Harvest Moon

by James A. Moore

  “Jesus Christ!” He clutched at his chest and looked over toward them. “Where did you two come from?”

  Jeremy looked over at Melissa and saw the half-smile on her face. He didn’t think the police chief could see it through her makeup. “We kind of got dragged here.” She made her face look calm through what had to be a serious effort of willpower. “Do you need help finding your way back to town?”

  The man nodded his head so fast Jeremy thought it might fall off. Melissa looked at the man, craning her head up to see his face properly in the darkness. “Do you have a flashlight?” He waved the one he had in his left hand in her direction and she nodded. Then she took it from the police chief and started walking.

  “Okay, so, what exactly happened to get you two stuck in the woods, Melissa?”

  Jeremy was caught off guard by the policeman knowing Melissa’s name until he realized that the man had likely been speaking to her about her sister’s disappearance and maybe even about what her father had done a few years ago.

  “We were on the Haunted Hayride and we got chased off it by a guy who’s dressed like Mister Sticks.” Well, not quite the whole truth, but Jeremy let it slide. As a rule it was best to edit what you told adults. They tended to handle partial truths better. He’d learned that little lesson a long time ago.

  Craig Gallagher nodded his head and looked at the girl walking in front of him, then back to Jeremy. “Did he hurt either of you?”

  “Not so much. I think Derek Carmody might have been killed though.” Jeremy blinked hard to fight back tears and cleared his throat to stop from sounding like a baby. “It looked—it looked like the wagon fell over on top of him.”

  “Well, I won’t lie to you. I don’t think anyone made it off the wagon. I’m happy to see you two made it.”

  Jeremy could have told him that you should never say anything like that until you know that you’re really in the clear, but he’d just figured the man knew that already. He was a police officer, after all, and they were supposed to know that sort of thing.

  He was the first one to hear the sound that came from behind them in the woods, a heavy flapping noise that had nothing whatsoever to do with the sounds one expected from the woods. Not even the woods around the Witch’s Hollow.

  The cop heard it, too. He turned fast, his hand resting on the pistol at his side. Something black and almost formless landed with a heavy thud nearby, slithering behind a tree before Jeremy could see it clearly.

  “Who’s there?” Craig Gallagher’s voice was deep and threatening, like a bear warning a stray dog away from her cubs. Whatever it was that was now in the woods with them didn’t bother to answer. “Did either of you see anything?”

  Jeremy started to raise his hand and then remembered where he was. “I did. There’s something over there to the left of us.” He pointed and the policeman looked, his eyes squinting in the darkness.

  Craig Gallagher moved toward the tree where Jeremy indicated and called out to whatever was there. “Come out here, now, before I have to come after you.”

  There was no response from behind the tree. Gallagher waited a few moments and moved in that direction again, his pistol drawn. Jeremy watched with silent admiration. The man moved very softly through the leaves, barely making a noise. He hardly even seemed to breathe. It was quite a change from the way he’d bullied his way through the autumn debris a few moments earlier.

  Jeremy felt the hairs on his neck rise as the policeman went behind the tree, gun held at the ready but pointing toward the sky. Beside him, Melissa let out small, nervous gasps. She said something, but her words were too faint for him to make out. He reached for her hand and she caught his, squeezing with an almost frightening strength.

  A moment later, Craig Gallagher let out a yelp and staggered back from the tree, his gun firing repeatedly. Every muzzle flash lit his face and highlighted the panic on his features. From somewhere behind the twisted shape of the tree, a roar of pain erupted, a shrieking, keening sound that set the fine hairs on Jeremy’s neck on end.

  Something moved away from the tree, a dark thing that slithered through the underbrush and directly toward Jeremy and Melissa. He didn’t think about it, he just moved, shoving Melissa aside and falling over with her as the serpentine thing ripped through leaves and dirt alike in a trail away from them. The stench of rotting meat wafted across their path and left both of them close to retching.

  Craig Gallagher moved past them, and once they were no longer between him and his target, he opened fire again. “Damn it!” He stood with his legs apart, hands held on the pistol and an angry scowl on his face.

  Then, after a few seconds, his face relaxed and his arms lowered down and he shivered a bit in the cold. “Okay. That was different.”

  “What was that thing?”

  “I don’t know but it tried to pull my skin off.” Gallagher looked around, once again scowling. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  He didn’t have to tell them twice; they started moving again, Melissa leading the way.

  II

  Patrick stared at the trio as they moved toward the town proper and grimaced. He needed them in motion away from the woods, and he needed the two children back in the thick of things, but he hadn’t exactly planned to get himself shot in the process. He prodded the wound in his abdomen, feeling the dark blood spill out and run down his skin. He needed new flesh, new “patches,” or there would be complications.

  But not any of them. Craig was a good man and Patrick didn’t want to hurt him. Not even after the bullets. And as for the other two, the boy was under Robert’s protection and the girl…well, she was his ace in the hole.

  He watched them move away and concentrated on the holes in his flesh. He managed to hold them closed with an effort.

  The moon filled the sky, a great bloated orange sphere that glowered down upon Beldam Woods and the Witch’s Hollow like a malignant eye. He heard his mother’s words and knew that she had finally awakened. A deep thrill slipped through his body, the very sound of her whispered words in his head filling him with joy. “At last, mother, you are here again.”

  Patrick moved, willing his arms to spread themselves thinner and wider as he ran and then flapping the growing wings, lifting into the air like one of the waterfowl he’d studied for years on end. He moved into the night air, carried by the Halloween winds and smelling the fear that grew in the darkness. In the distance the screams had begun. The night was ripe with promise and he would be with his mother again, finally. Damn whatever was foolish enough to get in his way.

  III

  They made their way out of the woods and back to the remains of the overturned wagon-cum-funereal pyre. Craig was fuming and ready to kill the next person that crossed his path. The two children with him were a little calmer, and so he made himself be calm, too.

  He started into the clearing where the bodies had all been marked and photographed by a forlorn Howard Harris. The mock Old Bones and Hattie at his side stared at the ambulances and their attendants who were busy removing the bodies. Craig was struggling for something to say to them, some vague words of comfort, when the calls started coming in. The Leonard Cinema was having an emergency, exact nature unknown.

  The attack by Patches and Mister Sticks were forgotten and two kids who’d helped him find his way out of the woods as well as the bodies of the dead were set onto the back burner as Craig and Glenn Donner jumped in their squad cars and drove back toward Beldam Woods. They got back into town just in time to watch the world go crazy. A virtual flood of people tried to force their way out of every entrance into the theater. Most of them were in costumes, but several of them were dripping real blood. Craig gestured to Glenn and the two police officers forced their way past the worst of the chaos, trying to get to the source of all the difficulties.

  Even as he moved closer, Mel Woodside, dressed preposterously as Marilyn Monroe, ushered a wailing scream and fell forward; his skin smoking and the wig on his head melting
as something inside of him began to boil. The enormous plastic breasts he wore liquefied, taking the front of his white gown and a good portion of his epidermis with them as they succumbed to gravity. People pushed past Mel, too panicked to care where he was or that he was hurt, only concerned with whether or not they would survive the night. A teenager dressed as a zombie ran directly over Mel’s back, taking a footprint-shaped section of the man’s back with him as he kept right on going. The zombie’s face was looking back, past the continuing outflow of masks and costumes, to whatever was apparently behind the catastrophe the cops were watching unfold.

  And then the source of their fears walked through the double doors leading from within the old cinema to the parking lot filled with people, cars, and the bubbling, ruined corpse of Mel Woodside. She stood almost six feet tall, was thin to the point of emaciation, and where her body wasn’t covered with a bloodied drop cloth, she was withered and ancient. Her face was angular, with a crooked nose and a gaping maw of a mouth that held far too many bloodied teeth. Her eyes were half-hidden in deep sockets and her thin hair was a multitude of colors, as if it had been taken from several sources and merely knitted together to give the illusion of a full head of hair. She was hideous, physically abhorrent, and not overly impressive, but he could feel the power coming off of her in waves. Behind the creature a few stragglers spilled from inside the now burning cinema building, some moving quietly to avoid getting the witch’s attention and the others merely running for all they were worth.

  He only had to see her for a second to understand that Hattie the witch was alive and well and glaring her hatred toward him. Craig actually flinched from the intense stare the crone threw his way.

  She moved toward Craig, hissing like a ruptured steam pipe, and slapped John Hoverson through the air as he caught her attention briefly. Craig heard bones break and drew his firearm, taking careful aim before shooting at her torso.

  Bullet holes blossomed in the creature’s chest and staggered her, but she did not fall down. That wasn’t a good sign. Glenn slid around to her right and took careful aim at the ancient face that glared in his direction. Before he even knew what was happening, the creature made a fast gesture with her hand and Craig saw his only back-up start twitching. Sparks shot from the pistol in his hands and his hair stood on end. A moment later, Glenn let out a scream as a brilliant bolt of electricity blasted from the long-fingered hands of the witch and struck Glenn dead in the chest.

  Glenn was dead before he hit the ground; his skin blackened and fried, the buttons of his uniform fused onto his body. Craig cut loose with a volley of bullets and punched a half-dozen more holes through the thing’s chest.

  Hattie staggered back, her face a snarl of pain, then charged toward him, intent on taking him apart with her bare hands. The worst part of it was, even as wounded as she was, he had doubts he could do anything at all to stop her.

  He backpedaled away from the approaching nightmare, calling for back-up from all of his part-time police officers. The only good news seemed to be that most of the people who had been inside the Leonard were managing to sneak past without the monstrous old woman doing anything to them. The better news was that word had already gotten out and his boys were there before he could even finish reloading his pistol.

  Perry Wallis took one look at the situation and pumped a round into the shotgun he’d pulled from under the counter at the Ugly Mug. The witch turned to look at him and froze, not moving at all as he lowered the barrel to the level of her face. Perry spoke softly but as always, people listened when he spoke.

  “You need to settle yourself down and step back away from me and everyone else around here.” His voice shook, but Perry’s hands were steady. And then suddenly he wasn’t where he had been. Something dropped from the sky and landed on the owner of the Ugly Mug with a heavy thud.

  Perry started screaming, his body covered in a thick black hide that squeezed until every vein and artery on the man’s face was perfectly defined. Perry screamed; his eyes wide with fear and his body hidden completely by the dark thing that constricted tighter and tighter until Craig was sure he heard bones starting to break. Then the world erupted into a powerful flash of flame and lead pellets. The backside of whatever had Perry vanished in a flurry of bloodied graffiti. It fell away from him with a shriek that set his nerves on their ends.

  Craig prayed he was seeing things, but felt a sick certainty that the nightmares around him were exactly what he thought they were. The stories were all true. The witch, her children, and the nightmares they’d all grown up with in Beldam Woods.

  Just to prove him right, the next of the witch’s children showed up. Only this one wasn’t looking toward Perry. This one was looking at him.

  Craig took one look at Old Bones and ran for his car. Old Bones was not what he expected. He was much, much worse. How big was the creature? He couldn’t hope to know. It was crouched down and flailing its massive bony arms around its head, bringing them down in slamming impacts. Most of the people were scattering as the monster came to defend its mother, but not all of them. He thought the man he saw crushed was Rick Leonard himself, the owner of the cinema, but he couldn’t be sure. One second the man had been standing there—dressed as a clown with comically oversized pants and shoes—and the next he was shattered on the ground, the sharp-edged bones in the monster’s hands having impaled him in a dozen places. It moved more like an ape than anything else, waving its arms wildly and skittering forward on legs that seemed too short for the rest of its oversized form.

  Craig started the squad car and cranked up the siren, hauling ass and screeching tires as he aimed for the monstrous thing that was pulping people left and right. It never even tried to get away from him. It stood its ground and looked for all the world like it was going to bring both of its fists down on top of the car.

  The Crown Victoria slammed into the massive body—and Craig looked, really looked at what it was made of and blanched, horrified by the sheer number of bones that made up its form. The monster’s fists rammed down into the hood of the squad car at the same time, driving deep into the metal and fracturing even as they broke through the hood.

  Both the car and the monster stopped where they were. The car did not move again. Old Bones did. The thing reared back, leaving its arms behind, ripping loose from the wreckage and roaring as it came back up. Any slim hope that Craig had felt was lost in an instant. As he watched, Old Bones’ body changed. The thick collection of bones that made up its mass shifted, lowering down from the back and forming new arms.

  Behind the beast, Hattie cackled, looking at Craig with amused eyes.

  IV

  Alan Treacher and Barry Foster entered the clearing that the Pumpkin Man had prepared for them before breaking them from their cell. A massive iron cauldron sat perched over a mound of coals, boiling slowly, spilling noxious fumes into the air. The damned thing could have boiled a whole cow, and Alan was almost certain he’d seen it at one of the shops in town for years and years. The police office was only a dozen yards away from them and he wondered for a moment how anyone could have missed this setup from the building. Then he remembered that the only windows facing these woods belonged to the cell he had been taken from and a storage room, if he recalled the signs on the doors properly. Someone could have set up a damned sacrificial altar and no one would have been the wiser if they weren’t staying in the lockup.

  “That’s it?” His voice shook. He couldn’t help it; the freak standing in front of him scared the shit out of him.

  The gourd head turned to contemplate him, firefly green luminescence flaring from within its depths. “It’s all you’ll need. Just say the words, I’ll do the rest.”

  Alan didn’t hesitate. His hands trembled as he lifted the thin sheaf of papers older than the town of Beldam Woods and began reading. He wanted what the witch offered. He wanted knowledge and he wanted power. Anyone who knew the man would have blanched to see him now. He had changed, and not for the better.
His skin was pale and his hair was limp, lifeless. Barry was little better.

  The two of them stood before the massive cauldron and Alan started talking, reciting the lines that were written in rusty ink. The words had power, he could feel it coarse through him, but he had no idea what they meant. That was why he’d made the deal in the first place. He wanted to understand everything.

  As he spoke, Barry swayed, his body almost seeming to shrivel. He stared into the cauldron as if mesmerized, though there was little to see aside from the roiling black fluids that seethed inside. Then Barry fell forward, and the Pumpkin Man helped him fall into the massive pot. Alan barely noticed. He knew that Barry was just a tool, a means to an end. Just the same, he stepped back a few paces.

  He chanted almost endlessly it seemed, and after a while he noticed that his body was tingling. What he did not see, merely because he was far too busy reading, was that his own body was withering, his blood pouring from his skin in a crimson cascade.

  When he finished with his words, the words that he knew the witch needed him to say, Treacher fell to the ground. Jack picked the wretch up and dropped him into the cauldron as well.

  Life demands sacrifices. Better by far when the sacrifices are willing, even if they are not wise. For over one hundred years Jack had been visiting the town of Summitville, offering bountiful harvests and success in exchange for a simple sacrifice once a year. The people there made the bargain eagerly, grateful for the promise of good fortune and health.

  One soul a year was hardly all that large a price to pay. Though, admittedly, most of them never really remembered what they had done, what they had offered until the time came again.

  One hundred plus souls held in check, a payment in exchange for services rendered. Jack gave them up now, allowing them at last to pour from his body and into the massive kettle that held more secrets than many nations could honestly claim.