Carmen opened her mouth, trying to say something, but she couldn't get the words out. She summoned enough courage to move her arm and grab for her brother's. When she found it, she tugged him toward the house as the strange apparition closed in on them. They moved sluggishly, but they made their way up to the porch, finally managing to break their gazes with the figure. Carmen fumbled in her pocket for her house key, then struggled to slide it into the lock. When it was in, she turned it and opened the door, shoving her brother inside and glancing over her shoulder.
The figure crossed the sidewalk to the row of hedges lining the front of the property. And then it glided through it.
Carmen yelped and slammed the door behind her, locking it. She ran through the dark house with her brother, fleeing down the hall and stopping at the end of it, looking around at the bedrooms and wondering where to hide, what to do.
"Are we safe?" Tommy asked frantically.
"I don't know!" Carmen said.
"Can it come through the door?"
"I don't know!" She suddenly remembered the necklace that Peter had told her to take from his effects when he was arrested, and while it was only useless junk to her before, now it was like a crucifix to a priest battling a demon. She ran into her bedroom and ripped open her drawer where she'd put it. When she saw it, she let out a breath of relief, snatching it up in her hands.
There was a scratching sound at the front door.
"Come in my room!" Tommy said. "We can hide there!" He pulled his sister into his bedroom and dragged her around the bed to his makeshift cubbyhole between his bed and the wall. They both sank down onto their bellies, twisting around and climbing in feet-first. It was a tight squeeze with the two of them, but they hunkered in as far as possible, lowering their chins to the carpet and waiting as Carmen clutched the necklace in her hand.
They waited and listened in the darkness.
The lock on the front door slowly twisted open.
Their skin crawled at the sound.
Then the door was slowly pushed open and the creak of its hinges echoed through the house. A heavy foot came down on the floor, then another. There was a long pause of silence, and then the footsteps continued through the house, rounding the corner and coming down the hallway.
Carmen and Tommy clutched each other tightly, peering out from the cubbyhole at the doorway to Tommy's bedroom in sheer terror.
Then the footsteps entered Tommy's room.
Carmen clapped a hand around her brother's mouth so he wouldn't scream.
"What are you two doing?" their father said. His tall figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the nightlight plugged into an outlet in the hallway behind him.
"N-Nothing," Carmen stuttered. "We're, uh, just playing."
Robert paused. "All right then," he said. There was a slowness to his voice that was unnatural, like each word was said very distinctly and carefully, like all the warmness that used to be in it had been stripped away.
"Dad?" Carmen said.
"Yes, Sweetpea?"
"Why are you holding your gun?"
The silhouette tilted its head down and looked at the firearm clutched in its hand. It slowly drew its arm back and returned the gun to its holster.
"Sorry about that, Sweetpea," he said. Then he turned and walked out of the room, heading to the other end of the house.
Carmen looked at her brother and saw his eyes widened in terror. They were illuminated in a dim rose-colored glow, and Carmen looked down to see the stone attached to the necklace clutched in her hand was glowing.
They stayed in the cubby for a long time, eventually hearing their father turn on lights and going about his normal business in the house, almost as if nothing strange happened at all.
Carmen looked at her brother. "First thing tomorrow morning, we're finding this Peter fellow and asking him some questions."
"Yeah," Tommy said, never agreeing with his sister more than he did now.
Sit-Down
Morning broke and the sun arced up over the land as a thin fog rolled across the town. Carmen and Tommy both woke up in their own beds, stretching and yawning after a good night's sleep. They both separately experienced the same sensation of feeling like the events of the night before were just a crazy dream. They got up and got dressed, going to the kitchen for breakfast.
Carmen looked out the living room window and saw that the cruiser was gone. Their father must have already been at the station. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice as Tommy came in behind her, rubbing his eyes. She turned and looked at him carefully. "How did you sleep?"
"Pretty good," he replied. He lazily dragged his feet across the tile floor and took the glass of orange juice that she offered him. He walked around the couch and plunked down on it, turning on the TV and watching cartoons in his pajamas.
Carmen watched the back of his head. It truly did seem like he wasn't fazed by all this stuff, or at least he hid it well. She couldn't say the same thing for herself, and though the brightness of the morning had washed away all the fears of the night before, she still felt worked up and wanted to put an end to all of this.
"Why don't I make us some breakfast?" she said.
Tommy turned around and kneeled on the couch. "And then we'll go see Peter, right?"
"I'm glad you still want to," she said.
She made them French toast just the way he liked it, then they sat and ate in silence. When they were done, they got dressed and cleaned up, then they put on their coats and boots.
The town was nothing like the way it was the night before. First of all, there were cars driving by, people walking around, and birds peacefully fluttering through the air, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"Where do we find him?" Tommy asked.
"Police station," Carmen replied. "It's the only way we'll be able to."
"I thought he said they were going to let him go."
"Yeah, but they would still have a record of his address."
"Ah," Tommy said, his face lighting up. "You'd make a good detective."
"I'm thrilled."
They waited on the corner for the bus and it stopped and picked them up. Carmen tried saying hi to the driver, but just like before, he was cold; hostile, even.
A few sets of eyes moved over them as they made their way to an open set of seats. That same look of irritation they'd seen in the townspeople before was still there, but now it seemed to slide more toward apathy. Most of them had blank stares on their faces, though a few seemed grouchy.
They hopped off on Carson Street and walked the rest of the way to the station. When they got inside, they saw a calm scene. An officer was working behind the front desk, and they saw a few others milling around through the hallway.
"Can I help you?" the officer behind the desk asked them sternly.
Carmen and Tommy were taken aback, knowing Officer Brown pretty well for a few years now.
"Just going to see our Dad," Carmen said.
The officer grumbled something under his breath, then he turned back to his paperwork.
Tommy cocked a strange eye at the man, then they went to their father's office. It was empty. A hand fell on Tommy's shoulder suddenly and he spun around.
Don stood there, smiling. "Looking for your dad?"
"Uh, yeah," Carmen said.
He turned his head toward the entrance and narrowed his eyes. "He's out right now. Don't know when he'll be back."
"Do you know where he went?"
Don's face suddenly scrunched up, like he was trying to hold back a sneeze. He wiped his hand across his face, then he let out a long yawn. This was cut short by his nose and eyebrows scrunching up as if he were angry. Then he settled. "Can't say, can't say." He turned and wandered down the hallway, and the kids were left bewildered, watching him go.
"Come on," Carmen whispered to her brother.
"What's wrong with them?" Tommy asked.
"Let's not worry about that now. We need to find out where P
eter lives."
They passed all the offices, some of the officers giving them a suspicious eye, and some of them ignoring them completely. They rounded the corner and came to the booking desk just before the jail cells. There was an officer sitting behind the desk, reading a book.
He pulled down his glasses and looked at them. "You two shouldn't be back here." He rubbed his nose and adjusted his glasses on his round face, then he stroked his mustache and rested his hand on his rotund belly.
Tommy looked up at him with apologetic eyes. "We were just, we were... we were playing back here before and I lost my ball in one of the cells at the back there."
The officer closed his book and leaned forward, his desk digging into his gut. He twisted his head and peered down the stretch of jail cells.
"Can you get it back for me?"
"For you, Tommy? Anything." The officer stood up with a smile, then he forcefully shoved his chair away from him and it skittered along the floor and slammed into the wall with a bang.
Carmen and Tommy backed up, surprised, and they waited on pins and needles as the officer calmly walked down to the other end of the cells.
"Okay, now!" Carmen whispered. They worked their way around the desk and skimmed through the booking ledger. They didn't see the name on the open set of pages, so Carmen flipped the page, then she ran her finger down each line until she found the name 'Peter'.
"Here it is," she whispered. "Peter Simpson... 86 Somerset Drive."
"I don't see any ball back here!" the officer announced, anger rising in his voice. He turned around, ready to pick a bone with the kids, but they were gone. He waddled back around his desk and pulled his chair to him, sinking into it and peacefully opening his book as he adjusted his glasses on his nose.
Out in the lobby, Carmen and Tommy headed for the doors, Don giving them a friendly smile on the way by his office. But before they reached the exit, Carmen stopped and looked up at the TV set hanging in the corner. It was tuned to the news, and the familiar reporter was on the air.
"Yes, just this morning we can report that two children have disappeared, Penny Carpenter and Joey Kurtz. Both vanished from their homes and are now considered missing by the police." The reporter looked at the cameraman and said something that didn't seem appropriate on air, then she looked into the camera and said, "So anyway, that's the news, I guess..." She dropped the microphone and walked off into the distance.
Two more kids missing. Carmen looked around the police station, but there was no hustle and bustle among any of the officers. In fact, if anything, they should have been out searching for them. And there were no crowds outside demanding answers like there were before.
"It's like nobody cares anymore," Carmen said.
"What do you mean?" Tommy asked.
"I think I see what's going on here. It's like Peter said... the adults are being distracted while the kids are taken one by one."
Carmen knocked on the door.
There was silence for a long time, then finally they both heard someone shuffling around inside. The footsteps came up to the door then stopped.
They looked up and noticed a peephole in the door, and they saw a shadow moving behind it. A chain was slid inside, then the door opened a crack. "Yes?" the man asked.
"Peter?" Carmen asked cautiously. "We met you when you were in, uh... jail."
His eyes lit up, then he opened the door all the way. "Oh, it's you!" He stepped out onto the porch and looked around, then he urged them inside.
Tommy looked up at his sister, wordlessly asking if it was okay, knowing that he wasn't supposed to go in the homes or vehicles of strangers.
But Carmen patted him on the back and nodded, and they both went inside. Peter closed the door behind them.
"Come in, please," he said. "Make yourself at home. The living room's just over there."
Carmen and Tommy walked down the hallway that left something to be desired in the cleanliness department, then they came into his living room, a hodgepodge of mild semblance, yet also mess and strange decorations. Bizarre art hung on his walls, and he had a big dream catcher hanging up in the corner of the room. Peculiar necklaces and other small jewelry and artifacts were hanging around from the walls and sitting on tables, similar to the necklace he had given her. A pungent odor hung in the air, like old incense. Carmen looked at the only couch she saw, which was half-covered in musty blankets.
"Oh, pardon me," he said, rushing into the room. "I didn't expect to have company." He cleaned the blankets off the couch for them.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Carmen said, already feeling uncomfortable. Tommy marched ahead and sat down at the end, and Carmen sat in the middle.
"Tea? Coffee?" Peter asked.
"No thanks," Carmen replied. "We're actually here to talk to you about the... well, I guess there's nothing else to call it but a witch."
The look on Peter's face suddenly became grave. He sat down on the couch next to them and clasped his hands under his chin. His voice got low, almost to a whisper, and he said, "You've seen her, haven't you?"
Carmen and Tommy both looked at each other uneasily, then they swiveled their heads to Peter and nodded. "We think we saw her last night out in the street," Tommy said. "She chased us to our house. She was like a... like a..."
"A ghost," Carmen said.
"I see," Peter replied, disturbed by this information.
Tommy reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the strand of timothy-grass they'd taken from the school. "We found this where the janitor was killed," Tommy said.
Peter took it from him, his brow furrowed in confusion. "I didn't hear about that," he said. "They didn't report it on the news, at least."
"That's one of the things we've been wondering about," Carmen added. "Everybody's been acting really strange around here, including our dad. We can't figure out what's going on."
Peter put the timothy-grass down on his lap. "Did you both hear about the event three years ago?"
"Yeah, mostly from our dad. We also saw some stuff on the news, and heard things from other kids, but I don't know what was true or not. They kept saying that a witch lived at Halloween House. Well, where she used to live, anyway."
"I was there that night," Peter said. "I watched the house burn."
Carmen's eyes widened. "Was that..."
Peter shook his head. "I didn't set the fire. A part of me was glad that it happened, but at the time I feared that something far worse would occur because of it. It turns out I was right."
"So what's happening around here?"
Peter leaned back. "The witch has cast a number of spells over the town. Have you seen the strange symbols popping up everywhere? The lasso? The broadcast tower?"
They both nodded.
"I just saw on the news this morning that two more children were taken." Peter shook his head. "But it's going to get a lot worse, I fear. And at the sites of their disappearances, they found two more lasso symbols."
Carmen leaned forward. "I didn't hear about those. So what are they?"
"They're sigils. They're shapes that, while seemingly meaningless on their own, are charged to have a certain meaning. It's clear that the lasso means ensnarement."
"What's that?" Tommy asked.
"That symbol only shows up when children are taken," Peter explained. "Each time the witch does it, her ability to do it again grows. Each kidnapping charges the sigil's power and manipulates circumstances to more easily take place in the future."
Carmen's head was spinning. "And the broadcast tower?" As soon as she'd said it, she finally realized the answer.
"Notice that it's in the town square?" Peter asked. "As in, the very center of town?"
Carmen nodded. "That's what's making everyone act funny," she said. "But why does it seem to affect the adults mostly? And why mostly at night? In the daytime it's not as bad."
"Everyone's thoughts are unprotected, but I keep mine well-guarded," he said, looking around at all his charms and items.
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"What does that mean?" she asked.
"A spell can be cast by any means and for any purpose, but it seems clear to me that the spell that the witch cast over the town feeds on their fear. When the children started going missing, the town's fear grew, and the more it grows, the more influenced they are by the spell. That's why things get worse at night; in the daytime things don't seem as bad, but at night people start to grow fearful of their own shadow, especially adults." He looked at Tommy. "Kids seem to be more fearless, for some reason. Most adults are walking through this world terrified on a good day. That's why you don't seem to be too affected by it either, young miss; you haven't experienced the joy of paying taxes yet, I'm assuming."
She chuckled. "It's Carmen, by the way."
Peter extended his hand and she shook it.
"So what do we do? How do we fix all this?" she asked.
Peter sat deep in thought for a long moment. "I'm not sure you two should be doing anything. You're still too young. I'm afraid the witch will go after you."
Tommy gulped.
"I see on the news also that each missing child seems to have a gingerbread cookie found where they were last seen. A cookie seems to be the mark of the witch, so to speak. If you see one, your time may be short."
"We have to do something," Carmen said exasperatedly. "It doesn't seem like anyone else can help, not even my father, and he's the chief of police, for crying out loud."
"Your father's the chief?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Hmm... Well those children have to be found. I fear what she's going to do with them come Halloween night. I hope it's not too late already."
"But how do we find them? How do we even know where she is?"
He picked up the timothy-grass and inspected it. "You said you found this at the site of someone's death?"
Tommy nodded. "Yeah, it was sitting next to the furnace, but it wasn't burned. And there was another symbol on the wall."
"Tell me."
"It was like a heart with a knife through it," Tommy said.
Peter shook his head. "I haven't seen that one before. It could have something to do with draining the lifeblood—killing, obviously." He paused. "So the victim wasn't a child, but this grass's presence still seems too strange to be unimportant."
The Witch of Halloween House Page 8
