Toybox

by Al Sarrantonio

  Biff and Buff quaked too.

  “Let's get out of here!” Biff cried, and found no protest from his companion.

  The floor steadied, and they ran for the door.

  The basso-profundo voice bellowed from everywhere at once, a singsong: “Leave if you must; if you must all is lost.”

  The door flew open, showing them the town below.

  Lightning bolted through the streets. Steam vented from heaving ground, which threatened to swallow houses whole. At the circumference of the town itself a gorge had appeared, a grinding moat, a line of demarcation as the town began to screw down into the depths of the earth.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Buff shouted, turning angrily toward the basso voice, which chuckled deeply.

  “ONLY...YOU...CAN...STOP...IT....” the voice rumbled and laughed.

  “How?” Buff pleaded.

  The town was disappearing in a heaving, crying hiss of smoke and grinding rock.

  “YOU...ALREADY...KNOW....”

  “Buff!” Biff cried, “the town is gone!”

  Buff saw only a roil of lightning filled smoke where once houses and streets and trees and parks had been.

  “No!”

  Buff ran to the cauldron, reached high and in, dug out a fistful of candy.

  “Quick! Biff!” she shouted, and Biff joined her, following her example.

  “Put it in your bag!”

  Buff did as he was told, thrusting the candy bars and popcorn balls and tootsie rolls and Mary Janes and candy corn (purple/green! yellow/ white!) into his trick-or-treat bag.

  Buff did the same.

  There was a groan from the deepest depths of the house, a satisfied, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....”

  The house steadied.

  The door slammed shut

  —with Biff and Buff on the outside. They stood on the porch and saw now that the dark of the door's opening really was a parlor door, a black one. The stone lions were stone only, sitting still and silent vigil.

  Down below, as if by miracle, the town was back. Telephone poles stood tall, streets lay flat and houses were plumb. Trees dropped leaves as if nothing had happened. Pumpkins glowed in windows, and trick-or-treaters rang doorbells and laughed and filled their bags with treasures. Biff and Buff rubbed their eyes, looked again.

  Everything was back to normal.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Buff.

  “Neither can I,” said Biff. He began to descend the steps, eyeing the lions with suspicion.

  Buff held him fast.

  “Wait!”

  Questioning, Biff looked at her.

  “I have to know why.”

  She turned back to the dark door, put her hand out even as Biff sought to hold her back.

  The Big House reared up with a roar, shaking wide its door like a mouth. From within came fire and smoke. The parlor was gone, along with the cauldron and paper cutouts and straw man and broomsticks. In their place was a hole: deep and widening, with a sour green light and the deep boom of laughter.

  Biff pulled Buff back; the lions reared upon their hind legs, leaped up the porch steps as the two children ducked under swiping paws.

  Biff and Buff ran, nearly dropping their trick-or-treat bags; the gates were open but closing, the owls swooping, claws extended. At the house's four corners, gargoyles hooted, throwing down stones yanked from their own bodies.

  Buff pushed Biff past an attacking owl and scooted out through the gate herself.

  The gate clanged shut with a funereal sound.

  With roaring in their ears and imagined pursuers behind, Biff and Buff continued to run.

  They ran to normal Halloween in the town below.

  ~ * ~

  And in the Big House, something said, as it settled down into its foundation, and threw up its blackened windows to the world, and closed its dark and sharp hole of a door, and froze its gargoyle guards in place at is four corners, and replaced its vicious owls with blank, watchful eyes on top of its gates – something said, before smiling back into its hole with satisfaction, “I just wanted to see what it was like to play with it.”

  BOGY

  It was Old October, but no one was scared.

  Pumpkins sat rotting on doorsteps. The air was cold but not crisp; apples wouldn't bob in tubs, and the trees held their wet green leaves and wouldn't let them fall, brown and whipping, to the ground. The Moon rose each night, but pale and quiet: a sick Man. Children were bored and lazy, their Halloween costumes—white plastic bone suits, coal-black witch cones and flapping ghost sheets—neatly folded in boxes on the top shelves of hall closets.

  It was Old October, but there were no Boos in the air.

  No silvery shudders at midnight.

  No howling wolf-dogs, wax fangs, velvet capes.

  No creaking doors, opening coffins, dropping spiders.

  No Telltale hearts.

  No clouds; no wind.

  It was Old October and something was wrong.

  Fear was fading from the world.

  Here were four Bogy-boys, count 'em: Spook and Butch and Bill and Augie the new boy: four Bogy-boys more bored and tired and unghoulish than the rest. Here were four Bogy-boys in their Bogy Clubhouse, cheats to their name: surrounded by the implements of their fraternity collecting dust. Boxes of rubber things—worms and centipedes and snakes and green glowy doo-dads with eyes all over—went unused in one corner. Crepe paper, orange and black and orange again, dangled limply, half-hung from the dry rafters. Frankenstein boots went unshined; ghost tarps gray and unwashed; coffin nails rusted in their unopened boxes. Creature models sat half-finished on neglected workbenches, glue-smeared, forlorn; and, worst offense of all, a life-size mummy stood uncoiled, revealing a real, smiling human face, a plaster of Paris head of some long-forgotten celebrity revealed in all its obscene unfrightfulness.

  “We've got to do something scary,” Spook said to Butch, and Butch nodded lazily. Bill nodded too, his tall straight back against the cool but unclammy wall. He stretched and said, “Yes,” but the word didn't quite make it to his lips and rolled back down his tongue to disappear somewhere in his throat.

  Augie, the new boy, yawned.

  Spook, lean and long with wild, uncombed hair, leader of the Club, began (though he wanted more than anything to just lie down, to nap, to yawn) to speak.

  “We went down to the golf course and prayed for lightning to strike.”

  A slight, tiny, almost happy smile played around Butch's lips for a moment as he remembered two years before, when that Shriner almost got hit. The smile went lax.

  “But there wasn't any lightning,” he said. “There weren't even any dark clouds.”

  “We went up to the Old home to scare be-Jesus out of Miss Hammer,” Bill went on, his voice climbing up from the chasm of his chest, slowly, the words falling to the cement floor as they left him. He was big and wide and bound someday for the army like his three brothers before him.

  “And found that Miss Hammer passed away in April,” Spook finished sadly, and then he continued weakly, as a pall of exhaustion overcame his words, “I don't know what else there is....”

  ~ * ~

  They tried to move but could not. Even the comic books at their feet, the Creepies and Scaries and vintage Series, along with the single thumbed Popular Photography with the two frayed pages where artfully naked ladies against sand dunes were printed, seemed to sink deeper into the dry floor at their feet. The day outside, like high summer, was clear and still, bright as a photograph, unghastly. There was a high slim sliver of afternoon Moon that lost mightily to the renewed October Sun.

  The day, the season, the battle—all were lost.

  “Maybe,” Augie, the new boy, said, his mouth forming a presleeping “0” as he spoke, “there's something wrong with Bogy.”

  A spark—small, incandescent as a candle before a star—danced up into his companions' eyes. Butch said, “Ah.” Suddenly, Spook felt almost renewed. Bill pushed himself back up straight against th
e wall and flicked away the Eerie lying like a sleeping dog against his leg.

  “Maybe,” Butch said, his small eyes glinting in his face, “there is.” Spook began to catch fire. Before the other three could move he was up on his feet, standing over them, his hands moving through his hair, pushing it up into straight static shock lengths, his eyes bug-bulbs, his legs twitching.

  “What's the motto of the Bogy Club?” he said in a rallying cry. Without pause, his companions shouted:

  “To fright and scare

  “No matter where!

  “To scare and fright

  “Day or night!”

  Spook twirled away, throwing himself into the boxes around them: one from this, one from that: when he twirled back he was decked out head to toe in black and red—cape and hat, shoes and buttons, bushy eyebrows and white fang-teeth.

  “So?” he shouted; and then he hissed, one word at a time, into their faces: “We'll-go-see-if-something's-wrong-with-Bogy!”

  “Yes!” Butch and Bill cried.

  “But—” Augie, the new boy, suddenly protested.

  “What's the matter?” Spook said in his best Bela Lugosi voice, looming over Augie as the new boy tried to cover his face with a comic. “You believe all those stories we told you?” He pulled the comic away, and it fluttered like a bat into the far corner of the cellar. “You believe Bogy is the source of all fear? That his face is wild, and hairy, and wide-eyed; that his hands are long-nailed and dirty and creased deep with earth, with worms crawling over his knuckles and around his wrists—that his feet are covered with spiked boots and his mouth is cavernous and sharp-toothed? You believe that he howls at the Moon, swims in foul water? That he lives deep in the woods in a moldy hut? That he changes shape and throws his voice? That he can only eat what he kills, and that he only kills”—Spook lumbered around, brandishing an imaginary weapon, stopping abruptly before Augie to haul it high above his head and then bring it down chop—”with his long tall axe?” Spook brought his face so close to the new boy that his wax fangs filled the other boy's eyes. “You afraid that fear is fading because Bogy is dying, and that Bogy is dying because he hasn't eaten in so long—that he's so hungry he'd eat even you?”

  “No!” Augie screamed.

  “Maybe,” Butch screamed, jumping up and moving his legs like a wild man, “you should be afraid!”

  “Bogy!” Bill shouted, jumping up next to him and howling.

  “But you said it was just a story!” Augie whined as they danced around him. “You told me he wasn't real!”

  “Maybe we lied!” Spook whooped, and then they put masks and wild wigs and teeth and warts on Augie.

  And then they sang their Bogy song:

  “To fright and scare

  “No matter where!

  “To scare and fright

  “Day or night!”

  And then they dragged the new boy out, to find the inspiration for their Club.

  Old October was tight as calcium in the bones of the town. They passed everyday things—soda fountains, the movie theater with “Fright Movie This Friday!” on its marquee in tired red letters that either dangled or were missing. They passed the school, with dusty, peel-taped, faded orange neglected pumpkin cutouts in the windows. They passed the mask shop, the well-known-to-them shopkeeper leaning in the doorway, threatening to doze off. Even Mad Lady Pinkerton, the town prophet, lay asleep under the slowly rotating barber pole, propped up like a scarecrow made of wet oats. She cocked a heavy eye at them as they passed, tried to raise a finger to exclaim something but instead fell back to sleep.

  Even the dogs eyed them indolently.

  Strange October tried to get at them. Once more they felt weak, drooped, lazy and unscared. They wanted to crawl back to the Clubhouse and sleep the whole season off.

  “Fright and scare, scare and fright,” Spook mumbled at their lead, but even he didn't believe it now.

  “Fright and—” Butch began, but the rest was stifled by a yawn. They pressed on.

  In back of the old ball field, brown with October grass that even now looked ready for summer baseball, they passed into the outer reaches of the town. Now, abruptly, something woke within them. They passed an abandoned horse stable that threw long shadows out at them and seemed to creak louder from its leaning joints, just for them.

  “Fright and scare, scare and fright,” Spook tried again, and this time they began to believe it.

  There was something present now—not strong, but getting stronger. With each step they took, their skins began to tingle and tiny icicles crawled up their backs.

  Fear was returning.

  “It's getting stronger as we get close to Bogy,” Butch said mischievously, turning his eyes on the new boy. A delighted grin spread over his wax teeth.

  “Maybe—” Augie began, turning around to look back toward the town, the safe, unscary town, but Bill cut him off.

  “Look.”

  They looked at the wide high wall of woods in front of them, felt a dark and cold and creeping feeling when they looked at it, and then Spook said, “Wow”

  “Maybe—” Augie tried again, but they took him by the arms as he held back, and, above them, as they melted into the woods, the Moon brightened and the Sun was truly gone.

  There were real bats in here, not comic book bats, and other frightful things. There were real bats around them, big brown leathery hinged things with sharp teeth and red rats' eyes, and though they didn't see those wings or teeth or ruby eyes they knew they were there just the same. Then one of them was there, breaking out of the dark to slap at Bill's head and then wheel flapping away.

  “Wow,” Spook said.

  They fell deeper into the woods. A heavier darkness came down upon them. Each stepped-on twig called out, “Here we come!” and they found themselves huddled together. Their knees began to knock; their teeth began, imperceptibly at first and then like wind-up novelties, to chatter. Butch laughed nervously. Spook said, again, “Wow,” only some of the amusement had vanished from his voice.

  There were other creatures around them now, just out of sight, lurking. The Bogy-boys knew they were there. There were big things—things with green seaweed or damp soil hanging off their limbs, things with big saucer eyes and big thick black boots and crimson-lined capes and pointed ears. Things that were too white or too black. Things that slithered along the ground and dove clacking from tree to tree—things with long snouts that liked to bore into soft flesh; things the Bogy Club had talked about, dreamed about, now saw in snatches.

  Their footsteps, like cannon, boomed around them. Up ahead, the darkness shifted.

  “I don't like this,” Butch said, and this time Bill did not cut him off.

  “You know, I wouldn't mind going back to town,” Bill said, but as he turned Spook held him.

  “Fright and scare, scare and fright,” Spook pleaded.

  For a long moment Bill hesitated, and then he nodded and they crept on.

  The darkness was different now. It was velvet curtains enfolding them, not only making night but something deeper than night, more final. There was no Moon here; no promise of even a tired Sun rising the next morning. It was as if they had stepped into a rip in the fabric of night, behind which the real darkness crouched waiting.

  Once again Bill turned to leave, and once again Spook had to restrain him.

  “Fright and scare,” he said.

  The four boys stepped ahead.

  “Forget fright and scare,” Bill said suddenly, and then he was gone, running back to town.

  The three remaining looked one to the other. Butch's feet began to shift of their own accord, back toward Bill. Spook held him fast. Augie, the new boy, merely trembled.

  The darkness darkened even more, and then they burst into a shallow valley with stark, nude tree branches twined like bone-fingers above them. They stopped abruptly, as one, at the sight of a mad jumble of bark and tar shaped into a hut. It was a dark igloo with eyes—tilted to one side with two hollow oval
s and a grinning mouth doorway. The ground around the hut was brushed clean of leaves, leaving the stark black forest floor gleaming like dried ebony mud.

  “Bogy,” Augie breathed.

  In answer, something sounded within the hut, a low, crawling cough.

  In a flash Butch was gone, moving as fast as his shaking legs could crash him through the woods, shedding his costume, cape and wax teeth on the way.

  Spook looked at Butch's retreating frame, and then at the new boy, who was shaking from head to sneakers.

  Again a cough came from within, lingering and low, gravelly as the packed earth around them.

  “I thought we made him up but he's real,” Spook said. His eyes behind his mask were wide and white and he began to turn away.

  Just then there came a strangled weak sound from within the hut and Augie's chattering voice said, “It sounds like he's dying.”

  Spook looked at the new boy, saw his own wild fright mirrored there and was ashamed. “Fright and scare,” he said and he grabbed Augie’s arm, high above the elbow and tight, and they stepped toward the doorway.

  It was darker inside than out. Maybe it was a trick of the darkness; but one moment they were standing at the threshold of the door and the next they had been swallowed by that mouth and were inside.

  Spook put his hand on the wall and there, leaning like a man with a pipe in his mouth and arms folded, was an axe handle a good four feet long and a blade sharp as the Sun's edge.

  The cough came once more, off in a far corner, and when Spool looked in that corner something was there.

  It was a bundle of rags. No, it wasn't that—it was a pile of clothing with something underneath. No, it wasn't that, either—it was a man, or something manlike, huddled or bent or collapsed, with arms and leg and trousers and coat attached here and there in the reasonably correct positions. Spook's eyes became used to this deep darkness, and now the man became more of a man: sitting with his back in the V of the cornet his legs pulled up to his chin and his arms, too long, they seemed wrapped around his knees. His head was lowered.

  The figure coughed once and then again—low, rattling sounds now, more far away than near.