The day started like any other day.  T.K. awoke to his normal 6 o’clock alarm.  He drug himself out of bed, showered, brushed his sandy brown hair, brushed his teeth and changed for school.  Only, this day, was Halloween Day.  So, unlike all those other days,  T.K. was brimming with excitement over the schedule of events for the day.  First school then Trick or treating with his little sister and then The Party to end all parties!  Stephanie will be there.  Beautiful dark raven- haired, blue-eyed Stephanie. He has had a major crush on Stephanie since the third grade.  Maybe tonight will be the night he could tell her.  But first, School.  Uggh.  

T.K.  finished getting ready, grabbed his back pack and a pack of pop-tarts (he’ll eat on the way) and out the door he went.  He strolled through the doors of the highschool, down the hallway and straight to Mike’s locker.  “Hey, did you decide what costume your wearing to the party yet?”  Mike replies, “Yeah, Danny Zuko from Grease. And Emily is going to be Sandy”  “Her idea, not mine.”  “Well, my werewolf costume is going to totally destroy you in your sissy T-Bird get-up”,  T.K. returned.  Just then the bell sounds for first period and the two part ways.  “Hey, I’ll see you after school, Mike.  We’re still taking my sister and your brother trick-or-treating before the party, right?”  “Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

The day progressed like any other school day.  Only T.K. could hardly hear what the teachers were saying as his mind was on the evening ahead, not on equations and boring writing assignments.  He was turned, looking out the window, head in hand when he heard her voice cut through the fog in his brain.  “T.K., are you coming to the party tonight?”  It was her.  She was talking to him.  Stephanie. He just stared at her in disbelief until his words could find him.  “Uhh, yeah.”  “Well, maybe we could hang out, at the party?”  “Umm, sure”, he stammered back.  She laughed a nervous little laugh and turned, “Well, I’ll see you then.”

After school T.K. returned home to prepare to take his little sister trick-or-treating.  He wandered through the house gathering the needed items for his costume and decided he’d better check in on his little sister.  He walks into her room and she is standing before the mirror fussing with her hair and whining about Mother not being there to curl her hair.  “Don’t look at me.  I’m not a beautician.  You’ll have to manage yourself tonight.”  “By the way, where is Ash?”  Maggie replies, “I have no idea.  I didn’t see him on the bus home. He probably went over to Justin’s again.”  T.K. was immediately frustrated.  Ash was always pulling this crap when T.K. was supposed to be in charge.  He turned away from his sister, pulled out his cell phone and dialed his brother’s number.  No answer, of course.  He sent him a text message telling him if he wanted to go with him to the party later, he had better get his butt home before Mom does.

After a few hours of primping, on Maggie’s part, T.K. stood at the doorway and greeted Mike and his little brother Ben.  “Hey man.”  “What’s wrong T.K,”  Mike replies, “You look stressed out.”  “Well, Ash didn’t come home on the bus and I have texted him and called him a hundred times.  No answer back.  He’s always pulling this stupid crap. I called Mom.  She’s gonna try and find him.  We are just supposed to go do our thing.”  Mike rolls his eyes, “You’re brother is going to be in so much trouble later.  Let’s go.  The sooner we get the trick-or-treating done, the sooner we can party.”

They went from house to house and Maggie and Ben filled their bags to the brim with candy and goodies.  Skipping down the sidewalk they came to the big white house on the end of our street.  Stephanie’s house.  But, something was odd.  The house was completely dark.  No lights on.  No music flowing from the windows.  Every year Stephanie and her family make a big deal about trick-or-treat.  It’s the house every kid wants to go to.  Why would the house be dark.  T.K. wants starting to get a weird feeling about this night.  Something is really strange.  But, he shrugs his shoulders gathers the troops and turns for home.

Once back in his house, he finds his mother in the kitchen.  “Have you found Ash yet?”  “No, but, Justin’s mom said she thought Justin and Ash were planning to go to the party together. They are probably just getting ready.  If you don’t see him when you get there, call me, okay?”  “Will do” T.K replies.  He turns to Mike, “Let’s go, man.”

They loaded into Mike’s car and pulled up to the house, music blaring, people milling about in their costumes.  T.K. and Mike get out of the car and are greeted right away by Mike’s girlfriend Emily.  What a pair they look in their “Grease” look alike costumes.  T.K. smiles and shakes his head at them.  “Let’s go ya’ll.”  They turn and head toward the door.

The house is filled with friends dancing, clowning around or just standing around talking.  T.K. passes a headless horseman, a policeman, a Roman warrior, Cleopatra, a skeleton and dozens of others.  But, he doesn’t see his brother or his friend yet.  He moves through the house talking to everyone but not spending a whole lot of time with anyone for more than a few minutes.  He was wondering from room to room wondering where he could find Stephanie.  She did say she wanted to hang out, right?

He, Mike and Emily wind up in the back yard, gathered around a fire.  Right away someone starts telling scary stories, trying to freak everyone out.  They are doing a good job too , because T.K. just couldn’t shake the feeling that something just was not right about this night.  The story is about how the woods surrounding this property is supposedly haunted by the previous owner.  He is not sure how it happened, but, suddenly the group decides they are going to hike through the “haunted” woods in the dark.  He turns to them and says, “No thanks ya’ll.”  “Come on T.K., don’t be a wus” returns Mike.

T.K. rolls his eyes and reluctantly follows Mike and Emily into the woods.  They were tripping over logs and smacking into limbs.  The sick feeling in T.K.’s stomach was growing.  But, the group was giggling and clowning around, calling out to each other in the dark.  That is until the blood curdling scream cuts through the inky blackness and straight into his heart.  

Suddenly his friends were trying to pull him back toward the house, but, he pulls forward instead, wanting to see what caused such a response.  There before him, his brother.  Not his happy smiling brother.  His brother, down an embankment, his limbs laying at strange angles.  His face was frozen in a way that made him believe he was calling out to him, but, no longer would a voice leave his lips.  He lay there with the spike of a fallen tree piercing his slim body.

T.K. was frozen in place.  He couldn’t move.  A slow scream seemed to build from his toes all the way through his body.  His friends pulled him away and back to the house.  They called the police to respond immediately.  As T.K. sits there waiting for the police he is in shock.  Frozen in place.  The cold seeping into his body and deep into his bones.  He may never feel warm again.  

Just then movement to his right catches his eye and he looks up and straight into another’s eyes.  Stephanie.  She stood at the side of the house.  Staring straight at us.  But, it was as if she wasn’t seeing anything and before he could decide whether he was actually seeing her, she’s gone.

The next hours were filled with Police interviews and tears and hugs.  T.K. could hardly look at his mother without bursting into tears.  He couldn’t believe this was happening.  He recanted the story of what occurred over and over again to the police, trying to piece together the details of the night.  He doesn’t want to relive this over and over, why do they keep asking him to?  All of these questions.  My head hurts and my eyes sting from all of the tears.  I want to go home.  But, home won’t be he same, though, will it?

The next days were filled with funeral preparations and visits from family and friends I didn’t even know we had.  Pans of lasagna and trays of cookies delivered that they know I’m not going to eat anyway.  A waste.  That is not going to make up for a lost brother.

At the funeral, though, I was visited by the people I most wanted to see.  I had not seen them since it happened.  Mike and Emily came straight for me and enveloped me in an enormous group hug.  “Hey bro”  said Mike, “How ya feeling?”  “I’m doing as best as I can. This all sucks.”  “I don’t understand any of this,” says Emily “What happened?”

“I don’t know” replies T.K.  “The police have no leads.  They think it may have been an accident.  But, I’m not so sure and I’m not waiting for them to figure it out.  Someone killed by brother and I’m going to find them myself.”  Emily and Mike look at one another and then back to T.K. and say together, “How can we help?”  “Meet me at my house later tonight.”  said T.K.  They all nodded in agreement.

Later that evening, the trio was gathered in T.K.’s bedroom laying out the events of that horrific evening.  “We should make a list of the people who we know were present at the party, first.” says Emily.  “Then try and lay out a timeline of Ash’s movements for the day.”  “Sounds good.”  says T.K.  They went about laying the basis for their plan to catch a killer.  

Emily busied herself making the list of party goers while T.K. and Mike started on the timeline.  “Well in the morning Mom says Ash got on the bus to school like normal, but, when I got home from school and started getting ready for trick-or-treat we realized he didn’t come home” said T.K.  “Okay” replies Mike, “Where did he go?”  “His friend Justin says he did come to his house but said he needed to go home before his Mom came home.  That was around seven.”  “He could have cut through the woods to make it home sooner.”  “Okay,”  replies Mike, “We had dropped off Maggie and Ben by eight and were headed to the party. We would have gotten there by eight thirty, I should think.”

“Emily, what have you come up with?” said Mike.  Emily was concentrating heavily on the list in front of her.  “Almost everyone from our class was at this party” said Emily,  “It’s a long list.”  “There’s one name, though, that is missing.”  She looked up at Mike with a grief-stricken expression.  “Who?” exclaimed T.K. “Who?”  She was pained in answering, “Stephanie.”

Suddenly a wave of emotion swept over him and almost knocked him off his feet.  Stephanie?  I don’t think so.  He’s known her since kindergarten.  That’s not possible.  Then everything struck him at once.  Stephanie, who mostly ignored him, asking him to hang out at the party.  A simple gesture, or an alibi?  Her empty house on trick-or-treat.  A coincidence or something more sinister at play?  And then he remembered.  Seeing her after they found the body.  It was her.  Standing there in the darkness.  Staring.  He looked down at his friends, disbelieving.

So, was she just the pretty popular girl at school, or, did she have a Secret?