightly less bitter pill for the other townsfolk to swallow had Oak streeters not had the attitude that they did. They walked around with the kind of arrogance that only comes from being born into money, seemingly oblivious to what the rest of Wellsboro thought about them.

“…like their shit don’t stink too.” Jack had heard his dad say earlier that day, swigging from a beer with a bitter note in his voice. He had been drinking a lot lately, ever since Lance Arison – who lived in the most lavish house on Oak Street – had bought the garage he had worked at for his entire adult life. Jack’s dad and his buddies had been laid off, and ever since then he had become a different person.

That was the reason that Jack had hatched his plan. He just wanted, for at least one night, for that fucking street to be something less than perfect, and top of his list of destruction was Mr Arison’s house

This one is for my dad, asshole.

As the boys got closer to Oak, a feeling began to stir among them, a buzzing of camaraderie that came from the heady mix of their parent’s booze and the anonymity from the masks. They were a pack, red-tinged and hollering; Wellsboro’s avenging devils. Jack looked up at the moon that was so bright it illuminated them more than the streetlights. It looked almost too full and was tinged with rust. Blood moon, He thought to himself with a strange chill, feeling a sense of trepidation that he couldn’t verbalise to the others. He saw Cory look over at him with a concerned expression. He grinned back, squashing his anxiety. Tonight was not the night for second thoughts.

Their wheels skidded to a halt as they reached the signpost. Jack threw the first egg and the boys cheered as it made contact with the sign, smearing the ‘Oak’ with yellow.

“Let’s do this thing!” Mike shouted, racing in front of the others, already beginning to stream toilet paper over the road. While the rest of the boys followed, Jack hesitated. Something felt off. Their energy demanded a chase but every crack of an egg went unanswered. No sounds or movements came from the houses, the lights were off and the curtains drawn. There was a profound wrongness in the air, as if they were the last people left on earth.

“C’mon Jack!” Cory called, gesturing ahead “Look…”

Jack looked in the direction Cory was pointing. The Arison house. It stood out from the others, not just from its size and grandeur, but from being the only building with any light. It was dim and flickering but in the still of the rest of the street it was like a beacon. Game on, Jack thought, pushing his anxiety to the back of his mind as he joined the others, pedaling furiously.

As they neared the Arison’s, they noticed a strange rhythmic noise coming from the house that stopped them in their tracks. Jack got off his bike and put a warning finger to his mouth, gesturing to the others to keep quiet. They followed as he sneaked towards the window, making sure to keep low to the ground. He looked through the glass and for a minute he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing in the dim light. When his eyes finally focused on the shapes through the window he felt his stomach fall. He wanted to look away, to run, but he was frozen. There were around twenty of them, naked, pressed against each other, chanting slowly in unison in a language he couldn’t understand. With a twinge of childish embarrassment, he found himself repulsed at seeing bare adult flesh. It felt perverse, shameful. He couldn’t make out any faces except one – Lance Arison. He was the only one clothed, standing in front of the congregation in a red robe. In his hand he held a long, curved blade that he was using to gesture to something just outside of Jack’s line of sight. There was the sound of a scream from somewhere deeper in the house and the rhythmic chanting faltered. It was the worst sound Jack had ever heard, piercing and full of terror – enough to shake him from his stupor. Whatever was going on here was bad – really bad, and they needed to leave, now.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” He shouted, half-hysterical, as they ran to their bikes.

Except their bikes weren’t there.

The boys looked around in disbelief. It hadn’t even been five minutes… they had thought they were alone, but from the corner of their eyes they saw figures start to emerge from the shadows of the Oak tree lawns. “I’m sorry kids.” One of the figures said, closing in, his voice distantly familiar.

“Can’t let you go I’m afraid. Just take comfort in knowing that you’re going to be part of something great. Something bigger than you could understand.”

There were too many of them now, swarming around the boys, beginning to chant the same words Jack had heard at the house. He grabbed desperately at Cory’s sweatshirt, trying to come up with one of his plans, anything to get his friends out of this but he couldn’t think. He’d let them down, dragged them into something darker than he could have ever imagined.

“I’m s-sorry guys,” Jack started, his voice faltering with fear “I shouldn’t have…”

There was a sharp pain in the back of his head and he realised with a dull panic that he couldn’t speak anymore.

The last thing he heard was Cory screaming his name before everything went dark.

***

The next day the town was in a frenzy. Wellsboro hadn’t had anything as bad as this happen in years. Four teenage boys that didn’t make it home and were nowhere to be found. The police had cautioned parents to think twice about trick or treating and had assembled a search party. They looked everywhere in town for the boys, except the one place that didn’t cross their minds. Nothing bad ever happened in Oak Street after all.