"You Never Did." - The Kenosha Kid

I take a moment to stare at the silver goop that was once Dr. Funny. I hear the echoes of faint laughter until the ooze disappears into the dirt entirely.

A lot happens at once. I just killed my own father, the agents with their Tommy Guns decide this whole business isn’t worth it and flee into the night, all those souls begin emerging from beneath the ground into the Halloween night like white sheets on the wind, laughing and enjoying the (imagined) autumnal breeze, and those girls from the School are staring at me like I got five heads.

I glance down at the raygun, at my witch’s robes, then back at the girls. “It’s, uh…a long story. Just sit tight for now, ‘cuz I gotta rescue my friends.”

I slide next to Bobby and Connie, who are sitting against a pair of graves, foaming at the mouth. I try to slap some sense into ‘em, but it works as well for me as it did for Patton in Sicily. Namely - to no effect. They can’t even make funny comments or the usual doper humor. Instead, their heads hang limp, their breathing shallow. Knocking on death’s door. It’ll take a miracle-

Ah, Mary Lou, don’t forget that you do got some sort of psychic power! Some weird talk-to-the-dead-and-almost-dead business. And sure, that might make you weird, but if being weird makes you Mary Lou, then I’m glad I’m weird. I’d rather be me than normal.

It’s not like I know how to use my powers, but at the same, I don’t need to know how. Because it’s all in the heart.

“Fear has no power,” I realize. “It’s always been about love.”

That, my friends, is the true message of Halloween.

Or something like that. 

I pull them close. “Sooper-dooper love powers, go!”

I give them a big ‘ol bear hug that makes some of the girls say aww and the ghosts start twirling and dancing around because it’s stuff like this that makes ‘em wanna return to the surface. I hug ‘em close, and I feel warm, and I can feel Bobby and Connie start to feel warm, stretching from their hearts to the fingertips, because friends are swell, the real bee’s knees, and don’t you ever just wanna start dancing ‘cuz things are so beautiful and goddamn, isn’t it a blessing to be alive with people ya care about-

“Let go of me, Mary Lou.”

I gasp. “Connie, you’re alive! I saved you from the death reefer!”

Eyes no longer red, she crosses her arms. “I had the whole thing under control.”

“Awww, you ended up wearing my jacket after all.”

Connie looks down at the bomber jacket at I gave her at the costume store, then looks away, her face red.

“Golly,” Bobby says weakly. “I, uh, think I need a true love’s kiss to really save me-”

I flick him on the forehead. “You’re alright, Bobby Wood.”

He laughs, then sees all the School girls standing around. “Gee whiz, alone in a graveyard with a bunch of girls, what a dream come true! Giggity giggity-”

I flick him again. “Ain’t I enough?”

He laughs again. “‘Course, ‘course…”

But then we go quiet. At the edge of the courtyard, the mother and daughter ghosts float, rising and falling slowly, smiles on their faces.

"Sorry for taking your name," I say to the little girl, the original Mary Lou. "I'm gonna use it for good, I swear. I'll take sooper-dooper good care of it."

The little girl nods, then says something probably along the lines of good doggy. I guess she's only three, after all.

As more ghosts rise, dancing in the moonlight, the ghost mother and daughter finally dissipate into mist, finally at peace. 

==========

We were there at the end, of course, when the malt shop and rock ‘n roll and saying things like gee whiz and golly were tossed into the dustbin of history. We had made it to the Moon, the last act went on at the Altamont Free Concert, what a year, 1969, time to settle down, ‘cuz I never could get into disco…

As for where everyone ended up-

Connie’s state senator daddy investigated the asylum, which would be shut down by the end of the year. Allegations of abuse were laid at the feet of Dr. Funny and Ingrid, both of whom were dead, and it’s not like Connie's father had enough juice to take on the CIA, so allegations of abuse was where everything ended, the whole thing swept under the rug. No more School, at least, and the asylum was abandoned for good.

Brad played out his football career at Cornell, took an English class taught by Nabokov, got tutored by an odd senior named Pynchon, gave him a few ideas based on my adventures, then returned to the Slot to manage a local construction company. He was there when the wrecking ball finally brought an end to the old colonial home that once housed the School.

Susan became a teacher at the Salem Slot High School. She helped so much with getting my former classmates at the School to adjust to normal life, and now the girls are off to college or work and or getting married. The scars are still there, but the whole thing’s pretty swell.

Rocket-Man would be drafted the following summer and would serve in West Germany, where he studied karate with Elvis. He returned to the Slot with a fraulein of his own, but unfortunately Elvis don’t return his calls.

I guess that intergalactic war is still going on and all that, so that’s…neat, I ‘spose. I never did end up finding JB's spaceship, though I heard Neil Armstrong is gonna open up a restaurant for a fancy new sandwich called the cheeseflurger that he allegedly invented…

Von Braun, who aimed for the stars but sometimes hit London, would win the National Medal of Science in 1975.

Connie got into Radcliffe - I always knew she was wicked smaht - and met a nice Harvard boy along the way.

As for Bobby and I - well, after we got the School girls settled down and all that, we went out and took the Sixties by storm. Too bad you weren’t there for it, but boy golly…following the beatniks to San Francisco, the electric kool-aid, and you might not believe it, but I invented the San Francisco Sound, ‘cuz c’mon, you’ve heard my songs, and I’m a swell singer if you ask me…

But that was all in the future. As for that Halloween night in 1957, well, there was Bobby, Connie, and I, and thirty ragged girls, and we all made our way down from the cemetery, to the last street open for Halloween. One last house with the light left on.

I go the front door. Connie smiles. Bobby nods. I raise a thumb and jam that bad boy into the doorbell. And then the door opens, and everyone, altogether now-

“Trick or treat!”