Trick
or Treat
By Cheezey
Just as he had sat back down on the couch once again, Cossack heard the irritating sound of the door alarm buzz again. “Aw,” he grumbled, “not again!”
It was Halloween on Doom, one of the many holidays that they had stolen from another world in their galaxy. Despite its ominous name, Doom had the reputation of being a hedonistic planet, and their nobility loved any reason to throw a party. Any excuse to kick back with wine, watch a good fight in the arena, and break out the scantily clad pleasure slaves was a-ok in their book.
As a result the Doomites celebrated many holidays. The vast pantheon of gods they worshipped and their associated festivals alone assured that there were at least three each standard month, but they also “borrowed” holidays from other planets, absorbing the fun ones into their culture for themselves.
One such holiday was the one called Halloween. Back on its planet of origin, Halloween was a day where children dressed up in costumes—preferably scary ones of evil, undead, nasty creatures from beyond the grave—and went around in said costumes soliciting candy obtained under the phrase “trick or treat.” The presumption was if you were cheap with candy and refused to part with the sweets, that ticked off the spirits the holiday celebrated—who on Doom were devious entities that conveniently worked for the god of death, the astral world, and taxes—and gave the kids free license to do nasty stuff to you with their aid. The adults meanwhile alternately dressed up and passed out the candy, or dressed up in slutty costumes, drank a little too much pumpkin wine, and hit on the nearest hot body wrapped in a sheet at the local Halloween party.
Or so that was Doom’s translation of the holiday. Sure, back on Earth it had some other roots as a pagan festival of the end of harvest or some kind of stuff like that, but that was not nearly as much fun as throwing an evil costume party in honor of the god of death and his astral underlings.
Cossack unfortunately had not made it to his costume party yet. He had been all ready to head out in his costume—a bright red demon outfit with a pitchfork and a sign that fit perfectly on his fleet helmet that read “horny little devil”—but his slave had mistakenly shrunk the pants in the wash. Since no one would take a demon in flood pants seriously, he had to wait until a new pair was located and since his slaves were off on that mission he was stuck answering his own door for the Doom trick-or-treaters.
Knock, knock!
“Again?” he grumbled, grabbing his pitchfork. Didn’t the kids on Doom have better places to go than the fleet commander’s quarters? He supposed not. Castle Doom always was a good candy score he remembered from his own days trick-or-treating there in his childhood, and the ghosts from all the tortured victims in the castle dungeons always made for a fun spooky time going to all the rooms for freebies and handouts.
That time there was no gaggle of children, only one tall kid in what had to be one of the ugliest costumes he had ever seen. Dressed in a drab brown robe, a hideous mold-green wart covered mask, and carrying a knotted old wooden staff was the most convincing Haggar costume that Cossack had ever seen, complete with a blue cat trailing behind it that bore more than a slight resemblance to Coba.
Eyes glowing fiendishly, the trick-or-treater looked up at Cossack expectantly as he opened the door.
Caught of guard by the incredible quality of the costume when most of the kids he’d seen had been wrapped in sheets and bad masks, Cossack gasped before a dopey grin crossed his features. “Whew, kid, you had me there for a minute! That’s gotta be the best one I’ve seen all night,” he said, passing a thick candy bar the kid’s way. “You’re even uglier than the real thing!” He handed the trick-or-treater a second candy bar. “Have another on me and go scare the guys in the command center. They’ll get a laugh out of you. Haggar’s always pissing them off.” With that he shut the door and helped himself to an ooey gooey caramel crisp bar, followed by a swallow of beer.
There was another knock at the door a moment later. “Boy, I just don’t get a break,” he said, and turned around to open the door again with the candy bowl in hand. On the other side was the kid in the witch costume again.
“Ah, ambitious, aren’t you?” he said with a knowing laugh. “Well, since you put so much effort into looking that ugly, I’ll give you credit for trying. The cat’s a nice touch.” He tossed another candy bar the kid’s way as “Coba” came by and rubbed up against his ankles. “Now go give King Zarkon a good scare!”
He shut the door again and set the candy bowl down.
Knock, knock!
“No rest for the evil,” Cossack sighed as he picked up the bowl yet again and answered the door.
The Haggar wannabe was still there, and this time “she” was scowling at him and brandishing her staff in an almost threatening manner. He noticed that the kid even managed to get it to spark with fake magic. Hmm, must’ve splurged at one of those upscale costume stores, he mused as he beheld the ugly costume.
“All right,” he said with a somewhat impatient tone. “You’re lucky Cossack the Terrible is a nice guy and a sucker for a good costume. But I mean it, this is the last time, okay? I mean yeah, you’re ugly as sin and could scare the scales off every robeast in the pens outside, but I’m not gonna give you the whole bowl no matter how butt ugly you are.”
The scowl on the costumed child’s face deepened. “Cossack, you idiot—”
The commander laughed as he roughly slapped a peanut cluster into the witch’s scaly hand, “Hahahaha! You even got her voice down pat, down to that annoying screech and everything. I bet you practiced that for days, huh?”
The staff began to spark visibly. “You oaf, when I’m through with you…”
“Yeah yeah, I know, you’ll zap me and turn me into robeast chow, right?” Cossack laughed again, and sighed good-naturedly. “All right, what the hell, I’ll double you up on another one just because you’ve given me so many laughs.”
With that he stuffed a squishy nougat into the witch’s burlap hood, and patted the costumed kid’s head roughly, causing it to mush down against the scalp underneath. “Have a good one, kid!”
An unintelligible noise of irate frustration came from the little witch, and just as Cossack turned to go back inside, he felt the sting of magic energy across his ass.
“Hey! That’s pretty…”
His voice trailed off as he turned around and looked eye to eye with the little Haggar in front of him as the realization began to dawn on him. “Uh, please tell me you bought that in a magic store?”
“No.” Her raspy voice was cold as ice.
Cossack’s head lowered. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
The staff tapped against the floor. “Yup.”
Laughing sheepishly, Cossack held up a candy bar in front of her in the vain hopes that giving chocolate to her would appease her. It worked for most women; he’d learned that much in his years dating them. Flashing her a fanged toothy smile, he replied, “Trick or treat?”
* * *
An hour later, Zarkon sipped at his festive orange Halloween punch from a golden skull goblet on his throne. The Halloween party was in full swing, and everyone who was anyone in Doom’s court was in attendance. The king himself was wearing a sheet that said “Boo,” not the most original costume but no one was dumb enough to criticize the mighty feared tyrant of Doom to speak up and say that.
Haggar sat at his side holding her glass. She had opted not to dress up; she found the whole costume thing silly and figured if she wanted to change her appearance all she had to do was wave her staff. She preferred to sit back as she was and watch the rest of the fools on Doom make idiots of themselves, as she had just finished explaining to Zarkon a moment ago.
“Speaking of idiots,” Zarkon said casually as he glanced over at Cossack, walking strangely as he passed by the punch bowl in his repaired demon outfit, “what happened to the rest of his? Isn’t it supposed to have a pitchfork?”
Haggar smiled. “Oh, it does, but he couldn’t bring it. Poor thing had an accident with it earlier and got it wedged somewhere unpleasant.”
“Ouch,” Zarkon remarked. “How’d he manage that? Did he piss off one of the costumed little imps stomping around the castle?”
A wicked grin spread across the witch’s warty face. “You could say that.”
Trick or treat indeed, she thought slyly, and took a hearty swallow from her goblet.
The End
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