This is Halloween

by James A. Moore

  “Yes. Yes I would.”

  “What would you trade to have that, Raymond?” Mister Sticks was looking away again, like the answer didn’t really matter, but Ray wasn’t fooled. He knew the man was still listening. Ray was not silly or stupid or even a little slow. He knew exactly what was happening, even if he lacked the right words to fully understand and express it. This was a deal. He knew that, like when he traded his bologna sandwich to Deidre at lunch because Deidre liked bologna more than she liked grilled cheese and grilled cheese was the best stuff ever as far as Ray was concerned.

  “I don’t have anything to trade.” Ray sighed. A little brother would be neat. A daddy? That would be pretty cool, too, especially if it meant his mom never crying herself to sleep again.

  “Don’t you?”

  He thought hard as they walked. The woods looked like they were thinning, he could see the sun between the branches and that hadn’t happened since he got lost. And there was a thrill in his chest at the thought of getting home to see his mom. Still, there was unfinished business here, wasn’t there? What could he trade for a brother and a father? What would he be willing to trade?

  “How about Lawrence?”

  “What about him?”

  Ray looked at Mister Sticks and swallowed. This was it. This was the bargain chance. “What about if I let you have Lawrence?”

  “You’d let me have your mother’s boyfriend? What if she likes him?”

  “Well, she’d have Daddy, right?”

  “Well, yes, of course. But are you sure you want to trade? Once we agree, there’s no going back.”

  “Yeah. Deal.” Ray smiled and held out his hand, and Mister Sticks took his hand and shook. The old man’s skin was dry and hot and almost as rough as the wood on the trees around them.

  The leaves hissed and the wind roared and for a moment the old man’s face was wrong. He looked too weathered, his eyes and nose and mouth fading into the shadows until he almost looked like a jack-o-lantern.

  And then all was well again.

  Mister Sticks led the way and in only a couple of minutes they were free of the woods and walking up to the back yard of the house where Ray had lived his entire life.

  Ray ran fast, heading for the front door of the house. He moved around the side of the place at high speed, because he knew for certain that he would be in trouble because he was so late already. He might have used the back door but his mommy always left that locked, just in case someone should try to sneak in.

  And as he rounded the corner of the house he saw the school bus just coming up the road. His mother should have been outside and calling his name, but instead there was just the bus rumbling as it slowed down. The number 83 was clear on the side. It was his bus, not the one that came by later to drop off the older kids.

  Ray looked behind him to see if Mister Sticks was there. It was always possible that the man could help him explain to his mother—but even as he thought that he knew that what had been said between him and Mister Sticks had to remain a secret.

  Ray moved around to the front of the house exactly as his mother was opening the front door. She saw him and looked no further. The bus had stopped and kids were already piling out and that was enough of the equation to make sense to her.

  Somehow he had gotten home in time, despite the old man telling him that his mother was calling for him. Ray frowned for a moment, puzzled, but then decided to merely be glad he was okay and that Halloween was not ruined.

  Half an hour later he had changed into his costume—this year he was Captain America—and they were ready for the sun to set, the better to go trick or treating. Four other mothers came to the house and brought children the same age and even younger than Ray. The group would be going together, because, as his mom said “youneverknowwhosoutthere,” which as near as he could figure meant that there was less chance of getting hurt if you walked with other friends. He could have told her that all by himself, because she’d taught him as much years before.

  House after house, with a group of kids who were all alien in their masks and oddly familiar as well. He knew it was Jay under the Darth Vader mask, but the voice and the face together made a wonderfully dizzying confusion ring in his head. That, too, was part of the fun. Of course the candy that was starting to make his bag feel heavy was a nice part of the night as well.

  But this year was different. This year he saw a few grownups in costumes too. The strangest was the man with the pumpkin head. He knew the stories, of course. Just last week at the library—look out for liberals!—Missus Sue had read the tale of old Hattie the witch and her three sons.

  Ray’s skin crawled. He’d heard the term before but never expected to feel it for himself. His skin tried to slither away and hide, because the name of the old man he’d dealt with was Mister Sticks.

  Mister Sticks, the oldest son of the old witch. Also known as the Pumpkin Man.

  He spun in a circle, looking for the man with the jack-o-lantern head.

  And the world spun madly with him as he tried to catch a breath, tried to find out where the giant shape with the pumpkin head and the old clothes had gone. He even wore an old Pilgrim’s hat with a wide brim, like all the old stories said.

  But Momma said that the stories were all just fairy tales. Make believe, like ghosts on Halloween and witches.

  Ray looked at his mother, where she was talking with a woman he knew, but couldn’t for the life of him remember by name. She was just Tory’s mom as far as he was concerned.

  The two women kept speaking as he tried to raise his voice. And behind them he saw the man again, standing above them, on the branch of an old oak tree that dominated the front yard of the Stack family’s house.

  The man looked down, and held up one finger. He placed that finger over the glowing slash of a mouth that dominated his pumpkin face. His white hair was as thin as it had been when he was just a man, and it moved against the faint breeze.

  The fires that burned inside of that face looked cold instead of warm, and Ray felt himself shiver.

  He reached for his mommy, so very, very afraid.

  And then he collapsed.

  

  Are you expecting to hear that I killed a little boy?

  I didn’t. I have before and I likely will again, but I rather like Raymond. He was innocent and he wanted a lot of the same things I wanted when I was younger.

  Mostly he wanted the attention of his mother, and to have his father close by.

  The only thing in the way was Lawrence.

  Getting rid of Lawrence was easy. You’d be surprised how many people are susceptible to fear. And the light I carry with me is an ember straight from Hell. Rest assured, I can be scary when the mood strikes me.

  Lawrence died screaming.

  Long before I answered to my current names, I was known as Jack and then Jack of the Lantern. To this day my visage is celebrated come Halloween. Through my incarnations I have learned a few tricks as it were.

  One of my gifts in this world was granted by the boon the Devil himself offered me when he handed me the ember from Hell to guide my way through the afterlife. Hellfire can feel a soul, can burn the sin right out of a soul, no matter how innocent or corrupt.

  Lawrence is gone. He will be remembered. He left his girlfriend with a child, you see, and she will raise that child, because she does not believe in coincidences, nor does she believe that she could ever give up a child for adoption. She is, in short, a good woman with a good heart. She is raising one child already. She will raise a second without giving it a moment’s thought. I know this, because I can see the intentions within her soul.

  Lawrence would have made a good provider. He might even have made a good father, but he was not a good man. I know that, too. I saw it in his eyes when he was dying.

  Now why would I care about that?

  I don’t, not really, save in that I see something of myself in the eyes of a child who is currently recovering from a deep scare he received on H
alloween night.

  Even a little sin can make me a frightening sight. It’s a gift, I suppose.

  Of course, that hardly makes me an innocent. I don’t judge anyone. I merely observe and from time to time I remember that I am a Harvest God. I will gladly offer prosperity in exchange for a sacrifice.

  Witting or not, young Raymond offered me a sacrifice. I accepted it. In return, he receives a brother or sister that his mother is already carrying.

  Next he gets his father back.

  I wonder if his mother will scream when she sees what time has done to her dead husband, or if she will recognize him at all.

  Patchwork

  I

  Patrick Winter was out of the shower and drying himself before the alarm clock started screaming for him to wake up. He normally was. Somewhere along the way he’d gotten very good at beating the clock. The advantage was it meant he had extra time for handling his daily chores before it was time for work. The routines of the day always brought him a certain level of comfort.

  The sun was still a few hours from rising, so he took advantage of the darkness and slipped out the back door of his house on Rimbauer Street and walked into the woods.

  It was time to pay a visit to his mother. His dreams of late told him that she had something to say and he had been ignoring her for long enough.

  The path through the woods was barely noticeable even after years of him making the trek regularly. He seldom took the exact same steps to reach his destination, but he also knew better than to walk too far from the proper stretches of trail. There were traps laid out in the woods, traps he had put there himself. Some of them had been there a while and he preferred the idea of being cautious to the notion of losing a limb or two.

  The Beldam Woods are dark and a little on the creepy side under the best circumstances. There are heavy layers of undergrowth and the area is rife with brambles and thorns. There are people who swear that the woods are haunted and Patrick Winter would probably be the last one to disagree with them.

  Eventually he made the spot he was seeking and rested on his haunches in front of the massive old tree where he always went to speak with his mother. He had, in the course of time, come to think of the tree as a sort of shrine for her.

  “I’ve been away for a while, I know. But I’ve been busy. There’s the job to consider, and I’ve started doing woodwork again. I like to keep my hands occupied. It keeps my mind off of, well, off of things.”

  The wind picked up around him, shuffling dead leaves and running fingers of the coming autumn through his hair. The wind spoke to him and he listened.

  “You’ve chosen?” He couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.

  The air ran across his body, cold spots touching his face and caressing his skin through the thin clothes he wore.

  The chill was pleasant, compounded by the knowledge that he would soon have another purpose in his life aside from waiting.

  A few minutes later he was on his way back home, stepping carefully through the traps he’d laid and ready to have breakfast.

  II

  The drive over to the Mayflower Dairy plant was short, but long enough to let him suppress his usual excitement. Denny liked his job for the most part. It left his evenings free, it paid the bills and he got a chance to look at a lot of the local girls without getting himself in too much trouble.

  He’d been working for six years with the same man, a brick wall who went by the name of Patrick Winter. Pat was good people, if a little set in his ways. As long as Denny didn’t talk about sex or the fact that a lot of little girls shouldn’t be allowed away from their homes without parental supervision, all was well.

  The simple fact was that Denny liked women of all ages; normally from around the same time they started developing the first hint of a curve. It wasn’t something he’d ever planned and he figured it as one of those tests that God puts before His children: temptation to lead him astray if he wasn't smart about things. He didn’t act on his likes, but he thought about them constantly. Five days of the week he got a chance to see them and admire their shapes and their sweet faces, even if he never got close enough to touch.

  He clocked in and discovered that Pat was there early again. The man had already finished loading everything and putting the orders with each and every crate to be moved. That just guaranteed that Denny wasn’t going to screw anything up.

  Mayflower Milk believed in doing things the old fashioned way. That meant that for no extra charge, the customers around Beldam Woods could call for delivery service, and a lot of them were more than glad to take advantage of the situation. The large white refrigerated truck was loaded down with bottles of chilled milk, sour cream, cottage cheese and everything else that could be found in a dairy section. Patrick had been busy for at least an hour to match up all the orders. Denny considered double checking and then decided against it. In six years his partner had never made a mistake. The boy was thorough, even if he was a stick in the mud.

  Just as he was closing up the back of the truck, Patrick came from the offices carrying two large coffees in one hand and his usual three loaves of bread in the other. He had a thing for the birds over at the private school and as sure as the sun rises in the east and there was a massive duck pond situated on the property, he would head there as soon as they parked for the deliveries. That was cool with Denny, because he had a lot harder time ogling all the little girls when Patrick was hanging around.

  Either Patrick Winter had no sexual drive at all or he was getting some forbidden tail or he was gay. Whatever the case, Denny didn’t much care. As long as Patrick decided to be even just quiet, Denny could handle the situation. He didn’t like to imagine what the oversized ape would look like in the buff. Patrick was muscular and stocky. He almost had to turn sideways to get through regular sized doors and there was something about the crew cut hair and rugged face that just promised anyone who messed with him would experience a lot of pain.

  Denny had been around on the two separate occasions when someone got lippy with Patrick. It was never pretty, but telling the stories normally earned him a few beers a month at the Ugly Mug Tavern in town. Denny was no slouch in the muscles department: you couldn’t be when you were hauling several hundred gallons of milk a day. It just wasn't possible. But next to Patrick he looked like a scrawny little kid. Patrick was the sort of guy that made most people hesitate a bit when he came by in a bad mood. Not only was he big, but also he looked dangerous. They’d had a run in with a drunken idiot from Maine once. The guy came out of the same convenience store they were about to pull into and side swiped the truck. Neither vehicle was going very fast and the damage was minimal, but the idiot tried to make a run for it. He gunned his engine and backed up and was ready to go over the curb to avoid a ticket. Patrick was out of the driver’s side door and next to the car before Denny knew what was happening. He reached onto the car and turned off the engine while the moron behind the steering wheel was looking at him in fear.

  Patrick just walked away from the car and pulled out his cell phone, ready to call the police over. Before he was finished dialing, the drunk got out and decided to take having his car keys stolen as a personal affront. He only paused long enough to get a firm grip on what was left of an industrial sized bottle of cheap tequila. Denny could still remember the sloshing contents of the glass container rolling around with each step the man took.

  Patrick was chatting into his phone and the loser from Maine tried sneaking up behind him. Denny got a warning out before the man could actually hit his partner with the bottle.

  Patrick caught the man’s hand and stopped the swing, and then he started squeezing his fingers over the man’s hand and the bottle until the stranger in town let out a yelp and sat down hard on the curb. He held the man there until the cops finally showed up.

  When he finally let the man go, Denny could see the red marks on the drunk’s hand from where Patrick had been holding onto him for so long. He knew the fool would have n
asty bruises before it was all said and done.

  The other time was messier, and that one actually took place in the Ugly Mug, which was Denny’s favorite watering hole. Getting Patrick to enjoy a night on the town had been an effort in the first place—the man always went home after work or directly to the antique store in town; Denny was almost sure his partner had a thing for the woman behind the counter, but was, again, a little too smart to ask.

  Everything was fine and they were having a good time until Herb Doretevsky and Dominic Fortussi got themselves into an argument. Dominic was busy doing his own thing when Herb decided to take offense at something. Denny couldn’t even remember what, because he’d been drinking like a fish. It was his birthday, which was the only reason Patrick decided to go along with him to the bar in the first place.

  Herb and Dom had been friends for years, but now and then they just felt the need to kick the sin out of each other. It would have worked out just fine, too, but Herb shoved his drinking buddy into the next table over so hard that poor Dom started a short lived domino effect that ended with Denny on the floor and half a pitcher of beer covering Patrick.

  Patrick never touched Dominic, but he beat the living shit out of Herb. The man never even had a chance to try apologizing; Pat just stood up and landed a roundhouse across the drunk’s head that sent him into the nearest wall. Then Patrick helped him meet the wall a second time and then slammed him into the floor and another table. By the time it was done half the people in the Mug were looking like they’d decided never to piss off Patrick Winter and the other half were thinking about buying him a beer.

  So, really, Denny preferred his partner stay cheerful whenever possible.

  Patrick always had coffee waiting for him and half the time he brought donuts. It was Denny’s turn on the donuts and he’d forgotten them again. Pat would be annoyed, but they’d work it out, same as they always did.