She didn’t say anything.
“All right, I’m going to go.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Gonna scare these guys good.”
“All right,” she said.
I broke into a half lope, and then a sprint, and the chicken head shook over my eyes, so I sort of held the mask in place and ran, the costume juddering into my ears.
As I drew near, one of the boys, a boy I couldn’t see too clearly, he said, holy God what the fuck is that thing, and shoved the other boy, and they tripped, stood and leaped for the trees, and I ran after the boys beating the earth with my feet, through a tangle of brush that rattled and ripped my suit, and it was black in the woods so I wrenched off the head and tucked it under my arm and I hurdled a shrub and fumbled the head and it rustled off through darkness but I did not stop, I couldn’t, I wanted to get to the two boys and then I did not want them to be scared of my suit, they would recognize me, they could know me with the chicken head doffed, only a joke, just Eddie. The air felt pure on my face. Ahead I saw the two boys crouched waiting for me in a bright moonlit square of trail and I raised my hand hello.