The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  But then she appeared, dragging a wailing bat-costumed boy of about five after her, shouting, “I told you, eight o’clock! You have enough candy!”

  She pushed him, still wailing, into the van and drove off.

  The night was alive. Things seemed a little more frantic this year, a little more on edge, a little more electric than usual. Maybe it was the cold coming on the heels of the earlier October warmth. There was a meanness in the air that normally wasn’t present. Kathy felt a prickling in her skin, as if the sky was alive with black autumn, with Halloween itself.

  There were lights from pumpkins, porches and decorations everywhere along the few blocks she had to navigate to the main road. A group of teens, who seemed to be talking on a street corner, suddenly turned when she stopped at the STOP sign and, cackling, lobbed eggs at her car. Two eggs hit the passenger side window and stayed there, like yellow eyes. She swerved, cursing herself for doing so — they were only eggs, for heaven’s sake — but the look on their faces, pinched, almost malevolent, made her step on the gas and speed away. She heard them hoot after her, and watched them, in the rearview mirror, physically attack the car behind her as it stopped, smearing eggs over the windshield and climbing up onto its roof.

  She kept a little above the speed limit after that, until she entered the Turner’s neighborhood.

  Things were pretty much the same here as on her own street — except for the Turner house, which was dark, unlit. Already there were long lines of shaving cream across the front windows and siding, and the mailbox was covered with broken eggs. As Kathy got out of the car she saw a little girl, dressed as a princess with tiara and gold slippers, standing in the street, crying. At her feet was a dropped sack spilling candy.

  Kathy took a step toward the girl and as if out of nowhere a woman appeared, shouting, “Get away from her!”

  Kathy froze as the woman grabbed the girl with one hand, scooped up the spilled bag with the other, and hustled both off down the street, leaving a small scattered pile of candy bars and tiny candy boxes behind.

  Somewhere a dog howled, long and mournful.

  The moon, high in the east now, yellow as squash, was occluded by scudding clouds.

  Kathy walked to the Turner’s front door, stepping over a broken pumpkin and an abandoned bicycle wheel.

  A convertible full of teenagers roared by, shouting abuse. A line of eggs flew to Kathy’s right, peppering the already vandalized house.

  The front door stood wide open.

  Kathy put her head into the darkened entry, and said, “Hello?”

  A cat, fat and dark orange, hissed and ran out past her, into the night.

  From somewhere in the back of the house, beyond the stairway to the second floor, came a mournful sound, a miniature of the dog’s howl she had heard.

  She stepped into the house, nudging aside a lopsided pile of newspapers which blocked the hallway with her foot. The pile collapsed, papers spilling like playing cards.

  The pained sound came again.

  “Ohhhh.”

  “Mrs. Turner, it’s Kathy Marks. I’m in your house.”

  “Ohhhhhh.”

  Kathy slowly walked down the hallway, passing the living room, which was filled with deep shadows — furniture at odd angles, boxes that looked as if they had never been unpacked.

  The sound came again from the kitchen.

  Kathy stepped into the dimly lit room. There was a low-wattage bulb under the stove hood which was the only steady illumination. A round ceiling neon flashed once, stayed off. Everything looked orange. There was an open, unlit refrigerator, a door to the backyard, blocked by an open garbage can beside it, the smell of bad eggs and sour milk, a small rectangular kitchen table with a window over it covered with filthy dishes.

  On a chair pulled up to the table at an angle facing the room was the slumped figure of Mrs. Turner.

  “Ohhhhh…”

  Mrs. Turner tried to raise her head but only managed to lift it high enough to moan again. Her face was bleary with drink. She lifted her right hand slightly, trying to reach the nearly empty blue gin bottle which teetered on the edge of the table. There was vomit in a pool on the table and on her left arm, on which she lay her head.

  “Ohhhh, dreaming…”

  Her right hand fell against the blue bottle, knocking it off the table. It fell but didn’t break, sloshing some of the remaining clear liquid on the dirty floor.

  Mr. Turner sent up a louder wail.

  Kathy Marks approached. “Mrs. Turner, your daughter…”

  “Dreaming!” Mrs. Turner screeched, throwing herself back on the chair and pointing with a wavering right hand out the window behind her. She fell partially forward, now spying the clear bottle on the ground, and pushed her chair violently back, dropping to the floor and scrambling after the remains of the gin.

  Out through the window Kathy saw unclear movement in the moonlight: a figure and something under a tree—

  The librarian leaned forward, around the moaning figure of Annabeth’s mother, and peered out the window—

  “My God—”

  Annabeth Turner was trying to kick a chair that supported her aside. A rope suspended her by the neck from a sturdy branch of the tree—

  As the librarian watched, the chair fell aside, letting the girl swing free, arms at her sides.

  “Annabeth!” Kathy Marks screamed, moving frantically to her right. She pushed aside the garbage can which blocked the back door, knocking it over, spilling fruit peels and used slices of lime. She yanked the door open.

  There were three wooden steps down to ground level. The top slat broke, sending her foot through and catching painfully at the ankle. She pulled it out, ignoring pain.

  She ran for the girl.

  The moon overhead was completely covered by clouds at that moment. The night became darker and colder.

  Far off she heard the beginning of a roar, and the ground began to tremble.

  Dogs howled as if in unison, and every light in Orangefield, as if on cue, went out.

  The night was filled with a hush, followed by an unearthly, keening cry. Overhead the sky became impossibly dark, and a darker shape, boiling out like black ink, began to fill the heavens where stars and the moon had been.

  The girl became still.

  “Annabeth! No!”

  Kathy Marks grabbed Annabeth by her middle and held her up. She was a dead, cold weight. The librarian tried to upright the fallen chair with her foot. Moaning with frustration, she let the girl down and quickly reached down and set the chair aright, then stood on it and took Annabeth in her arms again, lifting her against her own body while she worked at the noose, loosening it then tearing it away from Annabeth’s neck.

  She lowered the girl to the ground.

  “Annabeth!”

  The girl lay cold and still, and the librarian took her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “Annabeth, please!”

  The girl gave a choking gasp, and looked straight up at the librarian.

  “Nothing!” she cried. “I saw nothing but an airless place, a desert! He lied!”

  Around them, the keening sound retreated, deeper darkness retreated, the lights in the houses around them blinked back on.

  The night was filled with a sudden deathly silence.

  The moon slid from behind its clouds.

  Not her. You, Kathy. Finally, time to remember.

  Kathy Marks gasped, looked around her frantically.

  That voice. Like the voice at the library — like a voice she suddenly remembered from so long ago…

  Time to finish it, this time, Kathy. Remember…

  Memories, which had been locked safely away since she was eleven, began to flood back into her, a jumble of unrelated images, and she gasped again—

  Don’t you remember, Kathy? Remember it all now…

  It all came screaming back at her, suddenly sharp and clear, as if the door to a locked room had been kicked open.

  A co
ld Halloween, colder than she ever remembered…

  She ate her cold cereal at the breakfast table with her aunt and uncle, just like always. Uncle Edward was in a sour mood this morning, some trouble at the bank — but as always when he left, after carefully folding his newspaper and leaving it next to his empty egg cup and plate of toast, his empty orange juice glass and coffee cup, he rose and pecked his wife on the cheek and kissed Kathy on the top of her head. Today he pushed something into Kathy’s hand and whispered, “For Halloween. Have fun.” As he was leaving, closing the front door behind him she looked down to see two crisp dollar bills, folded in half, in her hand.

  Aunt Jane’s hand quickly covered her own and pried the money loose. “I’ll take those,” she said primly, unfolding and studying the money, then making a snorting sound before putting it in the cookie jar, a fat green bear, on the shelf on the wall over the table. She gave Kathy a cold look. “Finish your cereal and get off to school. You’ll understand when you’re older.” Then she added, “Or maybe you won’t.” She was staring toward the closed front door as the sound of Uncle Edward’s car faded down the street. After a moment she spoke again, in a soft voice, still facing the front door. “Just because you’re his kin don’t make you mine. When your ma and pa died I told Edward not to take you in. I told him five times. But he didn’t listen. He said your pa was his brother, and that made him beholden.” Annabeth saw that her hands were trembling, and a single tear tracked her hard, pinched face. “I told him,” she said, a dry, bitter sob.

  School was school. At lunchtime she talked with her friend Mary for a while, then went off by herself, behind the big elm, to talk to Sammy.

  “How are you today?” Sammy asked, in a particularly jolly voice.

  “Fine. How are you?”

  “You know I’m fine, because it’s Halloween!”

  Sammy gave a laugh, and Kathy couldn’t help smiling.

  “How are things at home, Kathy? Mr. Marks still being bad at night, after the lights go out?”

  Kathy said nothing, and her face darkened.

  “Oh, don’t be cross! You know we’ve talked all about it. You know you can tell me anything.”

  “Yes…” Kathy said in a whisper; she was thinking about the two crisp dollars in her hand that morning…

  “Did you put that fun mark on your arm, the way I asked?”

  “No…” Kathy said, looking at the ground.

  “Why not?” Kathy knew he would be angry, but he wasn’t as angry as she’d feared. There was still happiness in his voice. Still staring at the ground, she drew the large paper clip from her pocket.

  “And there it is!” Sammy laughed. “Why don’t we do it now — we’ve got time!”

  For perhaps the fifth time, Kathy carefully unbent the outer section of the clip, making it straight. She could tell that it was weakening, and if she bent it closed again in would break. She poked at the point idly with her finger.

  “Aw, don’t worry, it won’t hurt! I won’t let it!”

  Again he laughed.

  Holding the paper clip in her right hand, she turned over her left forearm and pressed the tip into the flesh. She pushed it in harder, seeing a drop of red blood rise from the skin.

  “Now just make the words!” Sammy encouraged.

  “Hey, Kathy—”

  Her friend Mary was suddenly standing there, eyes wide. She stared at Kathy’s arm, at the paper clip.

  “What are you doing?” Mary asked.

  “Nothing.” Kathy lowered the paper clip, hiding it in her right palm.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” Kathy answered.

  Mary shook her head. “They were right about you. I was going to invite you to trick-or-treat with me later, but you’re whacko.”

  Mary turned and ran off.

  “Hmmm?” Sammy asked, after a moment.

  Kathy drew the paper clip out again, and began to carve words into the flesh of her arm as Sammy encouraged her and laughed.

  Just as Sammy had predicted, they sent her home after the nurse examined what she had done to her arm. Mrs. Marks and a beating were waiting, and then there would be no trick-or-treating.

  And then Mr. Marks would come home from the bank, and night would come…

  “But we don’t care about any of that, do we?” Sammy said. “Because today you’re going to see your ma and pa, right?”

  “Yes…”

  Walking down Main Street from the school toward home, Kathy noted a few strange things: an ambulance screeching through traffic toward the hospital, and then another from the opposite direction, and then, two blocks along, a crowd gathered around the front of the bank, and police cars.

  “Let’s go into the park!” Sammy said suddenly. It was the first time she had ever heard him sound like a grownup — almost in a hurry.

  She crossed the street and entered Rainer Park. The trees near the main road were covered with toilet paper. Farther on, the park was almost empty. She passed a few mothers with babies in strollers; all of them bundled up against the cold. Some of the babies wore Halloween costumes, cat whiskers, pink angel’s wings. A touch football game was just breaking up; the football, tossed errantly, came to a rolling stop at her feet and she stood looking down at it until an older boy came and scooped it up. He paused to look into Kathy’s face, and at her blood-dried arm.

  “Man, you’re weird,” he said and ran off, scooping up the ball.

  Keep walking, Sammy said, and suddenly his voice was a bit more urgent. He had begun to talk inside her head. You know the spot.

  Kathy was cutting diagonally across the park, toward its farthest borders. There was a grove of trees here. It was the site of picnics in the summer, with its permanently mounted barbecue grills. But once the weather chilled it became almost empty. Kathy had seen no one here the last time she had visited, the day before. There was no one now.

  “Ah!” Sammy said. His voice was natural and jolly again. He seemed to be walking along beside her, though she couldn’t see him.

  And then she could see him, his black cape that swirled in and out of focus, like fog, his laughing face hidden, a hint of chalk white…

  “It’s still here, Kathy! Just like we left it!”

  She stopped before a huge oak, one branch reaching out over its own fallen leaves like a long thick arm. From it hung a perfect hangman’s noose. Below it was a three-legged stool Kathy had stolen from Uncle Edward’s basement bar.

  “What do you say, Kathy?” Sammy laughed, but then he became very urgent indeed —

  Do it.

  Kathy heard a faraway noise, a group of voices growing louder — but then Sammy was filling her head with his voice:

  Do it now, Kathy. Climb onto the stool. You’ll see your ma and pa. Put the rope around your neck. Just like I promised. Tighten the noose. Kick the stool away.

  Away—

  Kick it—

  Away!

  And then she was floating in air, her ears filled with a roaring sound, Sammy’s laughing voice, other sounds like voices carrying across a crashing surf. She felt the faint cold breeze of her own swinging body, then something very indistinct opened in front of her and the voices all went very far away, pulled down a long tunnel away from her like chattering little mice and there before her and there was a flat and desolate place with strange shapes —

  “Ms. Marks!”

  She was in two places at once — then and now. She was yanked back and was there, in 1981, feeling her body hoisted up and opening her eyes and choking, gagging, unable to breathe, the boy with the football gawking at her from below, a policeman, and the other men who were lifting her while another ripped the noose from her neck—

  —and now, in the present, she opened her eyes and saw that she had climbed up onto Annabeth’s chair, put Annabeth’s rope around her neck, and kicked the chair away—

  Now, Kathy.

  Finish it. Not like when you were eleven, not like the second time after yo
ur boyfriend Corrie Phaeder left you.

  Go there.

  Third time’s the charm.

  See your ma and pa.

  Annabeth was standing in front of her, screaming. Then she turned and ran toward the house. There was a great commotion and noise, and then the girl reappeared, running toward the tree, a long knife in her hand.

  “…Cut you down…” the librarian heard Annabeth say.

  Kathy began to struggle, trying to reach up and release the pressure on her neck.

  Finish it or I’ll take the girl.

  Annabeth stopped halfway to the tree and began to fight for breath. She collapsed, the knife falling from her grip, and began to writhe on the ground. The caped figure materialized over her, like a black swirling cloud. For a brief moment it turned its cowl toward Kathy and she saw a horrid paste-white flat face within, black holes for eyes and a thin red-lipped mouth in the shape of a perfect ‘O’, full of emptiness.

  She dies unless you finish it.

  The girl was fighting to draw something from her pocket, and then found it, an inhaler. It rolled from her grasping fingers onto the grass.

  Do it now.

  Kathy let go, and closed her eyes.

  “All right,” she sighed.

  And then she began to lose consciousness, felt the weight on her neck squeezing, Sammy’s own fingers squeezing the air from her—

  “Ha ha!” Sammy laughed happily. “Time to finish it!”

  She felt the ground begin to tremble again, heard the hush followed by a high keen, darkness enclosing the earth, the stars and moon blotted out, that flat and airless and empty place below her—

  “Time to see ma and pa!”

  As when she was eleven, the dry and airless desert opened in front of her, and what had been only bright clouds began to form into something else, shapes, moving shapes—

  And now for the briefest moment she thought she saw —

  “Ha ha ha—!”

  A curtain dropped down. She fell. Air came back into her lungs, and Sammy’s voice was gone, shut off in mid-laugh.

  Slowly, the night came back to her. She heard the sound of a dog barking, the laughter of children, a far-off shout of “Trick or treat!” She felt the cold of the autumn night breeze on her face, and wetness of dewed grass on her fingers.