by Various
School was closed when they arrived due to the pumpkin and corn harvesting. They had yet to even meet any of their new schoolmates.
They traipsed down the street and noticed how odd it was that there were no children outside playing, and no other activity. Michael kicked at a rock as he strolled down the road. "There's nothing to do around here!" he complained.
"We have to get used to a lot of things, Michael." Kelly said. "Just think, there's no Mall nearby. Face it brother, we are now good ole' fashioned hicks, living in Hicksville USA. Ye-haw, giddy up!" she giggled, poking fun at her brother.
To their surprise, an old hearse clattered by, heavy smoke trailing from its rusted tailpipe. Brittle leaves crumpled as a brisk wind awakened, singing mournfully through the dry trees. Michael stared in silence, glimpsing a black, brass coffin through the back window of the vehicle.
"Creepy!" he said, motioning after the hearse. "Did you see that - there was a freakin' coffin in the hearse!"
"Well, duh." Kelly said smacking his shoulder, crinkling her face. "What else would you expect to find in a hearse?"
"This late at night?" he asked, puzzled. "Where could it be going at this time? They don't hold funerals in the dark." He continued ranting about their eerie new home.
***
Friday evening approached, and Kelly wanted to continue in her own tradition of carving out a Jack-o-lantern. She tried convincing Michael to help, and to get in the festive spirit himself. She stopped by the local shopping center, a tiny little building with a screen door on the front, which snapped shut as the two entered. Noticing several pumpkins lined up on bales of hay, she grabbed the roundest one and placed it on the counter to pay for it. Michael rolled his dark chestnut eyes and whined, "You are such a kid - you really are. Are you ever going to grow up and stop celebrating this childish holiday?"
"Come on - you did know these candlestick faced pumpkins originally served as beacons for trick-or-treaters, didn't you?" Kelly said, nudging his arm.
"Yeah beacons to ward of Remington himself." His face gleamed over the lighted flame on the countertop of the small shop. "…nothing like living in a house where a demented hick goes berserk and whacks off his family's heads with a pitchfork."
***
Kelly awoke as the crimson morning sun shone in her window. It was a splendid day for the fall holiday. The air was cool and brisk, the clouds wispy but few, and the golden sunshine cast beautiful reflections onto the cornfields, a rustling of red and yellow and orange leaves scattering in the breeze.
Yawning, she stretched and rolled the covers off, and Kelly went down stairs. She spotted Michael sitting at the dining room table, gazing at the jack-o-lantern.
"Making a new friend?" Kelly teased Michael.
He grimaced and replied, "Hardly. I was just thinking this thing looks so much like your last boyfriend."
Kelly smirked.
"Nah, I think ole' Jack O' is much cuter," she replied, patting the top of the jack-o-lantern's head.
"You're twisted!" Michael giggled.
"You know, we might actually get to meet some of the kids in the neighborhood tonight, being it's Halloween and they'll be dropping by for candy." She smiled, excitement beaming across her face.
"Oh, joy." Michael taunted. "Now that's just what I need - Billy Bob, Joe Bob, and Bobby Joe to stop by. Need I remind you - 'Deliverance'?"
"I wouldn't worry about that, they tended to like men not girls, thank God. Those teeth were really nasty!" Kelly laughed. "Come on, when did you lose your Halloween spirit?"
***
The twilight approached fast and the white moon was full, a hint of crimson reflecting off the dying sunlight. Dusk descended, casting golden streaks and dousing the slumbering fields.
The neighborhood children were out in droves, wearing crude homemade costumes mimicking scary creatures of the night. Dracula, Frankenstein, ghosts, hobgoblins, and scarecrows. They paraded merrily down the block from house to house. They giggled and shrilled, marching cheerily to the house across the street. "Trick-or-Treat" the children squealed in unison. The woman put candy in each bucket and bag. The joyful kids approached their own house, and Michael peered through the glass pane at the top of the door as he reached his hand into the enormous bowl of candy.
A woman from across the street darted across the road and grabbed the first child in the line by the arm, yanking him off the porch. "Andrew - you know we never go near the old Remington House," she spat, glaring back at the home in disgust.
"What the hell is her problem?" Michael asked Kelly. "What do we have, cooties?"
"Maybe it's a safeguard since they don't know us. You know - afraid we'll put razor-blades in candy or glass slivers in their caramel apples. Maybe your face scared them off." Kelly said.
"More like Jack O's face did that," he retorted. "That thing is one ugly orange freak."
Kelly opened up the door and walked outside. The giggles of the trick-or-treaters were fading, the night growing quiet. It was eerie, and she shivered.
"Don't listen to him Jackie baby." Kelly said fondly, before she extinguished the candle.
Kelly looked at Michael, "You don't think the story about this house is true, do you?"
"What," he said? "That the old geezer Remington took a pitchfork and stabbed his kids with it, tearing off their heads, and haunting this unholy house? Geez Kel, I bet you still believe in 'Ole Red Eye' Granddad told us while we were kids."
Michael rolled his eyes, the smoldering wax wafted into the screen of the front door. The breeze stirred and the branches beat against the house. "Hey, Kel maybe that's old Remington knocking on our home and he wants our heads, ya think?"
Kelly sighed.
***
She heard a thud on the dark front porch, the sound amplified by the unnatural stillness. It sounded as if something were under the wooden slats beneath the porch. Startled, Kelly asked Michael to help her investigate the strange noise. A dripping and clumping persisted, becoming louder as they approached the side of the porch.
"What is that noise, Michael?" Kelly asked. She swallowed hard and her eyes watered.
"How the hell am I supposed to know." Michael scolded her. "This is your idea of fun, isn't it? You're the one that likes all this hocus pocus crap!"
Kelly bent down and placed her hand on the planks, pressing her cheek to the porch and peeking through the slats.
"Ewww..."
"What? Did you see something?" Michael's voice raised in alarm.
"Nothing," she said. "But..." She lifted her hand, yellow slime dripping from the palms and running down her arms.
"What's this stuff?" Michael grimaced, touching the gunk on her arm.
"Eggs?" Kelly screamed. "It's raw eggs."
"Oh great, now we're in the full spirit, aren't we?" Michael groaned. "We've been egged. What's next, toilet paper in the trees?"
"Jack O'," Michael said. "I thought you were to be some brave hero and protect the innocent, you ugly creature."
"Kids out for good old-fashioned Halloween fun were playing pranks on us." Michael reasoned. "That's all. I'm going inside."
***
Kelly sat out on the porch, her face cuddled warmly in her palms.
Her disappointment gnawed at her, but her curiosity grew. Why did the kids hate them so much? The extinguished candle in her jack-o-lantern had smothered from the gooey pulp, and she could smell the smoky, greasy aroma.
Michael stood in the doorway and saw Kelly sitting in the darkness alone, when he caught a strange aroma, like fresh turned dirt, perhaps from the recently mowed hayfield.
Kelly stood, patted Jack O' on the top of the head and bid him a goodnight. Michael moved from the doorway as she sauntered inside and waited in the doorway with him, gazing at the house across the street.
Michael was almost angry that Kelly's Halloween had been ruined, although he hated the holiday himself. Still, he despised the crotchety old woman from next door after yanking the kids away f
rom their home, and the hooligans that were throwing eggs killed the spirit of fun. Now it appeared that someone was setting out to either make him angry or to really scare him.
He heard footsteps crunching in the leaves outside the house. "Who's out there?" he yelled. Kelly peered through the glass paned window on the door as Michael looked through the other one.
"Do you see that?" he asked Kelly.
Kelly gasped. She craned her head to the edge of the porch. "I see a shadow. Do you see it?"
"Yeah." Michael said, almost gloating that he'd caught the hooligan tossing eggs at their home. "I see the little brute."
He opened the door and Kelly followed closely behind him as he walked to the edge of the porch. The silence was unnerving, even the crickets were quiet. Kelly grabbed Michael's arm with her trembling, cold hands.
"Let's go inside. Hurry, Michael." she said.
She turned, and shrieked.
Someone was standing before her - a tall man.
All she could make out of the darkened silhouette was a man dressed in tattered faded overalls wearing a sun-hat. She squinted, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, and leapt backwards into Michael. She saw straw from the cornfields sticking out of neck and armholes of the man.
"Oh, that's original - a scarecrow," she said. "Aren't you a little too old for trick or treat?"
The scarecrow came closer to her and Michael. The smell of rotted hay was nauseating. The breeze was oppressive, the air thick and heavy.
Kelly looked up as the man held a pitchfork over their heads. They turned sideways in unison and slowly backed up to the front door. The moonlight caught the face of the stranger - just enough for Kelly to realize the stranger wasn't wearing a simple homemade costume. It looked much too real, and terrible.
A living scarecrow!
This sinister stranger, with Jack O's face and wielding a pitchfork was something beyond their comprehension - something supernatural. The hollow triangular holes, the jagged mouth, an orange skin. The familiar face appeared as a sudden flame lit inside the hollow ravenous eyes of the demon. The pitchfork came down hard, separating their heads from their bodies.
***
The following day, the neighbors marched past the old Remington house and spied two orange faces stuffed like scarecrows sitting upon the front porch of the new neighbor's home.
Legend has it, these jack-o'-lantern decorations are actually talismans that repel the evil spirit of "the gruesome harvester" away from houses that display them, but only for those who believe.
Do you… believe?
BRUTAL DREAMER
Brutal Dreamer (a.k.a. Peggy Jo Shumate) is a DVD Empire Movie Reviewer, DDP Promotions Manager, editor/reviewer THE BLEEDING SKY Magazine, a Terror Tale Scribe Member, and a 2000 Graduate of the Institute of Children's Literature. Brutal-Pegs has more than 100 credits both electronically and print in such markets as: SDO Fantasy, EUTO Fiction and Poetry, Shadow-Writer, The Eternal Night, House of Pain, ShadowKeepZine, FantasyLand 2001, The Writer's Hood, Stoking the Fire, Steel Caves, Eternal Night, Decompositions, EOTU, The Dream People and many other publications and newspapers.
Editor of Cemetery Poets: Grave Offerings. My fiction will be involved with 17-19 Anthologies between: 2003-2004. "SICK", "THE WICKED WILL LAUGH", "ATROCITAS AQUA", "CEMETERY POETS", "THE WRITER'S HOOD HORROR", "HOLY WRIT", "SHADOW-WRITER", "SCARY!", and "MASSACRE PUBLICATIONS" and many other anthologies.
I am married to my best friend, David and we have two children: Isaac and Elizabeth along with our lovable but feisty Maine Coon Cat, Shackie Taques.
Stop by and visit Brutal Dreamer at:
http://brutaldreamer.tripod.com/
e-mail Brutal at: [email protected]
Halloween, Gypsies & Dogs
By JD Pearce
It was another sleepless night in October, the weather was nice and beginning to get quite cool. Leaves were falling and Halloween was only a day or two off. At least I think it was, I had kind of lost track of the days lately due to my lack of sleep. It seemed that every time I did fall off to sleep and start dreaming about making love to some sexy amazon with big round breasts and a face like Rachel Welch, I'd wake up right before anything really great would happen, (if you get my drift).
Those damned dogs again, barking, barking, barking, at who the hell knows what. I get up, pull my shorts on, walk through the bedroom, out the back door onto the deck and yell, SHUT UP, of course they come running up to me, tails wagging, at least one of them, the other one knows I'm mad as hell and he hangs his head down low, at least this mutt understands somewhat this human is really pissed! He's the male, Ricky I call him, a really good dog most of the time but a scared one. A big black lab who will jump in your lap and shake like a scared rabbit if it thunders. The other one Lucy, a little mixed breed, she's black too and dumb as a damn rock, would never listen to me or mind me at all. I could not figure it out, I tolerated them both all right but they just would not listen to me or ever shut up, especially at night. Although I am not an animal hater I had grown to dislike these dogs, my wife's dogs.
The damn stupid little dog Lucy, with the brain the size of a flea, seems to have no idea that I am enraged because it is four o'clock in the morning and she is out here barking her ass off because a fucking fly farted down the damn street or something. I point my finger at her, "You stupid bitch, if you don't shut the hell up I am going to put a muzzle on you and leave it there for a week!" My normal threat, or at least one of them, I use multiple threats of muzzles, drop kicks, shotguns, hot pokers up the ass, anything I can think of that will appease my angry impulse at the moment. "Now shut up!" I go back into the house and lay down, my wife who never really wakes up, rolls over and in 20 seconds she's snoring again yet I'm wide awake. It will be at least an hour before I can doze off. That is if the stupid dogs don't start barking again, which they probably will.
This is a typical night here in my world, not only do my, I mean my wife's dogs keep me awake every night but they keep half the neighbors up too. They all look at me like it's my fault when I walk by their houses, the assholes! I throw up my hands, even force a smile on my lifeless, zombie-like face and they turn away as if they did not even see me, they hate me and my, um, my wife's dogs.
Dogs, dogs, dogs, everywhere I go there are stinkin' dogs! It seems every other house on my street, in my neighborhood has 'em, all my friends, even my sister and mother. GOD how I hate dogs. When I walk by or ride my bike they are looking at me, barking, growling, trying to figure out in their pathetic little minds how to get out and chase me. I'm beginning to think it is a conspiracy, these freakin mongrels are all in on it, every damn one of them. I only wish some terrible disease that only inflicts canines would somehow spread through my neighborhood, through the state, hell even the country or the world. Wipe 'em all out, kill every last one of the bastards. Yeah, I'd celebrate that, I'd go out and buy a cat and me and him would get drunk. I can just hear me and my new best friend cat, at the bar talking about dogs.
"Fucking mutts, flea hounds from hell, none of 'em were ever worth shit as far as I'm concerned."
"Your damned right, in fact you remember that movie old yeller, well if it would have been me, there never would have been a movie, I'd a shot that son of a bitch as soon as he walked up on the porch!"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, remember that bitch Lassie, I'd of took her ass to Alaska and dropped her off, then see if she could come home. He, he, he, he, he."
Damn dogs are everywhere and always will be. Seems like I can't go ten feet in the back yard without stepping in a pile of shit. Godammit! I'll never get that stuff off my shoe, who's supposed to clean this shit up anyway, you little mongrels, why I oughta....
OK, where was I, well on this particular night I had woken up again, ten nights in a row, by not only our, I mean her dogs but every damn dog in the neighborhood it seemed, at our back fence. Sounded like a whole gang of berserk dogs, a pack of crazed pound puppies gone wild! I'd had enough, I we
nt for my shotgun, ran out the backdoor, BOOM!
I fired a shot off in the air with my 12 gauge pump, woke up everyone within a freakin' mile I'll bet. Lights were flashing on in the bedrooms and kitchens, people peeking out the curtains and blinds. The dogs scattered all right, scared the shit out of 'em, only thing is I accidentally shot the telephone and cable vision wires that were running to my house. DAMN!
Well, it was only a few minutes before my doorbell rang. The cops said they had a complaint about someone firing a weapon on these premises. "Yeah I heard it too! I ran out the back door and saw someone out there in the alley chasing a bunch of yelping dogs, hope you catch 'em."
The cop just looked at me with that look he always has on his face, "OK, Mr. Shepherd, look I know it was you, I saw the wires hanging down around in the back yard, you shot your neighbor's wires too, they want me to lock you up! If you do this again I'm going to have to arrest you. I can't keep coming out here week after week while you shoot up the place. You're gonna kill somebody if you're not careful." So he gives me a ticket for firing a weapon in the city limits. Of course I have to call the phone company and the cable vision people, (thank god for cell phones.)
Well after about a year of this crap I was desperate so I went to a palm reader. Yeah, I know what's a palm reader got to do with it? My buddy at work had told me this lady was a real gypsy so I figured what the hell, maybe she can put a curse on the damn dogs or something. Hey, I said I was desperate.
I walked up in her yard, she had a big sign with a giant hand and a big red eyeball in the middle of the palm. "Madam Cronella" it read. As I inspected it closer I read some fine print that said, curses, potions and wishes all guaranteed! Well I knew I was at the right place, into her house I went and there she was sitting behind a small, round table, crystal ball in the center, filing her long red nails. There was a big black cat, a fat one laying in a chair in the corner, it looked at me as if I were no better than a mouse. Its tail flipped and it began licking its foot, quietly. I thought to myself, "Now there is a real good pet, quiet, still, minding its own business." The gypsy was an old wrinkled woman with a voice that sounded like a crow or something, I couldn't help but think of the witch in the Wizard of Oz when she spoke. "Can I help you sir?" she cawed.
