Come As You Are
It was half past five when Justin Weatherbee pulled into his assigned parking spot at the student housing complex. The performing arts student had just left a dress rehearsal for the school's production of Cats and was still wearing his feline costume and makeup. Hungry though he was—he had not eaten anything since his bowl of oatmeal for breakfast that morning—he wanted to shower and change before sitting down to dinner. Before going into the studio apartment that he shared with Brenda Flaxman, his girlfriend since junior high, he opened the couple's mailbox and took out the catalogs and envelopes inside.
"Hi, Babe," he called as he opened the front door.
"Well, if it isn't Macavity!" she laughed. "Which would you prefer: a can of Friskies or just a bowl of warm milk?"
"For a history major, you're pretty funny."
"Don't forget. I worked at the Renaissance Faire for three years. I was the funniest wench there."
"Here's the mail. You can weed out all the junk while I take a shower."
"Make it a quick one. I've already taken the lasagna out of the oven."
Justin was halfway to the bathroom when he heard Brenda's voice.
"What on earth is this?" she asked rhetorically.
"What's what?"
"It's a black envelope with white writing on it. Where does someone even get white ink?"
"Maybe they used a Wite-Out pen."
She quickly tore open the flap and took out a folded piece of lightweight black cardboard. There were four words printed on the front of the card in bold letters using the same white ink: COME AS YOU ARE.
"It looks like an invitation," Brenda announced when she opened the card and read the time, date and place on the inside.
"Let me see that," Justin asked.
His girlfriend handed the card over.
"You're right. It is an invitation."
"But it doesn't say what we're invited to."
"Yes, it does. It says right on the front. This is a come-as-you-are party."
"A what?"
"A come-as-you-are party. I've never been to one, but I have heard about them. People are supposed to attend dressed just as they are when they open the invitation. Oh, hell! That means I have to go wearing this cat costume!"
"Who said we're going? We don't even know who's throwing this party."
"Look at the date, October 31. It's obviously a Halloween party. And the address, the intersection of Mountain Road and Lake Drive. That's Fairview Cemetery."
"The party is going to be held at the graveyard? Count me out."
"Why? It might be fun. Come on!" he urged. "Where's your Halloween spirit?"
"Look at me! I'm wearing an old bathrobe over my underwear. You can't expect me to go out in public dressed like this?"
"If I can wear my cat costume, you can wear your bathrobe."
Brenda's resolve was weakening. A relationship meant compromise. Hadn't Justin accompanied her to every chick flick she wanted to see? Sure, he often fell asleep in the theater or paid more attention to his popcorn than to the film, but he went without question or complaint. The least she could do was attend a Halloween party with him.
"All right. We'll go. Now, hurry up and take your shower. I'm starving, and I don't want to eat cold lasagna."
* * *
The following day, Saturday, Justin, who worked part-time as a sales associate at the local Best Buy store, was scheduled for an eight-hour shift.
"Did you make any plans for today?" he asked his girlfriend, who had no classes on weekends.
"Just the usual Saturday chores: clean the apartment, do the laundry, go grocery shopping. Speaking of which, is frozen pizza okay for tonight?"
"As long as it's pepperoni."
"You know it's the only kind I ever buy."
Once Justin left for work, Brenda made the bed and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. Then she took out the old Bissel upright, vacuumed the carpets and dusted the furniture. Since the apartment was small, housekeeping was over quickly. After a second cup of coffee, she gathered the dirty laundry from the bathroom hamper and headed for the laundromat.
While waiting for the clothes to go through the wash cycle, the history major took out her cell phone and texted her closest friends. She asked each of them if they had invited her to the party. None of them had. Furthermore, no one else had received an invitation.
Whose party is it then? she wondered.
Brenda next sent similar text messages to all her contacts. The result was the same. No one knew anything about the come-as-you-are party.
Since the invitation was addressed to both of us, it might have come from one of Justin's friends, classmates or coworkers at Best Buy.
Seeing that the spin cycle was over and the wash was done, she tucked her phone into the pocket of her jeans. She then put the wet clothes into an available dryer, returned to her seat and sent out another round of texts. Despite having sent messages to close to fifty people and receiving replies from nearly all of them, she still did not learn anything at all about the person or persons who were throwing the party. As far as she could tell, no one else she knew had been invited.
If it had been a normal Halloween party, Brenda would not have gone through all the trouble. She would have simply come up with an idea for a costume and shown up at the event. However, the fact that she had to wear a bathrobe over her underwear to a party being thrown in a cemetery late at night by a mysterious host or hostess made her uneasy.
I don't like this one bit!
Still, she had agreed to go. She would not disappoint Justin by changing her mind now.
Determined to keep her promise despite her misgivings, she took her clean clothes out of the dryer, folded them and put them in the wicker laundry basket. She then placed the basket in the cargo area of her car and headed for the grocery store.
* * *
On Halloween night, Justin returned home from work at seven o'clock and found his girlfriend in the kitchen area, setting the table with paper plates.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I don't know if there will be any food served at the party," she replied, "so I bought sandwiches at Subway."
"Good idea. There's bound to be alcohol there, and I don't want to drink on an empty stomach."
"Are you sure you want to go to this thing?" Brenda asked, hoping he had changed his mind and decided to stay home instead.
"Yes. I think it'll be fun. Why?"
"No one we know has been invited. Doesn't that worry you?"
"No. I love a good mystery. I'm actually looking forward to it. I've never attended a party in a cemetery before and neither have you."
"It's not exactly something that was on my bucket list."
"Come on!" he laughed. "Where's your sense of adventure?"
"It's a come-as-you-are party, right? I'm going as a coward. Obviously, that's what I am!"
"Don't be ridiculous! You don't have a cowardly bone in your body. When we were kids, you were always willing to take chances. I don't recall you ever passing up a dare."
"I'm a grown-up now. I've learned not to take foolish risks."
Justin sat down at the table and removed the paper wrapping from his sandwich.
"Mmm! Chicken teriyaki with sweet onion sauce. My favorite! You know me so well."
"I ought to! We've been going together forever."
"Forever?" he laughed. "That's a slight exaggeration."
Once he finished his sandwich, Justin began applying his cat makeup.
"Is that necessary?" Brenda asked. "Isn't wearing the costume enough? Do you have put on all that theatrical makeup, too?"
"It's a come-as-you-are party. I want to go just as I was when I read the invitation—whiskers and all."
Once the time-consuming task of changing Justin Weatherbee into Macavity was over, the young man donned his cat outfit. Brenda, who had only to button up her bathrobe, was ready to go nearly an hour before he was.
"You better not rip that costume," she warned. "If you do, your drama teacher will have a fit."
"Don't worry. I'll be careful."
It was five past nine when the couple left their apartment. Clouds obscured the moon and stars, cloaking everything in darkness. There were streetlights in town, but Justin had to put on his high beams as he turned off Main Street onto Lake Drive and headed toward Mountain Road. When he pulled up in front of Fairview Cemetery, there were seven other vehicles parked near the main gate.
"I don't recognize any of these cars," Brenda Flaxman said. "Do you?"
"Isn't that Enzo's Honda Accord?"
"No. Enzo's car is navy blue. That one is gunmetal gray."
The couple exited Justin's Subaru Forester, and he locked the doors. The temperature was a chilly fifty-four degrees, and the wind frequently blew to make the night seem colder.
"Where is everybody?" Brenda asked, pulling her robe tighter around her.
"They must be in the cemetery."
"It's dark in there," she observed as they neared the heavy wrought iron gate.
"Maybe they're playing a Halloween party game or holding a séance. Look. There's a light."
The lantern, lit by a single candle, provided little in the way of illumination.
"What is that?" Brenda asked, referring to the large hooded figure holding the lantern.
"It's someone in a Halloween costume."
"But it's huge! It must be eight feet tall."
"It's still only a costume."
At five feet two inches, Brenda had to look up at the head of the Grim Reaper. Since the hood from his black robe was pulled forward, covering his face, she could not ascertain the person's identity.
"Is this where the come-as-you-are party is being held?" she asked.
The Reaper nodded its head.
"Where do we go?" Justin inquired.
The black-robed arm pointed to a gravel path that wound through the oldest section of the cemetery. The gesture eerily reminded him of the scene from Dickens's A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come points to Ebenezer Scrooge's tombstone.
"Let's go," he told his girlfriend.
"I can't see anything," she complained.
"Wait a second. I'll turn on the flashlight app on my phone."
However, when he took his cell phone out of his pocket, he discovered that the battery was dead.
"That's impossible! It was fully charged this afternoon."
Brenda tried her phone. It, too, had a dead battery.
"I guess we have to walk in the dark. Be careful. Try not to trip over anything and twist your ankle," Justin warned, taking her arm.
"I don't like this. It's too dark, and I'm freezing!"
"It's not that cold."
"You can say that. Your body is covered, head to tail, in fake fur. I'm wearing a thin bathrobe over my skimpy underwear."
"If I had a jacket, I'd give it to you, but I don't. Maybe there'll be a campfire at the party. If not, a good, stiff drink ought to warm the cockles of your heart."
"It'll take more than a beer or a glass of wine to warm my cockles!" she laughed.
"It looks like another lantern up ahead."
"But I still don't see any people."
They continued walking through the darkness.
"Brenda."
"Was that you?" she asked Justin.
"Was what me?"
"Did you just say my name?"
"No."
"Someone did."
"Brenda."
This time, Justin heard it, too.
"Very funny!" he called loudly and then lowered his voice. "It's just one of the party guests trying to amp up the fear factor."
"Well, it's working."
"Justin."
It was a different voice, one that seemed to come from the opposite side of the cemetery.
"Who are you?" the man in the cat costume asked in a raised voice. "Where is everybody?"
A sharp crack followed by what sounded like a cry of pain was the only reply.
"What the hell is going on here?" Brenda screamed and clung to her boyfriend in fear.
"All right. Enough is enough. Halloween or not. You're scaring my girlfriend."
"Brenda."
"Justin."
The inhuman-sounding voices came one after another. They were both louder now—and nearer.
Roughly a yard from the gravel path something was moving among the headstones, making a rustling sound in the fallen autumn leaves. A numbing chill ran through Brenda, one not caused by the October wind that blew through her bathrobe.
"There's something over there," she observed.
"It could be anything. A raccoon, a cat, a possum. I only hope it's not a skunk."
"Justin."
Brenda turned and looked back toward the direction of the main gate. She could no longer see the lantern held by the incredibly tall Grim Reaper, nor was there any source of light ahead of them. She and Justin were alone in near-total darkness, surrounded by crooked and crumbling headstones, some of which dated back to the early 1800s.
"Brenda."
"I don't like this," she cried, wiping tears from her eyes with a trembling hand. "I want to go home."
Although he would never admit it, Justin was eager to leave as well. Still, he acted the part of a young man sacrificing his own happiness for his girlfriend's sake.
"All right. If you really want to, we'll leave."
"Yes," she said, relief flooding over her. "I do. I hate it here."
They turned around and began walking back along the gravel path.
"Brenda."
"Justin."
"That's weird," the young man declared. "Those voices should be behind us now, but it seems like they're coming from somewhere in front of us."
"Maybe they're not the same two voices. Maybe there are other people out there trying to frighten us."
"I suppose so," he conceded. "There were several cars parked outside the gate."
"I would think there are better ways to spend an evening than to scare people in a cemetery. This was meant to be a party. Where's the music? The food? The booze? The PEOPLE?"
"I don't know."
"And who invited us, the person in the Grim Reaper costume?"
Justin shrugged his shoulders, unable to give her an answer.
"Brenda."
This time rather than come from in front of or behind them, the voice seemed to come from their right.
"Justin."
That one was definitely from the left.
"It's as though we're surrounded," Brenda said, her voice quivering with terror.
Justin tightened his grip on her arm and picked up the pace. He wanted to get out of the cemetery as much as she did.
"Something's wrong," he announced.
"You just realized that?"
"We're no longer in the old section of the cemetery. These headstones are much newer. Did we pass the gate?"
Suddenly, a tall, shadowy figure blocked their path.
"It's you!" Brenda exclaimed, recognizing the towering figure that had stepped in front of them. "We couldn't find the party, so we decided to leave."
The man in the Grim Reaper costume neither moved nor spoke. Instead, he stood still and silent, as though he were a statue.
"Excuse us," Justin said politely. "We want to return to our car, and you're blocking the path."
"Let's just go around him," Brenda suggested when the Reaper failed to comply with her boyfriend's request.
But the dark, silent giant stepped quickly to the right to prevent their escape.
"Hey, what gives?" the drama department's Macavity asked.
The robed figure raised his arm, bringing the lantern up to the level of his chest. In the flickering candlelight, the couple got a glimpse of white in the narrow opening of the costume's hood.
"Who are you?" Justin demanded to know.
The extraordinarily tall man spoke for the first time.
"I am the Grim Reaper."
"No. I mean who are you, really?"
"I told you. I am the Grim Reaper."
"Yeah, and I'm Brad Pitt."
"No. You are Justin David Weatherbee, and the young woman with you is Brenda Marie Flaxman."
"How do you know our names? Are you the one who sent us an invitation to this party?" the shivering girl in the bathrobe inquired.
There was no response.
"Well, are you? Answer me, damn it!"
Suddenly the hood of the robe fell back, revealing an extremely lifelike—or perhaps "deathlike" would be a better choice of adjective—human skull. Brenda's hand went to her mouth to stifle a scream. The ivory-colored skull had only empty eye sockets where the eyeballs should be.
"It may not be made of latex, but it's still nothing more than a mask," Justin told her, not entirely sure if his words of comfort were true or not.
Held in the grip of fear, Brenda somehow found the strength to ask, "Did you invite us here just so you could scare us? Is that your idea of a fun Halloween party?"
"This was no Halloween party."
The Grim Reaper raised his other skeletal hand. Clutched in his bony fingers was a long scythe.
"All right. It was a come-as-you-are party then. Why did you want us here in a catsuit and a bathrobe?"
"How you dressed was not important," the Reaper explained, his fleshless jaw opening and closing as he spoke. "You were to come as you really are: dead."
The words brought immediate comprehension to both Justin and Brenda. There never was a party; they never received a black invitation with white writing. There were no cars parked outside the cemetery gate, which was securely locked to keep out vandals. They were no longer students; they once were but not anymore. Not since they had died in a school shooting four months earlier.
Without bothering to bid one another farewell, the zombie-like corpses left the gravel path. Justin Weatherbee walked to the left, Brenda Flaxman to the right. When the Grim Reaper again raised his lantern, both the young woman in the bathrobe and the young man in the Macavity costume had vanished. They were now lying peacefully in their graves, each beneath his or her own headstone.
His task complete, the Grim Reaper left Fairview Cemetery and traveled to Tall Pines Memorial Park where he would help three more people face the truth of their mortality. The whole come-as-you-are party scenario was no doubt overdramatic—but what the hell? It was Halloween, and even Death enjoyed a harmless scare on the holiday.
Salem once received an invitation to a come-as-you-are party at a most unfortunate time: when he had his hair shaved off by Locks of Love.
