Trick or Treat Stop

The vibrator whirred down as I let the final wave of orgasm wash over me. I lay on top of my sleeping bag, watching sunlight create shadows across the top of my tent and warming me in my post-cum bliss.

Three months on the road and the thing I missed the most from civilization was a hard fuck.

Not running water, or central heating, or Wi-Fi. No, what I missed was a good pounding that left me breathless.

Solo traveling has its perks, don't get me wrong. Being able to disconnect, take in the sights of beautiful Mother Nature, and figure out how to fend for yourself on the daily has been a wonderful... experience. But this late in the year, nights were getting colder, stretches between campsites were getting longer, and finding anyone to fuck who didn't give off murderer vibes was nearly impossible.

I shuddered to think how I would have managed to stay sane without my pocket rocket.

The air outside the tent was crisp as I stepped out in the bright morning light. Yellow and orange leaves rained down. I shivered as the chill crept up my spine.

Camping in late fall was ideal if you wanted to avoid crowds yet enjoy the beautiful foliage, but you only have until Halloween to enjoy it before snow suddenly threatens your comfort.

Today was Halloween, so I had to find the best route south so I didn't end up freezing in a surprise blizzard.

Voices carried toward me as I put away the tent and the rest of the camping gear.

"I am telling you, it was the rest stop out near Yellowstone."

"That's impossible. That is such a heavily visited area that more people would be talking about it."

Two men walked past, heading toward the nearest trailhead. The one in a bright orange beanie had a grin that spread from ear to ear as he walked, gazing fondly toward the sky.

"The Reddit boards say that it happens frequently around this time of the year."

His friend, who stood a head taller and wore a red trapper with matching coat, shook his head, scorn on his face.

"I still say bullshit."

"I don't know, man. Anything is possible in this crazy world."

"Most of the comments on Reddit say the Rest Stop is somewhere in Appalachia, though," Trapper guy stated gruffly, as if he didn't believe a single word his friend was uttering.

"Well, maybe it isn't a single rest stop," Beanie guy stated excitedly, as if he had just solved a mystery.

"You think there is a secret network of people going around fucking travelers in rest stops on Halloween?" Trapper guy asked derisively.

My ears perked up at his words. I'd had a few dirty fantasies about rest stops while traveling. I'd been so horny at moments that I had stared a little too long at truckers before I regained clarity by reminding myself of all those Dateline episodes.

"That is the only thing that makes sense, if you think about it." Beanie guy tapped his head with his index finger. "Unless..." He suddenly paused as if waiting for the new thought to fully form in his head.

"Unless what?" his friend asked impatiently.

"What if it's not people?" he said in a hushed voice.

"What are you even talking about?"

"All woods carry legends about creatures, beings that stalk you between the trees." His voice was serious now.

"Are you drunk right now?"

Beanie guy turned in my direction and that smile returned, as if he were trying to communicate with me through it. It sent a weird tingle through my body as he held my gaze.

"Stop being a creep." Trapper guy punched him in the shoulder, and he turned away from me.

Their conversation faded as they walked further away, and I immediately took my cell phone out of my back pocket to Google 'fucking at rest stops USA Reddit.'

The page failed to load. In my excitement, I had forgotten that I was in a dead zone. No service until I was back on the main highway.

I had gotten pretty fast and efficient at packing up camp, but that morning I set a new record for myself, and I was down at the roadside diner with the early bird special crowd.

All at least 40 years my seniors.

The Silver Spoon was a modest diner that was decorated in a classic vintage 1950s style. The booths and stools had shiny chrome accents and were upholstered in a bright red leather. A look that it maintained for decades, not because it wanted to be a themed restaurant, but because it wasn't too interested in modernizing.

The type of diner that decorated for each holiday with decor that was as old as the building itself.

Orange and purple ribbons hung off the bar and wrapped around the stools, decals of grinning jack-o'-lanterns half peeling off the windows. Rubber bats hung from the ceiling rafters, and if you looked closely enough, some were rats that had wings glued on. A life-size witch holding a cauldron with a green potion--only the potion was made of fake dollar bills illuminated by string lights. I pocketed a few just in case they became useful later.

I tried every keyword possible to find out more information about these so-called 'rest stop escapades' that I heard those two campers talking about. The service on my cell phone was terrible, the pages buffered slowly before they timed out completely.

I was getting nowhere.

The waitress came over to refill my cup of coffee for the third time.

"Just 'cuz the coffee refills are free, don't mean you aren't expected to order food," she grumbled as she filled the mug only a bit above the halfway line and placed a large laminated menu in front of me.

"I'll have two scrambled eggs and a side of wheat toast," I ordered without looking at the menu. I had been to plenty of diners like this around the country since I started my travels to know that that was the cheapest item on the menu.

The waitress came back with my food, and I stuffed it quickly in my mouth.

The eggs were runny, and the toast was stale.

Always be nice to your waitstaff, folks.

I ate as much as I could, trying not to think about the spit that the waitress almost definitely added as a special touch.

Like trains leaving the station, everyone got up at the same time and headed out. I went to pull out my debit card when I caught sight of the "CASH ONLY" sign taped next to the "NO Wi-Fi." I reached into my pants pocket and realized I did not have enough cash to cover my meager breakfast.

The diner didn't have an ATM, and the nearest one was 8 miles down the road at the super expensive gas station.

What a hassle. I wasn't about to do all of that after swallowing a shitty meal. I reached for the witch's bills inside my hoodie pocket, added a few of them in with the real cash, and followed the herd out. I pushed through quickly before the waitress realized I was a couple of real dollars short on my bill.

"A trick begets a trick, tonight," a voice whispered at my ear as I tried to push my way through toward the exit.

I looked over my shoulder and standing behind me was an old man. He was tall and thin, like someone who had lost a ton of weight too quickly. His orange plaid shirt had dark coffee stains splattered across the front, and he wore loose suspenders draped across each shoulder, holding up worn jeans that sagged around his waist. When our eyes met, he tilted his head toward the table I had been sitting at.

I turned away from him, not wanting to get into a conversation or get caught short-changing the restaurant.

"A treat on the roads less traveled."

"What are you talking about?"

He was smiling at me, his grin wide, reaching from ear to ear. Eyes glazed and distant as if he were no longer looking at me but at something far away. A memory.

Then his gaze shifted toward me, and with that same smile he said, "If it wants you, it'll whisper through the radio."

Whose senile grandpa wandered off from the group?

I rolled my eyes at him and turned away, half running toward my car.

I pretended not to check the diner's windows as I peeled off the gravel lot. You'd think ditching on a few dollars would give you more of a rush. It felt small, an insult more to myself than the diner.

My car barreled down the two-lane highway, my playlist blaring through the Bluetooth speakers at a volume you'd call 'loud enough to mask engine problems but not loud enough to crack the windshield.' I sang along, not bothering to hit the high notes, or the right notes, for that matter. In between tracks, I stuffed my face with a sleeve of chocolate sandwich cookies and washed them down with swigs of off-brand energy drink.

The clouds thickened on the climb out of the valley. And what little sunlight there had been was blocked out by the tall trees looming ahead. The fog hit so fast, it was like someone shut the world down with a dimmer switch. It stayed that way until night fell.

My playlist jittered, buffered, and croaked out, then the car's Bluetooth decided to die altogether. I thumbed at the center console until the dash radio, a leftover from the car's past life, blurted static. I pushed 'seek,' hoping for a faint Top 40 or a guy trying to yell about Jesus, but it failed to find anything except clicky, hissing silence. I tried to let it go. Isolation was part of the charm, wasn't it?

All the travel blogs claimed so.

Then the radio lit up, scanning past the dead air. I let it, just for something to do, but instead of finding a station, it kept cycling, flitting across the AM band with a sound like a wet finger on a balloon. Then, very faint, I started to catch the edge of a broadcast. It was the same voice on every frequency--raspy, toneless, like an old record played at the wrong speed. I thought I misheard at first, but then it came again, just above a whisper: "... trick or treat..."

The words barely registered at first, buried under layers of static, repetition lost in the squelch and hiss. I reached to adjust the dial, maybe settle the thing down, but the knob had a mind of its own. Each time I touched it, the feedback intensified, the blue digital numbers jumping in a tight, endless loop. Every station, every single one, lined up like soldiers, whispering: "trick or treat... trick or treat... trick or treat..."

The hell? I smacked the faceplate with the heel of my hand. The words didn't stop. They got louder. My skin prickled with goosebumps and something else, something pleasant.

Trick or treat--trickortreat--TRICK OR TREAT.

I mashed the power button. The stereo went dead, replaced by an even thicker silence. I hadn't realized how much I'd relied on the music to keep the existential road void from closing in. Now it was just me and my own heartbeat, loud and unpleasant as a bass drum.

Then I remembered the old man's words, and that smile that spread across his face. A strange tingle, like the one from earlier, rushed through my body.

I spotted something in the fog; it was a looming green sign, its numbers and letters blurred by drizzle.

It announced: "REST STOP -- 1/4 MILE."

I had a sudden urge, and it wasn't to pee. I rubbed my pussy through my jeans; it had been too long since I used my vibrator. Almost twelve whole hours. That was a long time when it was the only option for pleasure out in the middle of nowhere.

Almost missing my exit, I sharply turned off the highway and rolled up behind a building that looked like it hadn't been renovated since the moon landing. My car was the only one in the lot. I cut the engine and sat for a second, waiting in case another car rolled in, but I hadn't seen too many on my way out here.

I smirked at my own boldness. This filthy shithole was about to get filthier. My pants were down below my knees, and I was tracing the soaked lace of my panties like a goddamn treasure map. I didn't even bother hiding it. Fuck if anyone walked in. Maybe I wanted them to see.

The fantasies hit me like always. Rough hands and a stranger's breath, some trucker pinning me against the sink with his teeth on my neck. But I was always too chicken to actually fuck some faceless guy in a place like this.

I yanked my panties to the side and rubbed my swollen clit. I dragged two fingers through my folds with a messy squelch, my cunt practically aching for something thicker.

Fuck, just like that. My fingers circled, back and forth, my hips bucking like a cheap motel mattress.

But fingers weren't enough.

I fumbled in my bag for the vibrator. The second the buzzing tip touched my clit, my back arched so hard I nearly headbutted the roof of the car. The noise I made--some strangled, slutty gasp--echoed across the parking lot.

God, I wanted to be loud. Wanted someone to hear me and know exactly what I was doing, wanted them getting hard from the wet sounds of my fingers plunging inside.

I shoved my tongue between my lips, imagining some filthy trucker grinding his cock on my face while I fucked myself stupid. The vibrator wailed on my clit while my free hand slid lower, teasing the tight rim of my asshole. Two fingers fucked in and out, fast and shallow.

The orgasm hit like a sucker punch. My whole body locked up, toes cramping in my boots, vision whiting out under the jaundiced lights. My cunt gushed around my fingers, thighs shaking like I'd just been destroyed.

Panting, slumped against the driver's seat, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. Flushed cheeks, lips parted, pupils blown. A woman who'd just gotten off fantasizing about being some roadside whore.

Then I noticed the fog.

Thicker now, rolling across the lot like smoke. And--fuck--the sudden pressure in my bladder. Just my luck. I'd just wrecked myself, and now I really had to piss.

The post-cum clarity opened my eyes, and I debated if I could tough it out and wait until the next town. But my bladder threatened mutiny. I yanked my pants back up, grabbed my pepper gel from the glove box--Dateline habits die hard--and bolted to the entrance.

Inside, it was worse than I'd hoped but not as bad as I'd feared. Beige walls with water stains and a floor still slick from some ancient mop job. The stench--cold ammonia and the ghost of a thousand trucker shits--hit me so hard my eyes watered. All three stalls had doors that hung crooked, none of them capable of real privacy. They shrieked when you so much as grazed them.

I picked the least revolting of the set, hitched my jeans, and hovered my ass with a practiced thigh burn. I finished quick, yanked the toilet paper--which was the industrial kind, an insult to assholes everywhere--and went to flush. The handle tried to come off in my hand, but the toilet finally gurgled and shivered like it was passing a stone.

Just as I reached for the door, something slammed into the other side. A full-bodied thud that sent all three stalls rattling. My heart snapped up into my throat.

I waited for the next bang. Instead: silence. And then a scrape, slow, deliberate, as if someone dragged their palm along the door's outside.

I crouched, in that way you do when you're too old for games but too scared not to check, and peered under the door.

Nothing. No boots, no shoes, just the bitter neon-splashed tile and the bottom hem of my own jeans quivering above it. My tongue turned metallic and I forced a swallow, every muscle tight. I waited for a shuffle, a finger hook to rip open the door and end the world with a paring knife, but nothing came. After an eternity of listening, my nerves snapped. I popped the lock and threw the stall door outward so hard it bounced off the divider.

Nobody. Not a soul in the restroom. The air was charged with something, though--like after a fight in the next room, where you can feel the molecules still ringing.

I didn't even wash my hands, just sprinted out. The rest stop stank worse on the way out, sweetness overlaying ammonia, something like overripe melon and a dead animal hidden in insulation. I gagged as I crossed the threshold into the open air and instantly scanned the lot. There was only my car.

That's when I saw it: off to the side, half-shrouded by the fog and the skeletal arms of a cottonwood, a tall, spindly shadow. At first, it could've been a fence post or a utility marker, but then it shifted, slow and deliberate, as if to say, "Yes, I see you."

My mind cycled through every possibility--lone hiker, fucked-up Halloween prankster, serial killer with a sense of drama--but it didn't matter.

I bolted for the car, the soles of my boots slapping puddles and loose gravel. My hands dove for my keys, but my palm came up clutching those limp, fake bills I'd boosted from the Silver Spoon witch's cauldron.

The witch money fluttered from my hand like dead leaves. My real keys--fuck, where were they?

The shadow figure was moving now, unfolding itself from the tree line with grotesque patience, loping toward the lot with a jerkiness that made my skin crawl--too tall, too stretched, arms bending just a half-second late. I tore at the car handle with both hands, but it didn't budge. My teeth rattled with every heartbeat.

Don't look back. Don't look back.

I looked back. The figure was crossing the asphalt now.

I ran away, straight into the woods, branches snapping at my arms and face, the damp air turning the inside of my lungs raw. The sucking silence of the trees was instant and total, my footsteps obliterated by the new attack on my senses. Everything in me screamed to stop, to breathe, to listen, to hear whether the thing pursued, but I'd seen enough horror movies to know what happened to girls who stopped running.

I zigzagged through the underbrush for what felt like an hour or five minutes. I had no sense of time, only cold and adrenaline.

I braved a look over my shoulder, but the woods behind me only throbbed with moonlight and the phlegmy breath of fog, the figure lost to the suffocation of the trees.

A pinprick of light glare winked through the trunks up ahead. Civilization?

No--just the same goddamn rest stop. My car sat in the parking lot, alone and sullen under the jaundiced lights. My blood ran to ice. I'd doubled back. Or not back, not forward, not anywhere, like I was running on an exercise wheel for rats.

The figure was gone.

My hands patted my hoodie, jeans, every pocket. No keys. My nerves were so taut, they twanged when I realized the only reasonable place I could have lost my keys was the restroom.

I knew how this went in the movies.

You go back to the place you left your weapon, or your dignity, and then the monster gets you.

Fuck horror movies.

Panic did a tap dance up my spine, and I felt the absurd urge to laugh, but it just made my breath come out whistling.

The only weapon I had left was the pepper gel still clenched in my fist. I ran for the restroom, skidding over slick concrete, slamming my body through the heavy door. I jammed the trash can under the handle because I'm not a total idiot, and if things got worse, there were two windows up top. I could jump out of one and climb a tree, or something, anything to survive.

I told myself that a dozen times while my heart did push-ups in my throat.

I swept the floor with my eyes, searching around the dusty edges of the stall doors for anything shiny or familiar. My vision pulsed at the corners. My keys? Nothing in the open. The last stall had a gap at the bottom, and I saw them immediately: my ugly neon orange lanyard and the keys, curled like a dead worm on the tile.

I scooped them up without thinking, banging my head on the toilet's plumbing as I straightened.

Outside, I heard my car turn on, and music blared, then it went silent as suddenly as it had started.

That radio static came back.

The lights flickered, stuttered, then the whole bank of them went out.

I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face, even when the pepper gel slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the tile.

Then, in the pitch dark, the radio static got louder, like someone had set up speakers in the vents, and underneath it, that raspy repetition again: trick or treat... trick or treat... trick or treat...

In the next instant, something thudded against the stall door, harder than before. I screamed. It got stuck somewhere in my throat, more a gasp than a shout. Another slam, then a scrape, dragging in a lazy arc toward the floor.

I kicked the stall open, slammed through it shoulder-first. The hallway was even blacker. The static ratcheted up, and I heard a shuffling.

Something cold wrapped around my ankle, yanked hard enough to send my knee into the filth of the floor. The keys clattered away, lost instantly in the dark. My hands flailed, groped for the stall's frame and found only slick tile. I tried to grab at whatever held me but got nothing but air.

Then a hand, actual human-warm and huge, clapped down across my mouth. I bit it, hard, but the fingers didn't budge except to squeeze tighter. He hauled me off the floor and pinned me against the wall.

"Shhh," something growled, so close to my ear it felt like a tongue inside it. "Trick's been played," a voice said, not quite human. "Now, do you want your treat?"

Panic crawled across my skin as I was bound by it. Fear gripped my heart but there was also a heat in my core that was spreading like crashing waves against a mountainside. It was eroding the fear, and instead replacing it with a pleasant tingle.

"Yes."

He shoved his fingers into my mouth. The digits were thick and sweet, like salted caramel as he pumped them in and out. I started sucking them without thinking.

I should pull away.

But I didn't.

His hand found my tits, calloused and rough, kneading like he was testing how much I could take. My nipples hardened instantly, painfully tight, and when his thumb flicked over one, I barely bit back a moan. Fuck. It had been too long since anyone touched me like this. Too long since I'd been used.

Then his fingers dipped between my legs. My zipper gave way under his hand, and my jeans were around my thighs before I understood how.

"F-fuck--" I tensed, knees locking, but he didn't care. He pressed right in, his fingers slick with my own fucking wetness, spreading me open just to feel how soaked I already was. His growl vibrated against my neck--low, hungry, inhuman. One finger pushed inside, curling just right, and my back arched off the wall.

Then a second joined.

Oh god.

He scissored them, stretching me, and my pussy clenched like it was trying to milk him. The way he moved--too precise, too fucking knowing. Like he'd been listening to every filthy fantasy I'd never told anyone.

Then his tongue replaced his fingers.

Too long.

I whimpered, hands twisting in his hair. Was it hair? It felt like strands of thick, silken rope, as that monstrous tongue laved at me, flicking my clit in quick, ruthless circles before spearing inside my pussy, fucking me with it. His sharp teeth grazed my inner thighs and my pulse jumped, fear and lust twisting together so tight I couldn't tell them apart.

I hated him.

I needed him.

His tongue slid lower, lapping at my asshole now, forcing the tight ring to yield. I gasped, thighs shaking, as he worked me open, spit and slickness making it easy for him to push inside, just a fucking inch, enough to make me whine.

Then he stood.

I heard the slap of his cock against his stomach--heavy, thick, wrong. Too big. Too ribbed. My pussy clenched, empty and aching, already imagining that monstrous thing splitting me open.

He ground against me, his shaft dragging through my soaked lips, the ridges catching on my clit, and I sobbed. Pre-cum slicked my folds, his tip teasing my entrance, rubbing just enough to make me beg.

"Please." I didn't even recognize my own voice.

He pushed in.

Slow.

An inch. A stretch. A burn. My nails dug into his shoulders. Were those scars, or scales, on his skin? He slid deeper, the notches along his dick massaging my walls, sparking pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain.

Then he ruined me.

His hips pistoned, brutal and deep, fucking into me like he wanted to tear me apart. My tits bounced, my screams echoed, and my pussy gripped him, fluttering around his cock as I came hard, juices dripping down my thighs.

But he wasn't done.

In one motion, he flipped me onto my hands and knees. His tongue plunged into my ass again, deeper this time, writhing inside me while his fingers rubbed my clit. I came again, shaking, wailing.

Then he hauled me up, setting me on the cold seat of a toilet--legs spread.

I felt the blunt press of his cock against my asshole.

"It won't--fuck, it won't fit--"

He shoved inside anyway.

I screamed.

Tears streaked my cheeks as he bottomed out, my ass stretched tighter than it had ever been, burning and perfect. Then he fucked me in earnest, slamming into me until my moans turned broken, until I was babbling, until I squirted, my juices spraying the bowl beneath me.

He grabbed my face and crushed his lips to mine. His tongue, inhumanly long and too thick, invaded my throat.

And when he finally came and pumped his load into my ass, I felt him release in my throat. Hot, thick, spiced sweet.

I swallowed it all.

He laughed.

And the darkness swallowed me whole.

When I came to, I was on the floor, my cheek pressed against cold tile. Hard plastic dug into my palm--my keys. I rolled to my back and the world spun, then sharpened with a sinus-clearing slap of ammonia. I blinked up at the ceiling, its sickly light humming like an insect. My jeans were zipped, my hoodie zipped, boots still double-knotted. I lifted my head and a wave of soreness pinched the whole column of my spine. Everything ached, not like after a car crash, but like the day after running a marathon you didn't train for. Or after being absolutely, completely ruined by a demon in a public bathroom.

I staggered upright and shuffled to the sink, holding onto the wall for support. I braced myself for what I'd see in the mirror. Blood or bruises or the bone-white handprint of something not quite human. Nothing. Not a smear, not a bite mark, not even a fingerprint around my throat or thighs. The only visible proof that anything had happened was a few wet leaves stuck to my hoodie and the impression of tile grout mashed into my cheek.

Maybe I'd just fallen, clocked my head, and let the horror podcasts and cookie-fueled sex drive stitch me a dirty fever dream.

I checked my phone. Five a. m. on the dot. Less than two hours until sunrise, and I was shivering. I swished water from the sink in my mouth, rinsed, spat, and stared down the drain, half hoping to see some telltale clue swirling into the pipes.

No evidence, no witnesses, just a new ghost in my head for the drive south.

By the time I made it outside, the fog was already thinning, retreating from the hard edge of morning. My car sat where I'd left it. I got in, pushed the ignition. The radio came on, just as before. Static was replaced with some moldy country croon about heartbreak and home, the dial locked onto a station that didn't exist yesterday.

I threw the car in gear and peeled out, leaving the rest stop and its empty lot with all the dignity I could assemble.

I was barely a mile down the road when I realized I'd left the fucking pepper gel in the bathroom.

A wild, shaky laugh escaped me, one of those that's a little too close to crying. My only line of defense, my only real insurance policy for the rest of the trip, and I'd left it in a stall like a dumbass.

I wasn't going back. Obviously, I wasn't going back.

I could stop at the next little town, drop twelve bucks at the hardware store for a plain bottle of bear mace.

But as soon as I said it to myself, my body turned the wheel, and I was heading back in the direction I had just left.

Maybe if I doubled back to the rest stop I'd find the can where I dropped it. Maybe I could even prove, with my rational daylight human eyes, that the whole thing was nothing. That I'd spooked myself stupid, just like every other time I tricked myself into believing some demon was going to crawl out of the shadows.

I pulled off at the exit and the world I'd left ten minutes ago had decided to flip the script. The rest stop didn't look like it had the night before.

Hell, it didn't look like anything at all.

The building was boarded up, windows shuttered with cheap plywood, every entrance plastered with the sort of government-printed signs you only see in disaster movies: RESTROOMS CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE.

Except according to the date on the fine print, the rest stop had been closed for "urgent plumbing repairs" for three years.

My stomach bottomed out, then made a slow creep up my chest. I stepped out of the car and did a three-sixty.

The doors were sealed with a thickness that felt personal. I pressed my palm against the warped plywood, still sticky with last night's dew. No give. The plastic "Temporarily Closed" sign was faded from the sun and curled at the edges.

I checked around the side, expecting to find some secret way in, maybe a window or vent. Nothing but a tangled thicket of tall grass.

Whatever was inside didn't want company anymore.

So I just stood there with my hands in my pockets, feeling the ridiculousness of it all, the way you do when you lose your keys and find them in the door you locked. I stood there for a full minute, then two, waiting for the monster to yawn and stretch and demand a rerun.

Instead, I started to laugh. It came up dry and small, like peeling a scab, and then it snowballed fast, too fast to stop. I bent over double, gasping, tears leaking from my eyes as the sound bounced off the parking lot and over the empty woods.

I was about to get in my car when I saw it: a tiny, black cylinder, half-buried in the gravel by my passenger door.

My can of pepper gel.

It looked freshly washed, as if someone had run it under a faucet and set it down by my passenger door, a whole building away from where I'd dropped it, like a little treat waiting for me.

I held it up, catching my reflection in the car window.

My smile was too wide, so wide it looked like someone had carved it on with a razor, reaching from ear to ear. For a second I didn't recognize myself, teeth bared and eyes glassy with exhaustion and something else.

"Trick or treat," I said to the glass, and the smile became my real face again.