One Night in Salem

by Amber Newberry

  I plea and yell, my voice barely carrying to them as the crackling and roar of the houses engulfed in flames swallow my cries. Before I can try again, my head lightens and I fight to keep my eyes open as everything goes black.

  * * *

  “William! William! What has happened here?” a voice questions as my body is shaken.

  I open my eyes to a dull, gray sky and people standing around me. I choke on dirt as I try to speak. Sitting up, I take in the remains of my home, the scorched furniture and jagged walls all covered in ash. I wipe my face, a smear of red appearing on my hand.

  “They are gone,” I mutter.

  “Who?” John asks.

  “My family,” I cry, tears streaking my dusty cheeks.

  “Who did this?”

  I stare blankly for a moment, recalling the night before. “Savages…” I glance around at our neighbors, their homes nothing but charred spikes. “Are there no others?” I question.

  “You are the only one,” he replies with mournful eyes.

  I stagger to my feet, turning toward the woods. “They went in there,” I remark, pointing a shaky finger at it. “They have Amelia…Joseph…and others.”

  “The savages?”

  I face him, panic spreading through me. “No, the creatures! They have my sister and brother!”

  The men look at one another. “Creatures?”

  I briefly return my attention to the woods. “The ones the saved natives tell stories about! They look like us, but smaller in stature. They have gray skin with spines on their backs, black eyes, and a mouth full of jagged teeth.”

  They look at each other again. Then a woman gasps. “He has been marked!” I glance at her and then at the place she is pointing, finding a strange mark where I pulled the quill from my skin. “The savages…they bewitched him!”

  They all gasp and step back. Two men come up behind me and grab my arms. “What are you doing? You must help me find them!” I shout.

  “You will not fool us. You have been tainted by them and must leave!” Ezra demands.

  The men drag me away. “Where will I go?” I question as they release me and push me toward the woods.

  “Leave us be. Do not return,” he warns and then turns toward the others.

  They walk away, their backs to me as I face the woods. The trees of brightly colored leaves dance in the gray light as a soft breeze blows, sending a chill through me. At the edge, an orb of dull white glows, brightening the hollow faces of Mother and Father standing in the shadows behind it. They beckon me to come and I abide, taking one last glance toward the village before being enveloped in darkness.

  2017

  the house that salem feeds

  Benjamin Thomas

  The House of the Seven Gables had a line around the block. It, for the first time in the half-decade that I had been visiting Salem, nearly rivaled that of the candy store across the street. Oldest peddler of sweets had something going for it. I flicked my cigarette butt into the road. A mother cleared her throat and glared. I looked from the woman to the toddler in the buggy she pushed and the cute little ladybug ears on the child’s head. Halloween night in Salem before the girl could even walk for more than a few hours. How cute. I bent down, met eyes with the kid, and she burst into tears.

  “Oh my God!” the woman exclaimed as she hurried to protect her spawn.

  I chuckled.

  Weaving my way through a sea of people dressed as witches, zombies, and ghosts, children in puffy coats to protect against the chill coming from the Atlantic, I passed by colonial-styled homes and buildings that were built long before my parents’ parents were even a thought. And I would pass by them long after my children’s children were a thought…Not that I could have kids anymore. That was part of the arrangement: no offspring.

  People think that when you make a deal with the Devil, you simply give her your soul in exchange for something and it’s all done (yes, I said ‘her’, humanity had it all wrong. Both God and the Devil are women—I guess Beyonce wasn’t lying when she told us who ran the world). But it’s not just a clean cut agreement. There are stipulations. Clauses and amendments. I understood why politicians and lawyers were such assholes.

  I took shelter from the near-winter chill in the second floor of an oyster bar. Inside, there were three or four seats that overlooked a good portion of downtown and all of them were taken. I went up to the bar and tapped the mahogany slab with two fingers worth of folded bills.

  “Whiskey?” he asked.

  Good guess. “Jameson 12-year. And an extra hundred if you tell them they gotta sit somewhere else.”

  He eyed me and I noticed the jagged scar across the right side of his forehead. Girlfriend hit him with the keys? I subtly shook my head. My mind always had to go to the shittiest of people. Maybe because I sat on that throne. The rest of them saints compared to me. Don’t believe me? Just wait.

  “Alright,” I sighed when he didn’t answer or make a move. I pulled the bills apart. “You pour me a double, tell them to move somewhere else, and you get two hundred. Deal?”

  Even in the age of plastic and little chips, cash was still king. After the group resettled, I waited a few minutes just to avoid confrontation. I would have enough of that later. When I sat, the leather seat sucked me in and damn did it feel good. Through the window I watched people below. Tourists and locals. You can always tell the difference.

  As the sun began to set, the glare caused the inside of the bar to reflect in the glass. And in the glass I saw her. She took a seat at the bar wearing an oversized hoody, yoga pants, and fur boots. Official uniform of New England. I wondered if I’d see that change in the next hundred years.

  I finished the rest of my whiskey and sauntered over, nodding at the bartender as I made sure to keep an empty stool between the woman and myself.

  “Whatever she’s having is on me,” I said.

  It took a second, but then she said, “That’s okay. Thanks though.”

  “No,” I said, my voice like velvet. “I insist. It doesn’t mean you have to talk to me, I just feel like doing something nice.”

  I grabbed another glass of whiskey and headed back over to the chairs by the window. It took five minutes for her to come over and sit down. I smiled and shook her hand, glancing at the chipped black nail polish. All the best parties were on Halloween eve, never on the night of.

  “Abbey,” she said.

  “Damian,” I replied. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Damian,” she tilted her head. “Like the kid in that movie.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Like the kid in that movie.”

  She checked her phone as people tend to do and I sipped my drink, savoring each drop. The sun had fallen below the horizon, the last rays of orange, magenta, and red fading from the sky.

  “Pretty sunset,” Abbey said.

  “Sailor’s delight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I repositioned myself, alternated what foot I had resting on which knee. “Old saying: red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”

  “Oh,” she chuckled, though I don’t know why, nothing I had said was funny. “Do you sail?”

  “I do not,” I said. “I’m going to grab another drink, would you like one?”

  She hesitated but nodded. When I returned she asked, “So why do something nice?”

  “Hmm?” The question caught me off-guard.

  “You said the drink was just to do something nice. Now you’ve gotten me two, so I’m thinkin’ you’re a liar.”

  I feigned a stab to the chest. “I’m shocked you would say that about a complete stranger. It’s almost like you live in the real world.”

  We both laughed and I couldn’t believe how easy it was going this year. Confidence? Cockiness? Or, just the fact that this was year number five. Maybe it was that Abbey reminded me so much of Izzy. I could see my wife in this strange woman’s eyes and maybe, deep down, I thought I was talking
to her. Reincarnation could be a thing…Couldn’t it?

  I shook the thought from my head and realized I had missed the majority of what Abbey had been saying. Focusing in enough time to catch the last few words, I repeated them back, and held her gaze, shifting the conversation by asking if she lived in Salem and hoping that hadn’t been something she had already said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’ll tell you when you answer my question.”

  Damn.

  I took a chance. “Why do something nice?”

  Abbey nodded and I took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m trying to fix my karma. Or, maybe because I felt like being a good guy?”

  She grinned and sipped her drink.

  “Well? Do you live in Salem?”

  “No, I live in Boston.”

  That was good. Locals were always hard. Reports of the missing are easier to file when the person disappears in the same town that they live in. It adds a myriad of factors: friends, family, employers.

  “Are you up by yourself?” I asked.

  Abbey shook her head. “Staying with some friends, but they over did it last night and I don’t think they’ll be making it out tonight.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Let me guess, you drink water at the end of the night?”

  “I do.”

  I finished what was left of my whiskey and we watched the last rays of solar light vanish, giving way to stars and darkness, a suffocating blackness populated with interstellar street lights.

  “Okay,” I said, now that twilight had passed and I only had a few hours before midnight. “Which haunted house is the best? I want to go to one, but I don’t know which one.”

  Abbey pursed her lips. “Well there’s two really good ones. And then a few that are ‘eh’.”

  “Have you been to all of them?”

  “No. There’s two I haven’t been to. Crowley’s I heard isn’t that good and then The Devil’s Boathouse always has a line out the door.”

  I smirked.

  Perfect.

  “Well,” I got up and held my hand out. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where? To the Boathouse? I just told you it always had a huge line.”

  “Yeah, but it’s Halloween and we’re in Salem, the scary capital of the world, right? We’ve both never been, so let’s go. It’ll be fun.”

  Abbey cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on,” I said. But I knew I had her. If I didn’t, then she would have said ‘no’ from the beginning, not given me excuses to beat down. “I’ll be the perfect gentleman. I promise.”

  Abbey checked her phone. “Alright.”

  As we left, I made sure to smile at the group of people who had been kicked out of their seats. Just for good measure.

  * * *

  The line wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Surely, not as long as it had been last year when I stood in it with Trish, or was it Tanya? Good God. It was something with a T, at least I knew that much. It was a year ago, so cut me some slack.

  At the head of the line was a beefy man with a shirt so tight his arms threatened to rip the seams.

  “Best haunt in all of Salem,” he called. I mouthed the rest like a ridiculous sing-a-long. “Think the others got something scary? Once you step inside here you’ll never leave…Or will you?”

  He broke into fake, maniacal laughter and the couple in front of us, the male half of them obviously drunk, hooted and hollered.

  “Think you’ll be able to handle it?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Abbey laughed. It was a nervous laugh. “You?”

  “Yeah, we got this.”

  At the front of the line, the man taunted us, telling us to say goodbye now because once inside, anything was game. Chances are we’d never see each other again. We’d be lost amongst the ghosts and ghouls. Oh, if he only knew how right he was.

  We were up next, waiting in a small foyer-like room with macabre decorations hanging from each corner of the ceiling. Abbey bounced from foot-to-foot and I did my best to act nervous. Rubbed my arms. Grabbed the back of my neck. Even huffed in and out a few times. A witch popped out of a door painted the same color as the wall. Abbey twitched.

  “Well, well, my, my.” The woman cackled. Her makeup was impeccable. Behind her came the sound of banging. A hammer against a slab of wood. There was a scream. A hiss. The smell of incense and fog machines.

  “Your goal,” the witch said. “Is to make it through without losing your soul. Find your way to the boat and sail across the river! But don’t take too long. There’re things in the water. Things that will get ya!”

  The witch jumped and I slapped my hand against my chest while Abbey let out a shout. I bit the inside of my lip until I could taste blood and was sure I wouldn’t laugh.

  We pushed through the door and when it slammed shut, Abbey grabbed my hand. I slid my arm around her shoulder and pulled her a little closer. Lights flashed. Sounds played in an overhead stereo and through the thin walls came muffled screaming.

  There was a chain-link fence with a statue of a man behind it. Abbey passed close by and when she was nearly a foot away, the seemingly fake man jumped forward and the sound of a chainsaw flooded through the speakers. Abbey screamed. We hurried past and ducked under a half-sized door. Something pricked the back of my neck and in the light we could see dozens of spiders dropping from the ceiling.

  “Ugh, ugh, fuck spiders. Fuck spiders!” Abbey shouted.

  I did my best to act semi-grossed out, but I knew they were fake, though there were more than last year, causing me to wonder what else they had changed.

  I slid past a coffin which, when we were at the head of it, sprang open.

  “Come on,” I urged, as if I was trying to protect Abbey. She obliged.

  The room was dark, nearly pitch black, and the rhythmic sound of ocean waves washed over us. In and out. Crash. Retreat. Crash. A seagull squawked.

  “We have to be almost done,” Abbey said. “Where’s the boat? Do we actually find a boat?”

  A beam of light cut across the room and faded. Five seconds later, it happened again.

  “I think we head toward the lighthouse,” I said.

  The smell of salt filled my nose as the tidal sounds got louder. The lighthouse illuminated the room and in it were shadows of men. Lifelike shadows that were gone when the light faded. In the next pass the shadows were larger.

  “Oh my God,” Abbey said. “They’re so real.”

  I exhaled, bracing myself for the screaming. In the next pass, I realized she had moved slightly in front of me and when she looked back, I caught a quick flash of her face, the look in her eyes. The eyes that reminded me so much of Izzy. The Izzy I had failed and then failed again when I didn’t read each little line of the contract I had signed. Missing the one that read . . .At no point after revival is the recently deceased guaranteed any length of life. This contract, and the clauses therein, do guarantee that the recently deceased will never be deceased by the original means of death, though all subsequent and alternate causes of death are not protected against.

  I almost stopped, reached out and grabbed Abbey, but I knew that if I didn’t I would hate myself even more. When the light passed through the room again, the sound of the waves loud enough to drown out her screams, the shadow men were on her. Hands grabbing her, pulling her back into the water and away from the world of the living.

  Abbey screamed and clawed at the air. Panic gripped her, I could see it in the puffed out, redness of her cheeks. I opened my mouth to say something. Protest, offer some form of solace, but in the end I did nothing, as I had done for the last five Halloweens and would do for the next ninety-four, as that was the terms of my contract.

  Outside the haunt, I paused and lit a cigarette. A slender woman in dark jeans and a black shirt came up next to me. She smelled of ash and fire.

  “You’re good,” she said. “I’ll give you that.”

  I clenched my jaw together. Fought the urge to scream.

  �
�What’s the matter, Damian?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Tell me.”

  “What’ll it take to change the deal? To make it so that I’m the one to suffer if I don’t keep doing this and not Izzy? I mean, will God really let you take her if I stop?”

  The woman snuffed her cigarette and then, with slim fingers that moved through the air with grace, plucked mine from my hand.

  “You know she’s not really in Heaven right now. That’s what purgatory’s for, my dear. That wretched witch up north would have no say if I wanted her. So…” the woman’s voice trailed off.

  I took a deep breath and said, “So, same time next year.”

  1979

  The Grimm Pumpkin

  Heddy Johannesen

  The child stole away from his mother’s side. The yard beckoned him. The air was fragrant with the scent of mock orange blossoms.

  He giggled with delight. He ran past the chipped white picket fence. The dim yard whispered secrets to him.

  The large pumpkin leaves unfurled themselves. The boy extended his small hand out to the pumpkin. His feet stung from the cold. He looked around for his mother, who was nowhere in sight. The yard was cloaked in darkness.

  He turned to run when something snatched his ankle and pierced the young flesh. The boy shrieked as the night closed in around him.

  * * *

  “It’s harvest time, Samuel,” Liz, his wiry mother said, as she swayed back and forth on the worn rocking chair.

  Samuel slouched and silently watched the anchorman on the television screen drone on about next week’s weather forecast.

  “You know what that means? We’ll sell some of our veggies to the locals. We’ll save some to keep for the winter.” Her dark curls blew in the late autumn breeze. “Samuel,” she repeated to get his attention.