Ghouls Night Out by Terri Garey

Chapter 1
    “I look like a giant pineapple,” I muttered. “Put a bowl of fruit on my head and I could give Carmen Miranda a run for her money.”
    How many ruffles did one dress need? Ruffles from waist to ankle—in shiny yellow taffeta, no less.
    “I’m Chiquita Banana and I’m here to say, bananas need to ripen in a certain way…”
    If I craned my neck just right, I could see in the mirror how the giant bow on my butt made my ass look at least four sizes bigger. The waist was too big, and the flat bodice and off-the-shoulder sleeves squashed my boobs down to nothing.
    Not like they were big to begin with, but they were usually something .
    And this particular shade of yellow was so not my color—it didn’t go with the pink streaks in my hair.
    “How are you doing? Need help with the zipper?”
    I whipped the curtain to my dressing room back with a rattle.
    “Oh,” the saleslady smiled, clearly blowing smoke up my newly huge ass. “You look lovely.”
    “Are you sure this is the dress Debbie picked out?” I asked hopefully. “She said she was going to keep it simple.” The stiff tulle of my underskirt rustled as I stepped forward—walking in this thing would be a nightmare, and I was going to have to do it in front of witnesses, with a smile pasted on my face.
    The woman actually looked disappointed. “Don’t you like it? All the other bridesmaids loved it.”
    That’s because they’re all morons , I thought to myself. Redneck morons.
    Though to be fair, only half of the Hathaway clan were morons, the rest were idiots. Debbie and her three sisters would welcome the chance to dress up like a Brazilian bombshell in pineapple season, particularly if there were hats or ribbons involved.
    Cousins on my mom’s side, the Hathaway sisters made me glad I was adopted. But I knew my mom would’ve wanted me to do the right thing, and when Debbie called me out of the blue and begged me to be in her wedding, it had been Emily Styx’s voice I’d heard in my head. “Family is everything, Nicki,” she’d have said. Besides, as cousins go, Debbie had always been my favorite—I couldn’t erase the mental image of the little tow-headed girl who used to follow me around at family reunions.
    Which is why I’d driven an hour into the middle of nowhere to be fitted with one of the ugliest bridesmaid dresses I’d ever seen.
    Taking my silence for consent, I suppose, the grimly cheerful saleslady ushered me up onto a pedestal in front of a wall of mirrors. I stared at myself in dismayed silence as she fluffed a few ruffles and tugged at the sleeves.
    “And here’s a lovely hat to complete the ensemble,” she said, fake smile firmly in place.
    I watched in horror as she held out a floppy yellow concoction, dripping with ribbon.
    “You’re not serious,” I said, unable to muster even a pretense of politeness.
    “Oh, but I am, dear,” she answered, nodding. “It’s your cousin’s day, after all, isn’t it?”
    Her day. Her beautiful, precious, I’m-getting-married-and-you’re-not day.
    “No bride in the world is going to let a bridesmaid outshine them on their wedding day, dear,” the woman said, not unkindly. “Now put your hat on and stand up straight. Time to break out the measuring tape if we’re to have this dress ready by Saturday.”
    Ten minutes later I was still standing there, waiting impatiently while the hem was pinned; it was going to have to come up at least an inch and the ruffles made the pinning difficult. The shop door opened, and a woman came in. She was in her early twenties, dark hair in a messy ponytail, and stopped short when she saw me standing in front of the mirrors.
    “That’s my dress,” she said, clearly surprised to see me in it.
    The seamstress, whose name I’d learned was Bebe, looked up. “I have to get that door fixed,” she said absently. “It keeps blowing open.”
    “Who are you?” the dark-haired girl asked me, “and why are you wearing my