The Cereal Killer
My sister and I like Halloween. Not that we’re those kinds of people who spend enormous amounts of time and money on costumes, but we make sure we have fun regardless. As for my brother?
We don’t talk about him.
He’s one of those guys that is too cool for Halloween. Him? Wear a costume? Never! He was much too mature for Halloween and much too busy playing computer games. Which might have been okay, if it weren’t for the party…
At our church, there is this huge annual Halloween party with games, candy, and prizes galore. We don’t live in a neighborhood full of candy givers, so the promise of chocolate was enough for us.
For this particular Halloween, my sister and I dressed up in lovely Chilton dresses as Greek goddesses; she was Athena and I was Selene. My brother?
“Grif, there’s a Halloween party at church,” my sister and I said to him as he played on his computer.
“Yup.”
We hesitated for a moment, but he ignored us. “Would you like to go to it?”
“Sure.”
We waited another minute. “You have to have a costume.”
I’m not sure whether he heard us or not, but we gave up on him and began to dress up in our own costumes with our long pretty sleeves. I was walking out when suddenly I was confronted by a bizarre sight…
My brother had a cereal box in his hand. More specifically, he had the empty cereal box we had thrown in the trash earlier that morning.
“What are you doing with that?” I asked carefully.
“I’m going to be a cereal killer.”
“What!”
But he only smiled and walked to the car.
The Halloween party was, as usual, very interesting. There was lots of games and candy, which was fine. But the main event was the costume contest. There were categories for everything – the prettiest costume, the strangest costume, the funniest costume (I think our priest won that for dressing up as a cannibal), and more. My sister and I didn’t win, as usual. The judges were picking younger, cuter kids than us, and that was okay. But when the scariest costume came up, my blood ran cold.
Grif was there. More specifically, Grif was there, holding an empty cereal box in his hand and prancing around as if he was the happiest person around. But then, as he looked at his competition, his eyebrows furrowed. His opponents were mean-looking, fake blood spurting from their face and eyes and every other body part. That would never do! If he wanted to win, he would have to try something else…
So, to my horror, he took a big bite of the cereal box and spat it on the floor, giving a squawk like a rabid raccoon. I stared at him in disbelief.
Oh. My. Gosh.
He never did win that contest, but I’m not quite sure why. There’s nothing quite as scary as a cereal killer…