This is Halloween

by James A. Moore

  I learned about crematoriums later on and learned that the human body is a pretty amazing thing. Even after being deliberately set ablaze, there are some bones that have to be ground into dust to add to the ashes of a loved ones remains. Fifteen hundred degrees of heat and parts of the body are still intact. There was nothing left of Mike or his mom. There was nothing left of the people who lived at 362 Hathburn Avenue. I checked, believe me.

  It was almost a month later when I went down Hathburn again. My mom had to take me to a dental appointment, and she drove that direction without even thinking about it if I remember it right. But she stopped when she reached the house where it all went down, and she stared for a few moments, as if trying to reason out what had happened for herself.

  The house looked nothing like Chuck’s place. Not from the front and not from the back, which I knew a lot better from the numerous times I’d gone there to play at Rick’s. I hadn’t recognized the place on Halloween, hadn’t even considered it, because we always went in through the back door at Rick’s place. It was easier to cut across the back lawns and through the woods than it had ever been to walk along the side of the street.

  Was it Chuck I saw that night, coming from Rick’s house? I don’t know. Whatever it was, I know I never saw it again. All I can tell you is that Halloween was never the same for me after that, and neither was the neighborhood. We moved away less than a year later, when my father got transferred to a different branch of the bank that he worked for. By that time Mindy and I had already sworn undying love to each other, roughly a month before her family moved away. There were no letters, no phone calls. We each went our own way and moved on in the world; still, I remember her now and then and miss her a bit. I think my dad might have requested the move, because really, I don’t know that anyone who was there that night was ever comfortable in the neighborhood again.

  Bone Harvest

  Reggie Harker ran as hard as he could, pumping his legs furiously and praying to God that he could get away. Whatever it was that chased him sounded big, and he had no desire to see it.

  The early spring’s chill embraced the world and Reggie was lost in the bitter weather, lamenting that he’d ever come to Beldam Woods. The town was picturesque and everything he thought he was looking for, but that was before he’d pissed off something that was most decidedly not human.

  Whatever the hell it was, it wanted to tear him apart. Just like it had torn Natalie to pieces.

  All this, he thought, because I wanted to add to my rare flora collection. The notion pushed into his thoughts like a mantra, an inescapable chant that seemed to let him focus. And he desperately needed to focus, because his mind was all over the place.

  There were a few things that had helped him make his decision to vacation in the small town; one of the major factors came from looking in Crowley’s Compendium of Exotic Botanicals, 1842 Edition. Jonathan Crowley was something of a nutcase to most people; his examinations of the unusual flora and fauna had been the cause of a few arguments in the field of plants. Reggie, ever the one to try to keep the peace, had decided to explore what the man spoke of in the area. Either he was an eccentric, who couldn’t catalogue to save his life, or Crowley had run across truly unique plant life; Reggie wanted to know, and so did Natalie. They arranged to take their vacation together for the first time, a step forward in their sometime relationship. One quick look around on his vacation and he could end the arguments between the other members of the Melmouth County Botanical Society. He had his camera and a few specimen jars. He also had Natalie and her copy of Crowley’s book. Not that big a challenge, really but it would be fun.

  At least he thought so until he went into the woods. He’d never seen such a mess in his entire life. The homes that bordered the area called the Witch’s Hollow were all very nice, upper middleclass, and as homogenous as he could have hoped to find; the woods, on the other hand, were insanely dense, packed with undergrowth and virtually a fire waiting to happen. The hills in the area sloped gently, but the obstacles the woods provided were enough to ensure he got winded. Thick vines ran through the shrubs and bushes, thorny tripwires waiting to snare an unsuspecting ankle.

  From somewhere behind him, closer than he wanted to think about, Reggie heard the distinct sound of a green sapling snapping in two. Whatever was behind him roared; and Reggie whimpered in return, wasting precious breath to do so.

  He’d found what he was looking for, that was the part that bothered him the most about the whole sordid affair. The actual location wasn’t on a map and hadn’t been carefully laid out with a pen and paper by any of the locals. He had to trust a few people in town who claimed to know the area and most of them admitted readily enough that they hadn’t been to the Hollow in years. One old timer looked at him and then promptly stared at Natalie’s chest as he spoke, and shook his head when he asked about it. “That’s a trek for a younger man, son,” he’d said. With little coaxing he had admitted to knowing the place well and then had given detailed instruction as to how to get to it. When he was much, much younger, he’d gone there on several occasions. Despite decades having passed away in the meantime the instructions were very good. Some things just don’t change much, and apparently the Witch’s Hollow qualified.

  The sounds from behind him got louder, and he heard panting for the first time. Whatever was after him was feeling winded and that was good, because currently Reggie was feeling like passing out and dying wouldn’t be a bad idea. His side hurt from running and he couldn’t catch a breath to save his life.

  Dying and saving his life, he was on a roll. Both of those very things were heavily on his mind.

  He’d gotten out to the Hollow fairly early in the day and started looking around. It hadn’t taken him even five minutes to realize that Crowley was right on the money: there were easily a dozen types of plants and fungi he’d never seen before and they’d virtually been in his own back yard the entire time. Reggie lived in Serenity Falls, which was only fifteen miles or so from Beldam Woods. He’d never once bothered with the town: it was too rich for his tastes. Damned near everyone who lived in Beldam Woods came from old money and acted the part.

  Reggie had practically danced he was so excited. Yes, he knew it was geeky, being a big fan of plants, but they excited him. They were such amazing marvels of nature and he could spend hours looking at trees and shrubs without getting bored. When you got right down to it, the love of exotic plants was really all he and Natalie had in common.

  This? This was almost paradise. The text had spoken of the Victim Trees, a collection of five wretched looking black trees that stood out in the virtual center of the Hollow. They looked dead and never bloomed or even grew a leaf. He had thought they were probably just waterlogged elms that refused to die all the way until he saw them. Their bark peeled away from the tree, splitting and rolling into scabrous lumps, like a birch, but without the grace and eloquence of the thin beauties; closer, maybe to an aspen tree, but only in texture. The Victims were larger for one; with heavy trunks and thick branches that would have shamed either of the other trees he’s seen with similar bark. He was so excited by the sight of the trees that he almost forgot himself and touched one. He probably would have, too, if Natalie hadn’t been there to stop him.

  “Oh, Jesus, Natalie.” He was tired and winded and sobbing, too scared to look behind him at what might be coming his way.

  He didn’t know what had happened to the woman. Natalie Porter was a short, buxom woman with crooked teeth and the world’s worst hair—an uncontrollable mess that she had long since given up trying to tame. She was a fellow member of the Botanical Society and an on and off steady of his. She was also the only person in the society that wasn't twice his age.

  Natalie was as close as he’d ever come to a serious, long-term relationship and as soon as the noises started, he’d turned tail and abandoned her.

  They were together; carefully studying the witches tongue fungi around the area and marveling at the deep red flu
ids that spilled from their soft black crowns. Natalie recited the words from Crowley’s book and both of them put on double layers of latex gloves before they considered touching the deadly little mushrooms. According to Crowley, most anything that even brushed against the fungi died within a few minutes. The toxicity of the things must have been immense. So, yes, Natalie had been wise enough to bring along gloves for the both of them.

  The entire hollow was inhospitable and ugly, and that was part of its charm. The plants and fungi, even the odd moss that grew on a lot of the trees in the area—but not, he noted, on the Victim Trees—was all genuinely unpleasant. What grew in the area was aesthetically unpleasing to the senses. The grasses were all dead or dying, the trees were unique but unlovely, and most of the area was covered in a thick, sucking mud that squelched under their hiking boots. Both of them loved it. Natalie practically squealed when she discovered the pale moss growing on the trees. It was white and unpleasantly pungent, but it also appeared that Crowley had been right again; no insects fed on the stuff. It was obviously related to Spanish moss, but only distantly.

  They would have probably spent hours examining each and every plant, but Reggie heard the growling sounds around the same time that Natalie spotted the deep impressions in the ground. Several of the black mushrooms on the far side of the Victims had been mashed into the ground and where they should have been situated there were animal tracks of some kind. The prints were massive, and bore claw marks that cut through the fungi and the muck alike.

  Natalie was the one who realized there was a problem. She pulled out Crowley’s Compendium in an instant, flipping through the thick book until she found the section she’d marked earlier.

  “The most interesting of these fungi is a mushroom known locally as a “Witch’s Tongue,” a black, spongy growth that is uneven in shape and covered in droplets of red that strikingly resemble fresh blood. The toxicity of these fungi cannot be disputed. I watched as a swallow landed on a patch of these mushrooms and mere contact with the syrupy red fluids that spill from them killed the poor creature a few minutes later. While it remained alive, it struggled through a series of seizures that actually caused it to break its own wings as it fell to the ground.” Natalie looked his way with nervous eyes.

  “You think something ate them or what?” Reggie frowned, not getting it.

  “If something did and it isn’t dead yet, it might come after us. Sick animals are known to attack people, Reg.” Thinking about the growling sounds he’d just heard, along with that little tidbit, was enough to make Reggie nervous.

  “We should pack up and leave.”

  Natalie nodded enthusiastically, and stood up. Nervous as he was, Reggie was still glad that she was with him on this trip. He grabbed up his backpack and slid it over his shoulders, groaning at the mud that spilled across his waist as he set it in place.

  And while he was busy taking care of that nuisance, something reached out with black paws and grabbed Natalie by her shoulders. Both the shape and the woman vanished behind the Victim Trees a few moments later, and that was all there was to see as far as Reggie was concerned. He heard the screams, heard the wet ripping noises, and then he ran like hell.

  Which led him to the moment, the time when he could hear it coming closer and knew for certain that he was about to die. He could hear the thing running him down, hot, labored breaths and ungainly noises echoing behind him.

  Reggie whimpered again, his body weakening and his mind stuttering over the last few minutes, playing the moments again and again as if he could find some small way to escape the madness.

  He should have been dealing with the present, not the past. He figured that out around the same time the thing hit him across his back. The impact sent him sailing through the air and then sliding across the rough ground, where several thorns made themselves at home in his flesh. Multiple lines of warmth ran down his back, followed a moment later by a sharp pain that made the thorns seem like a minor distraction. His backpack was in shreds, his camera and the rest of his supplies scattered across his back and the ground around him like debris from a downed airplane.

  Reggie shook off the impact as best he could and looked over his shoulder just in time to see the beast. It was a bear, and at least from his current perspective, a big one. The creature shook its head several times, growling low in its throat as thick black foam spilled from its muzzle.

  Reggie froze, completely unable to move as he looked at the bear moving in his direction. Its fur was wet and matted in several spots, and he could see a crimson gleam on those damp areas.

  That’s Natalie’s blood. He tore her apart and I’m next.

  The bear moved a step closer, shaking its head and rumbling deep in its chest. One paw lashed out at his camera and sent his six hundred dollar toy sailing through the air.

  Then it turned and stared at him, the eyes almost glazed, and roared. Thick ropes of spittle lifted from the wicked looking teeth and it charged, a mountain of fur and muscle descending on him like an avalanche.

  Reggie closed his eyes and prayed for a miracle.

  And his prayers were answered.

  A thick column of yellowed bone launched itself out of the ground directly beneath the bear, impaling its chest and rising even higher. The beast let out a shriek and bucked hard, dancing madly in the air as it tried to understand what had just happened.

  Reggie opened his eyes to see the dying animal kicking and clawing, trying to force the gigantic barb from its chest. He looked on, stunned, his eyes barely understanding what they were seeing. For all the world it looked like a tree made of bones had spontaneously grown through the animal’s torso. Dark red stains fell down the column and spilled to the rich soil, soaking into the forest floor in a matter of seconds.

  The black bear let out a low whine and died. Reggie thanked God and slowly stood up, adrenaline making his legs wobble in a dozen different directions. The thing in front of him fell down, a cascading wave of bones that crumbled and shattered as they collapsed on themselves, with a sound like a cord of wood falling down.

  Reggie looked on, at least as puzzled as he was scared. The bones made no sense to him; they shouldn’t have been there. They made even less sense than the fact that they had popped out of the ground to kill the bear. There was nothing at all to indicate that a graveyard was in the area, and even if there were, he could tell by looking that not nearly all of the skeletal remains belonged to humans. The entire situation was baffling, to say the least.

  He sat down, hard, his mind running through the series of events as carefully as it could. Nope, he wasn’t finding any solid logic to anything past the mushrooms at the hollow.

  But thinking about Natalie was a painful process. He eyed the bear warily, half expecting it to stand up, and when he was satisfied that it had no intention of getting up and coming after him again, he stood and headed back for the Victim Trees. It was possible that Natalie was still alive and just badly injured. He had to make sure one way or the other.

  He walked as quickly as he could manage, getting lost on two separate occasions before he figured out where the hell he was. What should have been a ten minute hike became almost twenty before he finally found the Victim Trees and Natalie.

  She was alive. He didn’t know how she could be, but she was. The bear must not have spent too much time working her over. There were deep claw marks across her side that ran down to her thigh, and she had a matching set of wounds on her shoulders, but if he could get her help soon enough, he thought she’d make it. Natalie moaned, her skin pale and sweaty, and though her eyes did not open, she mumbled his name.

  “I’m here, sweetie. I’m gonna call for help.” His own cell phone had been in his backpack and he had no idea where to start looking, so he took the one Natalie wore from her hip and tried to dial 9-1-1.

  No signal. He cursed and moved out of the hollow proper, up the steeply sloping side, and tried again when he reached the pinnacle. The signal was patchy, but it would have
to do.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency?” The voice was cool and detached.

  “Yeah, I have a friend who just got attacked by a bear. She’s badly mauled and we need an ambulance right away.”

  “And where are you now, sir?”

  “We’re in the Witch’s Hollow, in the woods west of town.”

  The voice on the other end broke up for a moment, and he thought he’d lost the signal for certain, but finally there was an answer.

  “Sir, we’ll have someone there as soon as we can. Whatever you do, don’t touch anything.”

  Before he could respond the signal broke up completely. Reggie looked down at the trees in the center of the deep, muddy spot and shook his head. However fast they were, he still had doubts about Natalie’s wellbeing.

  “All this,” he sighed, “for some fucking plants.”

  II

  He drank deep of the offering from the bear’s body, thin pale lips sucking the red moisture from the soil as he slowly began to awaken. He tasted the spoor of the mushrooms carried in the blood and woke just a little faster for the nourishment they offered.

  The process of waking up was slow and tedious. He had been far too long asleep in the woods and his mind wanted little more than to drift back into a deep, dream-filled slumber. The Sandman had been generous of late and let him sample the dreams of the people in Beldam Woods.

  He had dreamt of so many things that he had never known and likely never would, things that made him feel more a part of the community than he could ever be in real life.