“Hi old man. What you got there (in the basket)?”
“STAY AWAY FROM MY CANDY!”
“Okay, okay.” He took a minute to let the scene reset to “normal”. “Let’s start again. I *promise* not to eat anything — there you go *again* (he waited for another reset). Now, I’m not going to take anything; just want to look.
Thaat’s better.” The demon inside the man didn’t return. Kolya was quite hungry but certainly wasn’t going to steal any of *this* food. Besides, sugar is bad for you. It will rot your head out given second chances. “Is it Halloween, old man? Or the day after?” Calm this time. He could hear the swamp bugs recede into day. He thought of Alysha, how she did the same. He was tempted to ask the old man if he knew her but decided he didn’t in his prescient ways. He looked for a door into the shack; didn’t see it at first because it blended into the drab gray-brown of the rest of the structure.
Did the person or persons within give this man candy? And candy is usually given to children on Halloween, hmm. Better just head inside.
Okay *this* is different.
“Arrr-kan-sawwww,” the eyes hissed in their mouth-less ways all around them. Or was it “Jerrrrry”? Let’s go with the former.
He remembered something: “Marble Falls, Marbles Fall,” he recited spontaneously. Nowhere to sit his own “I”. He’d have to leave the way he came in.
“GOOD LUCK FELLOW!” they said in unison as he made his way back out of the swamp and onto drier land.
Sunklands 