Last Halloween, Tammi Gymnastics and I went to a costume party held at a warehouse tucked away behind several dance clubs lining the train tracks. Tammi dressed exactly as she always does (think Nomi Malone crossed with Cristal Connors crossed with Henrietta Bazoom crossed with Penny Hope), except she stuck a pair of fangs onto her incisors, and painted on one single perfect drop of blood running out of one side of her mouth. I, on the other hand, was fucking tired of being frigid every Halloween, so I forewent the slut garb, and opted for something warmer. I dressed like a pregnant girl. Nothing (marginally) clever like a pregnant cheerleader or girl scout, just pregnant in regular street clothes (with my actual old baby blanket tucked underneath my maternity shirt). I didn’t even wear heels, which totally makes me self-conscious these days because everyone can tell what a squirt I am.
At 10:00pm, we arrived at the main entrance of the warehouse, and there was already a girl dressed like a slutty Eskimo throwing up off a shipping platform while a man in a loin cloth was patting her back and smoking her cigarette. Midway through coughing up bile, the girl grabbed her cigarette back, and took a couple puffs before returning it to her beau. When Tammi G and I saw him finish it, Tammi clutched her stomach and gasped, “Oh my Gawwd, that’s grosser than The Exorcist.” I fished a Tum out of my bag for Tammi’s traumatized stomach, and then inwardly wept for humanity for a minute or two before heading in.
We took the freight elevator up to the fourth floor and entered the party. I instantly knew this was going to be a bad time. Everyone looked about ten years younger than me, and I was the only goddamn girl that wasn’t dressed up like a stripper. I grabbed the flask out of my back pocket and pulled a long, hard swig of the hooch. A couple of guys from across the room looked at me in disgust, so I just stared back and pat my belly lovingly. Tammi was already on the dance floor whooping it up, but all of a sudden, the heel of her shoe completely broke off. She shrieked, “FUCK DSW!!” and stormed off to the bathroom.
A really short guy with glasses was giving me advice on how to minimize costs of meds by switching to generic brands, when an enormous, slimy dog-like creature came out of nowhere and crashed into the hors d’oeuvres table, sending the real smoked salmon from Nova Scotia, Canada at $24.95 a pound sailing into the air. The slab of fish fell on one of those rotating raver balls that looked more like a Simon Says game on crack, which flung thousands of shreds of pink flesh all over the frightened party guests.
Dog after dog emerged and started attacking anyone in sight. Everybody was drunk, scared and confused, so in the grand tradition of people doing what they shouldn’t in the event of an emergency, the crowd scrambled around in every possible direction looking for the nearest exit. Idiots were clamoring over each other in a desperate attempt to escape the party. I saw a guy dressed as a zombie get trampled like he was in a South African soccer riot.
Right as Tammi sauntered out of the bathroom, a giant dog knocked her over while it whipped around a poor girl by her neck. I rushed over and helped Tammi up. We formulated a plan to wait out the chaos and disguise ourselves like party decorations. She froze into her best blowup doll pose, and I jabbed a pen through the belly of my shirt and stood against the wall to look like I was a har-har-pin-the-tail-on-the-pregnant-girl game everyone had been playing before they fled. It seemed to work because one of the terrible dog-bears took no notice of us while it mutilated a straggler a mere six feet away.
The coast was kind of clear. Everyone who wasn’t dead had managed to make it to another floor of the warehouse, so Tammi and I decided to make our move. I cracked open one of the stairwell doors only to find a cornered man in drag pleading, “Don’t eat me, bro!” to a 400 lb. dog. I quietly closed the door, and whispered to Tammi, “We need to find the fire escape.” She nodded in agreement and we slunk around each of the windows until we found our exit. While we were climbing down, we could hear the sounds of carnage and mayhem moving from one floor to the next.
We hopped down into the warehouse parking lot, and Tammi bawled, “It’s pandemonium out hee-uh!” Dogs were chasing and mauling people everywhere. The only choice we had was to take off running. Past the gay clubs, past the Gateway Mall, all the way past the Gallivan Center, towards our friend’s apartment near the Avenues for safety. Tammi was sprinting along my right side, her bare feet approaching bloodied martyrdom. Suddenly, I heard a loud knocking and cracking to my left side. I looked over, and saw a human skeleton galloping along next to me. Terrified, I just kept running. The skeleton held pace with me. “Hey, sweetie,” the skeleton began. “WHAT?!” I gasped, my throat burning from tearing through the bitter cold. The skeleton laughed, his jangling bones clacking along the sidewalk. “Well, don’t you think you’re still young enough to show off more skin than that on Halloween?” I stopped dead in my tracks. I wheezed for a whole minute, like a true smoker. After I caught my breath, I smiled at the skeleton and said, “Fuck, you’re right.”
I want to see this short film... so bad!
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