Lachie and Doug were best friends and they had been inseparable for years. It was an unlikely friendship which had been forged standing in line next to each other in Kindergarten, by virtue of the class teacher sorting the group alphabetically. On that day Lachie had cried for his mother, and Doug had ripped grazes through his knee. As they ambled through life, one grew into an athletic physique, and was Captain of almost every team in the school. The other became quite the gamer and spent years sucked into worlds of armies of dwarves.
It was not unexpected then, that as All Hallow’s Eve fell, that they would find themselves getting dressed together, ready for a night of frights and fun. They also had hoped to outdo their haul of candy from the previous years! Lachie finished his costume by pulling on a dishevelled wig of orc hair and picked up a plastic axe ready to rush into battle. In the room opposite him, Doug also was readying himself for the night by pulling on a swimming cap to cover his mop of sandy blonde hair. Every year he dressed as a basketballer, and tonight was no exception. His oversized singlet showing that tonight his was number 44, while the shirt revealed a torso which he’d spent hours in the gym to define. He also had a blood splatter across his biceps, in the hope that some naughty nurse would assist.
The pair set off and began to walk the street and fill up their bags. They had already collected a good assortment of home made brownies and chocolate treats; and to their dismay, an elderly neighbour deposited a small bag of ground coffee in each of their bags. It had been a curious meeting, Lachie had rung the doorbell and the pair had chimed, ‘Trick or Treat’ and the woman who answered the door immediately unsettled them. She was dressed as a witch, or at least, was witch-like in appearance, forgoing the typical witch’s hat and plastic green nose. The boys made an insensitive comment and laughed at her bent-doubled appearance. She had given them a sinister smile, and then began her own chant, ‘Wicked warts and froggy toes / where bubbles boil and magic goes / drink the brew and tail grow / take on the caw of sinister crow’. The boys had given each other a smirk and ran off, unaware of the power of their words to hurt another, and unaware of the power of words to hurt them.
As the boys arrived back at Doug’s house later that evening, rain began to fall and thunder and lightning had began to boom and fill the heavens with flashes of light. The boys kicked off their wet shoes and set about exploring the treasures of their bag. On emptying his, Lachie told Doug he was going to try the coffee, joking that he was making a witch’s brew. He put the jug on to boil, and tried to recall the hag’s chant who gave it to him. He poured the water into his cup, and started, ‘Witchy poo gave me some beans / green warts and long, long nose / was she wearing panty-hose?’ Doug laughed, and as he stuffed his third chocolate into his mouth, told Lachie that he’d gotten the words wrong. The boys laughed, and Doug drank his warm drink as they started to watch some old D-Grade horror flick on the tele before drifting off to sleep under the eerie light of the black and white film.
Hours later, Doug was wretched back into consciousness – grabbing at his throat which he felt constricting. He tried to call to Lachie, but all that came from his mouth was a sinister caw. As his panic grew, so did feathers. He could feel a tail starting to emerge from the top of his bum crack, and then his shoulders cracked and he fell over into a hunched position. Over the next few minutes Doug helplessly convulsed about his room, as Lachie slept on – that was, until… until a voice echoed through the room, ‘Wicked warts and froggy toes’, continuing the old woman’s chant, building in momentum until the final word, ‘Crow’. Lachie took to his feet, startled not by the voice but by a black bird flying wildly around the room. Lachie raced to the window to shoo the bird out; slamming it behind him. He turned around, ready to laugh about the oddity with Doug, but the room was silent and empty.
In the days and weeks and years that followed, Doug’s parents placed missing children’s posters all around the streets, but no one had ever come forward to suggest even a single sighting. The mystery echoed into the town’s folklore, and myths about his disappearance grew into sinister tales of hauntings that younger children whispered in Halloween’s to follow. As for Lachie, he never did try the coffee in his bag, in the confusion that followed that evening, he’d left the bag of treats in Doug’s bedroom and had thought it insensitive to return to Doug’s parents to ask for his candy. He did, however, develop an irrational fear of crows, feeling that he was constantly followed and watched by an oversized blackbird who lived outside his bedroom window and flew above him whenever he’d leave the house.