The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  He pushed Prohman awake. “Those marshals come early?”

  “Whu—?” the fat sergeant said, yawning himself into a sitting position.

  “How long have you been asleep, Chip?”

  “Don’ know, ’xactly. What time is it?”

  “It’s after eight a.m.”

  “Wow. We gotta get Soames ready to go.”

  “He’s still here?”

  “Yeah, I—”

  Grant pushed his way past Prohman and went to the cell. He put his hands on the bars, peering in—

  “What the—”

  His hands were slick with something; as he turned his palms to the weak light leaking in from the basement doorway he saw that they were colored red—

  “Holy God in heaven.”

  Prohman had roused himself by now, and was ambling toward him.

  “Hey, what—”

  “Get the hell away, Chip. Just go upstairs.”

  Prohman continued forward, his eyes goggling. “What’s that on the floor—”

  “I said go upstairs!”

  “Wha—oh shit—”

  Prohman turned and heaved the empty contents of his stomach onto the concrete floor. The sour smell of bile mixed with coppery blood—

  Grant slowly backed away from the cell, his hands held before him, trying to erase the sight of Marvin Soames, his body flat on its back in the middle of the cell, flayed open and empty from chest to groin, his own innards smeared over the floor in a messy line of hand prints that led to the bars and up them, entrails wrapped like snakes and still dripping—

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The world had changed for Corrie Phaeder. Black was white now, white black. Up, sometimes, was down, and left, often, was right. He knew he was being pushed into another place, and knew he was almost there.

  He knew Reggie’s parents had tried to stop him. At one point he felt blows from an unseen fist, and heard voices that sounded like the Brights’ voices, but at the time he was on a train with his hand on the throttle, Reggie beside him happily pulling the whistle, and then the blows stopped and the sounds of the train overcame the screaming. He never saw their faces.

  He hadn’t been in the real world for days, but neither had he been in the one he was heading to. He saw John once, as in a dream, but he was on a carnival ride at the time, at an amusement park he had never been to (therefore it hadn’t been one of his “real” dreams, which had stopped altogether), one with beautiful Christmas tree lights strung from poles and a ferris wheel lit up in white and green, and a carnival barker yelling, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” though there were no other people around except for John, who was in another flying car of the red and chrome whirligig he rode. Reggie was with him then, too, and enjoyed the ride more than he did, wanting it to go on when the cars finally came to a stop. Corrie felt sick to his stomach and when he looked at the other car John had disappeared.

  He and Reggie wandered the amusement park for a while, but the barker was gone and the lights began to dim and finally they found themselves in front of a tent that said FREAK SHOW on the front of it in bold letters on a bright yellow banner. The tent was red-and-white-striped, and there was an odd noise coming from inside it.

  And then they found themselves inside the tent, and when Corrie looked back at the entrance the carnival barker was back, yelling to the empty darkness outside, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

  Reggie tugged at his sleeve and he turned to look where she pointed.

  “Run!” she said, and her voice came out low-pitched and strung out, as if it was a record that had been slowed down.

  There were wall to wall and ceiling to floor shelves against one wall of the tent, holding jars and boxes of all shapes and sizes. The cardboard box nearest to them, the size of a refrigerator, shook violently, as if something massive inside was trying to get out; next to it was a tiny box with a cover on it. From inside came a tiny mewling sound, like that from a miniature cat.

  When Reggie reached out to take off the cover, the box disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  “You’re getting closer,” someone said, the voice all pinched together, the opposite of how Reggie’s voice had sounded, and Corrie looked up to see John at the opposite end of the tent, under an EXIT sign. The pumpkin man walked out of the exit and Corrie tried to follow, pulling Reggie after him, but he moved as if stuck in molasses.

  Reggie tugged back, and they examined the jars, which were filled with a thick greenish liquid. Something floated in each, brushing along the front of each jar and just becoming visible for a moment before vanishing into the foggy liquid once more. There were miniature versions of the shapes they had seen from their balloon chairs: squares and cardboard cutouts and squiggles and puffs of smoke and others, like mushrooms and something that looked like a human ear with legs and arms, but no hands.

  “Almost,” Corrie heard, and once again there was a figure in the EXIT opening, but it was a tall curl of smoke, which suddenly flattened.

  Then there was a sound like a bell tolling, very deep and slow, and the tent was gone and the amusement park was gone and they were on a plain that filled in with houses and trees like things being drawn as they watched, and the sun peeked up over the far horizon, and the sky became blue.

  And then they were back in Orangefield, with real sky and real ground under their feet, standing outside Corrie’s house, at the bottom of the porch steps, with the real sun coming up over the Sagett River in front of them, turning the distant cornfield golden-yellow and the closer, picked-clean pumpkin patches chocolate brown. The air felt cold as milk on the skin, and the sky was the deepest blue Corrie had ever seen. He smelled apples and allspice and the chilled smell of freshly carved pumpkins, and something else, the smell of the world rotting, of turned things from the ground and dead things. It was life and death all mixed up together.

  And then John was between him and Reggie, with an arm around each of them, hugging them close, and Corrie felt the pumpkin man’s gentle touch and heard his gentle, sad voice.

  He said, “Later today you will leave this place, and come over. This is your last time here, the last strong hold your world will have on you. Some strange things will happen to you today, and then the crossover will come. The two worlds are finished intertwining; my world is ready for you. But you must take your leave of this one.

  “Samhain will try to prevent you from leaving,” John said. “Anything that happens today will be his doing. This is his only chance to stop you.

  “Tonight you will come with me into my world, and we will try to stop Samhain. Until then, be careful.”

  His voice became very faint, and the pressure on Corrie’s shoulder became weaker and weaker.

  Down River Road, from the direction of Reggie’s house, two figures were running toward them.

  John had disappeared, but his voice lingered in the air like the Cheshire cat.

  “Today is Halloween.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Little early for me, Bill,” Farmer said, studying at his own dry glass.

  Grant knocked back his second scotch, neat, and looked at his colleague. “Not for me. Not for today. Thanks for coming, Pell, even if you’re not drinking. If I didn’t tell someone, I would have busted a gut.”

  The bar was empty, and the booths too, except for the one they occupied. Pete Loughran, the eponymous bartender, stood putting washed glasses into their slots, idly watching the television, which had one of the mindless morning yak shows on.

  Farmer was silent. Then he said, “You’ve been through an awful lot lately, Bill.”

  “And I didn’t make any of this shit up. That … thing told me something would happen to Marvin Soames, and something did. Someone smeared him all over that cell …”

  “And you don’t think Marvin did that all by himself, without any encouragement? He was a cop killer, Bill, on his way to a state prison where they don’t like cop killers. Hell, I’d believe Chip Prohman did a number on him if I didn’t
know Chip was such a fuckup.”

  Grant was staring at him stonily. “You going to play devil’s advocate, Farmer, or are you going to listen to me?”

  Farmer reached for the Dewar’s bottle, but not to pour himself a drink. He drew it toward his side of the table and left it there. “I think maybe you should stop drinking. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning and you’re still on duty.”

  Grant leaned over and brought the bottle back to his side of the table. He poured another three fingers of scotch into his glass, watching it slosh against the sides like water against a dam. “I can drink by myself, Farmer, if you like.”

  Farmer tried to stare him down but failed. Finally he threw his hands up and drew the bottle back toward him, tilting the neck until a couple of fingers of amber fluid flowed into his own glass.

  “Top o’ the morning, and all that shit,” he said.

  Grant gave a sour smile. “That’s more like it.”

  Farmer sighed. “Now tell me this again: you believe this Samhain is real, and that he made Marvin Soames kill Riley Gates, then himself?”

  “And Samhain’s done plenty of other bad business in this town since 1940.”

  “1940 …” Farmer shook his head. “Hell, that was years before either of us was born.”

  “That’s right.”

  Farmer shook his head. “Sorry, that’s just not something I can go for. I remember the boogeyman stories when we were kids, the Sam sightings and all that, but to think this stuff was real …”

  “Riley thought so, and now I know it is, too.”

  “And this Samhain threatened you?”

  “Told me basically that he’d take care of Soames, and do some other things to stop me if he had to.”

  Farmer was still shaking his head.

  “You’ve seen some dark stuff yourself, haven’t you, Pell? Wasn’t your mother—”

  Pell’s face turned to stone. “My stepfather killed my mother when I was a kid, and some local girl, too. Then he blew his own brains out. But I never claimed anyone named Samhain had anything to do with it.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry—” Grant began.

  “Forget it,” Pell said. His face softened. “I just don’t talk about it, is all.”

  “But this stuff is real, Pell. And I don’t know what to do about it. Riley knew it was real. Samhain committed those murders, he burned up those books on my kitchen table, and he told me to stay away from Corrie Phaeder.”

  Farmer looked surprised. “Corrie Phaeder? Jeez—is that what this is all about?”

  Grant looked at his scotch, then drank some of it. “Not anymore. A couple of weeks ago I wanted that kid’s nuts on a platter. Now I don’t know …”

  He looked up to see that Farmer had stood up, leaving his barely touched drink behind.

  “What’s the matter?” Grant asked, surprised.

  Farmer looked down at him, the stony look back on his face. “I’m goin’ back to work, Bill. What I think you should do is go home and have a couple more drinks, then fall asleep. I’ll tell Captain Farrow you were shook up by what happened to Soames and needed a break. He may be a jerk but he’ll buy that one.”

  Grant said, “Sit down, Pell.”

  Farmer shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t buy this supernatural crap. I think this is about that kid Corrie Phaeder, plain and simple. I suggest you wash it all out of your head. See you tomorrow.”

  Before Grant could answer, Farmer had turned around and was through the door of the bar, letting in an abrupt line of daylight. Then he was gone.

  “Marital spat?” Loughran said from behind the bar, staring at Grant with a blank look on his face, drying rag in one hand, glass in the other.

  Grant nodded. “Something like that, Pete.”

  “You ask me,” the bartender answered, “It’s this Halloween shit. Too much shit happens around Halloween now. I hate Halloween. Good for business but bad for the head.”

  Grant downed the scotch left in his glass. “You ever heard of Samhain, Pete?”

  The bartender grinned. “You mean Sam sightings, all that crap?”

  Grant nodded.

  “Sure. Remember once my brother Nat, he saw somethin’ flapping around in the woods — turned out to be my Uncle Pete, who’s I was named after, with a snootful and his jacket on backwards.” He was still grinning as Grant shook his head.

  “Thanks, Pete,” Grant mumbled.

  “Any time, Bill.” The bartender turned back to his television and Grant turned back to his Scotch. He started to pour another, which he knew would be the one to tip him from here to there, sobriety to numbness, but his hand on the bottle stopped and then he put the bottle back down on the table. He stared at it for a second, then took his hand off it and stood up.

  “On my tab, will you, Pete?” he called as he walked to the front door.

  The bartender said, “You bet,” without taking his eyes from the television.

  Something weird in the air. He had no idea what he would say to Phaeder when he got there — but if anyone knew about Samhain it must be him.

  The hell with Samhain, and Captain Farrow, and anyone else telling him to stay away from the kid.

  It was mid-morning, but already Halloween was in full swing in Orangefield. It was cool and warm at the same time — perfect late October weather. Grant had the window of the Taurus rolled down. A classroom full of what looked like third graders, decked out in their Halloween costumes, was marching along Main Street with their teacher, a petite blonde, leading them. They were probably heading for Erskine’s Candy Store. Grant passed the establishment a moment later, and, sure enough, another class, this one generaled by a young brunette, was just leaving, each clutching a chocolate pumpkin lollipop. Every store along the street was dressed to the nines in Halloween finery: huge cutouts, some of them custom made, in windows — pumpkins and jointed skeletons and ghosts and black cats and witches. One picture window, in a drapery shop no less, had the entire front window blackened, with only finger-scratched letters forming HAPPY HALLOWEEN! breaking the startling mood. Grant could imagine how black the sponges they would use to remove that window scene would be the next day. Every light pole not only was bedecked in its plywood painted pumpkin at the apex, but also wrapped with black and orange tinsel like a barber pole. The barber shop itself (as opposed to the ten hair stylists spread around town) had replaced his own real pole for the season with a specially made one, striped white and orange.

  And everywhere — everywhere — were carved pumpkins.

  Even before he reached the residential area at the edge of town, the smell of fresh-scooped pumpkin filled his nostrils. There were pumpkins guarding every shop’s doorway, and others that had been left overnight anonymously (a practice that had started a few years ago, and grown since) at bus stops, on public benches, next to post office drop boxes, and, especially, in front of the few establishments that refused, for one reason or another, usually crabbiness on the part of the owner, to participate in the town’s biggest day. The most elaborately carved and largest were usually deposited here in the middle of the night — like Barney’s Dry Cleaners. Barney wouldn’t dare remove or destroy the pumpkin — this year, Grant saw, a tall oblong shape at least three feet in height and carved in the likeness, deliberate no doubt, of Barney’s pinched face: eyes close together, downturned mouth in a sour pout. Then of course there were the costumed shopkeepers — the deli man at Carpy’s who dressed like Mr. Spock from Star Trek once a year, the overweight yarn store owner who squeezed into her milkmaid outfit, the very overweight owner of Gund’s Hardware, who fancied himself Felix the Cat, and who stood in front of his shop sweeping as Grant passed. There was a rip up the back of Gund’s costume, which made him look anything but catlike.

  Town Hall sported an orange and black banner with the mayor’s name prominently displayed, welcoming all to Orangefield, THE PUMPKIN CAPITAL OF THE WORD. A couple of eggs already spotted the mayor’s name — many more would join them by tonight.
>
  A few more shops, a couple of gas stations offering “Orange gas” (not really, but since one owner had offered it one year, increasing his business by ten percent, the two others had joined in, evening things out again) and then, almost abruptly, Grant had left the business district behind.

  There were many more houses, mostly clustered in neat little developments with straight paved streets and tidy lawns, on the other side of Orangefield, the one closer to the main highway. On the west side of town were the older homes, the first-builts, the family mansions of the few town gentry (including the mayor, a succession of whose ancestors the town had loved to loathe for generations). The streets were broader here, the trees older and higher, closer together, more shielding of privacy. Some were gated. Many of the houses were Victorian in style. The newer ones stuck out like sore thumbs.

  Grant liked it here, always had — it reminded him of a time when this was all there was to Orangefield, this cluster of old homes and a smaller place to live. When he had first visited it, when he was five, he had immediately fallen in love with it. The newer part of town, which had come later and could have been anywhere in America, had only detracted from Orangefield’s charm, he thought.

  He was soon through the old part of Orangefield, and turning onto River Road.

  The sound of high rushing water already filled his ears.

  Something alighted on his shoulder, and a voice said, “Can we talk?”

  It was a gentle voice, almost a whisper, but still Grant had a violent reaction. His first thought was, Samhain. He yanked the wheel hard to the right, skidding off the dirt road under a huge elm. There wasn’t a house in sight in front of him; nothing behind him but a slight turn in the road that left him exposed, alone—

  He caught a flash of orange as he whipped his head around, throwing the thing that had alighted on his shoulder off and looking wildly into the back seat.

  There was a pumpkin creature sitting there calmly, regarding him with the empty holes of its eyes.