One year ago, Halloween’s annual resurrection fell on a Saturday, and the dawn sun disappeared like the closing of God’s eye. The sky blackened, leaving a fiery corona, a devil’s crown as the world descended into chaos demonic. Twenty-four hours of otherworldly rapture, repeated every seventh day since.
How could I survive this breach of the underworld?
Those first weeks, I hid.
Demons paraded outside the windows of my house in American Fork, Utah. My one defense? They couldn’t cross the threshold. (I made extra sure to stay current with my mortgage, lest I forfeit the right to deny entry.)
Many people fought the change with false courage, attacking demons and dying by the thousands. Sunday mornings, we buried the dead.
At first, society recovered between Saturdays. We cleaned the toilet paper and graffiti left by underworld revelers. After a few months, no one bothered. Suburban landscapes lapsed into the shabby, vacant look that follows a house party.
It was late January when Bizella first collapsed on my lawn, burning her lithe outline into the grass. Her purple tail lashed when she caught me staring through the window. Crawling onto my doorstep, she hiccupped drunkenly and toyed with a disc-shaped medallion.
“May I come in?” Her voice tinkled, musical but slurred, like someone cut the strings of a windchime and dumped its bells in dirt.
“No,” I said, not about to be tricked. But I recalled a girl in college who’d visited me on the downhill side of drunkenness and added, “Do you need some water?”
Her purple cheeks flushed, but she nodded.
Each Saturday, she returned to my doorstep—inebriated and needing a break from the massive party. We talked of small things, and although I wouldn’t let her in, I gave her water and bread to dilute whatever hellish intoxicants the demons consumed. I think she valued those steady moments. Soon she began arriving sober, and we spent the dark days together.
As with any budding relationship, we fell to wanting more. It took time to build enough courage to trust, but I agreed to accompany her to a spring equinox party. Visiting neutral ground instead of letting her inside.
She picked me up at noon, wearing a flowing teal sundress (with a little hole for her tail), while I dressed in black shoes, a collared green shirt, and my nicest jeans.
All week, I’d worried about crossing the threshold. Exposing myself. But Bizella made no move to devour me. Demons might be a rowdy lot, but I’d never heard of humans killed without first attacking to “repel the insurgents.”
We had a great time at the party, dancing among fishnet-clad demons and neon lights, laughing until we couldn’t breathe. Behind the commandeered country club, we sat on playground swings. Our hands touched, the heat of her skin like a toasty electric blanket. Lacing my fingers into hers, I caressed her pointy nails with my thumb.
Red Solo Cups clattered past, blowing like tumbleweeds on the wind.
“Zel,” I asked, “why do the demons trash my world?”
“If you were given one day per week to escape the underworld—into a neighboring dimension where the occupants hate you blindly—would you waste one second of your reprieve cleaning?”
“Fair enough.”
She took out the disc medallion, like a eucharist but ceramic and shaped like the sun. “We were given these before coming to your world. When the last one breaks, the Saturdays of Night will end for another millennium. I’m—”
Shouts rang through the darkness. A convoy of humans, attacking the country club. They brandished AR-15s, shooting every demon they saw.
Pulling Zel behind me, I ran.
A band of militia targeted us. Zel tucked me under her arm and leaped over a chain-link fence.
By the time we arrived at my house, dawn stained the horizon an ugly orange. My date vanished in a puff of smoke, and a heavy weight settled in my stomach.
Come next Halloween, humans regained dominance over the Saturdays. No more parades, no parties of rowdy demons. People hunted the streets in packs, mobs armed and armored, slaughtering anyone with purple skin. Hardly any demons remained.
I paced the entryway, waiting for Zel. Hours late, she stumbled onto my lawn and collapsed face-first, burning her outline on the grass. A knife handle protruded from her side.
“Come in, come in!” I pulled her through the door as headlights cast twisting shadows up the street. For months, I’d routinely brought demons across my threshold, offering sanctuary to those whose Saturdays turned from frivolity to terror.
Her purple blood pooled, smoking on my hardwood floor.
“This has to stop,” I said. “Couldn’t I immigrate to your world?”
Zel shook her head. “The demons would love your open heart, but you’d never survive our heat.”
I pulled the knife from her side, binding her wound with strips of my shirt. In seconds, the cotton caught fire and burned away.
“The mob will kill us both.” From her neck, she removed her ceramic sun. “I’m the last demon. If I break this token, the worlds will separate.”
The knife, bloody on my floor. We could fight together… die together. But who then would remember our love? Sometimes, letting go requires more courage. “Head home, where it’s safe.”
Zel’s lips brushed mine; buoyant warmth like campfire on a cold night. “Until the sun dies, I cherish our time together.”
She offered the medallion. We each held half. On her cheeks, tears evaporated to steam; mine fell into the pool of purple blood.
With a snap, the disk broke. A cursed wishbone, stealing my only wish.
Zel vanished to smoke, taking the darkness with her.
Cheers erupted outside, echoing through my hollow house. Its windows shone with sun bright but sallow, eclipsed by memories of my beloved, forever locked beyond the veil.
How would I survive this breach of my heart?
For those first weeks, I hid.
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