Page 10 of Dead Serious Halloween Special

Suddenly the book flies open, the pages fanning widely. A strong breeze pushes my hair back, knocking off the beanie I’d forgotten I was still wearing. A neon green mist rises from the pages and fills the room.

“What the hell?” Dusty gasps. “Turn it off.”

“I don’t know how!” I say, panicked.

“Tristan, close it!” Harrison dives forward and slams the book shut. The strange coloured mist has gone, but the book feels ominously lighter in my hands.

“Ohhhh.” I wince slowly. “That can’t be good.”

“What just happened?” Chan asks with wide eyes.

I glance over Harrison’s shoulder and do a double take. “Can you see that?” I point.

Three pairs of eyes follow my finger to the trail of glittery footprints leading across the room.

“What the?—?”

I scramble to my feet, still clutching the now quiet book to my chest, and follow the childlike footprints towards the back of the shop. They’re exactly the same as the ones I saw earlier in the mortuary.

Harrison is beside me as we creep along the passageway. I can hear the click of Dusty’s heels and Chan’s breaths as they follow closely behind us. Although it’s early afternoon and there’s still daylight outside, the whole shop is dark thanks to the narrow Victorian corridors and the fact that Chan has covered all the windows in the place with Halloween-themed posters to create a kind of house of horror effect.

We follow the sparkly footprints out into the narrow back corridor which leads past the stairs to the kitchen. The dim glow of the fairy lights falls away, leaving us in darkness. As we edge closer to the kitchen, I can hear a glugging sound, followed by a loud belch.

“I’ve got this,” Chan whispers. He pulls his phone from his pocket and flicks the flashlight on, then holds it up to light the way. I probably should have thought of that, but I’m too busy clutching the huge old book as a potential weapon. Failing all else, I’m pretty sure I could knock an intruder out with this thing, but something deep in my gut tells me this isn’t your average burglar, not unless one of those has four toes and glittery footprints.

The four of us tiptoe into the kitchen and pause in the doorway as Chan lifts the phone higher. He needn’t have bothered. The fridge door stands open, the light spilling out into the dark kitchen and highlighting one of the strangest sights I’veever seen—and trust me, I’ve seen Death in a pair of Speedos and cowboys boots, which is a long story from which I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover.

But this time my eyes must surely be playing tricks on me because highlighted in the glow of the fridge is a small, fat, hairy creature with a protruding belly. He’s maybe three feet tall and dark wiry tufts of hair sproutall over his body… his verynakedbody.

His head is tipped back and he’s holding a large carton of milk to his mouth, the creamy white liquid spilling down his hairy chest and belly, matting the sparse fur.

Chan fumbles in shock and loses his grip on his phone, which clatters loudly to the floor. The creature startles. Dropping the carton to the floor, he blinks at us with small, black, beady eyes. His droopy jowls jiggle with a squeak of surprise and then he turns and launches himself at the wall, his jiggly naked buttocks disappearing in a splat of green glitter.

For a long moment, we all stand in stunned silence until Dusty breaks the detente with a loud exclamation.

“What in the hairy ball sack was that?”

My phone rings once again in my pocket. Sliding it out, I check the screen and feel a scowl settle over my face. One spiteful stab of my finger silences the incessant noise, then I shove it back into my pocket, where it continues to vibrate against my thigh.

Fucking work, fucking Butler.

It’s well into the afternoon and he’s had me chasing my tail all day, sending me all over the place on pointless tasks. I couldn’t even call what I was doing police work anymore, and I’m not sure I even have it in me to fight back.

As much as the thought of letting that prick and all the other homophobes win galls me, what would I really be fighting for? I know for a fact that DCI Butler hates me because I married a man. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. My work record stands for itself—I’m highly decorated and well respected, with several high-profile cases under my belt. Solved cases, I might add. I have a reputation for being fair and personable. But none of that counts. Butler’s old school, and he doesn’t like ‘my kind.’ I know because I overheard a conversation not meant for my ears.

Usually, I’d be the first one standing up for queer rights, the way I did with Sam when we were both still up north, but things have changed.

I’ve changed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still just as important to stand up for LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace and to fight discrimination, but I find my mind wandering to a different place more and more recently.

All the things I’ve experienced in the past couple of years have taught me that the world is not as black and white as I once thought it was. There’s no divide down the middle, with one side about upholding the law and the other about breaking it.

Justice exists in many shades of grey.

I have no doubt in my mind that Issac Crawshanks got everything he deserved for what he did to the real Detective Byrnes and especiallyforwhat he did to Viv. I keep circling back around to her. To what her life had been like. Carrying the weight of a centuries-old burden, feeling she had no choice but to give up her child and hide him, thinking she was saving him only for him to end up being almost killed anyway.

I’m starting to think there’s no escaping fate.