Haunted Nights

by Ellen Datlow

  Chivo don’t accept the hand.

  The leader of the White Fence gang looks to piss himself, if ghosts could do such a thing, and he turns and bolts like his shoes are on fire.

  Only there’s no running from the underworld.

  Chivo’s run turns into a twirl, and he spins and spins backward to the King’s hand, and with each spin, Chivo’s face has a bit more marking to it, a dab of violet, a swirl of orange, a dash of teal.

  Mictlantecuhtli clicks his boots together and circles Chivo, their fingers touching so dainty, one foot skimming forward, while the other slides back, then a reverse, and the toe and heel click together in this hop-and-stomp style I recognize from ballet folklórico, the kind of folk dancing I seen Abuelita do when I was a little boy.

  And the mariachi ghosts of the graveyard emerge around us playing from their shadows, a roar of trumpeters and guitarists, a sweet racket of violins, a jangle of spurs and bells, and there’s even a bass guitarrón that’s almost as big as Mictlantecuhtli himself.

  The King does a triple-step turn, and his knees are flexed just right, so he leaps and lands so silent, you could hear his shadow applaud.

  I move back to Saint and Abuelita, who are whistling along.

  Chivo screams as brilliant rosebuds stipple his brow, he flails his arms while curlicue stitches cross his cheeks, his foot skips forward, crosses behind the left, and he whirls graceful as a ballerina while his eyes spill green fumes. Mictlantecuhtli dips him, leaning in close to the cholo’s face.

  Chivo screams again, curses some string of insults, then swings a wild haymaker punch. Mictlantecuhtli was lifting Chivo back up while leaning to the music, and in such a way Chivo’s punch knocked off the tall top hat.

  That top hat, you know, you don’t want to see what’s beneath….

  It isn’t no crown of a skull under there, no inside of a bleached bone cranium or nothin’; it’s a door, this crumbling hole in an ageless wall, and we glimpsed through to Mictlan itself—Mictlan, where the skulls and marigolds don’t ever dance; Mictlan, where the flames are made of sugar…

  Chivo’s screams dry up, I think right there he just quits. Mictlantecuhtli is done with him anyway. The King lifts Chivo in that big bone hand and lobs him like an underhand baseball through the opening in his skull.

  Then the top hat goes back on, and Mictlantecuhtli makes a final bow to us before spiraling away in a cloud of fog and leaves.

  And I stop holding my breath.

  Abuelita makes a clack-clack-clack sound like she don’t care no more, and Papá’s shattered bones knit back together, and he stands up.

  Papá clacks back to her, his eye sockets cast down, all sheepish and shit.

  Abuelita clacks to Saint next. He winks and tells me, “Adios, vato, it’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down.”

  Then he’s gone, the sugar skull fallen still.

  Abuelita last shakes a single bony finger at me. Clack-clack-clack.

  And I’m like Papá, my eyes cast to the ground. “Yes, ma’am,” and, “I’ll be good, ma’am.”

  She gives one more clack-clack-clack, it’s almost affectionate, and hands me the book of black magick.

  Abuelita looks around, throws some gang sign of the underworld, and she and Papá vanish. Around me, other ghosts start fading too, and the moon above is normal again, I know there’s not much time.

  I turn to Santi, he’s already growing dim, but I haven’t made my peace….

  “Wait!” I say, only he just shakes his head all sad like I failed a test, and he dissolves.

  I stare at his headstone, a slab of cold marble stabbing up from dark earth. There’s only the echo of my name drifting on a breeze along with a sound could be clacking to remind why I’m here….

  “Wait for me, wait for me,” I start praying. I didn’t go through all this just to lose him again.

  I find my switchblade lying on the ground, and though my arm’s still throbbing, I scratch out the name of Saint from the sugar skull.

  Maybe it’s no good, maybe nothing happens. Maybe it’s too late, the magick breaks at dawn, or all this ain’t worth it, but I have to try, what I got brought here for. I don’t want to start a new day all alone but for a mold of sugar inside a cemetery.

  And even if it does work, I don’t know how long he can stay, how strong is Abuelita’s witchcraft, but I hope it’s a lifetime, I hope he can hear me say every day what I should’ve told him for so long….

  I open the Brujería Magia Negra to a certain passage, and I read out loud while carving a new name into the skull’s brow, and this time I make sure to get every letter right.

  The Turn

  Paul Kane

  IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME. They can’t help themselves.

  When they hear it, when they hear me, they turn. That’s the key. It’s what leads to their downfall. You can’t blame them, of course. It’s natural; it’s instinct. Something which, for generations, has kept them safe. A need to look, to see who might be behind them. Who or what might be following. It has kept people alive, in fact, which is ironic when you think about it. Because the same action now, tonight, is what will ensure their death.

  The footsteps are all they can hear, nothing else. From a distance, then closer. Soft, then loud; so loud, they cannot ignore them. The one sign they are being trailed. No breath on their neck, no hand on the shoulder. Merely the footfalls, the staccato tapping on the pavement behind, keeping pace with them. Walking or running, it doesn’t matter which.

  At first, they might think it’s an echo, as some have done before. In underpasses, beneath bridges, or even in alleyways where sound can bounce off the walls. They might stop, cock an ear to make sure. And, of course, the footsteps will pause at the same time…because I’m right behind them. They stop, I stop. I can’t do anything until they look. It’s the way it works. Don’t ask me how or why.

  Then they begin walking again, noticing the difference between the two sets of noises. That they’re not at exactly the same time, they’re out of…step a fraction. Another clue they are not alone. They might not be, even before I find them—target them. Though I prefer the more solitary soul, I have been known to make my presence known to couples from time to time. Holding hands, believing they are safe; the very notion of that tonight! Safe. No one is safe on this date. Not from me. Not if they turn, anyway.

  It’s the reason I take so many, because I can only operate one night out of every year. Again, it’s the way things are—they are the rules. Like Santa coming at Christmas, except I take instead of give.

  There are legends about me, if you care to look. If you can be bothered to do the research. Some say I’m one of the dead, but I don’t count myself amongst their number. I am not a shade, waiting for the line to blur between this world and the next, although we do appear at the same time. The ones I select join their ranks, certainly, but I am not from them. Some have speculated I am Death itself, and perhaps there’s a grain of truth to that one. Yet Death comes to everyone, and it can come at any time. Bound by its own rules, of course, but very different ones. Maybe, in my own way, I lighten Death’s load for one night? It’s not for me to comment. Some have said I am the spirit, the very embodiment of what this night is really about. That one I like, but again I cannot lay claim to the crown.

  The simple truth is, I am none of these things. I am something else.

  Bound by what I must do, what I have done for such a long time now, I cannot remember anything else. I have no pity, show no compassion. I’m incapable of feeling love, remorse, or fear. I have no emotions whatsoever, just a purpose. A calling. And it calls, oh how it calls.

  Some might say I am playing a game, toying with humanity. It’s one way of looking at things, I suppose. If that is the case, then I am one of the few remaining who knows how to play it.

  Take this person, for example. Dressed, as so many are tonight, as a monster—but a fictional one. Something from a culture I cannot possibly begin to understand. The
garb is ludicrous, made as it is from rubber, as is the mask with its fangs and horns. This man has no idea what a real monster is. Has no idea why the tradition of hiding one’s face even began: to hide from the monsters, from evil on this night. To disguise yourself so the dead will not recognize you. He has no idea of its heritage; all he cares about is having a good time—no doubt on his way to some gathering or another, already weaving as if he’s been drinking.

  I slot myself in behind him, mirroring his actions, though I am a straight line. An unerring manifestation of determination, never wavering in my chosen course of action. It takes him a little while to even realize I’m there, his senses dulled by the alcohol. He knows something isn’t right but can’t quite work out what. Wait for it. Yes, there. He looks down at those oversize feet, claws at the ends of each toe; realizes it cannot possibly be his own footsteps he’s hearing. That it’s someone else here with him, on the relatively quiet stretch of road.

  Then a shake of the head; it’s his imagination. Nothing more. Continue on, rush off to where the lights and music await. But he can’t quite shift that nagging feeling, the clack-clack-clack like a fly buzzing round his head. Not him: someone else.

  Someone behind him.

  He stops suddenly, and I stop too. The man looks down again, then left and right. I wait, it won’t take long. Not now. He’ll look, he’ll succumb any minute now. They always do. Up until then, I cannot lay a finger on him. But afterward…oh, afterward…

  There it is. The turn. First of the head, glancing over his shoulder; then the whole body, facing me. Though I cannot see it, there is an expression of terror beneath his mask.

  If only he’d known. If only he’d remembered the old ways, the ancient traditions. But then, nobody ever seems to these days; sad but true.

  Oh well. Time for another turn now.

  My turn.

  —

  TIM NOLAN KNEW about the old ways, the ancient traditions.

  He should do, he’d been hearing about them since he was small. Ever since he could remember, he’d been taught the lessons, the rules. What to do, what not to do. What never to do. On this day, this night. Schooled in them by a grandmother who’d been more of a parent to him than anything, after his own had both died in a car accident—around this time of year, as a matter of fact. Off on a weekend break when a freak storm had caused the roads to become treacherous, caused Tim’s father to skid and hit a tree.

  “They never listened,” his grandmother used to say. “I told them not to go. Oh, my sweet baby girl.”

  Perhaps it was why she focussed on the bad things that could happen during this particular holiday, fuelled by the fact she herself was originally from the old country. Whatever the reason, she’d passed her paranoia on. Told him curses were real, that ghouls and goblins and ghosts actually did walk the earth on October 31. Taught him the best way to ward off such evil, as well.

  Fire was one of the most effective weapons, and for many years in their garden a bonfire had burned brightly which he would help Gran to build. “That’s right, nice and big. They won’t dare come anywhere near us now, Timothy,” she’d say. “Let them try!”

  Turnips and potatoes with coals or candles inside them would also protect the front and rear of the property, a defensive ring. And as his grandmother prepared them, she would mutter spells, incantations handed down through the family line and which she would eventually pass on to him. More protection, while they would hole up inside as if under siege. Waiting out the night, ignoring any knocks at the door—which were more than likely children trick-or-treating, but you couldn’t be too careful—waiting until dawn’s early light when they would be safe again. And because he didn’t know any different, it was simply normal to him.

  Tim no longer built a bonfire in the garden, because for one thing he now lived in a much smaller property, outside of town. But he would fill the place with candles, the vast majority around the windows and doors. He’d utter the words his grandmother had taught him; it was no different to people saying their prayers at night (“Now I lay me down to sleep…”), though God had no part in this.

  Tim would also stay inside no matter what, to be on the safe side. No parties or answering the door, he’d sit by an electric fire and wait, smoking one cigarette after the other. The rest of the year, he wasn’t particularly superstitious. He didn’t go out of his way to walk under ladders or break mirrors, but he wouldn’t have lost any sleep over doing so either. No, this date was the focal point, and if he could get through unscathed, then it was almost as if he’d be protected for the rest of the year, like evil would leave him alone if it hadn’t been able to find him then.

  It was one of the reasons he’d remained alone all these years, especially after his gran had been diagnosed with dementia and had to go into a home. Tim had done his best to look after her as long as he could, but when she was becoming a danger not simply to herself, but to him and their neighbors…That time she’d turned the kettle on without filling it, for example, and almost burned the whole place to the ground; well, Tim had been given no choice. It had meant downsizing, but with his job as IT support for a small family firm, he’d more or less managed. Yet another reason he wasn’t able to splash the cash and impress a potential partner.

  Not that they would have understood this…whatever it was. Would sure as hell never join him when he hid away every year. People these days just wanted to celebrate, go out and get drunk dressed up as all sorts; it had made his grandmother so mad. “They’ve forgotten what it’s all about,” she would wail. “But that’s what they want us to do. There are even toys in the supermarkets! Toys, Timothy! Singing devils, pitchforks, plastic pumpkins!”

  It would not be the ideal environment for—thinking ahead, as he always did—a child. To have to explain why they couldn’t go and join their friends out there having fun. What if something should happen to them? What then?

  A child who existed in Tim’s imagination. A family which could be snatched away as easily as his own had been. Cursed. Tricked.

  Dead.

  It was better to only have to look out for himself, as selfish as that sounded. As lonely as it sounded. Best not to drag anyone else into this, real or imaginary. He could control what happened in his life on that date, could please himself. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever get him to set foot out through the door and leave his protection behind.

  Except this year there had been a call. Tim hadn’t answered it, obviously, because those things out there that could do you harm were cunning. The more the world had changed, the more they changed with it, utilizing the technology that gave him his living every day (apart from this one, which he always took off work if it was a weekday).

  He let the call ring off, used to ignoring the outside world. Arms folded and sitting next to the fire; it was probably those telemarketing people again, or a prankster who’d giggle down the line. But the answer phone had picked up, the caller leaving a message he couldn’t fail to hear. A female voice, but deep.

  “Hello, I’m trying to get through to a Mr. Timothy Nolan. Pick up if you’re there.” Tim twitched in the seat, took a drag on his cigarette, but didn’t get up. “It’s…This is Saint August’s calling, by the way. I’ve…well, I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

  Saint August’s: where she was.

  He leaned forward now, stubbing out the smoke, his other hand going to his chin and rubbing it frantically.

  “It’s about your grandmother,” said the voice. “Look, if you’re there, please answer. You need to get here as soon as possible.

  “I’m afraid she’s taken a turn for the worse.”

  —

  NOW, I’M NOT saying they don’t struggle, even after they’ve seen me.

  It’s instinct again, human nature. The need to protect oneself; I understand that. But ultimately it’s pointless. Take this one, the jogger who didn’t seem to care either way what night it was. Making her way through the park, colorful outfit so she could be
seen—cap on her head with her blond hair fed through the gap at the back, swaying from side to side as she ran.

  I waited until she slowed, taking a drink from the flask she had on her hip, before setting off again. I made sure she heard the footsteps though, before she put her earphones back on, otherwise she would have been lost to me. If you don’t hear them, you don’t get the urge to turn, and my chance is gone. Fortunately, she figured out someone was there quite quickly, spinning around and jogging backward, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  She did, however, not long afterward. More than she could cope with…

  That was when the struggle began, but it didn’t last very long. Never does. In the end, you can’t fight the inevitable. And in the same way people have to turn, they also have to submit to me. To my attentions.

  You can call what I do “killing,” but there’s a crudeness about the word which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It’s so much more than the ending of a life. So much more. In my own way, I turn them as well: from flesh to spirit. Relieving them of the burden of their self, free to be with those who have passed, to go to a place of eternal rest. No more worry, once the end has come. The woman had her cares, especially when she encountered me, but then—once it was over—she really did have none in this world. Nor the next.

  I changed her, turned her. It’s what I do best. It’s the only thing I do, actually. At least today.

  Is there a quota? you’re probably wondering. A certain amount of people I need to fit in? Not as such, but I like to get to as many as I can. Some slip away from me, of course, whether by accident or sheer fate. One, I recall, heard me, but as he was about to turn, as I was about to take him, someone called to him from across the road—spoiling the moment. Thoughts of whoever might be behind vanished as he rushed to meet his friend, hand raised, no thought for what he missed out on by mere seconds. The turn, then the turn.

  Another I remember tripped and fell headlong onto the ground in front of her before she could look. After that, she was obviously more concerned about how she might have injured herself than anything else, phone out and calling for assistance. My cue to leave. Quite apart from anything else, if she couldn’t walk, how could I follow? How could I make my footsteps in the first place? When they are still, so am I.