>>
Everybody agreed it was for the best... sure, some kids were disappointed, but the town had gone through a collective trauma, and the kids weren't getting any better, and some of us were tearing each other apart over the growing divide between 'make the girls happy and safe even if it means treating them like sex toys' and 'keep doing the morally right thing even if it makes the girls miserable and easy prey for others.' Quietly, all four girls were pretty happy, but not everybody was willing to accept or believe in the sacrifices made to make that happen... and certainly not to admit to it and go to jail like the teacher had. Nor would anyone admit to thinking we should risk more girls. So really, by the time October rolled around, there was an almost unanimous rejection of Halloween, at least locally. You couldn't stop networks from running scary movie marathons or anything, but that whole season we kept a firm line... no Trick-or-Treating, no decorations that could be seen from the street, town-wide curfew including the usual increased police presence that now nobody had much faith in.
Our low faith was somehow still disappointed. Four kids disappeared Halloween Night. This time, it was two boys and two girls, a range of ages from nine to thirteen. Taken from their beds, as far as anyone could tell, but no one knew for sure... there was no sign of forced entry and some people insist they might have snuck out rather than deal with the idea that the Halloween King could strike anywhere, any time. A lot of people were still calling him the Halloween Kidnapper then, or instead used the Halloween Slaver, or even just That Sick Bastard.
We were back in uncharted territory again, because nobody knew what to expect from That Sick Bastard... the last four girls were all returned on April Fools Day, but clearly this escalation was because we angered him, so we were afraid maybe this time they'd just... disappear. There were certainly no costumes to brainwash them into... a few families might have tempted fate and done dress-ups at home, but the ones of the abductees had studiously avoided anything Halloween-adjacent at all... unless you listened to the conspiracy theorists who needed to believe that four separate kids stashed secret costumes and snuck out to do the Halloween rituals their parents forbade, and got punished for it.
That theory went out the window April 1st, because they were returned, but there were no costumes. At all. At least we did get those kids back... but, not all the way back, and they showed up at various houses buck naked, except for a bow around their neck with a letter attached.
The letter was from the Halloween King, but those were not the first things people read. Another, more obvious message was tattooed on their foreheads. Here, I think I have a picture of one of these girls on my fridge. Not from that night, obviously, but from a convention my daughter attended with her. Here you go. See, there? It might be a little hard to read, but it says...
"Designated Free-Use Sex Doll Until Age 18
Enjoy at will, any sex act, any time.
Open to all genders, ages, and kinks.
No charge.
Will never tattle."
Hell of a thing to put on a little kid's head, right? Evil enough if it was JUST a tattoo, you could imagine a few people might even try to take advantage of that, and some people only held back by the knowledge that a child probably would tell their parents or friends eventually... except we've all just had two years of experience with exactly how programmed kids could be in five months.
As time went on, that bore out. Those kids never told on anybody, though a few people were caught in the act, or left evidence of the act, but not as many as you'd think. Cleaning up after themselves was also part of the training of these kids. Aside from finding them during or immediately afterwards, the only way we knew people were using them at all was because if three days ever passed with nobody taking advantage of the offer on their forehead, the neglected kid refused to wear clothes until somebody did. By summer, the kids didn't go publicly naked any more, but privately, it must have happened quite a bit.
Whether the people who found them took advantage or didn't, what couldn't be kept secret was what was in the notes tied to them with a ribbon. Each was written in the handwriting of the child, and said, "It saddens me that a town that treated me so well one Halloween doesn't seem to want to celebrate this year. Creating the elaborate costumed Dolls you enjoy has been my way to repay your community, but should dressing up no longer interest anyone, blank dolls are at least easy enough that I can start to make them in bulk. Next year, I might have time to provide even more. I will follow your lead, but hope to once again be your Halloween King."
Outside of the vague dreamlike stories from the abductees themselves, this was the only direct communication anyone in town ever received from the Halloween Slaver--now cemented as the Halloween King in the minds of most of us, just as we quickly adopted the term Dolls to refer to the girls themselves. Also the only hint of a motive behind our peculiar curse--or blessing--if it even contained a shred of truth beyond the implicit threat.
But we got the message. Keep Halloween going as usual, let him try to take a few of our kids, turn them into his twisted Dolls--trained to a specific role with specific rules and specific owners who could control when and where they acted out--or, he'll take even more of them and break them completely. The Free-Use Four even dangled a carrot over our heads, to help the devilish deal go down, since the tattoo and their own testimony insisted that they were Free-Use until they were eighteen... the specificity let us wonder whether the other girls would only be trapped in their roles until that age too.
Of course, by that time we'd noticed that Lauren didn't seem to be getting taller or going through puberty, but it was still years before any of the girls would hit the chronological age to find out for sure if this was just another cruel joke. In the meantime, we had all had a decision to make. Nobody seemed to be able to catch him, even on the night we knew he was coming, so we could either play along with his sick game, or refuse and potentially suffer even more of our children turned into sex dolls.
The town had a lot of discussions about that over the next few months, but, as you can see, we decided to return to celebrating Halloween the next year. A lot of people put forth good arguments on both sides, and some not-so-good arguments. It's kind of sickening, but the fact that two of the Free-Use Dolls were boys probably went into that... as long as the threat was only to our daughters, some people could rationalize it as being acceptable... they could get over a few girls a year being mentally violated and sexually exploited, but to risk a son's future like that was somehow more unthinkable. They'd made similar sexist calculations every time a star football player did something that should have been unforgivable and decided to turn the victim into a pariah instead.
But also, there were the kids themselves. Especially Elena, who was going down a bad path and now polite, respectful, diligent, disciplined... every parents' dream, if you left out the sex. To some parents, a better dream with the sex. Yet the Dolls all did seem to enjoy their lives, sex and all, regardless of their age, and so far, no pregnancies had developed (though we'd come to find that was not a universal rule, but rather depended on the Doll's particular role). They didn't have the kind of outrageous behavioral problems you might expect, but rather mostly seemed kind and well-behaved, except acting out when their needs were denied.
Naturally, a lot of people were hoping enough other people would volunteer their kids to go Trick-or-Treating, so they could keep theirs at home, but who would, knowing that for every family that abstains, your own kids face a greater risk? We talked about paying some of the poorer families out of the town budget to assume that risk on everybody's behalf, and that very nearly happened, but in the end, somebody brought up that famous story "The Lottery," where each year the town would randomly select one person from one family to stone to death for a good harvest. If we treated this as a lottery, and everybody had to participate, it would at least be fair, and a town bonding experience. I think they might have missed the point of the story. Still, nobody was being stoned to death here, and while two kids a year was still an awful high price, that meant there were plenty of kids who would be left alone and have a normal Halloween.
And hasn't this country always made that decision, to risk some kids rather than mess with tradition? If our town suffered random school shootings instead of abductions, death or serious injury instead of being turned into sexual playthings... well, we'd be just like everyone else, relying on thoughts and prayers. Unlike them, we still had a prayer of ending the nightmare for good... all we needed was to get lucky one year, have a cop successfully catch the Halloween King in the act, and maybe we could even undo everything.
The next year, costumes were a lot tamer, and notably fewer in number, since a number of families had moved away rather than agree to participate. We had some new people move in too, but many of them didn't have kids. The remaining parents mostly concentrated on doing whatever they could to minimize the risk, forcing their kids into costumes of doctors, lawyers, business-people, nerds... but there were always a few that went a little outside the box, and, especially among teenagers, ones who seemed to want to tempt fate, either to show off in front of their friends or because they secretly wanted to become something else.
It wasn't a teenager taken this time, though. That was the year we got the Princess and the Puppy. Sisters, Mackenzie, who you've heard me mention, and Kennedy. Nine and ten, respectively. I don't know what their parents were thinking letting them dress up like that, though I guess I shouldn't talk.
I mean, the Princess outfit I can understand. A lot of girls went that route, always a popular costume, and with the Halloween King out there, it made sense. Princesses are associated with purity and chastity, and a lot of parents were gambling that if their little girl was abducted and made a Princess, maybe she'd at least be programmed with something fantasy princesses took very seriously... the need to preserve her maidenhead until marriage. Even failing that, parents could hope for decorum, or quiet dignity for their sex-slave child. None of those turned out to be the case when we got Princess Mackenzie, but you can see how they might think it was a safer choice.
But in a world where we had Tabby the Catgirl, what parent would tempt fate by letting their little girl dress as an animal, unless a part of them secretly wanted their kid taken and turned into an animal-themed living sex doll?
I suppose that's unfair. Maybe they just thought they could prevent it, that they would watch their kids like a hawk. Lots of parents took that approach... they couldn't get out of the Lottery, but they could make damn sure the Halloween King went after easier prey. Both of the sisters' parents did go with Mackenzie and Kennedy to every house, a common pattern, one keeping an eye on the girls at all times, while another watched for any strange vehicles.
Until they both got distracted. Or a little more than distracted, I guess. See, as best as we can figure out, somehow the parents--and possibly the girls themselves, and cops along the way--were drugged or hypnotized into a suggestible state. I mean, this is a guy who knows enough about human psychology to change a child's entire identity and moral system in a few months, is it really hard to believe he could make people zone out for a few minutes when he needed to take a girl?
However he did it, he did it, and the two sisters returned on April Fools Day, only the little sister was holding her big sister on a leash, and wearing a sheer dress that looked more like a babydoll nightie over a clearly naked body, along with a tiara and lots of jewelry. Not costume jewelry, either, which Princess Mackenzie is just as happy to wear as long as it's shiny, but real gold jewelry worth thousands of dollars. Some thought that was an apology to the family, a way to make up for taking both their children, and how extreme he went.
See, Kennedy was taken a little further than Tabby was three years earlier. Sure, they both showed up naked except for fake ears and pawlike coverings for their arms and legs, and in Kennedy's case a collar, but there was a distinct difference. Tabby was a specifically turned into a Catgirl. She preferred being nude, she'd go into heat, and she considered her costumed cat parts and butt-plug tail a part of her, but she could still be talked into wearing clothes as long as she still presented as a Catgirl, and, if she was clothed, she could interact with her friends normally. Part-cat, part-human. Tabby mostly walked on two legs, unless she was going down on all fours for attention. Kennedy seemed like she was just a dog. A Puppy. A girl puppy, certainly, but her new identity didn't include also living a normal human life. She walked exclusively on all fours (sometimes on her knees, sometimes in a weird crouch, depending the speed she needed and how tired she was), would only eat or drink from a bowl, and expressed herself mostly in head tilts and facial expressions. She COULD talk, in a voice that's like a bad Scooby-Doo parody, and generally only when ordered to or if she has a specific need, or to say "Rrick or Rreat." Mostly, she spoke like she was a particularly clever dog doing a trick, like those videos you see of people who've trained their dogs to say 'I love you.' Never to have a meaningful conversation. As a parent to a teen myself I came to know a little about how that felt.
But Kennedy seemed to be happy, in the way only a Puppy could be. If asked if she was happy, she would bob her head and wiggle her butt to wag her tail, and give a flat yes if told to speak in words. Kennedy never gave a description of what happened to her, but Princess Mackenzie's story was that they were taken to Fairyland and her sister was turned into a Puppy because she didn't want to be a person anymore and have to make people decisions and talk all the time. Some people think you can't trust the perverted Princess, but to those who knew the family, there was a certain plausibility to the idea. At least, I buy into the idea that the Halloween King nurtured a seed inside Kennedy far past the point of sanity, as he'd done so many times before, and since.
Mackenzie, before she was taken, was always timid and unassertive, and Kennedy, as the older sister, always had to watch out for her, often had to speak up for her in public, make decisions for the both of them. So maybe a part of Kennedy just wanted to let go and be taken care of, and the Halloween King let her escape that minor frustration into the life of a dog, then made her stay in that role and enjoy it. And, everyone had agreed that Kennedy loved dogs, before. She wasn't allowed one herself but would always squeal and stop to play with them given the chance. Maybe she didn't just love dogs, but deep down always wanted to be one, and that's why she chose that costume and the risk the Halloween King would take her. She certainly wouldn't be the only Doll who did that. Every Doll has a story, and it doesn't just start the night they were taken.
However it happened, Kennedy didn't just love dogs, she was one... although to be clear, she still loved dogs. Sexually, I mean. That seemed to be the niche kink the Halloween King crafted her to fill. Like the Free-Use Dolls, Kennedy wouldn't turn down sex if someone wanted it. Point her face at a spot and she'd lick, and if someone wanted to fuck her, all they had to do was maneuver her the right way and she'd calmly take it... maybe get into it if her partner was attentive or it was her master, but Kennedy didn't seek out the attentions of humans. Sometimes, if her master wasn't involved, and a guy was trying to fuck her, or anyone wanted her to lick, Kennedy might even try to wander away as though uninterested until she was set into position... and then wait until they were done with her. That was her attitude if it was a human, anyway. But put a male, unneutered dog in the same room with her and she would do whatever she could to entice it into fucking her, whether she's alone or has an audience.
If you've never seen a dog fucking an underage human girl before... well, you should try and track down Elena and see if you can order her to do it. Or bring a mutt around to the Free-Use girls. Or maybe take in one of the Clown's shows... she thinks humans taking doggy-cock in one of their holes is a hilarious gag that never gets old. Really, a fair number of the Halloween Dolls dip into sex with animals on occasion, or for the right incentive, but when a dog's humping little Kennedy, you're not really watching bestiality, you're watching a dog fucking a bitch who happens to have a human girl's body. That's how we treat it, nowadays, not dirty, just a natural drive for a doggy Doll. Only, if this Doll's drive isn't satisfied, she doesn't go Trick-or-Treating in the usual way, she specifically goes to places with dogs, looking for a bone. If she's gone long enough without being knotted to be frustrated and you don't get the hint, you'll experience the rare sound of her voice asking, "Doggie pway?" because it's become a need that overrides her usual instinct not to speak.
Or Mackenzie will just ask for her, if they're together. And by ask, I mean demand your dog service her horny dog. Since she became a Princess, Mackenzie had lost the timidness and became very assertive. If the Princess was a Doll with a niche, it was people who wanted to be sexually dominated by a little girl.
I say if, because Princess Mackenzie's always been a special case. Some people say that the Halloween King didn't make her into a Doll at all, just told her it was okay to indulge her inner kinkiness... that he stumbled on someone ALREADY as perverted as him and that's why he crowned her as his Princess. These same people say that she condemned her own older sister to the life of a Puppy, rather than puppy-girl, just for her own sexual kicks... not out of any brainwashing. I don't buy into that theory, considering she was only nine when she was taken, and what nine-year-old is that fucked up?
Still, Princess Mackenzie IS special in many ways. Dolls are taken as kids--fifteen's about the oldest, eight the youngest--and once they're taken they don't usually age normally... a few do, but usually there's some kind of hormonal trick he uses to inhibit growth and signs of puberty. Princess Mackenzie's body's one of the exceptions, continuing to develop pretty well normally... maybe a little bit slower than some of her peers, but within the normal range at least. As a Princess, she also doesn't recognize any owner, which makes her almost unique (aside from the Free-Use Dolls, who you might say are owned collectively). If she knocks at your door, it's because she's bored or horny and wants to demand you assist her as is her right... any candy you might give her is just a bonus. She's also the only Doll (again, outside of Free-Use) who can willingly dress up in other costumes for events like Summerween, because, and I quote, 'A Princess dresses however the fuck she wants.' Granted, even there, Mackenzie usually tends to incorporate her tiara into the outfit, of course... she's far more likely to go as Zombie Princess instead of just Zombie, Spooky Princess instead of Witch, Cat Princess instead of Catgirl, and so-on. Once she was even someone called the Paper Bag Princess, though the flimsy outfit didn't last long before she was just a naked girl in a tiara. So clearly she loves being a Princess... but she doesn't have to dress that way. One time she even dressed up exactly as her older sister (who by then looked much younger). Two puppies at once. Maybe it was a Princess and the Pauper riff, I guess, but nobody confused the two, despite the lack of a tiara, since one only barked and the other told you exactly what she wanted.
So that's the major part of her programming, and what convinces me she's a true Doll... that change from meek little girl to a confident Princess. That could have come without brainwashing, but I tell you, having spent some time with her, she's not pretending. She really does believe she's royalty, and that therefore her every whim should be satisfied, even if that whim is that you should kneel down and suck on her clit because, and again I quote, "A Princess doesn't get herself off." Or she might insist that she needs to ride your cock, or borrow your dog, or that you accompany her back to her castle so she can watch you have sex with your own virgin daughter, depending on whatever perversion interests her at the moment, or what she thinks is best for her subjects. Could be either, if she thinks your daughter really wants her daddy, she might see herself as helping out, or she might just get off on the idea of making you do it while she uses her royal scepter to fuck herself. Our Princess gets bored easily, and we think constant self-stimulation is part of her programming, edging without allowing herself to cum unless somebody assists, and that leads her to weird sexual whims. Still, her demands aren't always perverted... if she snaps her fingers in someone's direction, it's just as often for some mundane thing like to make her a sandwich, change the temperature, clean the pool, or sing whatever song she likes at the moment while she lazily fingers herself. She just takes it for granted that she can demand obedience from everybody in town. Which doesn't mean she gets everything she wants. People around here have gotten very good at using the right deferential language when they want to talk her out of things, and even if people outright refuse her something she's set on... it's not like she takes revenge or anything. She might throw a tantrum, or simply glare at you and say something like, "You'll regret this when the King comes back," but if you hold firm to your refusal she'll eventually go ask somebody else for what she wants.
To some people invoking the King is still enough of a threat to get them to submit to her demands, especially if it was something they secretly wanted to do anyway. To others, the fear that our Princess won't think of them the next time she wants a royal gangbang at her castle is enough to keep them in line even for the trivial requests. Princess Mackenzie winds up getting her way a lot, one way or another, and some say she's been spoiled, but, if you don't cross her, she can be sweet and considerate, and there's no better advocate in your corner. Especially if you're a daughter who wants to fuck her daddy, or vice versa.
We've... kinda stopped having a hangup about incest here. Kind of had to. Not everybody does it, by any means, but we have to accept that it happens, especially around the families who have Dolls, and if nothing seems forced, look the other way. Like I said, sometimes when things happen that you can't control, you just have to lean into them, and that's what these Halloween Dolls have done to us. It kind of felt like a no-win situation, you know? Especially after the Free-Users came in. Either we play along with the perversions inflicted on us, find ways to manage them, or we risk them getting worse. Families can either own the Dolls themselves, sexually use them as they seem to want to be used, keep them or they'll go Trick-or-Treating and seek out new owners. Or keep them locked up tight and let the kids go into a catatonic depression that follows.
Every Doll has a story, and they're all a little different but with a lot of repeating themes. Usually one of parents trying their hardest, struggling to make things work but having to make compromise after compromise, before they eventually end up accepting their new role... or, sometimes, giving up ownership entirely to someone else. The real question is whether they use their Dolls before or after other people in town already have. No matter what we do, it seems like the Dolls are going to keep coming.