“Ned, that’s the biggest load of cow-flop I’ve ever heard.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself from talking, and I just knew Ned was going to blow a gasket on me, start ranting about my lack of manners, and maybe start questioning whether my parents were married.
Instead, Ned just started chuckling deep inside his scrawny little frame and slapped his knee a few times when he couldn’t get the laughter out anymore. “Of course it’s a load of shit, Ben. All of them old wives’ tales are a load of shit. But that’s where we all get our customs from.” Ned pulled another beer from the twelve-pack, popped the top, and started sipping like it was tea. “But the fact of the matter is, the man had a reputation as a wizard, and his crops really did grow better than anyone else’s did.”
Ned stared off into outer space, and for a few seconds I was afraid that he’d died on me he was so still. Then he smiled at me again. “My grandfather used to tell me tales about old Albert Miles, always called him ‘Stoney’, ‘cause that was his nickname. Had to do with the man’s demeanor one must guess. Man made me seem downright congenial.” Ned laughed again, apparently imagining the old tales his ancestor had told him. “Ben, the townsfolk didn’t go out there with any sort of kindness in their hearts; they went out there and demanded that the man tell them how to make their own crops grow better. They were all scared of him, but they were also real desperate by that point.”
Ned paused again and, before I could speak, went into his house, telling me to wait where I was. I waited, and some ten minutes later, Ned came back out with a book that had to be almost as old as the town. “My grandfather left this to my father, and as his only son it went to me,” Ned explained as he carefully shifted the old pages in the book. Looking at what went past I saw a lot of the town’s history in ancient photographs, the sort that you see now and then in books about the old West. Finally, Ned stopped on a page and, gesturing to remind me that this book was older than the both of us—use caution please—handed the volume to me.
And for the first time, I saw the scarecrow that Albert Miles had made. The old picture was very faded, and less than clear, but I could still see that figure with enough detail to make me shiver. The body was long and gaunt, almost skeletal. The clothes were like nothing on any of the scarecrows I had seen in town; they were almost Elizabethan in style, lots of ruffles and buttons. A pair of shoes that even looked new in the photograph adorned the scarecrow’s feet, and the hands were made from fine white linen gloves. Covering the entire body was a cloth much like a funeral shroud, resting on the shoulders and falling to the ground.
And then there was the head. The head was adorned by a huge hat; much like a Puritan’s but with a brim that looked like it belonged on a hat a hundred sizes larger. And framing the face was a mass of fine white hair, almost down to the shoulders in length. The face itself was much like the other faces on the many scarecrows in town, not surprising when you considered that they were modeled after the one I stared at in an ancient photograph. But this face was different; it was hollowed out, and the features seemed more sinister by far than the imitations that surrounded the square at the heart of Summitville. For all the world, it looked like someone had found a perfectly head- shaped pumpkin, carved a grinning skull into the gourd, and placed it as a head upon the strangest looking scarecrow ever created.
And even in the photograph, the damned thing seemed to stare at me. My flesh crawled as I studied the faded photograph. My mind almost reeled when I moved away, and the figure in the photo seemed to follow me with its eyes.
Ned pulled the book away from me, softly but firmly. “That’ll do ya, Ben. You stare at that picture any harder and you’ll burn a hole in the blasted thing.” Ned’s voice sounded different, weaker than it had before. Ned sounded like a man who suddenly realized that he’d just made a big mistake, panicky, but in a quiet way.
Ned walked away with the book and came back out a few minutes later popping two more beers without even thinking about it. Even as we sat together and sipped at the cold brews, I think we were both lost in our own thoughts. I was busy thinking about that damned picture, and Ned was busy thinking about how big his mouth had grown over the years. At least that’s what I think he was thinking about; his tanned face had grown pasty, and his normally steady hands had begun to twitch and jerk a little bit.
The silence lasted through those two beers and well into the next pair.
Then Ned spoke again, smiling tightly and shaking his head.
“Well, my momma always said my mouth would get me into trouble one of these days.” Ned looked at me, stared me in my eyes for a good ten seconds, and then started talking again. “Ben, I wish I could tell you it was all just a load of crap, but I can’t. For a little while, at least if my old grandpa can be believed, the people of Summit Town got into human sacrifices.”
I must have jumped halfway out of my seat, because Ned was looking at me and smiling again, and it was that vicious little victory smile of his, the one that always made me want to punch him in his head.
“You sap! You fell for it.” Ned started laughing out loud, and after a few seconds, I started laughing too. The look of relief that crossed Ned’s face told me all I needed to know in order to find the truth. Ned wasn’t laughing and making a joke; Ned was laughing and trying to make a joke out of the town’s past, because Ned was scared. Because Ned wanted me to believe that everything he had told me was a load of manure. He wanted to make absolutely sure that I knew he had been telling a funny all along. He desperately needed to make me believe that, because everything he had told me was absolutely true. Even the part about human sacrifices.
I played along, mostly because Ned was so desperate to see me laugh. And maybe a little because I didn’t want to believe that Ned was serious. It was just my senses and my mind telling me that he was afraid. Anyone that tries can lie to his or her senses; it just takes a little practice. I left a little while later, leaving behind an honest man who suddenly felt he had to lie.
Ned and I never got together for beer again. It’s been a long while, and I still miss sitting on his porch. Sad the way things always change; sadder still that they seldom change for the better.
I kept pretty much to myself for the days remaining until the harvest moon, and just as Helen had predicted, the bloated orange moon showed itself on the twenty-ninth day of October. I’d seen a harvest moon before, though I’d never really understood the term before Helen explained it to me. But I had never seen one so large. That moon didn’t just occupy a portion of the sky, it invaded the sky. The harvest moon seemed to stretch from one end of the horizon to the other as I stared out my living room window and faced the East. I spent the entire night sitting in my living room sipping at beers, wondering just what was supposed to be harvested. No one left their homes; no one did anything out of the ordinary. I figured that maybe I’d been fooling myself, giving myself over to silly little flights of fancy, and me at an age when I was supposed to know better.
On the thirtieth I went into the center of town and did some shopping. The damned scarecrows were still in the town square, and I still hated them. Very little in this world has ever sent shivers through my spine the way those morbid straw statues did. When I heard that the Russians had sent up Sputnik, and when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot and killed, and maybe even when I heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, those things bothered me about as much. But I can’t think of another thing in this world that so unsettled me as looking at the rows of scarecrows in the town square. The worst thing about it was that since last I’d looked, the damnable things had multiplied. There looked to be a good fifty or more of the scarecrows surrounding the perimeter, looking across the freshly mown field at each other, and maybe thinking about how nice the sky had looked last night.
Above them, spanning the length of the square, a giant banner stretched. It read “COME ONE COME ALL TO THE SUMMITVILLE HALLOWEEN BALL!” in garish orange letters on a field of black.
The letters seemed to drip orange blood, and in small print beneath the larger letters: “Fun for the whole family! From 7 P.M. to midnight. A festival not to be missed.”
I stared a long time at that banner, and I suppose I would have left well enough alone, but for the children coming from school and walking through the square. I saw them walking among the hideous straw men, proudly pointing to the ones that they and their families had assembled. Grade-school students, and they were unaffected by the things that littered the park. I decided to attend the Halloween Ball, because I realized that I was being foolish. If these things didn’t bother the children, then how could I let them bother me so much?
Enough was enough; I forced my morbid thoughts aside and decided to enjoy the holiday properly. With that decision, I went about my business, pleased that a few of the children recognized me, more pleased still that they waved and smiled. After a week and a half out of the picture, I was home again.
When I went to the store I made sure to grab several bags of candy. I decided that, if I were to be a part of Summitville, I would do it the right way. Strange traditions be damned, I decided that it was time to be a part of the community. I even went so far as to make a scarecrow. Maybe I was a little obsessed, or maybe I was a little crazy. Who can say? I only know that I spent a great deal of that night working on my straw man with an almost religious vigor. Around seven at night Helen joined me; we were supposed to have dinner and it was my turn to cook. We ended up ordering Chinese and calling it a meal.
It was almost midnight by the time I finished, and I felt a little feverish from all of the efforts. One of my old pairs of denim pants and a corduroy jacket were sacrificed for the clothes. I didn’t go quite as far as some of the people had - I just used old tennis shoes and my gardening gloves to finish him off. Oh, and a cowboy hat I had sitting around. The only Country & Western scarecrow in the whole lot of them, even if he didn’t have the cowboy boots and chaps.
I dragged him out to the town square, with Helen’s help, and set him up before retiring for the night. The square was crowded, and it took a little time to find a good location, but I finally managed. I would have never asked for Helen’s help, but it was a part of the town tradition, and it was early in the morning on All Hallows’ Eve by the time I was finished with him anyway.
By the time I awoke the next day, the sun was almost all the way to high noon, and I had a nasty headache. I felt as if I’d been drinking all night instead of working on a mannequin. I hadn’t done any real hard work, but every muscle in my body felt as if I’d spent the last few weeks hauling bricks instead of just one night stuffing a dummy with paper towels and old newspapers. It took me over fifteen minutes lying in bed to decide I could brave the floor and the shower.
But after twenty minutes under the old Shower Massage I was feeling mostly human again. A little after lunchtime, Helen gave me a call, and we cemented plans to eat together and to head off to the Halloween Ball together. Helen made it clear that everyone had to wear costumes and hinted that she was maybe gonna be dressed up as a witch. It didn’t take too much rummaging around in my attic before I found clothes suitable for dressing myself up as a magician. I’ve always had a bad tendency to keep all my junk from over the years—probably the main reason I didn’t just opt for a condo somewhere when I retired—and I found an old tuxedo of mine, half a size too small, and a top hat that I guess used to belong to my father or maybe Emma’s. A few old scarves and a stuffed rabbit that Emma had carried through most of her life pretty much finished off the costume. It took me most of the day just to alter the damned tuxedo so it would fit well enough for the night’s events, and then it was off to Helen’s for dinner and then to the town square for the big to-do.
My first sight of the square filled me with awe. Here was this little park, in the middle of Summitville, that had been making me nervous for over a week. It was entirely different. Somehow, between midnight and seven P.M. the whole place had been transformed. Lights, like the little white ones you see on Christmas trees, and hundreds of balloons in black and orange covered the area; paper streamers of every possible color were spread all over the field. Jack-o’-lanterns of every shape and size were perched on benches and in some cases held in the hands of the scarecrows. The whole place was festive, lit by powerful halogen lamps bright enough to imitate daytime, designed only for a night of fun.
Everyone was dressed in costume, from the youngest child all the way to Ned Graber, dressed as a cowboy in clothes that looked awfully authentic except for the cheap plastic guns. Werewolves, ghosts, Frankenstein’s Monster, even that busty woman, Elvira; they were all around me, along with more clowns and fairy princesses than you could shake a stick at. I’m pretty certain that it was the entire town there that night, every last one of them.
I wish I could explain how much I enjoyed the first half of the evening. I stared at all the costumes and talked with people I had seen a few times but never really got a chance to know. And everyone treated me like an old friend. Maybe it was that I was with Helen - maybe it was just that I was finally giving the town and its people a chance - who can say for certain? I had so much fun dancing, visiting the little haunted house that the Jaycees had put together. There was holding hands with Helen. Watching all the little ones run around and try to scare each other in costumes that were mostly homemade instead of cheap plastic masks and the nylon aprons—the ones with a picture of what the mask is supposed to represent and the name there in bold print for the terminally stupid—that normally pass for costumes in the big city. It was like being a kid again myself, like Halloween should be.
Before the night had even begun in earnest I had promised myself that I would make myself as much a part of Summitville’s community as the natives of the town. By the time we had danced to a few songs, I had decided that I was in love with Helen. Maybe it was time to get on with my life, or maybe it was just time, but I decided that Helen and I were an item that night. We kissed for the first time in front of half of the town, in public and without embarrassment. I felt as good when I kissed her as I ever have. I felt like a young man again. We must have spent two hours with our hands locked together in a gentle grip. I never wanted to let go of her again.
Then it all changed. Right around nine o’clock everyone started getting a little edgy. I could even feel it in Helen’s grip on my hand, the way her fingers started flexing and fidgeting against my own. One by one, all the kids started migrating away from the square, escorted by their parents or just going on their own. They all ended up across Main Street, at the cinema across from the square. Mind you, this was nothing that I noticed at the time, only something that I noticed in hindsight. The Rialto Cinema had a set of cartoons advertised on the marquee, but I hadn’t really noticed it in a conscious way at that point.
By nine-thirty, all the children were inside the cinema, and the adults were all gathering around the edges of the square. Right around then I noticed that there was something a little off about everything, like everyone was waiting for something to happen. I noticed that Helen was squeezing hard at my hand. And still I was almost fanatically determined to ignore any possible signs of worry and to enjoy myself. Sometimes, I think I’m just too damned stupid for my own good.
It was just after ten that I had finally started noticing the changes that had rippled through the crowd, when I heard the laughter that came rushing from the West, from the direction of the farms and the ruins of Summit Town. God help me, I swear I’ve never heard laughter like that before. It sounded insane, filled with malice and with a cold hatred that sent shivers through my whole body. I tightened my grip on Helen’s hand and turned my head to ask her what the hell that sound had been. One look at her face told me that she wouldn’t be listening to anything I had to say. She was lost, looking expectantly toward the direction of the laughter and smiling. Her face looked twisted and mad, far worse to me than it would have to anyone else, because I knew her face so well, had studied her face whenever I could.
Helen managed to look excited and frightened, happy and appalled, all at the same time. The look was so alien to her normally serene face that I tried to pull away from her; her fingers clenched so fiercely at my hand that the only way to escape would have been to forcibly pry her fingers away from mine.
Maybe I would have done it anyway, but then the laughter came back, closer than it had been before. I heard the whispers from the people around me, whispers like you’d expect to hear in a church: “He’s here. He’s come to us again. I wonder who’ll be chosen.” My heart did acrobatic tricks in my chest, and my knees grew weak. I felt my eyes drawn to the darkness from which the laughter had exploded. And there it was, walking slowly and proudly from the woods.
Albert Miles’ scarecrow in all its glory. The old photograph I’d seen had been intimidating; the reality was utterly terrifying. The figure was gaunt, dressed in the same clothes I had seen in a photo that had to be at least a hundred years old, but the face was what registered most powerfully in my mind. The features were the same, the very features I had attempted to re-create only the night before, but much more real, more powerful than those I had formed. What I had thought could possibly be flesh was in actuality a pumpkin, or something so closely akin in texture that you couldn’t tell the difference. Its features were carved into the thick skin of its head, a Jack-o’-lantern mouth smiled at everyone as the thing came into the square, not seeming to walk fast enough for the distance it covered. That pumpkin-like head came into view, held proudly and tilted just a bit to the left. High, arrogant cheek- bones, like those of a human skull, were framed by corn silk hair. A cavernous grin showed a faint glow from inside, like the flickering of flames. Twin hell-fires burned intently from hollow eye sockets, shifting from person to person and causing faces to grimace in fear. Until they focused on me.
This is Halloween Page 4
