Halloween Carnival, Volume 3

by Brian James Freeman (ed)

  “Good—you’re getting much better now,” she said. “Now, are you sure you’re not having chest pain?”

  Gerry nodded. “Yes…” His voice was lost within the oxygen mask.

  “I should call a paramedic, just to be sure.”

  The old man squeezed her arm. “No—I said I’m fine.”

  Kelli frowned; Gerald’s attack was so sudden, but she knew emphysema could be unpredictable, immobilizing a patient’s breathing without warning. Yet she remembered how anxious he appeared just before his breathing failed him. There were trick-or-treaters at the door.

  “So what brought all that on?” she said.

  He shrugged. “I…uh…don’t know.”

  “You know those kids are gone now—you told them to run away.”

  She watched him crane his neck past her shoulder. “Good.” He huffed.

  “You don’t like kids?”

  The old man’s bushy eyebrows rose and then knotted together. He sighed, and a great plume of moisture obscured the downward turn of his mouth.

  “Did they rock your roof or something, Mr. Forsyth? You were pretty adamant about chasing them away.”

  When Gerald didn’t answer, Kelli was annoyed but equally intrigued. While he sat there steadying his breathing, she studied the contents of the living room. There was a worn leather recliner, cracked at the corners, and a small, unsophisticated turn-dial television set. On the wall behind it was a painting of a sailboat on a calm sea, possibly painted by Gerald himself. To the left of that wall was a broad teak display cabinet filled with faded china plates, crystal drink glasses, and tarnished silverware. The top of the cabinet was bare—not a single photograph or heirloom, nothing to indicate there had ever been anyone else in the house but Gerald Forsyth.

  “How long have you lived alone, Mr. Forsyth?” Kelli said.

  Gerald turned his gaze to her, startled. “This is my parents’ house.”

  “So where are they?”

  The bushy eyebrows rose. “They’re dead—they died nearly thirty years ago.”

  “Hence my question: You live alone, then?” She watched his eyes dart toward the front door.

  “So what if I live alone.”

  Kelli bit her lip. “No lady friend, no wife to cook you your meals, do your washing?”

  Gerald plucked the oxygen mask from his face to reveal a grimace of aggravation. “No!” He wheeled away from her. “I think it’s time for you to leave. I appreciate you attending to me, but I’m fine now—I don’t need you here any longer.”

  Kelli sat down in one of the recliners and interlaced her fingers in her lap. “I can’t leave; you just experienced difficulties with your breathing, and unless you want me to call a paramedic, then I need to stay and make sure you don’t have another attack.”

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone!?” Gerry said, spittle falling to his chin.

  Kelli leaned forward in the chair and held out her hands in mock surrender. “Mr. Forsyth, I’m only trying to work out what got you so worked up—worked up enough to faint.”

  The old man shook with rage; Kelli had to be careful not to incite another attack. She knew she had no business meddling in this man’s life, but she could see something painful kept him trapped, even more than the disease invading his body—something was eating away at his soul.

  “I mean, one minute you’re telling me to chase those kids away and the next thing you’re suffocating,” she continued. “What was so bad about those kids?”

  Gerald’s mouth became a thin line, but it did little to dampen his rage. “Get out.”

  Kelli shook her head. “Sorry, no can do. I’m a nurse and you’re my patient; besides, we’re just having a chat.”

  “I don’t want to talk—not to you—not to anyone!”

  She watched his eyeline return to the door. He was studying it with a passion and Kelli imagined he probably knew every grain of wood, every skerrick of corrosion on the brass handle.

  “So, given you don’t like having kids around, I take it you don’t have any of your own?”

  Gerald’s sideways glance could have turned her to stone. “No wife—remember?”

  “Hey, that doesn’t stop some people!” she said with a snigger. “Look at me—I’m a single mom with a seventeen-year-old son who spends more time talking to his Facebook friends than me.”

  “Hmpf,” Gerald said with a slight chuckle of his own; Kelli was starting to chip away at his resolve. Yet she still couldn’t pull his gaze away from that door.

  “You’re waiting for something, aren’t you?”

  Gerald flinched this time and he looked at her, lips parted in surprise; he looked like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

  “What?” he muttered.

  “Is someone coming to visit today—for Halloween, I mean? A relative or friend?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you keep staring at that damn front door?”

  Gerald gripped the hand rims of the wheelchair and spun himself away from her toward the kitchen with a grunt of exertion.

  “It’s none of your damn business, okay!” he said.

  Kelli’s curiosity burned. She knew it often got the better of her, but it was one of the reasons she became a nurse. She thought talking to a patient could be just as effective as, if not more effective than, administering medicine. She got up and followed him into the kitchen.

  “Okay, look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I can be a bit bullheaded, and you’re right, it is none of my business.”

  “You got that right,” Gerald growled.

  Kelli held out her hand for the old man to shake. “So, no hard feelings, then?”

  She watched Gerry look at her hand as if it were diseased. A moment passed before he sighed and quickly reached out to shake it and let it go.

  “Great,” Kelli said, and went back into the living room to retrieve her bag. “If it’s okay with you, Mr. Forsyth, I’ll get one of the night nurses to give you a call later on in the evening, just to make sure you’re all right.”

  “Fine, whatever,” he said, waving her away.

  Kelli gathered her nurse’s bag, willing herself to go out the front door, to shut up and leave the poor old man alone. She asked herself whether she should take his blood pressure one last time, listen to his lungs, but she knew she’d already overstayed her welcome.

  “Okay, then—I’ll just say that the pleasure’s been all mine?”

  Gerald didn’t reply, only pulled the oxygen mask back over his face and concentrated on his breathing. Kelli went to the door and began to turn the door handle when an epiphany slapped her in the face. Smirking, she walked back into the living room to face him.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving?” he snarled.

  “You know, for someone who apparently hates kids, you’re paying a lot of attention to all those trick-or-treaters walking about out there.”

  Gerry pulled his mask down in exasperation. He moved to speak, but hesitation crept in and he simply replaced his mask. Kelli was the one to wave her hand dismissively at him then. She turned for the door again.

  “No, you’re right—none of my business. Goodbye, Mr. Forsyth.”

  As she reached for the handle, she heard Gerry take in a sharp breath. She turned to see that his face was stark white, his eyes bulging and locked on the door behind her.

  Oh, no, not again.

  “What’s wrong?” Kelli said.

  A voice in her head told her to get away from the door, that it presented an immediate danger. Instinct simultaneously told her to run and stay still, yet her heart had already broken into a sprint. Beneath that desire to live, however, was the even more powerful need to know.

  There was a rap-rap-rap at the door.

  Kelli jumped at the noise and whirled back to face the door. Through the dirty glass view panel, she could make out the silhouette of a child standing on the other side.

  “Oh, gosh—you scared me!” she said.r />
  The child, a boy, from what she could tell, stood bolt upright, like a statue. Kelli could make out the faint outline of the costume he was wearing: some sort of enlarged headpiece or mask and a tattered suit jacket and trousers.

  “It’s just another trick-or-treater,” Kelli said, smiling with relief.

  She turned to Gerald and the smile was wiped from her face. The old man was trembling in his chair, his head shaking from side to side in denial. He gazed, unblinking, at the boy, and those eyes exuded fear.

  “Mr. Forsyth?” Was he having another attack? No, this was something far worse; his entire body was infected with terror.

  “Don’t!” he said, and sucked in a new breath.

  “Don’t what—it’s only a boy.” She moved to open the door.

  “No!”

  Kelli rifled inside her handbag. “I’m just going to give him some candy, okay, and send him on his way.”

  “No!”

  Gerald tried to stand, as if to stop her, but her hand was already turning the doorknob and pulling the door wide open. The little boy—about ten years of age, she surmised—never shifted or acknowledged her. He simply looked straight ahead—at Gerald Forsyth.

  “Hi, there,” Kelli said, but still the boy played statues.

  The boy was short for his age, Kelli thought, but with the door open she could now get a better look at his costume. He wore a large Frankenstein headpiece—complete with rusty-looking rubber bolts at the temples—which made him appear a foot taller. Kelli gazed in wonder at his makeup; a rough mixture of putrescent greens and purples to capture an accurate depiction of a creature composed entirely of reanimated flesh. The suit he wore was charcoal gray, with some brown-colored stains on the lapel, elbows, and knees.

  “Oh, my—I love your costume!” she said.

  The boy’s large black boots were neatly side by side, jutting against the threshold. Kelli crouched down to smile at him; the boy’s pale gray eyes looked dead ahead. She followed his eyeline and found Gerald at the end of it, still trembling and paralyzed with fear.

  Why on earth would a grown man be afraid of a little boy?

  “Aren’t you going to say hello, Mr. Forsyth?”

  “Get…get away!” he said, through gritted teeth.

  Kelli stood and thrust her hands on her hips. “Oh, this is getting ridiculous! What is it with you and Halloween—it’s just harmless fun!”

  Gerald shook his head and she sighed and held out a packet of pumpkin head caramels to the boy.

  “Here’s your candy,” Kelli said. “Why don’t you come in so we can get a better look at your amazing costume?”

  “Stop—no!” Gerald wailed, holding out his trembling right hand.

  Kelli was truly annoyed with the old man’s attitude now. She’d tried in vain to get him to open up about it and he refused; he was just a grumpy old man griping at the younger generation. Ironically, Gerald Forsyth was behaving just like the thing he so despised.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Forsyth, but this is my candy and I’m going to give it to him.”

  Kelli heard the door close and double clip-clop sound of shoes on the floorboards.

  “Good boy,” Kelli said, returning her attention to the boy. “Here you go.” She frowned when he didn’t take the candy. “You don’t want them?”

  The little Frankenstein kept up his staring contest with Gerry.

  “You’re a quiet one, aren’t you? Well, here you go, then.” She tucked the packet into the breast pocket of the boy’s jacket. She smoothed down the shoulders of the jacket and picked off a piece of dirt. “This your first trick-or-treat, then?” She chuckled. “I remember my first time, too. I was so nervous, but I had a group of friends to go with.” She glanced at the front porch. “No one came with you, though, huh?”

  Franken-boy and Gerald’s gazes were locked, and Kelli wondered if either of them had blinked. She reached out and gently took hold of the boy’s chin and turned his face to her.

  “Hey, what’s your name, sweetie?”

  Strangely, the boy’s eyes remained facing the old man and his skin felt ice-cold.

  “You’re freezing!” she said, retracting her hand away.

  Gerald suddenly wheeled forward, his finger outstretched. “Get out of my house!” he shrieked.

  Kelli tutted. “Come on—we’d better leave Mr. Forsyth in peace.” She gripped the boy’s shoulder to lead him out, but he wouldn’t budge. When she tried to open the door, the knob wouldn’t move, either. “Oh, I must have turned the lock when I closed it—silly me.”

  Gerald began to sob. He sank his face into his hands.

  “No, no, no, no, no…”

  “The lock’s stuck,” Kelli said, flabbergasted. A twinge of panic began to creep into her chest. She looked at the boy looking at Gerald. He hadn’t moved in so long, hadn’t even blinked. She glanced at his nostrils and chest.

  Is he even breathing?

  She yanked on the door, but it didn’t even rattle. “Mr. Forsyth, the door won’t open.”

  The old man began to scream, his voice hoarse and ragged, as if he was choking on a hundred marbles. The boy seemed unperturbed by the fact the old man suddenly seemed to be suffocating.

  “Did you lock the door?” she asked the boy.

  Then the child Frankenstein turned to look at her, as if noticing her for the first time. Kelli glimpsed something dark and hungry in his eyes, something that wanted to drink in her fear. As she tried to fathom what was happening, a trickle of blood suddenly erupted from the boy’s left nostril, all over his jacket.

  “Oh my God—your nose!”

  The trickle became a flood as a torrent of dark blood escaped both nostrils, spilling violently all down the front of his costume, spattering his shoes and pooling on the floor. Kelli jumped out of the spray and instantly reached for the tissues in her bag.

  “Oh my Lord!”

  She reached out with the tissues to pinch the boy’s nose, but before she could he opened his mouth impossibly wide and released a great regurgitation of blood all over her arm. The geyser of blood that hit the floor was far too much for a ten-year-old boy to sustain. When the Frankenstein child smiled widely at her through oozing red lips and looked down at the floor to admire the mess he’d made, Kelli screamed.

  3

  The blood poured from the boy’s nose as if it were a leaky faucet.

  Kelli sat on the floor near Gerald, gawking in horror at the steady drip-drip-drip. The bleeding had a hypnotic effect, and she found her eyes tracking each drop’s descent from nose to floor. A great pool of blood was spreading out from where the boy stood, the rug on the floor sucking the foul liquid up like a sponge.

  The boy was watching both her and Gerald now. His eyes were devoid of color and so, so cold. Perhaps it was from the blood loss, Kelli wondered. But it didn’t make sense; with all that bleeding, the boy should have been dead—certainly not conscious. For the first time, the nurse didn’t know what to think, or what to say. There was only the boy’s blood and his eyes and she believed she might quite possibly drown in both of them. She would have, too, if Gerald’s croaked voice didn’t suddenly drag her out of the trance.

  “We have to move away from him.”

  Kelli reluctantly turned her gaze from the boy to the old man. Her throat was dry, and when she swallowed it made a clicking sound.

  “He’s…he’s bleeding,” she said.

  “I know—now stay back from him!” Gerald replied, and he suddenly seemed to have concern for her well-being rather than his own.

  Kelli felt the crawl of confusion begin to mingle with the fear that had already seeded in her mind. The nurse in her demanded she go to the boy’s aid, but common sense screamed at her to do as Gerald commanded. She looked at him; there was still terror in his creased features, but she could tell this was a terror all too familiar.

  “Who is he?” she asked him.

  Gerald shook his head. Kelli turned from him and faced the boy.

&nb
sp; “Who are you?”

  The boy’s dull eyes shifted to her almost instantly.

  “Don’t talk to him!” Gerald cried, gripping her by the shoulder.

  Kelli ignored the old man and watched a long string of sticky blood ooze from his nose and down his chin.

  “Do you…realize you’re bleeding?”

  The Franken-child stared at her and smiled once more; blood turned his tiny yellow teeth pink. The boy stuck out his tongue and lapped at it. It was the only part of him that moved—no blinking, no turn of the head. He was a bleeding statue that was anything but miraculous.

  “Do you live around here?” Kelli said, lifting herself into a crouch. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “For God’s sake, stop it, woman!” Gerald implored.

  Kelli watched his smile vanish and his eyes flick to the old man. There was a definite glint of ferocity in those vacant eyes. More blood flowed out, too, as if in response to the old man’s voice. Kelli turned to the old man.

  “You know who this boy is, don’t you?”

  “Don’t!” Tears pooled in his eyes.

  “I need to know who he is—I have to help him.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him!”

  A noise emanated from behind her, and Kelli turned back to see the boy’s mouth was wide open. The guttural echo resounded from deep within the boy’s throat, a prolonged moan that resembled a child in a choir chanting—chanting from inside a cave. As she tried to comprehend the sound, the boy took a step toward them and hissed, a spray of bloody saliva pluming in the air.

  “Get up!” Gerald ordered, pulling Kelli away.

  “What is he doing?”

  “Move back!”

  The boy took another step and Kelli noticed that it was more a shamble, as if he was in fact a miniature version of Mary Shelley’s famous monstrosity. Kelli wondered if the boy was simply putting on an act; that somewhere under his costume there were bags of fake blood with tubes connected to his nose. Could this boy conceive of such a cruel prank?

  Kelli felt a significant amount of strength in Gerald’s grip as he twisted her around and thrust her toward the kitchen. She staggered forward but looked back over her shoulder to see her would-be rescuer rising out of his chair to his feet. He blocked the boy’s path with outstretched hands.