Halloween Spirits: 11 Tales for the Darkest Night Read online

  “That you hadn’t told anyone. I never accused you of snitching, did I?”

  “No, but—”

  “But nothing. You shouldn’t be thinking like that. We need to stick together more now than ever.”

  Normally, Rich had that cock of the walk thing radiating off him. It was what had drawn Tina to him. But the only thing he radiated now was fear. Not fear of what he’d done, but of what Nick was capable of.

  “You’re right, man.” Rich cracked the tops off the bottles. “One hundred percent, you’re right.”

  He held a beer out to Nick, but Nick slapped it away. The bottle shattered on the floor and beer fizzed in a puddle around it.

  “You talked, didn’t you?”

  Rich put his hands up and backed up. “No way.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Nick knocked the remaining beer from Rich’s hand and leaned into him, pinning him against a countertop. “You talked.”

  Rich shoved Nick back. Nick slid in the spilled beer and broken glass.

  “No, I didn’t snitch. No one saw us. We’re cool if we keep our shit together.”

  Nick tapped the fortune tickets in his pocket. He’d lost his shit the moment they’d slid from Imelda the Magnificent’s grasp.

  “What makes you think someone knows?”

  Nick told Rich what happened at the fair, but didn’t show him the fortunes, too frightened by their meaning.

  “You’re losing it, man. Losing it big time.”

  It sounded ridiculous when he listened to himself. He pulled out a chair and sat down. Rich pulled out two new brews, set them down on the table and sat kitty-corner to Nick.

  “Someone could have seen us,” Nick said.

  “No one saw us,” Rich said, but his customary confidence failed to convince Nick.

  “You’re lying.”

  Rich shoved his beer away. “I think someone’s been following me.”

  “Cop?”

  Rich shook his head. “Cops would have dragged me in. This is someone else. I don’t know who. Whenever I feel I’m being followed and I try to catch the son of a bitch, no one’s there. I thought I was crazy until now. This fortune thing sounds like bullshit, but I’ve felt someone scoping me out, so I’m not dismissing it.”

  “I want to check.”

  “Check what?”

  “What do you think?”

  ***

  Nick made Rich drive his car. He didn’t quite give him the benefit of the doubt. He knew how crazy the fortune tickets sounded, but Rich could be playing him, so he wanted Rich’s hands and feet occupied.

  With honest and decent people tucked up in bed, the roads were quiet and it didn’t take long to find their spot, their crime. Rich turned off the road and into the wood. The car slithered on the soft earth and fallen leaves. He stopped deep enough in the woods that the car couldn’t be spotted from the road.

  Nick popped the trunk and removed the shovel he’d taken from Rich’s. Dirt from its previous use still gripped the blade.

  “We won’t need it,” Rich said.

  Nick ignored him and closed the trunk.

  It wasn’t hard to trace the path back. Nick’s senses had been in overdrive. Everything he’d done, seen, felt and witnessed that night was tattooed in his mind. He remembered every tree that circled his crime. They’d looked down upon him then as they did now—like disapproving parents, their shame so great they could never look up again.

  “See, nothing’s been touched. It’s just the way it was,” Rich said.

  Rich was right. The site looked undisturbed. Nature had even done its thing. It had covered their tracks, smoothed over the rough patches and aged the freshly turned earth.

  “Can we go now?”

  “No.” Nick didn’t like the cocky tone in Rich’s voice. This was no place for that. “I want to see.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Crazy or not, Nick stabbed the ground with the spade. It invaded the soil easily. The sensation left him queasy. It reminded him how weak flesh was against violence. He overcame his nausea by digging and digging deep.

  Rich took over as Nick’s strength waned. He dug deep and hard, like a man wanting to get this unpleasantness behind him. For Nick, this unpleasantness would never end.

  Rich’s spade hit something more resilient than the earth. It had uncovered a faux silk cami. Nick knew it to be lavender in color, but the moonlight and dirt stained it near black. Rich looked at Nick. Nick couldn’t speak. Instead, he took the spade from Rich. Someone who still cared needed to do this. He scraped at the dirt with the spade. He lacked the courage to do this work by hand. He worked his way up the body until he carefully revealed Tina’s face.

  Nick uttered a noise that was akin to a sob. It hurt his chest when it slipped from between his lips. He wished he could claim the sob was for Tina, but it was for himself.

  He’d been stupid. So stupid, it bordered on cliché. He’d gotten drunk. Every time he finished a drink, Rich replaced it with another. With their inhibitions doped into a coma, they’d picked up Tina, a good time girl thumbing her way to Los Angeles one ride at a time, one man at a time. The price for the bus money was some three-way action out by the creek. It was action Nick didn’t need with Lisa’s love as constant companion, but love is responsibility and some nights you just want to leave responsibility at the door, so Nick indulged. The sex was fun and frivolous, but somewhere along the line, it had turned mean. Tina made a crack in bad taste and Nick retaliated with a backhand blow. Nick closed his eyes as he remembered the sound his fist had made against Tina’s jaw. But one blow, like one drink, wasn’t enough. By the time Rich had torn him away, it was too late.

  Tina had been pretty, but she wasn’t anymore. Moonlight and shadow distorted his violence and the rot to make her appear worse than she was.

  “Christ, can’t you smell it?” Rich said.

  Nick hadn’t. He’d been too lost in the moment to notice, but he smelled her now. It was a small price to pay for what he’d done to her.

  “She’s still there. Happy now? Can we go?”

  Nick turned to see Rich scrabble up the side of the grave. A rectangle of paper, familiar in size and shape, worked its way out of Rich’s jean pocket and tumbled into the grave. Nick picked up the ticket and read the fortune on the back—Thursday.

  Rich had lied. Rich had cheated. Rich would pay.

  Nick slammed the spade into Rich’s back, felling him with a single blow. He grabbed Rich by the collar, yanked him back into the grave and shoved the fortune in his face.

  “That’s not mine.”

  “You lied, Rich. What else have you lied about?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “I know my fortune. Let’s see what yours is going to be.”

  ***

  Nick bound Rich with the towrope from the back of his car and shoved a rag in his mouth to keep him quiet before stuffing him in the trunk. He left Tina’s grave open. There’d be time enough to make things right later and if Rich didn’t tell the truth, then he’d join Tina. It was his damn fault she was dead in the first place.

  He pulled up in front of the fairgrounds with Rich kicking the trunk lid and screaming. He was wasting his time. The fair was long since closed. Its people were tucked up in their motel rooms or trailers. Only security lights gave the illusion of occupation.

  He dragged Rich from the trunk. Rich tried running, but he’d been cramped up too long. Nick caught him without effort and ensured he behaved himself by pressing his box cutter against his throat.

  He disabled the feeble padlock protecting the fairgrounds from thieves and shoved Rich over to Imelda the Magnificent. He thrust Rich to his knees before the fortuneteller.

  “You’ve met, I believe.”

  Rich mumbled something unintelligible into his gag.

  “Imelda the Magnificent has told me my fortune, but let’s see if it’s changed.”

  Nick produced a nickel, put it in the slot and waited for his fortune. He hated I
melda’s tedious spiel. He just wanted his damn fortune. He snatched the ticket before it had a chance to land in the brass tray. He smiled when it said Thursday again.

  He showed the ticket to Rich. “See?”

  Rich shook his head.

  “Let’s see what your fortune says. You have a nickel? Gotta have a nickel.” Nick delved in Rich’s pockets for loose change, coins spilling out. “It can’t be one of mine. It has to be one of yours. For the magic to work, you have to buy your own fortune.”

  Nick snatched up a nickel and shoved it into the slot. Out came the single word fortune he knew too well. He remembered his science teacher drumming into him that an experiment was never proven until it was repeated. He shoved another of Rich’s nickels into Imelda the Magnificent. The fortune was the same again. But this wasn’t science. This was something far more important. This was truth. And truth had to be proven over and over again. Nick shoved all of Rich’s nickels into Imelda and she told the same fortune again and again. When Rich’s nickels ran out, he gave his nickels to Rich then fed those nickels into Imelda. Nick held over a dozen fortune tickets in his fist.

  “Who knows what we did? Who knows, Rich? How does Imelda know?”

  Nick yanked Rich’s gag down for him to answer. “She doesn’t know. You’re crazy.”

  “Crazy, am I?” Nick barked and drove the box cutter into Rich’s stomach. “How’s that for crazy?”

  “Stop,” someone shouted.

  Nick jerked the box cutter free and before he could use it again, an explosion split the air and an immense force felled Nick as if he’d been stuck by a brick wall. He collapsed next to Rich, both of them bleeding from their respective wounds.

  The carnie came over, his finger still on the shotgun’s trigger.

  “How did she know?” Nick asked the carnie.

  “She’s Imelda the Magnificent. She knows all,” he replied proudly then more sedately, “She knows too much. It’s not everyone she weeps for.”

  Nick craned his neck towards Imelda. The jewel tear he’d seen earlier was no longer there.

  The carnie knelt at Nick’s side. He winced at the damage his shotgun had done.

  “Do you know what day it is?” Nick asked.

  The carnie checked his watch. “It’s after midnight, so it’s Thursday. Now take it easy. I’ll get help,” the carnie said and took off.

  Thursday, Nick thought and smiled. His grip on his fortune slipped and the tickets fell from his open hand. The wind caught them and they fled his grasp. The wet grass slowed their escape until they all came to rest on the ground. Some lay with their fortunes face down while others lay face up, but not a single one said Thursday.

  THE OUTLAWS OF HILL COUNTY

  John Palisano

  The night before Halloween, the Long Fellow sucked Jenny Lou Harrison’s soul right through her fingers. Bright red strands connected her freshly blackened fingertips to his. She wiggled and cried. I just stood there by that big oak tree outside her room and watched, unable to do a damn thing to stop the Long Fellow’s terrible meal.

  When he was done he hurried out of her room, out her window, and made it into the crest of the tree above me. I hunkered down, scared he might see me and make me his next meal. He didn’t. Instead the Long Fellow bowed his head to me. He had a face with two large grey eyes, a long nose and a mouth filled with small jagged fangs that reminded me of broken shards of glass.

  All the acid in my stomach rose up. My balance went out on me and I buckled down against the trunk, hugging that oak tree with the single ounce of energy I had left. His hot breath blanketed the back of my head and neck. My hands trembled uncontrollably like the old men at Tully’s Tavern who’d courted years of whiskey. Once I rolled onto the grass, my body gave out. My sick hit the dirt. The smell of my own cooked bile made my guts clench.

  Above me, the Long Fellow descended the oak tree. Branches moaned and leaves rustled. Several twigs dropped near me. I wanted to get a better look at the Long Fellow —see what kind of being could turn someone sick with its own will—see how such a thing drained the life from poor pretty Jenny using only its unholy fingertips.

  Harvest Hill felt colder that night than any other night I remember, even though it wasn’t yet winter. Part of me believes the Long Fellow sucked every ounce of warmth and comfort from the air along with what he stole from Jenny Lou.

  My throat felt dried and sore. The few inches I managed to raise myself up made my head spin. You got to stay awake, I thought. The Long Fellow’s still here. My body didn’t listen.

  As I drifted off, I watched Jenny Lou fade away.

  I woke late that night. At first I thought I’d fallen from the tree and knocked myself out. Something deep down inside me didn’t want to believe the Long Fellow had returned to Harvest Hill. Maybe that’s why I dismissed the stillness of Jenny Lou’s body as her just sleeping.

  Hurrying from her yard, I did my best to tuck my hair under my leather jacket’s collar to try to keep a little warmer. One of the benefits of wearing your hair long, I guess. That, and everyone seemed to know where I stood concerning the war. I wasn’t one of them, after all. Never thought going to Nam was a good idea. We have enough trouble here at home.

  I couldn’t stop remembering things about Jenny Lou. We went out a few times, but always with a group, never just her and me. I would have loved to, of course, and was working up the courage to ask her. That was before the Long Fellow came and took away any chance of that happening.

  ***

  “You shouldn’t be drinking at your age.”

  Grandma thought she was doing well, but she didn’t understand. “I haven’t been drinking,” I said. “I’m sick. Caught something.”

  She met me just outside the bathroom, where I’d recently emptied my belly. “You look pale as a ghost, Lew Rogers.”

  “I feel like it,” I said. “And I’m not joking about not drinking. I swear I think I caught something.”

  “You gone and ate at that girl’s house again, haven’t you?” Leave it to Grandma to try to place blame on someone for something.

  I shook my head. “I haven’t eaten anything since lunch at school,” I said. “Haven’t been able to keep anything down.” Trying to walk past her wasn’t going to work until she had the final word, so I let her have it.

  “Maybe you should take the food I make you and stop eating that garbage.”

  She wasn’t making me feel any better. “Sounds like a good idea. You’re right. I need to lie down. My head’s spinning.”

  Grandma smiled just a bit; I could tell she was happy telling me her two cents worth. “You go to your room,” she said, finally moving sideways so I could get past. “Just make sure you sleep on your side. Don’t want you throwing up in your sleep and choking on your own vomit.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  ***

  Once I was in bed, I couldn’t sleep. My mind raced with images of the Long Fellow. No one would believe what’d gotten me sick. The Long Fellow was something the kids sang about—he wasn’t real:

  “When the night gets long

  And the day goes quick,

  You better hide inside,

  Or you might get sick—

  Out come the Long Fellow,

  Playing his tricks,

  Sucking your soul,

  Through your fingertips…”

  All of us knew the rhyme. We grew up singing and scaring each other with Long Fellow stories. Legend was he came down from the mountains on Halloween every year to feed on kids. He’d put out his hands and pull your essence from your fingertips, leaving them black and shriveled. You’d never be the same.

  So what was I supposed to do? I knew what I’d seen, but knew no one was going to believe me. Well, I thought. Just keep your mouth shut and forget it.

  I raised my head and body on the pillow. My stomach felt better being elevated. It wasn’t as comfortable as being all curled up, but eventually sleep found me.

  ***

/>   “We’ve got some bad news this morning.” That was how Mr. Palace started homeroom. Before the bell, I spotted him chatting with Mr. Block, our science teacher. Something about the way they stood with their backs to us made me believe they were sharing secrets.

  “Probably canceling Halloween tonight ‘cuz they think you dumb hippies are going to go and protest it.” That was Eric Sable, a nasty piece of work who never had a good word concerning anything.

  I wanted to say something quick and clever right back, but I’m one of those folks that can’t think of anything smart until two days after. Then I’ve got a million comebacks. I just shook my head.

  “Kids?” Mr. Palace said. “There’s going to be lots of you talking over the next few days and we didn’t want there to be any rumors. You’re all old enough to hear the truth.”

  Get on with it, I thought. Come on.

  “We lost Jenny Lou Harrison last night.” His voice broke saying her name; he lowered his chin and he put a thumb to his forehead before looking back up.

  My chest felt numb. How could she be dead? The Long Fellow wasn’t supposed to kill you, after all, just leave you an empty soulless shell. I was there last night. Did anyone see me? Are they going to make the connection and pin me at her house? Are they going to arrest me? What am I going to tell them? That the Long Fellow did it? I felt dizzy. Clutching the sides of my desk, I took a long deep breath.

  “She passed away in her sleep. No one’s sure exactly why, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.” He made himself stand straight and put his hands to his hips like a drill sergeant. “If you feel you need to talk about this, please let one of us know or see your guidance counselor. Does anyone have any questions?”

  Eric Sable raised his hand. “I do.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Does this mean we’re going to have to cancel Halloween tonight?”

  ***

  By the time third period rolled around, I knew I had to sneak out of Harvest Hill High. “I think Steve Woodworth got a visit from the Long Fellow too.” My good friend Jules Shepherd bent my ear while we were switching books at our lockers. “He’s got the same black fingers you were telling me Jenny Lou had. I saw him leaning on Mr. Strabb and going inside.” He showed me his fingers. “I wonder: if the Long Fellow gets me, how anyone would know? My fingers are already black!”