An entry for The Blood is the Life: A Frightful Halloween Quest.

BANG.

The banging at the door isn't real. It's in my head. I bolted the door but then I always do that at night. There's not really anyone banging on the door.

BANG.

It's just a holdover from the drugs, it's bound to be. Stuff that strong is going to mess me up for a while, make me hear things that aren't there.

BANG.

I'm lucky I'm only hearing things. I'm lucky I know when to stop. Danny and the others didn't make it.

BANG.

Stupid Danny, always has a story. It's never enough that you should do what he wants, follow his crazy schemes, he wants you to believe him, believe in his fantasies that turn irresponsible antics into adventures.

BANG.

This time the story was 'immortality' of all things. We're sitting around dazed after an evening of substance abuse and he suddenly produces these 'magic tablets'. "These aren't just any pills," he insists, wild-eyed and intense as ever. "This isn't just the latest buzz, the latest high. These are the real thing baby. Guy I got them off says you take these, you live forever man! We can party 'til the sun burns out, I'm telling you! All of us, together, forever!"

BANG.

So now he's handing out these pills, and I let him give one to me because I know what he's like but I'm already plenty out of my head and I know it so I don't swallow it, I don't swallow it. Good job too, because half an hour later I'm the only one still breathing.

BANG.

I call for an ambulance of course but it's too late, it's too late. The ambulance guys - blank-faced, bored, seen so much death that they don't really see it any more - they don't even try to resuscitate Danny and the others. They just get out the body bags and start zipping them up.

BANG.

I'm still pretty out of it at this point, of course, and I'm watching them zip up the bags, watching them zip up my friends, and I'm looking at Danny's face, cold, dead, as they zip up the bag, and just as it closes, just as it closes, I could swear I saw him wink at me.

BANG.

He can't have done, of course. The ambulance guy certified him dead. I was just seeing things. The drugs. Just like the banging at the door. It's not real. It's not real.

BANG. BANG. BANG.