SassyPear walks alongside daddy SassyPeach on the rocky and damn dirt road. They stroll along passing mailboxes to houses with big pumpkins on their porches. It’s the early evening, and a chilly wind blows against them, but they continue their journey. The sky is blue and orange as the sun sets. The fall leaves scatter their path, some sticking to their shoes.

Finally, they arrive at the farm, AssChicken’s Home. They pass chicken coups with many a desperate bok bok echoing into the air. They pass the pig pen, with an oink and snore from a big fella resting in the mud. Finally, they arrive at the Big House.

There, a Ford truck, stands idling with a flatbed covered in hay with hay bale seats. SassyPeach helps SassyPear up onto the truck and pays AssChicken five dollars. They are told that this will be a Spooky Hayride, and to prepare themselves. No one else joins them up on the bales of hay.

Finally, AssChicken puts the truck into gear, and they are off towards the dark forest. The trees are mostly bare, and there’s a crunch of the leaves and Twigs, as the truck slowly steers into the darkness. The slightest sliver of the sun is behind them, but to their front, they hear hooting and perhaps a growl.

SassyPeach holds SassyPear’s hand as they are enveloped into the trees. He knows this is going to be a spooky time, and there’s a long way to go until they’ll be back.

To Be Continued...

And we left them off, breaching the edge of the dark forest with SassyPeach holding SassyPear’s hand, comfortingly.

The trees swelled and cracking was heard as a gust powered through them. AssChicken’s feathers wafted around. There were cardboard ghosts and ghouls and plastic skeletons nailed to the trees, dripping with red candy syrup and neon green boogers donated by Hobbs.

The truck began to stall as they came up to a very small clearing in the trees. There they saw what appeared to be a wooden altar. Cheetara was slitting the throat of a goat. The blood poured onto the altar’s top, and smoke began to pour out of the eye holes of a skull that was atop it. The black smoke spiraled around the clearing in a circle, and SassyPear squeezed SassyPeach’s hand because all of the spooky fare began to look too real.

FutureStealer emerged through the smoke carrying a silver goblet of what appeared to be blood to hand to Cheetara. She took a large gulp of it, and the circled smoke on edges of the clearing turned to fire, and lit up the brown dead leaves of all the trees.

SassyPeach’s face, illuminated by the fire, stared at SassyPear with love, and fear for her. This only had cost him five dollars, but it looked like they were now alone in the hay on the flatbed truck… AssChicken had boked off into the woods, leaving them stranded at this ceremony of death.

And that was when they heard voices from the trees, faint at first, but becoming louder, repeating and echoing:

“The fruits must be juiced and boiled…”

To Be Continued...

And all there was suddenly, was silence, and darkness save for some moonlight creeping into the clearing.

The altar and its participants were gone. The blood. The fire. No Cheetara. No FutureStealer. No more.

SassyPeach and SassyPear sat on the hay waiting for something, but after about ten minutes of sitting, they felt that the show was over and they were stuck in the woods. They hopped off of the flatbed, and began to walk around where the altar was. The grass and ground in that area seemed untread and virgin.

They decided to try to venture back towards the farm, following the tracks that the truck had left. They saw the spooky ornaments on the trees again, but then they saw trees that they hadn’t seen before. These trees seemed carved or perhaps clawed. They continued on in the direction they had been going, and when they saw some light, they sped up their pace.

A few moments later, as they reached the light, they found themselves back in the small and empty clearing. They saw some feathers in the center, but no AssChicken in sight. They turned back around, trying to venture back towards the farm, watching their steps to make sure they didn’t go back in a circle again.

Rain began to fall, hard, bringing down leaves on them. The kind of rain that you can’t tell which direction it’s coming from, up or down. They began to run through the forest, and they saw a cave. As they approached the cave, they saw the flickering of a campfire, and thought maybe that there was someone inside who could help them…

To Be Continued...

After a few steps into the cave towards the flickering flames, both SassyPeach and SassyPear, tumbled over themselves. SassyPeach lovingly wiped some dirt off of SassyPear’s cheek, and they took in their new surroundings near a small campfire out of the rain.

There was no one in the cave. It was not a particularly deep cave; they could see everything from where they sat. They moved closer to the fire to dry off. SassyPear had a bruise on her shoulder, and SassyPeach kissed it to make it better. They fell asleep for a little bit… until they heard some rustling outside.

“So sweetses,” cackled the being outside.

“We needs it. We needs the sweetses.”

SassyPeach and SassyPear moved themselves into a darker part of the cave. Smigly crawled into the cave wet from the rain. He was gaunt and dirty. He rolled around in the dirt to dry himself off, but only ended up muddying himself.

“And so the fruiteses is in me forest. Gonna squeeze themses dry.”

Smigly reached into a dark corner on the side of the cave opposite the Sassy family. Something metal and glass glimmered in the lights of the campfire’s flames. SassyPeach and SassyPear couldn't quite make out what it was, but it looked like a weapon. Smigly turned again towards the corner, and this was when SassyPeach and SassyPear took their chance.

They scurried out of the cave quickly. With Smigly taken by surprise, he could not chase them fast enough. They ran and ran, until SassyPeach bumped his head into a tree.

A scared SassyPear sat there on a dry patch by that tree, holding her father who had not yet awoken. She wiped some rain off of his forehead, and the two of them sat still in the woods, alone.

To Be Continued...

“Daddy.”

“Daddy.”

SassyPear shook her daddy SassyPeach to wake. He did. Opening his eyes and finding himself still in the forest, safe under a tree. The two of them got back up, and it was almost 1 A.M. They tried to follow the moon in their steps. They saw some light ahead, and realized it was only AssChicken’s truck’s headlamps still on. Back in the circle, they got inside the truck, to find that AssChicken had taken the keys.

They heard groaning outside, and decided they needed to run again. They ran out of the truck and back into the trees, speeding along as fast as they could. Smigly, FutureStealer, and Cheetara were on their tail again, and they cut them off. They stood in front of the fruits, with Smigly holding a frighteningly large blender. The Sassies looked up at him and the blender, tremoring in fear, as there is nothing scarier to fruits.

It was then that SassyPear looked towards her daddy. She smiled at him, and said, “Daddy, he doesn’t have an outlet.”

Smigly and his war machine vanished into a mist in the air, and they made their way back to AssChicken’s farm. They found AssChicken making them hot chocolate.

SassyPear chirps to him, “But I wanted apple cider.”

THE END