“Daddy? There’s something I have to tell you… .”
Her face burned with humiliation at the memory, but she managed to tell him the whole story without bursting into tears.
Dave listened without interrupting. And when she was done he wrapped his arms around her tightly. “It’s not your fault, Heather. They’re a bunch of insecure yahoos and they were just trying to scare you.”
“Yeah, well, they did a good job.”
“We’ll be back home soon,” Dave said, his voice calm and reassuring. “Another couple of weeks and we’ll be out of here.”
“Yeah.”
The party lasted for almost an hour. More than once Dave reacted to the sound of breaking glass and got angrily to his feet. Heather stopped him each time, begging him not to leave her alone.
“If they’ve destroyed anything valuable… .” But he never finished the threat. What recourse did they have? Sue them? If the police weren’t interested, they’d have no case anyway.
Heather’s fear had given way to exhaustion and she was curled up on the floor when she heard the front door slam. Then all was silent inside. The voices and music and laughter moved like a wave down the drive and out into the night.
“Are they gone?”
Her father went to the door and pressed his ear against it, listening. “I think so.” Then he took a deep breath and turned the knob.
Heather inched toward the doorway, expecting to find the house trashed. They went from room to room, but except for a couple of broken knickknacks and one picture frame, the place seemed to have been left in one piece, if a little disarranged. They sighed with relief as they moved the furniture back to where it belonged.
Heather stared in dismay at the remains of their interrupted dinner before sweeping it all into the trash. She’d lost her appetite.
Once they’d made sure the doors were locked, they trudged upstairs to bed, hoping sleep would obliterate the awful memory.
Heather slept fitfully, dreaming of monstrous figures dancing around her. They jabbed at her with spikes and called her insulting names, putting on exaggerated American accents.
Less all go tricker-treatin’, y’all!
Gimme some caaandy!
She woke with a cry and bolted upright. Sunrise was just beginning to color the sky, turning the curtains a sickly yellow. A gap in the fabric allowed a pale stripe of light to creep across the floor toward the bed like a pointing finger. She felt singled out, accused. The dream had unnerved her, but she also felt nagged by a strange sense of guilt.
She slipped out of bed and padded downstairs in her pajamas. An eerie silence enveloped the house, and she realized that the same silence extended outside. There were no birds singing, no wind rattling the dead leaves, no sound of any kind.
The front door was closed and locked. But Heather still didn’t feel reassured. Something was wrong. She knew it. Something had happened. Then she saw the note. It hadn’t been there last night. Someone must have slipped it under the door while they slept.
She thought of waking her dad, of letting him see it first. But somehow she knew the note was for her. On the folded slip of paper was a single cryptic phrase.
THE WIGHT MARE TAKES WHEN YOU DON’T GIVE
At first she thought the word had been misspelled. But she could still hear the fanatical chanting in her head, and she realized that was what they’d been saying. Whatever it meant, it must be the name of that awful skull creature. The thing you had to appease.
But what were they supposed to give it? Her stomach fluttered with unease, and then swooped in a dizzying plunge.
She didn’t want to open the door, didn’t want to look. But it felt as if she was caught in some terrible ritual, playing a part they had forced on her. Her hand shook as she reached out to turn the key and unlock the door. The handle was like ice beneath her palm. She took a deep breath and threw it open. And when she saw what was waiting for her, she screamed.
Impaled on a spike was a huge bloody mass. In her delirium it took her a moment to realize that it was a horse’s head. Callisto.
It was a long time before she stopped screaming.
There was no anger, only despair. Heather felt drained of all emotion. Her father expressed enough fury for both of them, but it made no difference. The solitary policeman who had come to the house shook his head sadly and explained that no crime had been committed. It was a local custom to allow the guisers in and offer them food and drink.
“What the hell are guisers?” Dave demanded. “Like ‘disguise’? They were disguised, all right. We couldn’t tell who was who but I’m pretty sure it was the whole damn village!”
“There’s nothing I can do, sir,” the young constable said calmly.
When Heather showed him the threatening note, he merely explained that appeasing the Wight Mare was an ancient tradition. It was an honor to don the guise of the spirit horse and perform the ritual. The community went from house to house, the Wight Mare and her demon entourage, where offerings would be made to ensure that the door between worlds would close at dawn. If entry was refused… .
Heather choked back another sob.
“That’s insane,” Dave said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“This is a very ancient part of the world, sir, with ancient traditions.”
The patronizing tone only further antagonized Dave. “We’re not talking about Druids here! We’re talking about a group of juvenile delinquents who bullied my daughter, broke into my house and then murdered her horse! And for what? Because we didn’t hand out treats?”
His hands clenched on Heather’s shoulders as he spoke and she was reminded of the last time her father had confronted policemen, demanding answers to a mystery that was never to be solved. Sometimes people just disappeared and were never found.
“With all due respect, sir, the term ‘murder’ only applies to a person.” The constable shrugged as he pocketed his notepad and made as if to leave. “I’m sorry, but all I can do is repeat that there has been no crime committed here.”
“Well, that’s not good enough!”
The policeman turned back to Dave, his expression hardening. “It’ll have to be,” he said coldly. “Maybe next time you go to another country you’ll make a note of their customs and be more respectful of them.”
Heather could feel the tension in her father’s hands as he struggled not to lose his cool. She knew his rage was about more than the invasion and what the villagers had done to Callisto. She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths, hoping he would do the same.
Together they watched the constable amble back down the lane and drive away. As one, they turned to look at the shrouded thing sticking out of the ground. Dave had thrown a blanket over it so Heather didn’t have to see it anymore, but the shape was unmistakable.
The body was too large to bury, but Heather insisted they dig a grave for the head. They’d never had a funeral for Heather’s mother because they still refused to admit she was dead. But there was no gray area here, no hope that Callisto might return someday. The finality of it turned Heather’s heart to stone and she stared with dry, empty eyes at the little mound of dirt when the grave was filled in.
Ian tried again to slide his hand up under Chloe’s skirt, but she slapped him away. “Get off, perv,” she said, laughing.
“Bloody tease is what you are,” Ian complained, not for the first time. He took a swig from the bottle of lager he’d nicked and peered up into the trees. He could see the moon through the bony limbs, a fiery eye staring down at them. Something about it made him uneasy and he looked away.
Chloe made a pitying face. “Aww, poor thing. Ain’t had enough fun already.”
A grin spread across his features. “Yeah, the other night was brilliant. Only wish I coulda seen her face the next morning.”
Chloe pawed at the bottle and he passed it to her. “Stupid twat,” she sneered. “She totally deserved it.”
Ian laughed, although in truth, he ha
dn’t enjoyed killing the horse. That had been Chloe’s idea. And Harry hadn’t wanted any part of it, mumbling something about how it wasn’t theirs to take. But it was just some stupid old custom their parents kept alive.
“It’s getting cold,” Ian said. “Let’s go back to your house.”
“Yeah, all right.” Chloe finished the lager and hurled the empty bottle into the woods, where it struck a tree with a satisfying smash. She giggled and staggered to her feet. Then she froze, holding up her hand.
Ian stared at her, still grinning. “What? You about to hurl?”
“Shut up! Listen. I heard something.”
He stood up and cocked his head, listening. “There’s nothing. Just—” His voice trailed away. It couldn’t have been what it sounded like. But one look at Chloe confirmed that she’d heard the same thing. He shook his head. No. There was no way… .
Clack! Clack!
They’d heard that sound plenty on Halloween, when they’d gleefully joined in the old custom, eager to teach those stupid foreigners a lesson. But now it sounded different. There was the suggestion of something wet as the jaws slapped together. And the smell… .
They fumbled for each other, clasping hands as they started backing away. The noise was getting louder, coming nearer. And now it was unmistakable. Hoofbeats.
A cloud must have passed across the moon because it was suddenly too dark to see. Chloe held up her phone, but the light from the screen did little to penetrate the deepening black.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Ian didn’t need any convincing. Harry had weirded him out enough with all that talk about how they’d stolen from the Wight Mare, that it would be back. He wanted to believe it was Harry now, just trying to scare them. But there was no faking those sounds. Or that smell. Something was coming toward them through the trees, crunching in the dead, dry leaves. Something that snorted heavily as it got closer.
“Which way do we go?” Ian hissed. “I can’t see a bloody thing!”
Chloe kept her phone up high, shining the light around. “Fuck! I don’t know! Where’s the path?”
“I think it’s—”
He gasped, certain that the light had swept across something.
“What?”
Chloe whirled around, brandishing the phone. A huge pale shape emerged from the gloom, draped in a ragged, filthy sheet. Light and shadow trembled over the jagged contours, gleaming where the bone showed through the strings of muscle and tendon still adhering to the skull. The huge white teeth seemed to be grinning as the jaws opened and closed, dislodging a clump of soil caked inside.
Clack!
One eye was gone. The other hung loosely from the socket, milky and deflated, but its gaze was far from blind. It was staring right at them.
Chloe screamed and dropped her phone. The light shone upward from the ground, giving the skull an even more malevolent expression. It jolted Ian from his paralysis. He tried to pull Chloe away, but she seemed rooted to the spot.
Leaves crackled and twigs snapped as unseen hooves pawed the ground. The putrefying skull turned, tilted down toward them, and opened its mouth again.
Chloe shook her head, mumbling desperately. She reached up one trembling hand as if to stroke the long muzzle. Instead, she placed her hand inside the creature’s mouth. The jaws snapped shut on her wrist and the skull jerked violently from side to side, like a dog shaking a toy.
Her screams were terrible. Wild, primal animal sounds. She flailed at the skull with her other hand, trying to pull away. But the creature pushed her down on the ground. She made a sound as if she’d been punched in the stomach, a breathy “Oof!” that might have been funny under other circumstances.
Ian could only stare in horror as something heavy pressed her down, stamping repeatedly. But there was nothing there. Only the floating shroud with the terrible skull emerging from it. Chloe’s screams became guttural croaks as the powerful jaws finally snapped the bone and wrenched her hand away. Blood spurted across Ian’s face but still he couldn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, lowering his head. He stared at the ground beneath him, where blood was trickling between the dead leaves. Chloe’s hand dropped into the detritus in front of him and he felt his stomach lurch. He couldn’t bear to see any more, so he closed his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, sorry… .”
Strident neighing broke the silence, but Ian didn’t move. He felt his bladder let go as he sank to his knees, waiting, praying for mercy he knew would not come. When he felt the hooves smash into the back of his neck, he fell forward into the bloodstained leaves. The pain was terrible, but he couldn’t scream. His mouth was too full of earth.
“Are you all packed?”
Heather nodded without looking up at her dad. Her suitcases were laid out on the bed and she was ready to go, ready to leave this awful place far behind.
Dave gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll take those out to the car.”
Once he was gone, Heather made her way slowly through the house and stood by the back door, peering out into the garden. The little wooden cross she had placed there lay on its side, and the soil was disturbed, scattered across the ground in a trail that led all the way into the woods.
Heather looked down at her hands, at the jagged, broken nails caked with dirt and dried blood. Beneath her shirt, the horsehair was beginning to itch.
As she made her way to the car, she clicked her teeth together, three times. It felt strangely reassuring.
PUMPKIN KIDS
ROBERT SHEARMAN
Robert Shearman has written five short story collections, and among them they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize, and three British Fantasy Awards.
He is probably best known for his work on Doctor Who, bringing back the Daleks for the BAFTA-winning first series in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award. His latest collection, We All Hear Stories in the Dark, is forthcoming from PS Publishing.
“England in the 1970s wasn’t very glamorous,” he remembers, “and as a kid it always felt just my rotten luck, both England and the 1970s were what I was stuck with. My parents knew it wasn’t very glamorous either, and they had good reason to feel it more than most. They had lived in New York for several years, only moving back to the London suburbs just before I was born. I often rather resented them for that. I could have been a confident, wisecracking, street-smart boy living a life around skyscrapers, movie stars, and Disney parks. And Halloween. I’d have been allowed to enjoy Halloween.
“We didn’t celebrate Halloween in the UK. Of course not. That would have been impossibly fun. No trick-or-treaters, no ghosts, no pumpkins. One year I asked my mother whether we could get a pumpkin and she was appalled. She lived in England now, she said, and her taste in vegetables must reflect that. She’d feel more comfortable with a carrot, and a cabbage was as cosmopolitan as we were going to get.
“And yet I yearned for Halloween—something I really only knew about from comic strips in Peanuts, where Charlie Brown and the gang put sheets over their heads to get candy, where Linus sat all night in the garden waiting for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. My parents wouldn’t discuss Halloween. In all the years they’d lived in the United States, it was the one thing they’d never adjusted to. ‘Why would people want to celebrate death and horror? What’s the good of that? I do hope,’ my father added, and looked at me sternly, ‘that you’ll grow up soon, and put this nasty horror thing behind you.’
“I got to visit America eventually, of course, and at Halloween too. Forty years on I carved a pumpkin, and I knew I was too old for it all now, but that didn’t matter; it felt strangely like a homecoming—and I remember being so happy as I reached inside to pull out all the gloop.
“After my parents died I found a box full of old photographs taken while they’d lived in the States. They looked impossibly young and excited. And there it was: a picture of their first Halloween. My mother in a witch’s hat
, my father with a cape and plastic fangs—and between them a pumpkin of their own. And all three of them were laughing and seemed so very happy.”
I
MY PARENTS DESPISED me, of course, and with good reason. But they didn’t hate me, and I need you to understand that. They were good people. They fed me and they clothed me and they kept a roof over my head—and no, they didn’t tuck me in at night, and they didn’t read me bedtime stories, but I didn’t need tucking and I didn’t need stories; they taught me right from wrong, they instilled within me some sense of morality, and isn’t that more important? In these difficult days, when everything has turned so topsy-turvy, they gave me an upbringing. And the fact that I have lived this long and have done so many Questionable Things, and yet have never been arrested or put on trial or sentenced to any sort of Christ-witnessed punishment can only be testament to the quality of that upbringing. I was lucky.
Or rather—my Da didn’t hate me. He wasn’t a man who had much hate within him. Momma was another matter. I like to think that what she felt for me wasn’t hatred in the strictest sense—but when she got angry or frustrated or just plain fed up there was a vein in her forehead that used to bulge, and the bulge used to alarm me, and sometimes I was reading a book or playing with my toy and just minding my own business and then I’d realize she was staring at me and I didn’t know why she was staring at me and I could see she had a full bulge on, and I didn’t know what I had done other than just being there. Other than simply existing. So I tried not to be there very much, I tried not to exist when Momma was about—but the house was small, and there weren’t many places to hide, and so she got angry quite a bit.
Momma only told me she hated me on two occasions, and considering I lived with her until my sixteenth year, that is hardly excessive. The first time I was five, maybe six—either way, I was old enough to have known better. And it was Momma’s birthday, and I had spent ages making her a birthday card; well, it felt like ages, but it was probably no more than a couple of months. I’d drawn it myself, and I’d decorated it with lots of sticky sparkles, and I’d tried to draw her, but smiling, with a great big smiley face. And in the morning I gave it to her, and she looked at the card and she seemed bemused, I think she even seemed a little pleased, she said a thank you and everything. But that night, when I was in bed, she suddenly stormed into my room and snapped on the lights. I had never seen her so furious, her entire face was a bulge. “Can’t you understand how much I hate you?” she screamed. “Why don’t you just die?” And she tore up the birthday card and threw it at me. “I’d curse you,” she said. “I’d curse you, if only curses worked, but they don’t, so what’s the point?” And she was right, I’ve tried cursing many times, I’ve done them proper the way the Bible tells us, and they do no good at all.
The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories Page 41
