Brujo - 1. Brujo

Brujo

The wallpaper was old and faded. It appeared to be a Victorian design, but it was hard to tell. In many places there were chunks missing altogether, the black and red pattern biting the yellowed walls underneath. It was very indicative of how long the house had been unoccupied. It made the ambiance of the dim room even creepier. It was excellent.

“What do you think?” came Griff’s deep voice from behind me. Griff was a well-known party planner in town, and I knew I had to get him to help with my work Halloween party. While I would handle all of the actual planning myself, he was undoubtedly the right person to find an amazing venue. And it had to be something everyone would talk about for months. I was the king of Halloween, after all.

I was a science teacher over at Desert Sands High School, and all the kids called me Mr. October. A lot of the staff did, too. The nickname originated after my first year of teaching, and had stuck. Being obsessed with the holiday, I always began decorating my classroom on the first of October. I added more and more as the month went on. By the thirty-first, it was almost unrecognizable as a chemistry lab.

“I’m digging the wallpaper,” I responded, reaching out to touch it. Even the texture of it screamed scary and foreboding. I looked around the rest of the room. It was largely bare, save for a rather oversized fireplace. “Does that work?”

Griff glanced in the direction I was pointing, and nodded. “It does.” His voice was almost Lurch-like, and I would have killed to get him to dress up as the Addams Family butler for the party. It was beyond inappropriate for me to ask though; plus, he was a party planner, not a cater waiter. A boy could dream, though.

Aside from the wallpaper and fireplace, there wasn’t much else to look at. The floor was hardwood, which was good. Carpet wouldn’t have done much for the aesthetics of a Halloween party. There were a couple of cobweb-covered sconces on either side of the room. Those helped, too. “Furniture?”

“There’s some in the basement. It can be brought up if desired,” he said, referencing a sheet of paper on his clipboard.

He showed me around the rest of the house, and it was clear that this was the perfect place for the party. That first room was by far my favorite, but the whole package was a sweet deal. The rental price was a bit steeper than I had hoped, but I signed on anyway. I’d booked it for the Saturday before Halloween. Considering we were teachers, we did have to think about school nights, after all. I’d have the house all that day, plus Sunday through noon.

The day after I’d locked in the venue was the first of the month. And a Monday. It was only the second time in my teaching career in which the first day of October fell on the start of the school week. I loved it, because it meant my students would come in after a weekend off to find the lab starting to get a little spookier.

And sure enough, as my first period class began to saunter in after the morning bell, I got the reactions I always enjoyed. They entered slowly, whispering to one another as they pointed out some of the décor within the room. Some of them seemed a little taken aback, perhaps surprised that a teacher went all out for Halloween. Those were the students that clearly hadn’t seen my classroom in years past. They were in for a surprise, too, as this was nothing. This was just the first day. The classroom would evolve as the month went on.

“Word is that Mr. October is throwing a faculty Halloween party out at this creepy, abandoned house way on the outskirts of town. I’m sure it’s going to be killer,” I overheard one student telling another. I smiled internally. The news of my party had apparently traveled fast. Not that any of the kids were invited of course, but it still felt good to know that my reputation for being the king of Halloween stood strong.

“Really?” the other student responded. “That grungy one out past the interstate?”

“I guess so. Why?” the first student asked.

“Well,” the second student said, bringing her voice to a hush, “my mom always told me that house used to be a place where brujería was practiced. I mean, I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but it’s still creepy. I guess it would make for a good Halloween party, though. Mr. October is dedicated!”

“What is brujería?” the male student asked, clearly thrown off by the word.

I didn’t need to listen to the girl’s response, as I was quite familiar with the term. My own mother had told me stories when I was younger, about all kinds of creatures. The one about brujería was generally the same exact story, though she would throw a few new anecdotes in on occasion. She used to make me sit with her in the kitchen as she prepared tamales or albondigas, or whatever traditional meal she was making. She’d cluck the story along in Spanglish as I sat at the table, feet dangling above the floor.

“Ramón,” she said, never taking her eyes off the food, “you must always keep your ojos peeled. There are people in our world that are not really people. They look like us and act like us, but they are not like us. No. They are old – muy viejo ­– sometimes aged thousands of years.”

“Like vampires?!” I had asked excitedly. Even as an elementary-aged kid, I was fascinated by monsters, beasts, and all other mythological creatures. My mother’s tales only added fuel to the fire.

“Not like vampires! Worse!” That’s around the time she would generally start the theatrics, throwing her arms about wildly. “They are sneaky. They will fool you, trap you. If they get your sangre, it keeps them young.”

“Mamá, if they’re staying young from your blood, that’s a vampire,” I said. I remember rolling my eyes, thinking my mother knew nothing of monster tradition.

She didn’t let my insistence stop her stories, though. “Cállate!” she would yell. That would usually get me to listen. She didn’t often yell at me, so when she would tell me to shut up I knew she meant it. “They are not vampires, mijo. They practice brujería – witchcraft!”

The final bell chimed, and shook me from my thoughts. Somehow, I hadn’t been aware of the history of the house. It was a very pleasant surprise. Any disturbing past that could be added to the place the event was being held would only add to the Halloween effect.

I looked around the room, seeing that all the students had found their seats but were still eyeballing the new contents of the room. I smiled. “Happy October, class!”

As the days ticked by, I began more fervently planning the party. I spent most of my lunch periods going over details with two of my colleagues who had agreed to help with the setup. Sarah Collins, one of the art teachers, was one of my favorite coworkers and had signed on to help immediately. Besides having a great working relationship, she was a shoo-in to help, considering her background. Her artfulness and creativity would be integral in decorating the space.

“This place looks amazing,” she said, studying the pictures of the house that I had brought in. “The bareness of it all is spectacular. I don’t think we’ll need to do much. We can probably play with the lighting and work on some table arrangements, but I think the minimalistic approach could really intensify the eerie vibe. What do you think, Rick?”

The other co-planner, Rick Arroyo, shrugged in response. I was still kind of surprised that he had joined us at all. He was the school’s sole history teacher and also the soccer coach. He wasn’t one of the most social staff members, and had never struck me as one that liked to plan events, but I think he had a thing for Sarah. I had no real problem with the guy, but he was one of the teachers that refused to refer to me by my nickname.

“You’re the Halloween guy, right Chavez? I’ll go along with whatever you think is best.” Though not insightful, it was probably the most he’d offered since we’d begun having our meetings. I would rather leave the major details to Sarah and myself anyway, so I had no problem with his opinion.

I could tell Sarah knew it was for the best, too, but she was always the type of person to try to make sure everyone was included and involved. It was one of the qualities that made her such an outstanding educator. “Well, feel free to throw anything in there if you have any ideas.”

He smiled at her, and I watched him as he watched her. I didn’t know if she was interested in him, but she could do a lot worse for herself. He was a nice guy from what I knew of him. A bit quiet, but in the few interactions I’d seen him share with students, he was very dedicated. He wasn’t bad looking, either. He was always well-groomed and dressed well. I’d always assumed he was around my age, early thirties. As I studied him, though, I saw that he was a lot greyer at the temples than I’d noticed before. His eyes looked tired too, plum-colored crescents underneath each.

“How’s your classroom coming along, by the way?” he asked, turning to look at me.

I smiled, hoping he hadn’t noticed me staring. “Well, it’s getting there. We’re midway through the month so it only halfway looks like a science lab, now.”

He nodded, and I realized he was only asking to be polite. “I hear a lot of the guys on the team talking about it. The kids like you, Chavez.”

“Thanks,” I said. It always felt good to have another teacher compliment you on your likeability. It was a big deal to an educator to have an impact on their students, and it was just as flattering to have other teachers recognize it.

I couldn’t help wonder if it had just been a segue, however, when he went on. “I overheard one of my guys saying that this house you found is allegedly an old brujo house. Is there any credence to that?” It could have felt very accusatory, but his face didn’t seem to match. Instead, he seemed actually curious. Maybe even a little intrigued.

I chuckled. “I hadn’t heard anything about it until after I’d put down the deposit. Naturally, I did a little research once I caught wind of the rumor. The last residents of the house were a Latino family. From what I could gather in the few articles regarding the property, there were a few unexplained things that were attributed to them as well.” I didn’t know if I believed in witchcraft or not. Sure, my mother had pounded it into my head as a boy. But I was wise enough now to know that most of it was a scare tactic, a way of trying to get me to behave and not talk to strangers. I was also a man of science; magic did not have a real place in my line of work.

“Sorry, what is a brujo house?” Sarah interjected, the puzzled look on her face mirroring that of my student two weeks back.

I was about to give her a brief synopsis, but Rick beat me to the punch. “Bruja and brujo are basically Spanish words for witch. Families of brujos would reside in a home like anybody else. Except they’d use the house to practice brujería, or witchcraft. And it’s not as cutesy as Bewitched or as inspiring as Harry Potter. There are tons of different interpretations on what brujería actually consists of. Some people think it’s just simple spells, some believe that it’s more like voodoo, and others still think it’s just a belief system. Regardless, one major concurrence is that it’s indisputably dark magic.”

“And this house was supposedly occupied by a family of witches at some point?” Sarah asked, her jaw slightly slack. Her reaction excited me more about it. It was having just the kind of impact that I had hoped for once I’d learned of its history.

“That’s the story,” I said.

“What kind of unexplained stuff did those articles reference?” Though there was a sense of apprehension in her tone, I could tell she was just as fascinated as Rick.

I cleared my throat. “It was never directly tied to the family, but there were a number of disappearances that occurred during the time they lived there. Of course reports of missing people pop up all the time, but they seemed to increase around the time they moved in and they dropped when they vacated the house. Weather patterns changed too; there were more thunderstorms and inclement weather issues during that period than is normal for the area. And then just other small things. There were a few people that claimed there were odd noises coming from the house at all hours of the night, and people that came into contact with the family said they were unsettling though they couldn’t explain why.”

“What happened to the family?”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t really find much out about that. Seems they just up and moved out one day. The house was eventually seized by the bank, but they weren’t able to sell it in foreclosure auction. It sat there unoccupied for years, and then only a couple of years or so ago some guy bought it for dirt cheap. He rents it out now for events. Surprisingly it’s not all that popular, even around Halloween. I think it’s the rental price.”

“You really did your research on this place,” Rick said, sitting back in his chair.

I smiled again. “I had to. I felt a little gypped that I didn’t know the whole story before I put down the deposit. It was already a good find, but I really got lucky that it’s so steeped in history that reflects the spirit of the holiday. I had to make sure there wasn’t anything else I missed.”

The morning of the party, I could hardly contain my excitement. I had barely gotten any sleep the night before, maybe pulling in a total of three hours. I was truly like a kid on Christmas, except I was thirty-two and my holiday was Halloween.

Even though it was only the twenty-seventh, four days before Halloween actually occurred, it didn’t matter to me. The entire month was my Halloween. And it just meant I still had four more days to enjoy it all.

Typically, I’d begin coming up with costume concepts from November first of the previous year until I had settled on the perfect one. This year, I had decided rather early on that I would be a mummy. Not a half-assed one, either. I’d already purchased a ton of gauze and had been dying it various shades of yellow and beige to make it look aged and authentic. I’d built an obtuse prosthetic chest piece to allow my abdomen to appear emaciated in comparison. I had even chartered one of my drag friends to paint half of my face to look rotted and skeletal. I was known for my elaborate costumes.

However, I changed my mind once I’d learned of the house’s history. It seemed only fitting that I instead play the part of a brujo. I did my research in trying to find traditional garb for the costume, but there didn’t seem to be any clear-cut choices. The images I found were varied. Some wore predominately black while others wore white; a number of them were adorned with bones. A lot of them carried staffs, while some wielded swords. Some donned generic witch hats, others wore top hats, and some sported animal skulls as masks. It seemed that there was no right answer. It was probably beneficial, because it gave me more creative license.

I was lucky enough to stumble upon a worn-out black robe at a thrift store, including a built-in hood. It was very reminiscent of a sorcerer or cult leader, so I thought it would be perfect. I wanted to go with the staff idea as well. Considering we were a desert town with a plethora of hiking trails, I had several shops to choose from in finding a walking stick to suit my needs. I found a warped, natural wood stick that was almost as tall as me. I bought some fake bones from the craft store and coated them in a combination of acrylic paint and talcum powder to make them look less plastic and more matte. I strung the bones from near the top of the staff with a few feathers I also picked up at the craft store.

To finish off the ensemble, I dug an old beachcombing outfit out of the back of my closet. It consisted of a white linen tunic and white linen pants, both oversized, which I dyed black. The dye job wasn’t quite as dark as I’d hoped, but when they were on underneath the robe it wasn’t as noticeable.

After a quick shower, breakfast, and shave, I put on the costume. It may not have been my best work, but I was proud of it. It fit the theme I was going for.

By that point it was around nine o’clock, so I decided to head out to the house. My trunk was stocked with booze, and Sarah and Rick were bringing the decorations and food, respectively. I got a few sideways glances from people in the neighborhood as I walked to my car, but I didn’t mind. It meant I looked at least somewhat disturbing.

Once I had stocked the fridge with beer and wine and arranged the remaining bottles of alcohol on the counter, I decided to scope out the basement. I had been so excited in my initial tour of the house, I had forgotten about it. It wouldn’t really have sold me either way, since it wouldn’t be an area the guests would be occupying. But Griff had mentioned that it contained furniture we were welcome to use. If any of the items that had been left behind matched what the rest of the house looked like, the basement could contain some hidden gems.

The door that led to the basement was at the furthest end of the house, away from the rooms we’d primarily be using. It stuck at first, but I got it open after a few tugs. The staircase was narrow, but the steps were surprisingly sturdy. There was a light switch about halfway down, and the fluorescents flickered on a few seconds after I clicked it. I’d expected it to be danker, but it wasn’t actually too bad.

It was an unfinished basement, the walls and floor all made of solid concrete. It was obvious it had been intended primarily as a storage area. There were a few pieces of furniture covered with sheets and a handful of boxes, but otherwise the room was just as barren as the rest of the house. I guess I had been expecting it to be fuller.

Pushing aside my disappointment, I began pulling the coverings off the larger objects. There were several chairs and a few small tables. They looked as if they had to be from the 1800s, and they were mainly gothic-style pieces. It was looking like I could use some of this stuff, after all.

I had just finished uncovering the last piece of furniture when I heard some faint conversation from the floor above. Sarah and Rick had arrived. “Hey, I’m down in the basement! Back of the house!” I called.

They joined me soon, and Rick took to looking around while Sarah came up and gave me a hug. She immediately took notice of the chairs, and broke the embrace. “Ramón, these are amazing! And the house! It’s just perfect.”

Rick joined us, and looked me up and down. “What are you supposed to be, a monk?”

I let the comment roll of my back. I assumed it wasn’t meant as an insult. “I thought I’d channel the brujo theme,” I said simply.

“It’s great, really,” Sarah said. I think she tried to be subtle, but I caught her shoot him a stern look. It was soon replaced by a thoughtful expression, and she began digging in her purse. She held up an eyeliner pencil. “What do you say?”

I did feel like my face was a little bare, so I agreed. She quickly and expertly applied the eyeliner, despite the unstable light source. Once finished, she stood back to appreciate her work. She truly had an artist’s mentality. “How does it look?”

“Hot,” she said, and giggled. “It ties it all together.”

As she put the pencil back in her purse, I realized they were both in normal, everyday attire. “Where are your costumes?”

“It’s hours before the party,” Rick said.

Sarah shot him another look, but addressed me. “Don’t mind him, Ramón. Our costumes are upstairs. Let’s get everything set up and then we’ll get changed.”

With the three of us working together, the setup didn’t seem to take long. Rick and I brought up the chairs and tables and arranged them in the main room, while Sarah rifled through the boxes. She found quite a few things that would work for decorations, and once combined with the things she brought along herself, the place was perfect. It was better than I could have imagined.

“Spooky,” Rick said once everything was in place. Evidently, even he was impressed.

I fetched three beers from the fridge, and we cheersed. “To Halloween. I couldn’t have gotten it all together so smoothly without you two,” I said. We drank in unison, absorbing the end result of our preparations as we did so.

“Fuck, look at the time,” Rick said out of nowhere, eyes on his watch. “It’s almost eight.” While the setup seemed quick, it apparently had taken us longer than I’d realized.

The party was set to start at nine. While there wasn’t a whole lot left to do, there were still the final touches that needed to happen. The two of them still needed to get into their costumes, we had to plate the food, and we had to do a final spot check to make sure everything was in place. Plus, it was a party with teachers as the only guests. We were known for excessive punctuality.

As my co-conspirators darted off to other rooms to change, I began filling bowls with chips, pretzels, and the other varied finger-foods that Rick had brought. Thankfully he hadn’t gone for anything that required refrigeration, as the appliance was filled to capacity with alcoholic beverages.

Rick returned first. His costume was far from original, consisting of a cuffed pair of dark jeans, a leather jacket, and slicked-back hair. He was a T-Bird. “Zuko,” I greeted him. He gave me a half smile.

Though she didn’t take much longer, Sarah’s costume was far more detailed. She wore a tight-fitting, nude-colored bodysuit. There were patches sewn into it at random. I would have thought her to be a ragdoll were it not for the ball-tipped pegs that stuck out from her body, and one patch in particular shaped like a heart. She was also sporting a pair of glasses with oversized buttons affixed over each eye. She was clearly a voodoo doll. “I don’t know if it fits in with the type of witchcraft you were referring to, but I tried!” she said.

“You look amazing,” I said.

The words had barely left my lips when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t aware it was in working condition, but its chime was clearly strained as it echoed through the house, sending a haunting chill down my spine. The small victories that kept popping up were phenomenal.

It was only half past eight, but naturally we had an early arrival. I was beyond thankful that we’d gotten everything taken care of in time. I answered the door to find five of our colleagues there, the entirety of the English department. I wasn’t surprised that they had traveled together, nor that they were the early birds. They’d also apparently decided on group-themed costumes; I recognized Shakespeare, Poe, and Twain, but I wasn’t sure who the other two were supposed to be.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the staff began to trickle in, all dressed to the nines. Sure, some costumes were as expected as Rick’s, but everyone at least made an effort. I feared seeing a plethora of cat ears and a handful of devil tails, with not much else put into it, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

Half a dozen tours, eight beers, and an insane number of fake laughs later, I was truly feeling the party spirit. I had been somewhat tense, wanting to ensure that everything went off without a hitch. When I saw that everyone was having a good time, I began to let my guard down.

At some point, Griff showed up. I hadn’t been expecting him, though I had extended an invitation while I’d signed the papers on the booking. When I thanked him for coming, he replied: “Your reputation precedes you, and even some of us outside the education circuit have heard of your enthusiasm for Halloween. As an event coordinator, I had to see why you only needed my assistance with booking the venue and not planning the event as a whole. And I can officially say that I understand.”

He made his way through the crowd, easily mingling with my coworkers. I watched as he snaked away and vanished amongst a group of math teachers. I lost sight of him, but it was then that I noticed someone else; someone I hadn’t seen before.

Handsome, he looked out of place in the sea of teachers. Not to say that some of my colleagues weren’t attractive, but nothing like this guy. He was young, maybe a few years my junior. His back was against the wall, and he was surveying the crowd. He wasn’t wearing a costume, either: a tight white T-shirt stretched across his chest, and a pair of charcoal trousers filled out the rest of his ensemble. All-in-all, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

I approached him, wondering if he was a party crasher or if one of the other teachers had extended some additional invites. He continued observing the partygoers as I narrowed the space between us, finally locking eyes with me when I was three or four paces away from him. He said nothing as I stopped in front of him.

“Hello, there,” I said, casually, though I could feel the effects of the alcohol starting to impact me ever-so-slightly. “I’m not sure we’ve met, are you here with someone?” I tried to make sure it seemed somewhat offhand, not trying to outright accuse the guy of anything.

He shook his head, just barely, and continued to watch me. He didn’t say anything for what seemed like quite a while, and I was starting to get uncomfortable. Finally, he broke his silence. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Maybe I can help you,” I offered. “This is my party, I know everybody here. Well, except for you, of course.” I intended my statement to get him to explain who he was and why he was there. Thankfully, it worked.

“I’m sorry,” he said, cupping his face with one hand. He appeared sincerely apologetic, but it could have just been because I made him feel awkward. Either way, he introduced himself. “My name is John. John Gonzalez.”

“Well, John, who are you looking for?” I asked. I realized I was coming off a bit sarcastic. Maybe it was subconsciously intentional, considering I still didn’t know who John was or why he was at the party. I hated being terse. As a teacher, I could use more of that stern tone from time to time, but I always felt guilty afterward. I generally did something casual to make it seem like I was being offhanded. In that moment, with John, I took a sip of my beer.

“That’s the thing, uh… sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he said. See, if I had said that, I’d come across as snide. Or at the very least, awkward. But this guy was smooth. The sentence rolled off his tongue carelessly. Even the uh sounded poised.

I took another swallow from my bottle, trying to match his leisurely demeanor. “Mr. October,” I said, before realizing how it would sound to a complete stranger.

Sure enough, John quirked an eyebrow. “Mr. October, huh? That’s rather mysterious.”

“Sorry, that’s a nickname. Ramón… it’s Ramón.” I glanced down at the nearly empty bottle in my hands, realizing that I had begun to pry off the label with my thumbnail. I sure was sticking my foot in my mouth with this guy. I downed the beer.

“Well, Mr. Ramón October, I’m not quite sure who I’m looking for, to tell you the truth.” He looked past me then, once again letting his eyes drift across the occupants of the room. I watched as his pupils darted back and forth, studying each person before moving on to the next.

I placed the empty beer bottle on a nearby table and crossed my arms. I was starting to get a little concerned at that point. Mysterious stranger, didn’t know anybody, couldn’t tell me who he was looking for. He was clearly not a teacher, and my theory that he was there as a plus-one was clearly incorrect. Presumably, the only remaining logical answer was that he was indeed crashing the party.

“Look, man, it’s a closed party. If you’re not here with somebody, I have to ask you to leave.” There I went, sounding like a damn fool again. Regardless, my agitation was growing and I just wanted to get back to the party. I had just started getting to that just-past-tipsy-not-quite-drunk point, and he was killing my buzz.

He stopped looking around and reconnected our eye contact. “It’s not like that. I’m not trying to sour the mood. I just have something I have to do, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

He made to move, presumably to find another place to position himself as a wallflower. It wasn’t going to work with me. I was a teacher; behavior like that was insanely suspicious. I put my hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “Hold on. Seriously, guy. Tell me what’s going on. This is fucking weird, and you know it.”

His eyes studied mine, and he appeared tentative. He sighed, his shoulders fell slightly, and he resumed his stance of leaning back against the wall. “No, you’re totally right. Thinking about it from your perspective, yeah, I must seem like an insane person. And at a Halloween party! Yes, I have to appear to be a total nut job. I am so sorry.”

Something in his tone calmed me slightly, and my fight-or-flight response mellowed. There was something about the way that he spoke that made me feel like I didn’t need to be worried about him. But I still wanted to know who the hell he was, why he was there, and why he wouldn’t just tell me already. “So…?”

“So… you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” It was quite evident to me that he was trying to keep his eyes focused and not utilize his peripheral vision. I’d caught enough peekers during quizzes and exams to recognize the look.

I scoffed. “That’s original. I didn’t know people used that line in real life,” I said. It was getting old; I was ready to get Rick or one of the other coaches or gym teachers to bounce this guy out of the party. If nothing else, just so I could get a fresh drink.

“Most people’s ‘real life’ doesn’t consist of the supernatural,” he said coolly, as if he was wishing me a Happy Halloween. And… that’s where he started to reel me in.

As I said before, I wasn’t really sure if I believed in all of that. Supernatural, paranormal, mystical, mythical, legendary, fabled. I didn’t have to be an English teacher to know that all of those words were adjectives for things that logically didn’t exist. And my own personal area of study called for logic, too.

But someone so seriously referencing one of those words, no irony to it, like they knew something I didn’t…. It brought me back to my mother’s stories, when she would tell me about el chupacabra, La Llorona, duendes… the list went on and on. Sure, I’d question her storytelling skills from time to time, as I had with the brujos. Regardless, they fascinated me and I’d always hoped there was some truth to the tales.

I was intrigued, but still I stayed coy. If he was totally screwing with me, I didn’t want to be made a fool of. “You’re supernatural, huh?”

His own casual manner was starting to fade, and I could sense that he was becoming frustrated himself. Served him right, anyway. But he responded. “No, not quite. I myself am not supernatural, but I’m involved with the supernatural. I’m a part of that world, if you will.”

“Meaning…?”

He looked at me again, this time much more pointedly. “I’m a witch hunter.”

Someone carried by a tray of shots, which I hadn’t put anyone up to, but it was good timing. I needed a quick hit of something hard after that revelation. I grabbed two of them, offering one to John. He held up his hand in refusal. Just as well. I slammed them both back.

Gin. Gross. I shook my head to rid the taste, and John stared at me as if I was crazy. “That’s a lot to take in, there, John. Why do you think I would take that seriously? I mean, you’re obviously fucking with me.”

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me,” he said, and made once again to walk away.

“Wait,” I said, feeling remorseful for taking that tone with him again. The shots weren’t helping, either. They had gone straight to my head. I put my hand on his shoulder again to prevent him from leaving, but it lingered this time. Without even realizing I was doing it, I let it slide down to his bicep where it came to rest. He looked at my hand and back up at me. “Oh, I… uh….” I felt my face get warm and I pulled my arm back.

He smiled, and the exasperation I had felt from before seemed to vanish into thin air. “It’s fine, Ramón. I can see that you’re receptive, just unsure. I know it’s hard when you’ve had no exposure to it. It sounds like a plot point in a scary movie.” He glanced down at his watch, and said softly, “look, I don’t have a whole lot of time. But if there’s someplace quiet we can go, I can fill you in on some of the details. Maybe you’ll even be able to help me.”

“Uh, sure… we can go into the basement, there won’t be anybody down there,” I said. He nodded and let me lead the way to the back of the house. He followed me down the stairs, and closed the door behind him. Trying to break the sudden silence that had fallen over us, or maybe to kill my own nerves, I added: “Not much time, huh? Does whatever you’re up to have to be done by midnight?” It was a cheap joke, and it fell flat.

He answered it seriously, however. “No, I would just rather not be out all night.”

When we made it down to the bottom of the stairs, we pulled out a pair of chairs that Rick and I had earlier deemed too rickety to bring upstairs. And John gave me a crash course on what he did and why he was there.

He confirmed that the stories we’d heard about the house belonging to a brujo family were absolutely correct. According to what he knew of the occurrences in the house, the incident that finally rid the family from the area was the arrival of a clan of witch hunters. Apparently, they were a group that travelled the country in search of practicers of the dark arts. Not just brujos and brujas, John said. They searched for anyone capable of witchcraft, regardless of its origins. There were many cultures that had passed the magical abilities down over generations, he said, and the hunters were not concerned with where it started. If it was dark, they would rid it.

While the hunters hadn’t succeeded in killing any of the family members, which was the only way to rid them of their powers, they had banished them from the home using natural methods – horseshoes, brass, hazel, salt, garlic, even urine. I almost interjected his story when he mentioned garlic; were it my mother telling the story, I would have cut in that garlic was for vampires. But I thought better of it. This man, if telling the truth, clearly knew more about the subject than I did.

Because different banishment methods worked differently for different types of witchcraft, he said they often utilized numerous options just to ensure it took. Some of the things may have had no effect whatsoever, but at least one of the techniques had worked.

When I asked what prevented them from returning, he had an answer at the ready. “A brujo family can never again reside in a home from which they’ve been eradicated. Though not a result of magic, per se, there is something lost from a home that once contained such power. Their brujería would never reach the heights it once had. That doesn’t, however, stop them from returning to the house on a non-permanent basis. Which is why I’m here tonight.”

“You think they’re here?” I asked, a touch of concern in my voice. I guess I was buying it after all.

He shook his head. “Not all of them. I don’t think they would all risk travelling back here together on the same occasion. It would be too risky. I believe one of them will be returning, though.”

“Why here, why tonight?”

He leaned in closer to me, and I felt sweat start to bead up on my forehead. This was one hell of a Halloween story. “Though their magical abilities will have dampened in the house, the family will still have a connection here. They lived here, practiced here, and so they will forever be tied to these grounds. When a large gathering such as this comes together on a place where they once lived, they can sense it.”

“So? If they can’t do magic here why would that matter?” I asked.

“It’s not that they can’t do magic, it’s just that it won’t be as powerful. But that’s neither here nor there. Brujos need human blood to stay young, to keep them alive and more or less immortal. Much of vampire lore was generated as a result of misunderstandings of what ancient brujos were. And they don’t need magic to extract that.” I remembered the moments from when I was a kid, listening to my mom’s tales at the kitchen table. She had told me basically that same exact thing. Maybe she was right after all.

“But still, why tonight?” He’d definitely created a stir in me. I thought I knew a hefty amount about the topic, but I was getting more from John than I had ever learned as a child. Or an adult, for that matter. I was eating up every word he was saying with a spoon.

“Halloween,” he said simply.

“You mean that kind of stuff is really true? Stuff like this is stronger around Halloween?” I swallowed. Of all the things to have a hint of truth to them, that was one I found surprising. While I loved the holiday, I always found the concept a little farfetched. Eerie things only happening primarily around that time of year? Convenient.

He chuckled, though not sarcastically. His eyes were steady as he spoke to me, his gaze firm. “Not at all. It’s that people let themselves become more afraid around the time, they believe things they wouldn’t normally believe. When those kinds of emotions come out in a person, it opens them up so much more to be an easy target.”

“Surely there have been countless Halloween parties thrown in this place, have they done this before?” I was concerned with what was unfolding, and disturbed that I could have led the entirety of my coworkers into certain danger. And if this had happened before, I clearly hadn’t done enough research on the place. While I knew the cost of renting the place was a bit exorbitant and that that it wasn’t a super popular party locale as a result, this couldn’t be the first time it risked the return of the brujos.

As was becoming commonplace with John, he shook his head again. “Not many. A few minor ones, usually due to teenagers breaking in and having their own little gatherings. But because the lot was owned by the bank for so long, and because it’s a relatively pricy rental, there haven’t really been groups of this size here all at one time.”

He had answers for everything I asked, and I was glad. My inquisitiveness was becoming almost insatiable. Still, I was unnerved. “So do you think one of them is here now?” I asked worriedly. “Did you find what you were looking for upstairs?”

“I don’t know if they’ve arrived yet, but I get the feeling something will go down tonight. I didn’t notice anything that caught my attention, but then again somebody kept distracting me.” We made eye contact and I blushed again, but he smiled at me. “I’m teasing you. It was a nice distraction. Sometimes I get so worked up in doing this that I forget that I’m human, too.” He placed his hand on my leg. I pretended not to notice.

“So, uh… is there anything I can do to help?”

He left his hand where it was, but kept the conversation alive. It was hard to focus with his hand that close to my crotch. “We’re probably looking for someone that’s aging… generally, if they’re going to send one of them, they’re going to send one who is more in need of rejuvenation. If it’s someone you know well, maybe someone that seems to be getting older at somewhat of a rapid pace.”

That didn’t narrow things down. The majority of the teachers at Desert Sands were aging. Many of them were forming wrinkles, moving slower, shrinking, greying…. That’s when it hit me. Rick. I’d never noticed until recently that he was going grey, that he had dark circles under his eyes.

I hesitated, unsure how to even mention it. John seemed to notice, though, and squeezed my leg gently. “Do you have something?”

“Well, there is my coworker, Rick. He’s always appeared relatively young, but lately I’ve been more aware that maybe he’s not as young as I thought.

John jumped up suddenly, almost knocking over his chair in the process. I wasn’t expecting the reaction, and I hopped up a bit myself. I guess the whole thing had me on the edge of my seat. John stared at me intensely. “Which one was Rick?” He had a fire in his eyes, and it scared me.

“Uh… he was, um… the T-Bird… from Grease,” I said nervously. What was this guy going to do? Was he going to do something to Rick? I realized how crazy it was all starting to sound, and how I may have just sold out one of my coworkers without even knowing what I was involved in.

Instead, thankfully, John sat back down. “Oh. I saw him. He’s not one of them.”

I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “When you’re a witch hunter, you can just tell. There’s a certain something about witches, brujos, Hexen, onibabas, what have you. I can’t explain it really, it’s just something you feel. Something you know. That guy, he’s just tired and in need of getting some.” Despite the heavy topic, I couldn’t help but smirk. John returned the smile. “Is there anybody in attendance tonight that you don’t generally see on a daily basis? Someone that doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the group?”

Griff. Of course. He was the one to show me the venue, he showed up unexpectedly even though he knew nobody here. But, if it was a brujo that we were looking for specifically, good old Caucasian Griff probably wasn’t a prime suspect. “Just one, but he’s white.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t have brujería somewhere in his ancestry!” I was concerned that he would jump up again, but he didn’t. And when I described Griff to him, he calmed down again. Apparently he’d seen him, too, and already ruled him out.

“Should we be getting back upstairs, though, if you truly believe that one of them is going to show up?” I asked. Part of that question was legitimate, because if we were really at risk of a witch showing up to bleed out one of my friends, I didn’t want to be lounging about in the basement. Another part of the question was a result of my rising paranoia and anxiety of being alone with John.

He glanced at the staircase leading back to the main floor. “Oh, um, yeah. I guess you’re right.” He looked back at me, a look on his face that was somewhere between sullen and mischievous.

“What?” Panic increasing.

“Okay, I can’t do this anymore. It was just a prank. Rick set me up to it,” he said. He furrowed his brow and slightly turned his face away from me, side-eying me. It seemed like he was trying to figure out if I would be mad.

But I laughed. I laughed hard. I was so not mad. It was an amazing prank. I had started falling for everything, and he really had me going. The only thing not believable was that Rick was the one that put him up to it. Rick was not someone I would consider to be a jovial, playful person. “That was epic. I am so impressed! The details were amazing, your acting was amazing. It was just… wow! But really, Rick?”

“Uh, yeah. I know. I guess he—”

“He probably wanted to make sure he got plenty of alone time with Sarah!” I realized. He knew she and I would spend a lot of the party together, so he probably put everything together to ensure I would be out of commission for at least a little while.

“Yeah, exactly,” John grinned.

“How do you know him, anyway?”

“Cousins,” he said simply.

“What made you come clean?”

He put his hand back on my leg, this time a little higher up than he had before. I felt myself stiffening underneath my costume. He shrugged, leaned in close. “I guess I just couldn’t bear the tension anymore.”

I’m honestly not quite sure what came over me. I attributed most of it to the drunkenness, another small portion to how hot he was, and just a smidge to the fact that I hadn’t been laid in a decent amount of time. Regardless, I was basically putty in his hands. He began taking off his clothes, but I undressed with somewhat of an embarrassing speed.

We stood before each other, naked, and I hardened more at the sight of his unclothed body. He had a six-pack, and his pecs were tight. He was toned in places I didn’t even know muscles existed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been intimate with someone so in shape. Approaching my mid-30s, I was lucky to find a man that looked like him that wanted to have sex with me. It wasn’t long before we were on the floor. He kissed me hard, his stubble scraping across mine, and he pushed my legs apart.

He slid himself into me easily. We didn’t have lube, but my combination of drunkenness and horniness allowed him smooth entrance. The music blaring upstairs would have drowned out any noise, but I bit back my moans anyway. The last thing I needed was for one of the other teachers to catch us.

He grabbed my waist roughly, digging hard into my skin. The sudden pain caught me by surprise, and I winced. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” he said, pulling away slightly and staring at me seriously. He ceased his thrusts, studying my face.

“Don’t stop,” I said breathlessly. It was far from the first time that sex had gotten a little rough, and definitely not something to stop a random hookup for. There were far more serious things that could happen between two men during sex.

Hesitantly, he regained his rhythm. Before long, he was back into it. Though he wasn’t overly large, he was hitting all the right spots. Either it had been too long since I’d had a good lay or he was just an expert at topping.

He came soon, another apology at his lips. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. He pulled out and rolled over onto his back beside me. I hated when guys apologized for quickly orgasming. It was a compliment, really, if they got off in a short amount of time. I took it to mean that they were turned on by me. But it didn’t really matter, because either way it had felt amazing.

He jerked me off, his expert fingers finding a rhythmic motion that brought me to orgasm easily. This man truly was something else. I found myself panting at release, my muscles gelatinous. My eyes closed involuntarily, and I couldn’t move. I felt at one with the floor. He hoisted himself up, bringing himself to a standing position with no effort at all. “Don’t move a muscle,” he said.

“Couldn’t if I wanted to,” I said, with a half-laugh. I still felt a tingle in my toes.

A sudden scent of what smelled like seawater wafted over me, and I forced my eyes open. Out of nowhere, Griff was there and lowering a very large, white hoop over me. I shook my head, incredulously. What the fuck was he doing?

“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up.

John was fully clothed now, and he threw my robe at me. I grabbed it midair, still confused. I watched him, and he smiled slyly. There was something completely different about him now. He seemed off. I didn’t want to believe that this was the same man that I’d just been with, but I knew it was.

Holding the fabric of my costume against my chest, I attempted to step toward him. But my foot wouldn’t move past the barrier of the white ring that surrounded me. “What the fuck is going on?” I uttered, become more terrified. I glanced back and forth between the two of them. “What is this?”

“That? Oh, that. That, dear Rámon, would be a crystallized circle of salt. It was crafted by the witch hunters that drove my family out of this house.”

I stared at him. Griff stood off to the side, smirking.

“While they couldn’t perform magic themselves, they sought out other wielders of ancient magics, white magic and that kind of bullshit. They had this thing made, crafted to be unbreakable. They wore it around themselves, and forced us out of this house.”

I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth now or trying to revamp the prank, but it was scaring me. I felt my lip quiver. “What are you talking about?”

“All the things I told you about what happened in this house were true. The witch hunters, the various tools they used to expel the family from the home that was rightfully theirs. Except I’m not a witch hunter. I’m part of that family.”

He didn’t seem like he was kidding. And if he was, he was a fucking lunatic. “But you said Rick—”

“I just used him as a cover. You mentioned his name, I went with it. We look like we could be related, right?” He laughed at me. “I had to get you open minded enough to believe everything I was telling you, to open up those fear receptors. Once I had that, I needed you to feel close enough to me so that I could get exactly what I needed from you. When humans come down from that high of feeling afraid, it makes their blood all the more effective.”

“B-but you didn’t get any of my blood,” I said.

He laughed again. “On the contrary. I’ll have you know, I’m rather expert at sex. I don’t just accidentally get carried away.”

I realized he was referring to when he gripped me by the waist. It hurt, but he hadn’t broken skin, right? I looked down to where he had grabbed me. Sure enough, four crescent moon marks from his fingernails marred my side. There was barely any blood. But considering his demeanor, I assumed it was enough.

He held up his hand so that I could see there were traces of red on his fingertips. “It wasn’t easy, but I made sure I didn’t lose any of it in the process of our intimacy. Or in preparing your little enclosure there. I wanted to make sure you saw me enjoy the fruits of our labor.” He watched me as he placed each finger into his mouth, his eyes suddenly deeper than they had appeared all night. The fact that he referred to what had just happened as intimacy made me sick.

Everything that was happening was so far out there that I could have only hoped that I was dreaming. But I knew I wasn’t. This was a real, fucked-up situation. “So if salt protects against witches, why could he touch this ring of salt and I can’t get across it?”

“Oh, see, Griff’s not a brujo. As you so eloquently pointed out, he’s white. And though I did suggest it earlier, he does not have any brujería ancestry in his blood. No other magic heritage, for that matter. But he makes for a good partner in crime. He’s not bad in the sack, either,” he said, and the two shared a knowing look with one another.

“That doesn’t explain why I can’t cross this thing,” I said, gritting my teeth. Anger was intermingling with my fear, and I didn’t know what to do. Here I was, naked aside from a stupid Halloween robe that I had clutched to my chest, stuck standing in the middle of some magically-enhanced salt crystal ring in front of a witch and his lover. It was the most asinine, bizarre thing that has ever happened to anyone, anywhere.

Once again, he laughed, and I was coming to really hate that sound. “It’s true we need blood to keep us young and rejuvenate ourselves. Unfortunately, the same human’s blood is only good once, or else I’d just keep draining Griff dry over here. But see, it works both ways. If a human gets brujo blood into their system… well, they’ve technically got some brujo DNA, now, don’t they?”

It wasn’t adding up. I hadn’t been in contact with his blood whatsoever. I knew that part wasn’t true. There was no way. “You’re not bleeding.”

“Blood isn’t the only fluid that carries DNA…” he trailed off.

Fuck.

We didn’t use a condom.

Goosebumps formed on my skin as soon as the realization hit. The reflex wasn’t the result of my lack of clothing; instead, I think I was fully coming to grips with what was happening. This was real, and it wasn’t something I could run away from. Literally. “What are you getting out of all this? Why are you doing this to me? You’ve got my blood, you said yourself you can’t use it again.”

He circled me. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. But I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t let him take away what little dignity I had left. As he had done a million times with me before, he provided me with an answer as if our entire interaction had been a scripted conversation. “I can’t, but my family can. You see, that DNA will be in your system for a while. Plenty of time for the rest of my family to get here. When they do, Griff here will simply remove the ring, and voila! Dinner is served.”

I fought back tears. This was so demented and twisted, I didn’t know what else to do but cry. I held them back though, as well as I could. “My friends, my friends will find me. They’re all still upstairs!”

Once again, he shared a look with Griff. “That’s true, that’s true. However, most of the guests will leave, and you’ll have Rick and… what was it, Sarah? They will probably come down in search of you. But after they see that you can’t cross over a ring of salt, after you brought them here, and you told them all about how this house was an old brujo house? That doesn’t look good on you.”

“They’ll never believe you!” I stammered. The tears had started to fall now. I truly felt like a child. I had never felt so incapable in my life. So small, inconsequential. What I wouldn’t have given to be back at my mother’s table, listening to the stories instead of being part of one.

He shrugged. “They might not believe me, you’re right. But Rick seems to know enough about the subject to know that brujos are notorious tricksters. That they’ll lie and say whatever they can to get you to believe them. They’ll probably be freaked out enough to flee, at least for a minute. Maybe try to get the cops down here. But hey… take that with a grain of salt.”

The two of them laughed uproariously as if it were the greatest joke ever told.

He continued. “By that point, my family will have come and gone. You’ll have provided us a great service. If nothing else, at least take pleasure in that.”

I didn’t know if he was right or wrong. I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I did need to know one thing. “Why me? Why, out of all the people you could have done this to, why me?”

He shrugged. “Why not you? You believed me. You were easy. You’re Mr. October.” He and Griff walked into the shadowy corner of the basement, up through a cellar door I hadn’t noticed before. Just as he was closing it behind him, he leaned back in. “Oh, and Ramón? Happy Halloween.”

End