The Witch of Halloween House

by Jeff DeGordick

  Stacy wore about two pounds of makeup and big hoop earrings, and she marched right up into Carmen's face. She gave Carmen a little shove, but Carmen stood her ground. "What the hell are you doing grabbing my brother?!" she demanded.

  "Don't give me that," Carmen started. "I'm not going to let your lying, little scamp of a brother corrupt mine."

  Brett stood emboldened behind the protection of his sister. Tommy stood to Carmen's side, staring at the ground in shame. The other two boys were just bystanders caught in the crossfire, looking bewildered at the fight.

  Stacy stuck a manicured fingernail in front of Carmen's face, curving it like a talon. "You touch him again, and no boy's ever gonna want to look at your face again." She scoffed. "Not that you get any attention now, anyway." She pulled a wad of gum out of her mouth and flicked it at Carmen. It bounced off her cheek and caught momentarily on her shoulder before falling to the grass.

  Carmen scowled, but she chose not to rise to the challenge. She stood nose to nose with Stacy and glared into her eyes.

  "Come on, Brett," Stacy said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him away. There was a car sitting at the end of the parking lot with the window rolled down, and a man that looked to be in his late twenties, older than all of them, sat in the driver's seat, a baseball cap on his head and a messy goatee covering his chin.

  Brett turned around as she dragged him and shot Carmen a triumphant look. "Later, you dweeb," he said to Tommy.

  Randy and Shawn retreated to the car, but after the young man inside looked at them and shook his head, they quietly stumbled off down the street by themselves.

  Carmen turned to Tommy who was still staring at his shoes. "You have got a lot of explaining to do, mister."

  "I... I didn't know," he said.

  "Didn't know what?" she started.

  A scream blared into the night from somewhere nearby.

  Both of them spun around and looked in the direction it came from.

  Another scream followed, trailed by a long, wailing moan.

  The hairs stood up on the backs of their necks.

  "What was that?" Tommy asked.

  "I don't know," Carmen replied. The screams put her on edge. There was such terror and anguish in them, that whatever situation caused them had to be downright unthinkable.

  Tommy started off by himself.

  "Hey, where are you going?!" Carmen asked, catching up to him.

  "I want to see what that was."

  "No," Carmen said, "we should get home. It's not safe out here." She looked around at the shadows engulfing them, thinking about her strange experience before and wondering if something malicious was lurking around.

  "What if someone's in trouble?" he asked.

  Another wail filled the air, this one less terrorized and more just full of pain. It was coming from a residential stretch at the edge of the downtown area.

  Carmen hesitated, but when she looked and saw her brother's eyes, they convinced her. They were wide and concerned, full of her brother's good nature and sense of justice. "Fine," she said. "But you've been reading too many Hardy Boys books."

  The two of them set off as the person moaned into the night.

  "I think it's Mrs. Darton," Tommy said as they ran.

  Carmen thought he was right. The voice sounded similar, but she couldn't possibly imagine what tragedy had befallen her. She lived in a house on a big piece of property that stretched out into the woods in the back.

  When they got to her house, they pinpointed her voice to her backyard. Mrs. Darton stood next to a dip in the ground that cut across the yard on an angle, with the woods on the other side. There were already two locals standing next to her and consoling her, with another one venturing into the woods.

  "What's going on?" Carmen asked.

  Mrs. Darton's face was beet-red, a wet mess of tears. "My-my son!" she choked out. "He's missing!" She buried her face into the chest of another resident and continued sobbing.

  Carmen and Tommy stood rigid like boards. Their gazes drifted over to the child-sized shoe that she was clutching, and suddenly their minds went back three years to little David Basham. Then when they saw the gingerbread cookie sitting at her feet, their blood turned to ice.

  Carmen unconsciously wrapped her arm around Tommy and squeezed him tightly to herself.

  The Carving in the Tree

  Robert sat at his desk at the station, his head cradled in his hands. The phone rang. He picked it up and answered. Nodding along as the information came through the line, he pulled a pad of paper and a pen across the desk to him and took down the information. Thanking the person for the tip, he put the phone back on the cradle, dropped the pen, and returned his head to his hands.

  Various tips had been coming in all night, most of them unhelpful. No one had seen anything, and even the mother didn't know anything about her son's disappearance, other than the fact that he had been playing in the backyard. Most people who called just wanted to know what was happening.

  Robert already organized search parties and was coordinating and relaying information between them. Word of the disappearance spread very quickly, just like last time, only this time the townspeople didn't have a boogeyman to blame. But the whole thing was strange and frightening. He went through every detail, trying to make sense of it.

  His mind went back to the old woman who burned to death in her house. The image he'd seen of her painfully twisting and turning into ash was burned into his memory. The bizarre event haunted him to this day. "A curse... A curse on all of you!" she had said.

  Could it have been her? he thought. Could it still be her? A moment later, the thought drifted out of his head. It was too absurd. But the details were very striking: the boy had disappeared in the woods just like David Basham three years ago; a lone shoe had been found in his place, though no blood on it this time; and a gingerbread cookie had been found at the scene, although in this case it hadn't been eaten at all. A copycat? he thought.

  This was the last thing the town needed, especially on Halloween.

  The phone rang again, and he reluctantly answered it. When the call finished, he placed the phone on the cradle and started to draw his hand away, but then he paused. He stared at the phone, hesitated for another moment, then he plucked it up again and dialed his house.

  Carmen picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"

  "It's me, Sweetpea."

  "Dad! What's going on? Did you find him?"

  Robert wiped his hand across his tired face. "No, not yet." His eyes drifted up the blank wall in front of him. "I just wanted to see how you two are doing."

  "We're okay... it's just kind of scary, you know?"

  Robert silently nodded with the phone pressed to his ear. "Yeah honey, I know. Just keep your brother inside this time, okay?"

  "Yeah, I will, Dad."

  "You promise?" There was fear in his voice.

  Carmen sensed this, and her answer was slow and hesitant. "Yeah... yeah, Dad, I will. Promise."

  Robert said goodbye and hung up the phone, then leaned back in his chair. He shuffled around the photos they'd taken at the scene on his desk as the gears turned in his head. The phone rang again.

  Carmen stared out the window in the living room, looking over their darkened front lawn and into the neighborhood beyond. It had been two minutes since she'd seen a car roll by, and now with each passing second, an evil and mysterious force closed in around the house; she could feel it. And every time she took a deep breath, it was pushed back a little. Her heart thumped. Everything around outside was still. Even the breeze had abated completely, and she waited for something to happen as her eyes flicked from one dark corner to another.

  Something jabbed her in the back. "Hey."

  Carmen jumped and spun around.

  "Sorry," Tommy said fearfully. "What are you doing?"

  Carmen settled down. "Nothing," she said.

  He walked past her to the window and looked out, seeing the same still and yet terrif
ying sights that she had. "Are you going to take me trick-or-treating?"

  Carmen laughed. "Really? You're asking me this now?"

  "I want to go this year," he mumbled. "I hate it when this happens."

  "Tommy, I don't think it's such a good idea this year. We don't even know what's going on yet."

  "But—"

  "It's not safe," she added.

  He didn't say anything. He had both of his palms pressed flat to the glass and leaned his forehead against the cold surface. He opened his mouth and breathed out hot air, fogging it up. Then he took his forefinger and traced a shape in the condensation.

  "What are you doing?" Carmen asked.

  He shrugged. When he was finished, he pulled his finger away and leaned back, inspecting the stick figure he drew.

  "What is that?"

  "It's a gingerbread man, like when they get taken."

  Carmen's heart jumped into her throat. "Don't say that!" She gripped the sleeve of her shirt in her palm and wiped the fog off the window completely, then she grabbed her little brother by the wrist and dragged him into the living room. "Come on," she said.

  They had turned on just about every light in the house to assuage their fear, but it didn't seem to help at all; because even as the light illuminated and basked every object in every room, it created a multitude of shadows behind every wall and piece of furniture.

  The two of them stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and just silently looking at each other for a while. They didn't know what to do; there was nothing they wanted to do. Tommy tried reading his book for a while, but his hands became jittery. Carmen felt like she was waiting on pins and needles for some kind of news.

  "We should help look for him," Tommy suggested.

  Carmen shook her head sternly. "No."

  "But what if it was me?"

  This got Carmen angry, and she couldn't help her eyes squeezing out fresh, hot tears. She stepped forward and covered his mouth with her hand. "It's not going to be you, okay?" She relieved the pressure a moment later, realizing how much she was squeezing his mouth, and she sunk down and wrapped her arms around him. "Everything's gonna be fine, you hear me?"

  Tommy nodded.

  When she composed herself, she stood up and suggested they sit on the couch and turn on the TV for noise. They did so, and as they tried to flip the channels, they were both distracted by their wayward thoughts. It was like an itch that crept under their skin and caused them agony from the inside; it was the mystery that they just had to know more of. Carmen flipped to the local news.

  A reporter was standing in the street, interviewing a neighbor of Mrs. Darton. Carmen and Tommy quickly realized that they'd shown it already and this was just a repeat. There must have been no new information. After the regurgitated interview ended, it went back to the local newsroom where the anchors talked about the case.

  "Hold on a minute," one of them said, holding his finger to his earpiece. "We're just getting word now that a new clue has been discovered in the case at the site of the disappearance. We're taking you there now." The two anchors stared blankly toward the camera, waiting for the feed to switch over.

  Carmen and Tommy leaned forward on the couch.

  The feed finally cut over to a familiar female reporter standing in front of the bright glow from the camera. Darkened woods stood behind her, and every time she spoke, a tiny white cloud escaped her lips from the cold.

  "Hi Tom, we are back here at the spot where Jeremy Darton was last seen. He disappeared at around 8:10 this evening, leaving behind one of his shoes and a gingerbread man cookie that his mother said she had no idea how he got. But now a new clue has been discovered by police that they first overlooked, and they're allowing us to show it to you tonight."

  The woman turned and stepped across the shallow gash running through the backyard to the start of the tree line on the other side as the camera followed her. The view bumped and jostled until they were both across and the woman turned and stood next to a tree, holding the microphone up to her mouth.

  "A carving has been found etched into this tree, right in front of where Jeremy disappeared."

  The reporter pointed to it, and the camera zoomed in.

  "Now, it appears to be some kind of symbol that looks like a lasso or a noose. It's about six inches long, and Dorothy Darton says she's never seen it here before tonight. We don't want to speculate much until the facts come in, but it's possible that we could be looking at some kind of copycat emulating the disappearance of David Basham three years ago, and some police suggest that this symbol could be a calling card."

  A Hundred Smiling Pumpkins

  Carmen and Tommy sat on the couch and the TV droned in the background. Their eyes stared at it, but they weren't actually seeing anything; their minds had gone blank with a buzz of noise about the boy's disappearance, and questions filled every mental doorway they had.

  Carmen's cell phone went off and buzzed on the table.

  She jumped. When the shock wore off, she leaned forward and snatched it up. "Oh crap."

  "What?" Tommy asked.

  "I totally forgot... I was supposed to go to Breanna's house and pick up her part of the assignment we're handing in tomorrow in class." She thought for a moment, then texted back.

  Can you drop it off at my house?

  No. My parents have the car

  I can't leave the house right now. Can you bring it over?

  Sorry, I don't want to go out by myself right now with what happened...

  Carmen groaned and leaned her elbow on the top of the couch.

  "What's wrong?" Tommy asked.

  She looked at him. "Breanna's uncle is picking her up first thing tomorrow morning to go to her family's cottage, but I forgot that her parents are already there with the car. She's not going to be in class tomorrow to hand in the assignment with me, so I was supposed to pick it up from her house today."

  "Can't you pick it up in the morning?"

  She shook her head. "No, she's leaving really early. I have to get it tonight."

  "So let's get it," he said.

  Carmen sat back, defeated. What choice did she have? The assignment was worth fifteen percent of her mark. But her father made her promise that she and her brother wouldn't leave the house again tonight. She could leave her brother home alone while she ran out quickly and got it, but he was only nine, and if anything happened to him while she was gone...

  "Well?" Tommy said. He leaned forward expectantly, like he was ready to go on an adventure, despite the one he just came back from.

  Carmen looked at him with a flash of fire in her eyes. "If you tell Dad, I'll kill you, deal?"

  Her threat didn't seem to faze him as he jovially nodded his head up and down.

  She made sure they were both bundled up for the cold, then she stood at the front door, holding it open a crack and peering out into the night.

  "What are you waiting for?" Tommy said impatiently from behind her.

  She pulled back from the door. "Nothing." She opened it and reluctantly stepped out of the house. They took a similar route to the one she had taken on the way to the school. Breanna's house wasn't far from there, and they would need to head through downtown to get there. There were less cars driving by on the roads now, and as they got close to the main streets, they saw fewer people walking around. Stores would be closing soon, and everyone who didn't still have business to do was probably safely hunkered in their homes or out searching for Jeremy.

  A gust of wind picked up as they hurried down Forester Street, and this one seemed to cut through their clothes. Tommy shivered. Carmen looked around, expecting an owl to be staring at her or some strange sensation to befall them.

  "Do you hear that?" Carmen asked, stopping suddenly.

  "Hear what?"

  A gentle breeze rumbled through a set of bushes lining the edge of a park next to them. Tree branches swayed from side to side, and the soft buzzing of bugs' wings hitting streetlights drifted throug
h the air. A car horn honked briefly about half a mile away.

  Carmen glanced around. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was wrong. She gripped her brother's hand, squeezing it too tightly.

  "Ow!" he cried.

  But she didn't hear him. The darkness encapsulated them, and Carmen realized that they were standing in a patch of shadow between streetlights. She pulled her brother forward, finding refuge in the muted glow.

  A scampering of little feet near the bushes. A flap of a bird's wings overhead. The creak of a stop sign as a stiff wind twisted it.

  Tommy peered into the dark. Outside the protection of the streetlight, it was nearly pitch-black—abnormally so.

  There was a thin space between the bottom of the bushes and the ground at the edge of the park that was shrouded in opaque shadow. Carmen felt something from there, almost as if the darkness and the cold emanated from the space.

  A flash of glowing eyes appeared in the black.

  Carmen jumped.

  The stray cat cried and ran out of the bushes, darting down the street.

  What was going on? Carmen couldn't figure it out. And whether he was influenced by her agitation or not, Tommy started to feel uneasy, too. He felt the pressure relieve from his hand as Carmen calmed down, and he took a deep breath.

  "Let's go," Carmen said suddenly, not wanting to linger any longer.

  Tommy turned back to the direction they were heading in from looking at the cat, and out of the corner of his eye he saw something streak by above him. He looked up.

  It was out of sight now, but for a second, he swore he saw something fly by in front of the full moon. It didn't look like a bird or anything else of the sort. It almost seemed like... a person. But that was impossible... wasn't it?

  He gulped. "I think I saw—"

  "Let's go!" she repeated frantically. She pulled on his arm harder and this time his legs were forced into motion. They moved down the street almost in a jog and came up to Rosedale. And though they moved closer to civilization, the heavy, negative feeling plaguing Carmen didn't go away; it was like a cloak of foreboding hung heavy on her shoulders.