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A Coven of Cats Under the Light of the Moon

by M. Halstead

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On this night, we escaped from our homes—we darted through the open doors, we leaped over the privacy fences, we fled under-bush to converge on this place. Some of us have traveled many miles, our paw-pads scraped raw, unaccustomed as we are to the rough terrain outside human homes. Our heads swim with the overstimulation of the outside—the stink of carved pumpkins rotting on human stoops, the children laughing and screeching in their annual costumes, the chill autumn wind ruffling our fur. Besides this, most of us arrive none too worse for wear—though a young human, on their trick-or-treating excursion, pulled Onyx’s tail when he ventured too close.

Trixie brings her human. We have heard of him, through the rumor mill our feral siblings bring to our homes. He is tall, looming high even for a human; he sleeps with all the curtains shut during the day, denying Trixie her favorite sunbathing spots; he wears his boots in the house, shaking the floorboards as he stomps past her nap box; and only begrudgingly feeds her and cleans her excrement.

“But,” Trixie hisses to the strays, “he is full of life-blood.”

We sense his life-blood as they approach, our whiskers tingling with a tremor we feel only on this night, the night when we are closest to them. But even without his life-blood hovering on the edge of our senses, we can feel him coming. He blunders through the undergrowth, shouting in increasing fury. We crouch, the fur on our stomachs brushing the ground, our eyes shining in the moonlight.

Trixie appears in a whirlwind of dark fur, bounding into the center of our circle, her human’s keys glinting in her jaws. As his footsteps approach, she drops her prize and takes up her place in the circle, becoming invisible amongst our identical black pelts.

Thus, the Coven is gathered, and our vengeance initiated.

Trixie’s human emerges. His artificial light is swinging in one hand, and it must illuminate us, but he takes no notice. He spots his keys, and the moment he bends down to retrieve them is the moment we strike.

We spring forward. Licorice, the smallest and fastest among us, leads the charge. She leaps for his wrist, tearing open his veins with her needle-sharp teeth. Our favorite targets are ankles, but his heavy boots impede us. Blackbeard and Nox claw up his pants and shirt, then cling to his head, Nox’s claws sinking into his eyeballs.

He tries to stand, writhing. He reaches for Blackbeard, to throw him off, and the rest of us leap for him. He stumbles, trips, falls onto the grass, and then we are upon him.

Other humans are too far to hear him cry out, but we rip at his throat to silence him anyway. As he gurgles, we eat his tongue, its chewy sliminess disappearing down our gullets faster than he would have been able to call for help. In delight, we tear at the soft flesh of his stomach, shredding the skin with our claws. He thrashes, clumsily trying to flee. His groans rise in intensity, the rank smell of his fear hot and heavy in the autumn air, and then he abruptly becomes still and silent. At last, with abandon, we lap up the blood that spills, warm, just like the milk we were fed as kittens.

We feast.

Finally, as his ribs begin to reveal themselves, shining under the gentle gaze of the moon, we uncover the heart. Reverently, we step back from our smorgasbord, reforming our circle. We are closer this time, fur to fur, and our hearts beat as one, hammering and pounding, even as his lies motionless.

One by one, we step forward to take a single bite of that life-giving organ. We are electrified: our fur stands on end as the vibrations take hold of us. Trixie is the last: she bends down to take the final scrap, licking at the place it once beat, and the night transforms.

They are here.

Their fur glimmers as we, fat and contented, flop onto our sides. They—our friends and our loves—come to groom us, licking the blood from our fur. They are never quite solid, and our eyes skip over their bodies if we try to look at them directly, but most are as familiar as they were in life. All are welcome, but the ones bearing the marks of violence, the tire tracks and the broken spines and more, shine brightest, for it is they we aided in reaching the next life with the Ritual. We take comfort from this visit, and when we in our own time move on, we will continue the tradition, caring for those we have left behind.

No cat grooms Trixie, who is alone and anxious, bent low in a crouch with her paws exposed. We worry; it takes time for the Ritual to guide lost souls to rest, but dawn is beginning to stain the horizon. Then we learn the truth.

We have never seen a human them. This one is small and slight, standing with her shoulders hunched, her chin tucked to her chest. As she turns toward Trixie, we see the reason for her death: ragged, gaping bullet holes across her shoulder blades. She smiles, though, calls “Trixie!” with familiarity, and scratches her chin in just the right spot.

We now understand Trixie’s choice for this All Hallow’s Eve Ritual. Though we must return to our homes, we tarry there, watching Trixie lounge in her love’s lap, waiting until the sunlight burns away the last remnants of the specter before we depart.

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The 2025 Halloween Parade

by Alasdair Stuart

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You notice your pulse drop. Not the precipitous fall of a sudden trauma response, but the gentle flush of relief, of environmental stress evaporating. Bored National Guardsmen and incompetent, passive aggressive flag placement is behind you. The stench of terror and disappointment and bigotry are gone. The tainted doomscroll dopamine, always nearby but no longer in reach. Pressure isn’t hanging in the air like an unthrown punch, like an implied slur.

Not here. This is horror. This is home. Some days that itself might be a problem. But not today.

The Director walks out into the street with the inevitability of a tectonic plate and the air of a murderer with perfect time management.. She has new striped gloves this year: blue, pink, white. They pop against her deep, dark suit and the deep, dark shadows that pool around her feet.

‘My friends.’ She spreads her arms, a magnanimous despot welcoming refugees, offering shelter. ‘There is always a price. For shelter. For safety. For hope.’ She looks apologetic, conciliatory, we got close but we failed the audition for the role of final survivor. ‘But today, here, that price is lessened through being equally borne. Today we all take refuge together.’

She claps her hands and it echoes like church bells ringing at midnight. A rusty gated aria. The parade begins.

The three women who emerge first do so from the sides of the parade, on the ground near you. One is a little older than she thinks, and older than she moves. She’s terrified and profoundly angry about it, moving like a rabbit in a forest full of foxes. She crouches, near you, takes wooden animals out of her pocket, scries them in her hand, nods, stands up and walks straight into the other two women. They emerged from the other side of the parade, one dragging the other like a kid in a candystore, like a fisherwoman with something on the hook. The weather pools around this one’s feet, just like the Director. She’s filthy, covered in the earth and shattered rock that she seems to have sprung from. But her eyes are bright, like the sun caught on broken glass. She’s calm in a way that’s impossible to look away from. Her companion certainly can’t, doesn’t want to. Dressed for work in the mountains, neater than her partner but with the same brightness to the eyes. They comfort the first and the three walk on together, leading this year’s procession.

Behind them, behind you, behind everyone, are the sounds of giant, wet, loamy footsteps. Of granite lungs shifting. Of a forest blinking with the tiniest fraction of its eyes.

Three girls follow them. ‘Girls’ tried to be a pejorative in your mind, but even as the word sounds between your ears you hear what it really is. A tattered shield to hide behind. A desperate attempt to make these people smaller, make them human sized. An attempt that has already failed. They walk in power and burn with the need to run in grace. Hunger in their wet, red smiles. They wink at you as they go past. You try to avoid eye contact. You fail.

There’s a scream of static, a dance of noise. ‘The Brinkman numbers station! For all your terrifying, atonal needs!’ A voice that sounds like grated human booms from every speaker and every phone and there are so many speakers AND SO MANY PHONES and the voice is everywhere and as you realise your nose is bleeding you SEE the voice. You see it. The flowers of its frequencies dance in the air like a mirage of blood. Like a heat haze. Like a scream for help from someone who does not need it and as you wonder what they do need? It fades.

The next parade float carries a doll. Not uncommon, not for this parade, but this doll is Wrong. Off. It doesn’t look whittled, it looks sculpted. No… it looks grown and then, the word you do not want in your mind elbows its way to the front and-

Gnawed. This doll has been gnawed into life. It can’t see you as it stares straight ahead but you see it even as you try so very hard not to.

Following the float with the doll is a sports car. Top down, music up, blasting its belligerent cishet masculinity into a world that didn’t need to know how much sex its owner thinks he has had but is going to told anyway. What makes it barely tolerable is that the owner of this car is clearly not in the driver’s seat. The dark haired young woman driving has old fashioned hair, a red lipstick knife of a smile and a metallic right arm. She waves at you as she goes past. You wave back.

Two men are walking a stretcher behind the car. On the stretcher is a hat box, impossibly large. Drumming emanates from inside and the two men, who you see now are twins, react in very different ways. One is doing a convincing impersonation of being calm. Only his white knuckles on the stretcher and the hatred stitching his eyebrows together gives him away. Behind him, his brother is his crumpled mirror image. Slumped over, resigned but somehow still wincing every time the box on the stretcher shifts. Next to him, but not that next to him, a teenage boy walks, trying to comfort his dad. Not sure how. Or if he should. Or if he wants to

Next in the procession are two women. One is blonde, small, energetic but feels distant. She reacts to a joke from her colleague a second too late, her eyes constantly drifting the same way a prey animal’s eyes do. You realise she would get on well with the scruffier twin ahead of her. They could compare brave faces.

Her fellow traveler is darker haired, a little more old fashioned. Where the blonde seems distant she seems pained, cautious. Hunted by her own body as much as what follows them.

Once they’ve passed, the Volvo in pursuit noses out of the shadows. The seat is wrong, the driver hunched, his eyes locked on the two women perpetually just ahead of him.

Behind the Volvo emerges a redhead. She’s serious, studious even, busting energetic dance moves with a straight face and a hand crossbow. The small, intense man next to her isn’t quite as good a dancer but is trying. As is the other woman with her face, walking just behind them both.

A field of corn on a float, a shriek of delight. It was… delight. It was. And your phone pings. A new Youtube video: teens pursued through a cornfield by a demonic clown, each screaming like rollercoaster victims. It’s goofy, it’s fun, it’s pretty good and you’re still laughing when said clowns walk through the parade crowd and form up around the float. Identical masks. Identical sickles. The float … and the crowd .. go silent.

The group following is the largest you’ve seen outside a certain black Chevy Impala. There are two young men, cheerfully Northern accents bouncing across each other and the shades-wearing man who balances 1990s LARP aesthetics with tangible threat. He looks like he actually did study the blade. The women that follow them are well dressed and cautious, eyes constantly drawn back to the man with shades. They move perfectly in sync. All of them. They’re breathing in unison too, little individual motions defining them but a single, unified purpose. It looks difficult. It looks restful. As they pass one of the women throws a look your way. It’s… pity.

There’s a whistle, a thud and an arrow lumps into the ground ahead of you. It’s not close enough for you to be in danger but you backpedal on instinct. The long haired ,bearded man who appears, bow nocked, waves at you in silent mollification. He grabs the arrow, yanks it out of the ground with unconscious strength and returns to his family. To the boy with the empty bow and the full heart and the sad, sad eyes. To the pale woman in someone else’s coat and the older man, iodine red and military buzzcut. The woman leans on the boy as his dad, and it must be his dad, silently hands him the arrow back. They stare each other down, he ruffles the kids’ head and they set off again. Shadows follow them, out past the streetlights. You get a brief hit of the stench of meat and blood and sex and faeces. The sensation of flowers growing in a dead country’s corpse. Then they’re gone.

Which is when the music hits. Three women, somehow balancing cup noodles in one hand and shining weapons in the other, hit strong harmonies and their targets’ central mass with equal ease. They’re glamorous, precise, weapons big into carbs and can stick a dance routine or a demon with their eyes shut. The crowd goes wild, and as you join them your chest begins to lightly glow.

A flash of gold light breaks from their weapons and combines into the forms of a man. Small, neat, mischievous. He falls into conversation with a young, intense miner. But they both notice the mountainous man with a club walking patiently behind them, a beating human heart in each hand.

A screech of tyres and a truck drifts onto the parade route. There are murmurs of worry but you’ve seen worse. The man behind the wheel is bleeding, eyes and intent covered by his shades. The woman moving through the crowd, stealing a hat here, a kiss there, is clearly his prey and she’s hurt worse. She passes you, blowing a kiss in your direction. You sit, very very still until you’re sure she’s gone.

The boys arrive next. Bloody feet and hundreds of miles of stench on them, their gait rounded by exhaustion and their forms defined by rage at the gun-toting soldiers that flank them. One stumbles and another helps him up. A few seconds later another does the same and his brother returns the favour. Musketeers leave no one behind.

A stench of green, of moss, of loam reaches your nose. Pollen furring nostrils and the gentle restless rustle of leaves. Lichen and meat, moss and flesh and in the middle of the miasma a determined older woman with blood on her hands, beside a frightened young man with an arm in a cast and blood on his teeth. Before they fade, you see him buck and react as though he isn’t sure where he is. His partner consoles him with practiced ease, and he settles with a comfort and familiarity he can’t sense. They’ve been here so often, this foggy not quite place is as close to home as they’ll get.

The man that follows them makes you want to run. He has the specific gravity of normality, but it’s oppressive, curdled. Late 40s, average shape, average height. He smiles, talking animatedly on his phone and laughing with absolute sincerity and joy.

He’s making eye contact with everyone. Worse, he’s doing so in a way that feels like a hungry man at a buffet. He’s hunting, this convincing artist’s impression of a human. He’s HUNGRY.. A phone in one hand and a wolf mask in the other. A backpack full of nightmares and a stomach full of endless need. You make sure to keep an eye on him until he rounds the parade route out of sight.

The rig workers on their soggy float look cold. It’s a warm summer night, but these folks are dressed in heavy gear, their breath is frosting and the ground beneath them glows. None of them want to acknowledge it, even though it’s clear they all know it’s happening. The big guy and his small, not-quite boyfriend at the back are particularly surrounded by the glow, and with every jostle of the float they drift a little closer together. The man and woman on foot behind them are bathed in it, their bodies drenched in light.

Monsters follow. Frankenstein first: massive, blood stained fists, bigger heart, and the ebullient soul of a romantic poet sewn into his patchwork chest. Stalking along behind him, The Bride stares at her enforced husband with murder in every valve of her own patchwork heart. They lost people, you can tell. Their formation is ragged and their gait is furious, exhausted. The glowing skeleton that follows is humming show tunes and feigning apathy, but even drenched in phosphorescent light you can see his hands shaking. Their… pet? …colleague? bounds through the crowd sniffing everyone, stealing churros and charming children. His eyes look so sad.

And last, at last, come the dinosaurs. The big friendly ankylosaurus, moving like a cheerful relentless truck. The velociraptors and other, darker things sticking to the shadows and keeping pace with the group of young adults in the middle of the road. They look unhappy, and unsurprised. The girl with the robotic arm is leading the way, her two best friends in lockstep, although not quite with each other. The other two are herding the dinosaurs, keeping them safe. Or maybe just staying in the pack.

And then the ground shakes. The methodical, jackhammer steps of something too big to be part of familiar nature. Something so large that it dwarfs the parade, the entire street passing directly under it. You feel the air displacement as it shoves its way through the universe. You see trees crushed beneath, its shape defying comprehension. Seeing it is like watching the ocean. Like seeing a mountain walk. You idly realise the women who opened the parade would want to see this. You wonder if that’s why it’s here, at the end.

And then its eyes open so, so far above you and all you see is red as its beak opens and it screams. There is the stench of seawater, your sternum vibrates and… it moves on. Leaving you guessing in its wake.

And then the Director appears, smiling with the ageless patience of atrocity. She spreads her hands, bows to you all, gestures to the parade and leads you in a round of applause.

‘There is always a price. For shelter. For safety. For hope. A refuge is not a home. None of us can live here, only gain vital respite, here in the dark.’

This is a familiar dark. The year stretching ahead of you is not so honest, not as reassuring. You feel the flutter and curdle of adrenalin on the starting blocks even as she raises a hand and silence descends.

‘A refuge is not a home. But it is a start, a destination. The joy you felt here is not gifted but borrowed. You will all return it next year.’ A glacial wind of calm blows through the crowd, the massive, invisible force choosing not to bowl you over but to hold you up.

She smiles, and it’s genuine in the way a cat opens its paw so its prey can escape.

‘An old friend said it best. We have such sights to show you. Return next year to see them. Happy Halloween.’

She turns to go, and so do you all. As you do, that impossible final form roars, outlined shadow on shadow, in the night. You smile, and head for home.

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Host Commentary

There’s a precision to this story I love,  that has sharp claws and evokes that chilling central image of the recent and excellent movie, Weapons. Children running in a straight line out into the night. The cats, eyes on something only they can see, zeroing in on it with a predator’s intent.

We know what’s happening when they get there, or we think we do. This is a trap, pack hunting. That’s unsettling, but it’s not horrific, not yet. It’s cute. They’re like tigers but little. And cute.

And there’s a dozen of them.

And they’re surrounding you.

The reveal of their victim is the next step and it takes us out into a little more light. It also shows us how much the dark has got to us. Oh, she’s brought her human! We think because we’re still convinced this is fine. We’re still convinced there’s nothing to worry about.

Even as the first blows hit, there’s a sense of comforting absurdity. Yes, being hit on the ankle by your cat really hurts, Marguerite and I both know that. But it’s just scratches. It’s just little teeth in small heads. Teeth designed to rip, not chew. Dozens of sets of them. Everywhere. The violence is here before we acknowledge it, the death takes longer than we wish it did and suddenly those small, cute forms are slick not with moonlight but with blood. Eyes shining bright over muzzles stained dark.

There’s the horror.

Right?

But this is one of those stories that hides its claws. The horror here isn’t just the bloody expression of the carnivorous urge; it’s the motive unfurling  in front of us like a blood-drenched fractal. They do this in packs because ritual and murder are equally essential. They do this in packs because they’ve been hurt for so long and so universally that every single one of them has lost someone that matters to them. And the only way to see them again is through blood.

That’s the first time I started crying. The second was the reveal of the final visitor, and how that love transcends the blood that summons it. We’re not just our damage. We’re not just what’s been done to us. And sometimes the price we pay to realise that feels, at least for a while, like no price at all.

Stunningly good. Twiglet’s getting tuna tonight. Just in case.

 

But before he does, we’ve got one more treat for you and this one comes from me.

I’m a pop culture journalist, award winning podcaster and voice actor, TTRPG and video game narrative designer and fiction writer, which really feels like there should be a better term for it. I write a weekly pop culture newsletter, The Full Lid which is edited by Marguerite, the love of my life. I’m  a multiple Hugo and BFA finalist, one of the only double recipients of the Karl Edward Wagner award and have no less than five different versions of Cosmos, the green UFO transformer on mycdesk. You can find me online at www.alasdairstuart.com and on Bluesky at, conveniently @alasdairstuart.com 

Every year, I walk you through the horror that’s left a mark on me across media. These are the stories that have stayed with me, folded into a metafictional mardi gras that walks us from Halloween to November 1st. This is the ninth year I’ve done it and it’s one of my favorite parts of the job. See if you can guess the parade members and we’ll publish the answers on the Patreon shortly.

 

Grab your churros, take a seat. Because here comes the parade.