Halloween

"Yeehehehehe!"

"Mwahahahaha!"

"EEEEEEEEEEK"

David sort of hated walking up to Laylah's house in October. Not like, really hated it, but every year her family added another inflatable witch, or skeleton hand coming out of a grave, or slasher dummy chained up to the porch, all with little motion activated noisemakers. Knowing them for as long as he had, it had gotten a little stale, and the tinny cackles and groans coming out of the various hidden speakers hadn't been scary since the 9th grade. Still, it was a charming enough tradition to everyone else, and David mostly considered it another funny little quirk he could smile and roll his eyes at.

Better at least than the family's other patience-trying tradition, which David's experienced eye could tell had gotten plenty of play this spooky season already; a bra hung from a twelve-foot skeletons hand as it reached down over the front walk, and he was sure he'd seen the scrap of pink fabric currently in the jaws of a severed zombie head before, peeking out from a pair of sagging sweatpants on a previous visit. At this point he was a trained expert in the field of Laylah's escapades, and like any seasoned tracker he was sure that if he just knelt down and touched the ground his mind's eye would take him through exactly the series of undressing missteps she must've gone through while setting everything up. Maybe the neighbors would just assume it was a raunchy bit of humor? Maybe they were all just used to seeing Laylah losing her clothes.

David rang the doorbell, and heard a few muffled shouts back and forth before the door swung open and greeted David with a sweet, mouthwatering sight: Laylah's mother stood there, brushing a wet lock of hair out of her eyes before quickly returning to her chest, just in time to catch the towel that had started to slip off of her.

And also she had a bowl full of full-size candy bars in the other hand.

"Happy Hallo-- oh, hello David!"

"Hi, ma'am...."

"I've told you a million times, hon, we're both adults now, you can just call me Sharon!"

"Right, hi, Sharon..."

The bowl and the towel were both stuffed as full as they could stand. In fact, both were starting to spill over; as Sharon made room for David to enter the house, a couple Snickers fell to the floor, as Sharon just barely kept a pair of Milk Duds out of view when her towel again began to droop, tossing the bowl onto a small shelf by the door. Using both hands to retie the offending garment, once again snug and straining against her sizable chest, she hollered up the stairs to her daughter.

"Laylah, it's David! I'm sending him upstairs!" she turned to her guest with a somewhat bashful grin, "I told her I was just getting out of the shower, we've had a good few trick-or-treaters this year, but she's been fussing so much over her costume!"

"It's all good, Mrs.--- It's fine, Sharon." David said, starting up the stairs. He hoped that meant Laylah would be covered a little more than her mother, but it was never a sure bet with her....