And meet up with Fatima

The witch and the zombie made their way down the busy street, the sun had just set and trick-or-treaters were zooming around in their goofy little costumes, candy bags and pails full to bursting.

David prayed to every force of Halloween mischief that Laylah's showy top would maintain its place on her chest, the absolute last thing he wanted was to scar some kids running around just trying to get free candy.

To his great relief, her top behaved long enough to reach the corner of Lang street and Old Bridge road, and standing there in her costume, was Fatima.

Her short, dark hair was exposed in the back, but in front was skillfully-crafted skull mask that looked a bit lumpy on purpose. She wore a tight black leotard that hugged her thin body head-to-toe, bones were painted strategically over the front, giving her the look of a walking skeleton in the advancing darkness of Halloween night. She was also carrying a sword in her right hand and a hand-painted shield in her left.

"Oh my god, Fatima! You look so cute!!!" Laylah said, bounding over to her friend and lifting her up off the ground in a big, tight hug.

"Laylah! HNGH! Nice... costume!" Fatima wheezed. Fatima was a year older than Laylah but was well... She was five-foot-nothing and scrawny besides, meanwhile Laylah stood only an inch shorter than David and had a very, well, Laylah-like body. The contrast between them was so stark, David had to bite his lip to avoid making a joke like "hey, Laylah, stop abducting trick-or-treaters!" The poor girl was already getting the life squeezed out of her by Laylah, she already had it hard enough without one of his stupid zingers.

Laylah put Fatima down and looked her friend over. "Skeleton from.... a video game?" Laylah asked, trying to guess Fatima's costume.

"Skyrim, right?" David chimed in.

Fatima lifted her mask up, revealing her somewhat mousey face and scowled at them, "Uh, NO! C'mon guys!" She raised her arms and backed up a few steps, then she put her skull mask back over her face and started moving around in a weird, stunted sort of way, swishing her sword around.

"Uhhhhhh...." David and Laylah said, looking at each other with stumped expressions.

"Jason and the Argonauts?" Fatima said insistently, "Ray Harryhousen? Y'know, the stop-motion skeletons!... It's like... a classic...." Fatima mumbled near the end, crestfallen her buds were completely missing her sick obscure movie reference.

"Uh, yeah! Of course!" David said with a stupid thumbs-up. "Jason and the Astronauts!"

"Oh shut up, Dave. What're you anyway? A zombie from the Thriller video?" Fatima said, quickly ditching her self pity and smirking at her friend's costume instead.

"No, not really just like... a cool... punk zombie?" David said, a little bashful that his costume wasn't as thought-out as Fatima's, apparently.

"Little bit slutty, very nice." Fatima said, pointing to one of the shoulders of his tank top, which had slid down and was hanging there.

"Heh, well, I had to compete with Laylah." David joked. Both of them turned to their ample-chested friend and looked smug.

Laylah blinked for a second, then blushed and fidgeted with the deep V of her top, trying to make them cover more of her boobs, "Ohhh, whatever!" Laylah said.

The three of them laughed and began walking to Janine's house, chatting along the way.