4.

T he first few hours of Halloween morning were always the hardest. Zeke sprouted legs along with the rest of his body. Everything returned to normal. It had been fifty years, but he still had the same body he'd had when the curse was placed on him.

He found himself stretching, sprawling out on the attic floor, and finally able to stand up on his feet. By the time he was able to walk normally, it was morning, and the family who lived in the house downstairs had left for work.

It was the daytime that was the hardest for Zeke.

Over the years, he'd tried many ways to find a mate. He'd tried to talk to women at parties, and he'd attempted to tell them about his curse.

They'd laughed or they'd run away.

He'd been labeled as crazy.

A few times, angry boyfriends had tried to kill him, but Zeke had always managed to escape. Somehow, he suspected that his luck was wearing thin. He was running out of time to find someone to love him. Worst of all, he was running out of hope.

Tonight would be different. It was his last night before his last night. Next year, the curse would be fifty years old. It would be solid enough to bind him into a pumpkin forever, and there was nothing Zeke would be able to do to break free.

Once the curse was set, it would be irreversible unless someone killed Eleanor, the witch who had placed the curse.

And nobody was going to kill Eleanor. She was weak now while her energy went into cementing the spell, but once it was complete, her strength would be returned, and she'd return to being the monster she had been all of those years ago.

Sometimes Zeke wondered what would have happened if he'd given her a chance. If he'd looked at Eleanor twice, could he have avoided being thrust into a weird immortal nightmare?

Once he finished regaining his walking skills, Zeke slipped downstairs. He rummaged in the master bedroom until he found a pair of pants to wear, along with a pair of shoes. He needed both things to be able to go out into the world. He couldn't fit regular shirts over the pumpkin mask, which was still where his head should be, but he found a zippered sweatshirt and used that.

Then he left the house.

Zeke looked back. He'd lived in that house for an entire year. A whole year, and he hadn't learned anything new about the family at all. They'd kept out of the attic, mostly, which felt like a sort of tragedy.

How had he wasted an entire year?

This year, if he didn't manage to fall in love - and Zeke had truly started to lose hope about twenty years ago - he wanted to be placed with a family who would be interesting. Maybe he could situate himself near people who were nerdy or gothic.

Could he find a nice family who decorated for Halloween year-round?

"Nice costume." A kid running by Zeke yelled out. The kid was definitely late for school.

"Thanks." He didn't want to say anything deeper, like "life is meaningless," or "don't get cursed by a witch."

Both of those comments were wildly true, but also would seem dramatic without context.

Zeke headed first for the cemetery where his mother was buried. He spent a few minutes talking to her, letting her know that he was okay. He suspected somehow that she could hear him. It wasn't true, of course, but he couldn't bring himself to say goodbye.

He was disappointed with himself for not being around when she had died. He should have been there, but it wasn't like Mom could have planned to die on Halloween so that he'd be around.

After, Zeke walked quietly down the sidewalk to the building where he'd grown up. He'd spent his human life in the little carpentry shop, the next-door fabric place, and the apartments upstairs. The two units had been just one, but after he'd been cursed, Mom and Dad had been forced to divide the apartment, so they could sell one half.

Zeke walked up to the carpentry shop. His father would be waiting for him.

Only, the shop was dark. No, it was vacant.

"Dad?" Zeke said the words by the door. If his father was inside, he'd answer right away, but he didn't. Zeke tried the doorknob. The building was locked.

Dad always left the door unlocked on Halloween.

There was a sinking feeling in his chest. Zeke made his way around the back of the building, and he tried the back door. This one was locked, too, but it would be far less obvious to break a window in the back. He slid his hand into the sweatshirt sleeve, punched through the glass, and reached through to open the door.

That was it.

He was inside.

"Father?"

Silence.

"Dad?"

Nothing.

A stillness swept over Zeke's aching heart. Had his father died? He had already missed his mom's death. He didn't want to believe he'd missed Dad's, too.

There had only been one grave in the cemetery plot, though. His parents had planned to be buried side-by-side, so it didn't make sense to Zeke that his dad might be dead but buried elsewhere.

No, there had to be another explanation.

As he stood in the center of his father's dusty shop, he looked toward the front of the store. Through the window, Zeke saw two women standing in front of the space. They were beautiful: both of them. One of them, though, caught his eye.

She was tall, curvy, and had beautiful dark hair. She was dressed in a messy, bloody dress, and she had messy, bloody hair. It was a costume, he knew. She was supposed to be ugly, but she wasn't.

Somehow, he knew this woman was never ugly.

Zeke wanted to reach out, to call out to her. He wanted to ask her if she knew where the owner of the shop was, but he didn't.

Instead, Zeke did the next best thing.

He left.