The Witch of Halloween House

by Jeff DeGordick

  In the distance, away from downtown, she could see high-powered flashlights cutting through the darkness in a faraway stretch of woods. "Jeremy!" could faintly be heard above the swell of the wind. But Carmen tried to stop paying attention to her surroundings anymore, adopting a tunnel vision along the path toward Breanna's house.

  They cut through the town square in the middle of downtown, and there were still a few people walking around. Most of the stores had already closed up for the night, but a few were still open. They passed a few townsfolk they recognized, and they exchanged a brief hello, though Carmen could tell the looks on all of their faces were strained for some reason.

  When they arrived at Breanna's house, the two of them huddled close to the front door as Carmen knocked. She looked over her shoulder at the dark and didn't see anyone else in sight. If someone was prowling around, waiting to snatch someone up, this would be the place to do it.

  The door swung open and Carmen backed up with a gasp.

  "Oh, sorry," Breanna said. She grabbed something off a table next to the door and held it out to her.

  "It's okay, thanks," Carmen said. She took the clipped stack of papers from Breanna and held them tightly to her chest. "Sorry for being late today."

  "It's no problem. I'm just glad you could make it. Pretty crazy what's going on, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'm almost sad to be going to the cottage for the weekend. It would be kinda preoccupying not knowing what's happening here."

  "I'm sure they'll find him," Carmen said, though in the moment she didn't mean her words at all.

  Breanna's hands were clinging tightly to the edge of the door, and Carmen saw an uneasy look on her face. "Well, bye," she said hastily, and she slammed the door shut.

  Carmen and Tommy took a step back, surprised.

  "What was that about?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Carmen replied, staring at the door. Something strange was going on in this town, and she thought that it had something more to do than just with the little boy's disappearance. She turned. "Come on, we gotta get back before dad knows we're gone."

  They traced their way back, cutting through downtown to get home, and when they reached the center of it, they heard a rumbling of voices and saw a waving of lights in the distance.

  Down the street, coming from the wooded residential areas, a crowd of townspeople marched in their direction. Some of the group broke off onto other streets, but the majority of them carried on toward the town square. Various members of the crowd shouted Jeremy's name as they searched around in every nook and cranny.

  Carmen shrunk back, fearing that their father would be in the crowd and spot them. She pulled Tommy into the doorway of a nearby shop, peeking around the corner at the approaching group.

  A car slowly rolled up the street, pulling to a stop by the curb next to them. The window rolled down.

  It took Carmen a few moments to realize that it had, then she slowly turned and saw her father sitting in his police cruiser, staring at her and Tommy. His face was painted with his displeasure.

  Her mouth fell open, trying to sort through the words to say in her defense.

  The search party entered the town square and suddenly all of the streetlights flickered. Everyone stopped and looked around. Then the lights went out completely.

  Darkness surrounded them from every direction, and the only illumination came from their flashlights. Murmurs rippled through the dark, and a growing sense of fear permeated them.

  One of the townspeople shrieked.

  Everyone spread out in a panic, trying to figure out what had caused the shock.

  Glowing orange lights appeared in the middle of the square. They came in strange, crazed shapes, like leering, taunting faces. They lit up one right after the other in rapid succession until a huge pile of glowing orange eyes stared at the townspeople. The beams of their flashlights illuminated the pile and they gasped at the enormity of it. A small mountain of carved jack-o'-lanterns with evil and demented faces filled the square.

  Robert's jaw dropped from inside the cruiser.

  Fear clutched the townspeople, and bad memories of surrounding the old woman's house on the hill with jack-o'-lanterns haunted them.

  "It's the witch!" someone shrieked. A man ran out in front of the others at the edge of the square, thrusting his arm toward the pile of jack-o'-lanterns. "She's back!"

  The townspeople shrunk away in fear at his words. They were illogical, because the woman had been innocent, and they all knew that. And now she was dead. But all the same, his words clung to their fearful, primitive hearts.

  "And she didn't just take Jeremy!" the man cried. "She's going to take all of our children!"

  Jail Talk

  Carmen cut off the crust on Tommy's sandwich, then she put the knife in the sink. "Come on, you're going to be late for school!" she yelled.

  A few seconds later, heavy footsteps came charging down the hallway to the front of the house. "I'm ready!" Tommy exclaimed. He was already dressed up in his coat, his boots, and he had his backpack slung over his shoulders.

  "Impressive response time," Carmen said. She wrapped up the sandwich in saran wrap and put it in his Iron Man lunchbox, closing it up and stuffing it into his backpack for him. She grabbed her own backpack and her purse, then she put on her shoes and coat. "Ready to go?"

  "Yep," Tommy replied.

  She opened the door and the cold air of the morning greeted them, and though the ominous night was gone, the feeling still remained, like something was off. They still hadn't found little Jeremy through the night, to her knowledge, and she wondered how the townspeople would react today in the sobering morning light.

  But Tommy didn't seem to be phased; no matter what happened, his boundless optimism shone through, and he seemed oblivious to the world around him as he skipped along the sidewalk to the bus stop. Carmen stood by his side and waited for the bus to pick him up before she took a city bus to the college. Sometimes their father would give Tommy a ride to school if the timing worked out, or sometimes he would wait with him for the bus to pick him up, but those occasions seemed to be getting rarer these days.

  Time seemed to pass at a crawl, and Carmen glanced up and down the road for the school bus. She checked the time on her phone.

  "It should be here by now, shouldn't it?" Tommy said, looking up at her.

  Carmen frowned. "Yeah, it's already 8:45. I'm going to be late."

  They waited a few more minutes, but the bus still didn't show up.

  "What do we do?" Tommy asked.

  "Come on," she said, thinking of something. She took his arm and pulled him up the street. "We'll take a city bus. There should be one hitting the stop at Rosedale in a minute or two." They jogged along the sidewalk for a couple blocks until they got to the bus stop. Cars rolled by on the road, and in the distance behind the sporadic line they could see the tall and lumbering bus rolling down the street. It stopped next to them and opened its doors, and Carmen and Tommy climbed into it.

  She said hi to the driver, but he only gave her an unimpressed look. Carmen furrowed her brow and reached into her pocket for some change. She sorted through a handful of coins and dropped the correct fare in the slot and turned to the aisle with her brother.

  The bus was half-filled, and all of them seemed to be in a glum mood. Carmen didn't blame them considering the circumstances, but it seemed to be something more than that; there was just a general sense of malaise and irritation etched into most of their faces. They both tried nodding or saying hello to some of them, but they didn't get anything more than a terse nod back.

  They sat down in an empty row by the back doors as the bus lurched forward and sped down the road. Looking out the window, it seemed like a normal day in the town with everyone going to work or running errands. When the bus came up to the intersection on Rosedale and Forester, Carmen pulled the stop request cord and the bus screeched to an abrupt halt.

  As they got up, Carmen yelled her than
ks to the driver. Glaring eyes were all she saw on the rearview mirror. They left the bus and it sped off, leaving them standing in the cold and Carmen confused.

  "What's wrong?" Tommy asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "Do people seem a bit... off to you today?"

  Tommy thought about it. "Hmm, I don't know..."

  She shrugged it off and they walked down the road at a brisk pace, still a couple blocks away from the school. But as they got closer and the school came into view behind a row of tall trees, they saw a strange and unexpected sight.

  A large crowd had gathered in front of the school, all marching around in a circle and holding picket signs.

  "What the...?" Carmen muttered.

  "Higher wages now!" someone from the crowd shouted.

  "That's Mrs. Andrews!" Tommy said, pointing. "And there's my gym teacher, Mr. Weston."

  "They're on strike?" Carmen said. "I never heard about teachers going on strike today."

  Their signs were filled with statements demanding higher pay and better treatment. And the tone of not only their demeanor and speech, but even the way the lettering on their signs had been written and slanted, seemed aggressive.

  "What's going on here?" Carmen asked one of the teachers marching by.

  The older woman scowled at her. "Higher wages!" she shouted into her face.

  Carmen took a shocked step back.

  There were a few parents with children showing up to the school and then quickly turning around after they saw what was going on. Some of them milled about to watch the demonstration, and Carmen tried her luck with them.

  "Teachers' strike," a young father told her, holding his son in front of him by the shoulders. "Citywide."

  "Citywide? Like, all teachers?" Carmen asked.

  The man nodded. "The college, too."

  "But why all of a sudden?"

  "Beats me," he said. "Enjoy your day off, I guess. Not for me though; I've got to get to work." He looked down at his son. "Now I just gotta figure out what to do with this brat for the day." The look on his face as he stared down at his son couldn't have been interpreted as anything other than anger. "Let's go," he said, yanking his son away from the crowd.

  Carmen was speechless.

  "Okay! Okay!" Robert called to the agitated crowd standing in the lobby of the police station. There was a good dozen and a half of them that were pushing their way forward in the small space, shouting and demanding answers. "I'm going to give a statement at noon!" he called over the ruckus. "At noon!"

  His deputy and officers were holding the crowd back in front of him.

  "What's being done to find him?" one man demanded.

  "We've still got search parties sweeping the town!" Robert announced. "And we're going to keep them going until he's found, I promise you that!"

  "That's not good enough!" the man shouted back.

  Their back-and-forth struggle went on for another ten minutes until the officers finally managed to settle the crowd down enough to push them out of the station.

  "Lock the doors," Robert said to Don.

  "But Boss..."

  "Lock 'em!" he snarled. "Just for fifteen minutes, so we can all clear our heads."

  Don nodded, looking at the chief carefully, then he went to the front and locked the doors. Some of the crowd outside was still loitering, a few peering through the glass suspiciously at the officers.

  Robert retreated to his office, plunking down into his chair and leaning on the desk, resting his forehead against the surface. His head was pounding; he had a headache all morning.

  His phone began ringing. The sounds of more phones ringing drifted through the hallway.

  He sighed, then he reached over and picked it up. "Yeah? Uh huh. Not yet." He slammed it down.

  The phone rang again.

  He looked at it with a hateful eye, then he turned his head away and ignored it.

  Don spoke on the phone in the lobby to someone reporting a robbery. He took down notes, then he looked up quickly when he heard banging on the front doors of the station.

  Carmen and Tommy had worked their way through the crowd and slapped on the glass after pulling on the doors and finding them locked.

  Don held up a finger telling them to wait while he finished up his call. He put the phone down and walked over to them, unlocking the doors. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked the kids as they came in.

  "School's canceled," Carmen said.

  "The teachers are on strike!" Tommy added.

  "On strike?" Don was confused. He hadn't heard about this.

  The two of them walked down the hallway to their father's office. Carmen knocked on the door and saw him groggily rouse from his rest on the desk. Strangely, he didn't seem surprised to see them. His face looked tired, like he hadn't gotten sleep in a week.

  "Hey," he said simply.

  "Are you all right?" Carmen asked, concerned.

  He grumbled something that was close to a yes as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Neck's killing me for some reason, but otherwise I'm fine. Why aren't you in school?"

  "All the teachers are on strike," Carmen said.

  Before he could react, he rubbed his neck more vigorously, squeezing his eyes shut like he was in pain.

  "Are you sure you're okay, Dad?" Carmen asked, stepping around the desk to him.

  "I'm fine, Sweetpea," he said, lifting her hand and kissing the back of it. "Don't you worry."

  The phone rang.

  Robert just stared at it.

  "Are you going to answer it?" Tommy asked.

  He grumbled. "Ughh, I better..." He reluctantly leaned forward and snatched the phone off the cradle. He said hello, then he pressed it against his chest and looked at his kids. "Look, I'm real busy here today. Carmen, Sweetie, why don't you take your brother somewhere for the day? It's probably going to be a late day for me."

  She nodded. "Yeah, sure."

  "Just make sure you stay safe. Don't go anywhere by yourselves."

  Carmen agreed, and Tommy looked at his father as he turned his attention to the phone call. Tommy thought of going up and hugging him, telling him that he missed him, but as he saw his father pour his attention into the phone call and not give him a second glance, he faltered, then he turned for the door.

  Carmen lingered, watching her dad take the call. Like everyone else in the town this morning, he just didn't seem quite right. She had to admit that she felt a bit off herself, and she had remembered how everyone reacted when David went missing three years ago, but this was different.

  The front doors of the station opened again and the crowd pushed their way back in. "Hey!" Don shouted as all the officers mobilized to get them out.

  Robert looked up at the open doorway to the hall. "I gotta go," he announced into the phone, then he dropped it and bolted to his feet. He rushed into the hallway, holding up his hands and shouting.

  Carmen glanced around for her brother and realized he was gone. She peeked out into the lobby, but there was no one aside from the crowd and the officers. "Tommy!" she shouted, looking down the other end of the hall. The corridor stretched past rows of offices and rounded a corner to the jail cells in the back. There were only about a dozen of them in total—a small jail—but they were usually enough for such a small town. Still, she feared the idea of her brother back there by himself and thought that he must have slipped out the front door and was waiting for her outside.

  But when she rounded the corner and saw her brother standing not only in front of the jail cells, but standing right up to the bars of the farthest one, wrapping his hands around them and pressing his face between them, her heart jumped in her chest.

  "Tommy!" she said sharply. "Get away from there!"

  He turned his head to her. "But I'm just talking to my friend."

  Carmen rushed to him, passing one or two people locked up and lying on their cots. She wrenched Tommy away from the bars and squeezed his shoulders, staring fiercely into his eyes. "Just what do you
think you're doing!"

  Tommy looked upset, opening his mouth and trying to find an answer. He didn't think he was doing anything wrong. The man seemed nice enough, after all.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," the man inside the jail cell said.

  She turned and looked in it.

  "I was just talking to your brother about the witch."

  "Witch? What witch?"

  "It's her, I'm telling you!" he said, agitation filling his voice. "She took Jeremy."

  "That was you..." Carmen said. "In the town square last night."

  He leaned against the cement wall behind his cot. "That's why they locked me up. The chief said I was causing a panic and making the townspeople scared. But I don't care! I have to warn them! The only problem is they don't want to listen."

  The man was thin and shabbily dressed. His short hair was a mess, and his face had an unhealthy thinness to it. Still, the way he spoke suggested that he was sensible enough.

  "Come on," Carmen said to her little brother, ushering him away from the cell.

  "She might take your brother next," the man called from behind them.

  Anger boiled in the pit of Carmen's stomach. She marched back to the cell, grabbing the bars herself this time. She pointed a finger at the man. "Hey, you listen to me, buddy! Don't ever say that in front of my brother again, you hear me?"

  "I didn't mean to offend," he said softly. "But another child is going to go missing at any moment. And then another one after that."

  The man got under her skin. She shouldn't have been so fascinated about what he was saying, but she was. "How do you know all this? You're talking about the woman who lived on the hill, right? The one that got burned? Well, she's dead."

  The man shook his head vigorously, and the certainty in his face frightened her. "No," he said, "far from it."

  Carmen tried to say something else, but she choked on her words.

  "The gingerbread cookie. The pumpkins. The shoe. It's recreating itself. Everyone has to protect themselves—protect their children—before it's too late."