What’s Your Flavor // 68. Game

Time: Halloween 1995 / Kinsey: Age 11 / Pre-YIM
Rating: Fun For All

“It’s Morphin’ time!” Zac yelled as he bounded down the basement stairs, a large sack of candy slung over the shoulder of his Red Power Ranger costume. Kinsey was hot on his heels with her own slightly fuller bag. Zac had been eating candy ever since they had started Trick-or-Treating, but Kinsey, Taylor, and Isaac had decided to wait until they got back.

“More like puking time,” Isaac countered through his alien mask before ripping it off and dropping it to the floor.

“There will be no puking!” Zac declared before collapsing into his and Kinsey’s usual giant beanbag chair in the Hanson’s basement. She carefully removed the helmet from her Yellow Power Ranger costume and sat down beside him. For the last two hours she had watched piece after piece of delicious candy drop into her bag and she couldn’t wait to see what her final stash consisted of. Her eyes opened wide as she spotted her favorite, a Snickers bar, sitting right on top. As soon as her hand had pulled it fully from the bag, she felt it ripped from her grasp. Taylor, still fully in his Darth Vader costume, had taken the candy from her hand and had already unwrapped it and shoved the entire thing in his mouth from the bottom of his mask.

“Taylor!” she shrieked. He just shrugged and sat down to go through his bag. He knew that Snickers were her favorite, and she glared at him and dropped her own bag, sending colorful pieces of candy scattering to the floor. Before he even saw her coming, she leapt on him, threw his bag on the floor, and punched him hard in the arm several times. “I hate you!”

“Ow! God, just take one of mine!” he said, his voice muffled from the black plastic obstructing his face. She took care to stomp down hard on his bag before picking up a Snickers that had fallen out when she’d thrown it from his lap. He tore off the helmet. “What’d you do that for?”

“What’d you take my candy for?” she mocked, “You have a whole bag full of perfectly good candy.”

“It was good until you stepped on it,” he snapped back before taking his smooshed bag from the floor to survey the damage inside. Kinsey tried to shake it off and went to sit back down beside Zac.

“Did you get good candy?” Zac asked her. She took her bag from the floor and looked at its contents before nodding.

Lots of chocolate,” she told him before crinkling up her nose, “I got a lot of Dots. Do you want those?”

“Of course I do!” he said, sounding somewhat offended that she had asked and not just given them to him.

“Want to do something?” Isaac asked, looking incredibly bored from his position on the couch next a very grumpy looking Taylor. Kinsey looked over at them and then at Zac, who was eating probably his twentieth piece of candy, and nodded. She loved candy, but could only eat so much at a time without feeling sick to her stomach.

“Sure. What did you have in mind? Nintendo?” Isaac grinned and shook his head. He rose and went into the closet at the far end of the room where the Hanson family had always kept their board games. When he returned a few seconds later, he had a box in hand and Taylor appeared to know what it was since he looked pleased. Zac was still staring into the depths of his bag with wonder, picking up pieces at random and looking at them before deciding either to eat them or drop them back into the mix for later.

Perfect,” Taylor said, discarding his bag of candy on the couch and heading for the open space in front of the TV.

“What is it?” Kinsey asked.

“An old Ouija board we found the other day. I guess it’s Mom’s from when she was a kid,” Isaac explained, “Want to play?” Kinsey debated for a minute, knowing from talking to some of her friends at school that using Ouija boards could be a pretty scary experience.

“You’re not scared, are you?” Taylor goaded and she narrowed her eyes at him before standing and going over to meet them.

“Of course I’m not scared,” she lied, turning to look back at Zac, “Come on, Zac. Come play with us.” He sighed and came over reluctantly, bringing his bag of candy along with him.

“This thing is stupid. Mom says it doesn’t even work,” he said.

“Mom might have been doing it wrong,” Taylor suggested, “What else do we have to do?”

“Eat candy!” Zac exclaimed, looking thoroughly annoyed with his older brother.

“You can eat candy while we’re playing,” Taylor told him.

“Just don’t get chocolate on the thing,” Isaac added, holding the planchette up before setting it down in the middle of the board.

“So, what do we do?” Kinsey asked.

“We ask a question, and the spirits answer,” Isaac said, “Or at least that’s what people say.”

Spirits? Like ghosts?” Zac asked, sounding scared.

“Don’t be a wuss,” Taylor rolled his eyes, “It’s a game. We’re not going to get hurt or anything.” Zac emptied the rest of a box of Dots into his mouth before abandoning the bag and sitting at the only open side of the board.

“What should we ask?” Isaac asked.

“Let’s ask what the ghost’s name is,” Kinsey suggested, starting to get excited to find out whether or not it would actually work. They all agreed that would be a fine question to start with and followed Isaac’s directions to place their fingertips lightly on the edges and to wait for something to happen. They sat there for several seconds before the planchette started to move slowly across the board. Zac shrieked and scooted back.

“Who did that?” he demanded.

“The spirits!” Isaac said, “Now put your fingers back so we can get the answer.” Zac moved forward hesitantly and placed his fingers again. After a few moments, it started up again, moving in the same path it had occupied before. It glided along smoothly until stopping suddenly on the letter Z.

Z,” Kinsey whispered, and as soon as she said it, the planchette moved again, this time in the opposite direction on the board. It stopped again, as abruptly as before, but this time on the letter A. Kinsey watched in amazement, her fingertips hardly hovering against the ivory colored plastic. She knew that she wasn’t the one moving the planchette and from the terrified look on Zac’s face, it certainly wasn’t him either. Part of her wanted to stop it because of how scared he looked, but she was curious to see where it would go next. As soon as Isaac said “A” aloud, it moved again, this time only for a short distance.

“Zac,” a voice said from the stairs, startling them all terribly. The planchette had stopped on the letter C at the exact same time the voice had spoken. Zac screamed out loud and ran for the basement bathroom. Brenna peeked her head around the corner, the feather headdress from her Pocahontas costume still in place.

“What are you guys yelling about?” she asked.

“You scared us! What are you doing down here?” Kinsey demanded.

“Mom wanted to see if you guys want caramel apples,” Brenna shrugged before going back up the stairs.

“Which one of you did it?” Kinsey asked Taylor and Isaac, “Which one of you made it spell out Zac’s name?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Taylor said, standing to follow Brenna. Kinsey raised an eyebrow questioningly at Isaac, but he just held up his hands innocently and took off after the others. Kinsey waited for Zac until he came out of the bathroom clutching his stomach.

“I don’t feel so good,” he told Kinsey, looking green.

“Did you throw up?” she asked, knowing that it was entirely possible given how much sugar she had watched him consume in the last few hours.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled, “I’m going to go lay down.” Kinsey watched as he went over to lay on the couch. She heard everyone upstairs laughing and having a good time, but looked over and saw Zac laying pathetically on the couch.

“Do you want to watch ‘The Great Pumpkin’?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied meekly. She went to get the movie in the VCR before settling in at his feet, “Happy Halloween, Zaccy.” He just grunted and Kinsey smiled as the movie started.

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