Chapter 28：The Witch, the Knight, and the Hotdog

Red's hometown, Timber Ridge, was known for being the place to go for the holidays, and Halloween was no exception. With haunted mountain trails, large festivals and plenty of baked sweets, Timber Ridge use to have lots of tourists during the month of October, until The Demon Wolf showed up. However, when Gerald was banished a heavy weight was lifted off of the townsfolk and they were able to feel safe and at peace. With the air light and cheery now, the townsfolk reopened the town for Halloween, catching the world by surprise.

It didn't take long for tourists to come pouring in. The town's supermarket changed to a huge Halloween store for the season. Though she knows about Halloween, this is Red's first time celebrating it.

"Look at that!" Red exclaims, full of excitement as she runs over to a large animatronic scarecrow. Where eyes should be, black paint covers to give the impression that the inside is hollow, fake straw sticks out from its flannel as it sits on a barrel hunched over and staring at the ground. Red steps on a sensor mat in front that says, "Step on me!" but nothing happens.

"Aw, come on," Red says as she presses a foot on the mat over and over. Jerard walks up to her as he pushes a cart.

"Red, I don't think it's gonna-"

"Boo!" The scarecrow suddenly exclaims as it straightens up and leans towards Red, who screams a bit. Her and Jerard both jump back a bit, Red laughing a bit as the scarecrow resets.

"We should get one!" Red exclaims as she turns to her dad. Jerard looks at the price tag, it reads: "$199.99"

"...Why don't we look around the rest of the store first, okay sweetie?" Jerard suggests, "We just entered the store and haven't even looked to the costumes to get ideas of what we want to dress up as,"

"Alright…" Red says with some disappointment.

They head to the far right of the store where lots of costumes are, tons of townsfolk and tourists alike all searching for stuff. Red finds one labeled "Red Riding Hood".

"Was I nicknamed after this?" Red asks as she holds up the costume bag.

"Ew," She comments on the last part. Looking around something catches her eye. A simple witch costume, but it's made of a fabric that has a red sparkle to it.

"I wanna be a witch!" She exclaims as she holds the costume bag up, "Can I, can I?!" She asks excitedly. Jerard can't help but chuckle a bit at seeing how excited she is, he never thought he would be able to be the one to do something with Red first, and being a part of her first Halloween couldn't make him happier.

"Of course you can," He says with a warm smile as he puts the costume bag in the cart. Red continues to look at the other costumes, spending judging if they're better than the witch costume. Though a burger costume and a pirate costume catch her eye, they can't compare to the witch costume.

"Let's go find you something now," Red says after looking at all her options.

"Alright," Jerard replies seconds before Red hurries off to where costumes for grown ups are. He quickly starts pushing the cart to try and keep up. As he catches up Red starts sifting through all the costumes.

"Do I look like you?" Red asks as she holds a wolf mask over her face. Jerard chuckles a bit.

"A little bit," Red puts the mask back and grabs a giant fake mustache.

"How about now?"

"Like the spitting image of me,"

Red laughs a bit as she puts the beard back and continues to look through the costumes.

"What about...this one?" She holds up a hot dog costume.

"No,"

"This one?" She grabs a vampire costume.

"No,"

"This one?" She holds up a barbarian costume. The shirt is brown with some fur around the neck and has nothing in the middle showing the upper body. The shorts are an awkward length being just above the knees and look like they'd chafe.

"No,"

"This one?" She holds up a makeshift knight costume. The shirt is a grey long sleeve with makeshift armor plating to go with. There's no helmet but a round piece of plating to go over the shoulders. The pants are grey and also have armor plates.

"Yes,"

Red puts the costume in the cart and continues looking at the costumes.

"What do you think grandpa would want to be?" She asks.

"Hmm," Jerard stares at all the different costumes before picking up the hot dog costume, "I'm sure he would pick this one,"

"Really?" Red asks, laughing a bit, as Jerard puts it in the kart.

"Oh yeah, he'll love it," Jerard says with a lying smile.

As they start making their way to the decoration side of the store, they pass by a man with dark brown hair browsing the costumes. As Jerard walks past them, his nose catches a strange scent, the scent of a dog. Jerard looks around to see if perhaps someone has brought in a service dog or something, but there's no dog in sight. He glances at the man, whose the closest person to him.

"Dad, you alright?" Red asks, noticing that he stopped for seemingly no reason.

"Hm, oh, yeah," He says, following Red. The man glances at Red and Jerard as they walk away, chuckling a bit before looking back to all the costumes.

After spending over an hour shopping, the cart is filled with lawn ornaments, stickers for windows, a doormat, lots of decorations for the house, and of course some bags of candy.

"Can we get the scarecrow?" Red asks as they pass by the large open area in the store where various spooky animatronics are on display.

"Uh…" Jerard looks down at the cart that's filled to the brim with stuff that no doubt is going to add up real quick, "You're gonna have to wait till we get home and ask your grandpa for that," He answers to Red's disappointment. Going to check out, everything totals up to be almost three hundred dollars.

"You like scary things?" A man asks. Red and Jerard turn to see the man with dark brown hair walking up to them. He's in an orange flannel with a black undershirt and dark blue jeans, a five o'clock shadow similar to Jerard's. He has warm smile with raised eyebrows showing interest.

"Yeah, but we've already got a bunch of other stuff we gotta buy," Red replies.

"If you want spooky thrills for a low price," He pulls out a small card from his pocket and hands it to Red, "Come by the Haunted Willows Trail, though it's best to get your tickets for it asap, prices go up in a couple days. If you go, keep an eye out for me, I'll be one of the actors on the trail," And with that the man walks away to look at some of the other animatronics. Red looks at the simple car with an intrigued look.

"And I thought groceries were expensive," Jerard comments as he puts his pin in for his card. They leave the store and pack everything into Jerard's new truck and head off home.

Red pulls the card out of her jacket pocket and looks at it. The card is pure white with an orange stripe at the top. The name "Haunted Willows Trail" underneath a picture of some trees surrounding a pumpkin with a carved face and a full moon behind it. Next to the picture is a phone number and a website. Red glances out the window at the town, full of life once more, but now with a spooky thrill. Fake cobwebs are plastered over most of the buildings, some ven having giant spiders on them. The town park is decorated to the brim with a mountain of carved pumpkins done by townsfolk and tourists.

Arriving at their fully repaired home, they bring the bags of decorations inside where grandpa Randy is sitting in a recliner watching a recording of a football game. Randy pauses the game and gets up to help them unpack all the bags.

"Whose the hot dog costume for?" Randy asks as he holds up the costume bag.

"For you," Red answers as she starts putting some stickers on a the front windows.

"Well I'll be damned, Christmas came early for me," Randy says with a smirk as he pictures himself showing up to work wearing it. He chuckles mischievously as he puts it back in the bag with Red and Jerard's costumes. Within the hour the whole house has been spookified, with fake cobwebs on the front porch, some zombie gnomes in the garden, and Randy sitting in his recliner watching the game once more, already wearing the hot dog costume as he takes a sip from his beer.