The Witch of Halloween House

by Jeff DeGordick

  After an interminable amount of time, they heard footsteps approaching the car.

  "Is that him?" Tommy asked.

  But Carmen didn't dare move. "Stay still!" she commanded.

  The driver's door of the cruiser opened and a heavy weight shifted inside. The door shut. Then the engine turned over and the car chugged into life. They felt themselves backing up. When the car pulled forward, Carmen slowly pressed herself up, making sure that the items on top of her didn't roll to the side and make noise. She rose just enough so that she could peek through the bottom of the cage separating the back from the front of the cruiser and see the driver. She saw the back of his short brown hair, and the edge of his trimmed mustache from the side. It was definitely their father. The question was: where was he going?

  Carmen sank down and tapped her brother on the shoulder. He twisted his neck around to look at her, and she nodded. He nodded back, and they both waited, trying not to breathe too heavily.

  The car seemed to roll along various roads forever. They had no idea what direction they were going in, or even if they were still in the same town. Time turned into a nebulous concept as they each stared at the carpet on the floor of the cruiser. Their bones and muscles ached. Their father remained dead silent as he drove the car; usually on a normal day he would be humming, but he wasn't normal anymore, and they wanted to find out how to fix that.

  The road underneath the car suddenly got bumpy, and Robert decreased their speed. Then they hit a steep incline, and Carmen and Tommy rolled back against the edge of the footwells as the items on top of them slid. The ground was especially rocky now, and they both knew that they weren't on a normal road anymore. But where were they going?

  The cruiser slowed to a crawl as it rumbled over each bump in the ground. It maneuvered widely around unseen obstacles. Eventually, the car stopped. They heard the gears shifting, and then the ignition was killed. The door opened and the weight shifted out of the car. The door slammed. The trunk opened. Then the trunk shut.

  Carmen and Tommy looked at each other, still holding their breath. Carmen twisted up and looked out the window, seeing sky and tree branches now. When enough time had passed, and they thought they were in the clear, they slowly got up, timidly peeking out the windows.

  They were in the woods. And the remains of Halloween House stood in front of them.

  Special Delivery

  Wendy Downsborough walked in the door of her house, and set down her work bag. She kicked off her shoes and walked into her living room, rubbing her temples. The babysitter spotted her and came into the living room.

  "She's been an absolute angel," the teen in the baggy jeans and baseball cap said.

  The woman looked at him suspiciously, but she didn't feel like nagging at him today for another poor job; she had been in a pinch when her boss called her in the morning and told her that three of her coworkers didn't show up to work. So she took out her wallet and paid him in cash, then he smiled and took off.

  Wendy walked into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, slowly drinking it. She needed to put her feet up and do it soon, but not before checking on her daughter to make sure everything was all right.

  When she drained the glass and put it in the sink, she headed to her daughter's bedroom. She pushed the door open and saw Caroline sitting on the bed, playing with her dolls. She looked up at her mom. "Hi, Mommy!" she said.

  "Hi, Baby," Wendy said back, scrunching up her face and desperately trying to relieve the pressure behind her eyes. "Did you have a good day today?"

  Caroline nodded up and down vigorously. She dropped one doll and picked up the gingerbread cookie sitting next to her, taking a bite.

  Wendy looked at her suspiciously. "Where did you get that? Did Jack give you that today?"

  Caroline shook her head. "The woman gave it to me."

  "What woman?"

  Caroline shrugged, then went back to playing with her dolls.

  Wendy looked at the cookie sitting next to her. Alarm bells were going off in her head. She didn't at all understand what her daughter meant by that, and as a mother she should have taken the cookie away and investigated further, but right now she just couldn't summon the energy to do so. She was too irritated to think about it anymore, so she walked back to the living room and left her daughter alone. She lay down on the couch and put her feet up, just lying there and closing her eyes, letting her body fall into a nice rest.

  A window squeaked open somewhere in the house.

  Wendy's eyes opened. She wrestled with herself, but she decided to get up. She returned down the hallway to her daughter's room when suddenly the door opened. Caroline walked out of her room with a smile, and she passed her mother to the kitchen to get a drink. Wendy watched her go, then she turned her attention back to the bedroom. She pushed her way past the door and looked at the window, but it was closed, and the drapes were shut. The muted fear rising in her chest subsided, and she calmed down.

  Caroline screamed at the other end of the house.

  Wendy rushed into the hallway and saw her daughter standing at the other end. Caroline's feet were suddenly swept out from underneath her, and she fell to the carpet. Her arms splayed out in front of her and she was dragged out of view, screaming the entire way.

  "Caroline!" Wendy shouted. She ran down the hallway into the living room just in time to see a flash of billowing, black robes sweep out of the window as her daughter's screams faded in the distance. She ran up to the window and stuck her head out, frantically looking around the neighborhood, but it was a calm, clear scene, and her daughter was nowhere in sight.

  Her rapid heartbeat slowly subsided. She turned and looked at the front door, inspecting the doorknob like it was some strange and foreign device. Mostly, she was just trying to decide whether she wanted to use it or not. She glanced over her shoulder at the phone. There seemed to be some kind of customary ritual to these situations, but the practice of it was too vague in her head right now, and she was very tired.

  She walked back to the couch and lay down again, putting her feet up and closing her eyes. Finally, she could get some good rest.

  "I don't see him!" Tommy said, peeking out the window.

  Carmen took a second opinion, and she agreed. "Okay, let's get out."

  She carefully pushed open the door and they both crawled out of the back of the cruiser. She gingerly shut it behind her, holding the handle up until it was firmly against the frame before letting go of it.

  The fire had consumed almost half of the house, vanquishing a large portion of the front-left section completely and leaving the rest of it as a burnt husk, a twisted mockery of what it used to be.

  They skirted around to the side of the house that was more intact, gazing at the rubble of blackened wood and furniture that littered the front entrance. There was a window on the side of the house that looked in on the ground floor, and there were thin windows peering down into the basement.

  The woods were chilly, and they both shivered, despite bundling themselves up in their thick coats. Their hearts raced, and everything around them, even in the starkness of the day, seemed spooky. Neither one of them had ever come up to this house, only hearing about it. They tried to imagine the locations of everything that they'd heard about, like it was playing out in front of them now. Tommy saw the jack-o'-lanterns surrounding the house, and Carmen turned her head and saw the witch chasing Peter through the woods.

  They approached the window looking in at the ground floor in fear, like gazing into it would reveal some terrible secret that they weren't equipped to see. They avoided the basement windows in case Robert was down there and could see them. They pressed their hands to the charred wooden exterior apprehensively, as if even touching the house would place a hex on them. Then they sidled along, shoulder to shoulder, and they both peeked through the window in unison.

  The house was not large, and only appeared to be comprised of a few small rooms. Some of the rooms was still wholly intact,
and the other two only partially, the one at the front being almost completely wiped away by the fire. Dark piles of wood and old rubbish stood tall in front of them, and they could see through a slanted doorway to their right that led to a small and narrow room. And through the doorway, they could see a set of stairs leading down to the basement. But they didn't see their father. That meant...

  They backed away from the window and went for one of the basement windows, careful to stay out of view from them. They crouched on the ground and leaned over, peeking inside, their hearts hammering and their mouths dry. The anticipation of what they would see built in their chests like a painful swell of gas.

  The engine of the police cruiser roared into life.

  Their heads snapped to the side and they saw the car back up between the trees, then make a wide turn and head down the steep hill.

  "Hey!" Tommy cried. "How are we going to get back?"

  Carmen's heart lurched. He was right. How were they going to get back?

  "What do we do?"

  She tried not to be a panic, because she didn't want her brother to do the same. Especially when they were at this house of all places, that was the last thing they needed. She took a deep breath. "Well, my dear brother," she said, trying to sound as calm as possible, "when faced with a dangerous situation, make the best of it. That's what any good adventurer would do."

  Her trick seemed to work, as Tommy's face faded from fright into curiosity. "You're right," he said. "We're already here; we may as well take a look in the house."

  They strode away from the house first, watching their father disappear down the hill. What had he been doing here? They hadn't been able to see, but he took something out of the trunk and disappeared into the house. Whatever he brought here, they would be able to find.

  Carmen looked up at the sky, and the day was completely overcast, so it was impossible to tell how close to darkness it was. She reached into her pocket to pull out her cell phone, but her pocket was empty. "Oh no," she said.

  "What?"

  "I think I dropped my phone in Dad's cruiser."

  Tommy's eyes widened.

  "He's going to know."

  Tommy turned his head to the house. "Well, it doesn't matter now. Dad doesn't seem to care, anyway."

  She regarded her brother with sadness. But maybe he was right.

  They turned back to the house, standing in front of its miserable and damaged façade. The front door had been wiped away by the damage, with only a small fragment of the frame remaining. They walked up the dilapidated porch, feeling like they were on hallowed ground, but not the good kind. They both stopped, looking at each other apprehensively and squeezing each other's hands.

  "Okay," Carmen said simply, and then they stepped in to what was left of the house.

  Even years later, there was an offensive smell that climbed up into their nostrils from the wreckage. Whatever strange items, mold, and exotic concoctions the witch had concealed had been fused to the ruins that remained. It was a horrible, nauseating scent, and the two of them did their best to ignore it as they carefully stepped over the rubble. They looked around, but there was really nothing to see, at least on the ground floor. They walked through what was left of the doorway into the main room they'd seen through the window at the middle of the house. What the room used to be, they couldn't even guess. It looked like there was a bed buried under a pile of long-dried black sludge, but it was hard to tell if they were seeing a warped frame, or a thick and wiry tree branch.

  "I don't suppose you carry a pair of latex gloves on you, do you?" Carmen asked.

  "Nope."

  If they were looking for whatever it was their father delivered, they felt like it wouldn't be hard to spot it in this mess; it would be the only thing that wasn't burnt to an absolute crisp. And as they walked through the small spaces, they both had a feeling that whatever they were looking for was in the basement.

  They crossed through the next doorway and saw the set of stairs leading down. The room they were in seemed to be a kitchen, with an old oven that was the only thing still intact from the blaze. They stopped to peer inside the door, but it was empty.

  The darkness from the basement called up to them seductively, inviting them down.

  Their skin crawled at the sight of it and they both couldn't help but imagine falling into a trap down there.

  "Do you want to go first?" Tommy asked.

  Carmen looked at him. "After you, Mr. Joe Hardy."

  Tommy gulped. He stood at the top of the stairs and stared into the black. There was a faint bit of light coming in through the basement windows, but the area was mostly shrouded in shadow, and Carmen didn't even have her phone to light their way anymore.

  Tommy lifted his foot and held onto the twisted husk of a railing as he started to lower himself down. But Carmen stepped in front of him and pushed him out of the way.

  "I'm just kidding," she said. "I would never let you go first in a place like this."

  He stared up at his big sister, wanting to save his honor, but right now he was glad to hear her say that.

  Carmen started down the stairs, and each one groaned horribly, sinking a good inch or two under her weight. She felt like they were going to snap at any moment and she would plummet to her death, or at least a painful injury. But she went slowly and kept telling herself that everything was going to be fine. Tommy followed behind her, and the two of them sank down into the musty basement.

  They reached the bottom without incident, and Carmen looked to her side, terribly afraid that she was going to see a bunch of children tied up or worse.

  But there was nothing of the sort. The basement of the house had been affected by the blaze, but was still largely intact, as the fire mainly stayed on the ground floor. But everything was still scorched, and it was hard to see anything other than blackness in the dim light that was filtering through the narrow windows above them.

  The room they were in was pretty bare, with only a few pieces of old furniture and some junk strewn around. A doorway stood ahead of them, and judging from the size of the house upstairs compared to the room they were in, they felt like this would be the final room of the basement and the entire house—the one stone left unturned.

  They crept forward across the creaking floorboards, holding onto the cold cement wall next to them for support. The doorway loomed ahead of them, and they could only imagine what was waiting for them. They stepped through.

  A long, heavy table sat in the middle of the room, and an old, large fireplace was perched in the back wall. Some splintered, shriveled firewood was nestled in it, but they both knew that it hadn't been used in years. Odd trinkets and decorations covered the walls, similar to Peter's house, but these were of a much darker sort.

  However, aside from some other random junk and a couple of small pieces of furniture, there was nothing around to see. No children, no witch, no nothing.

  Carmen and Tommy were almost disappointed as they looked around, expecting something more, expecting some kind of dazzling surprise from the mystery that had been built up. It seemed like Peter's suspicions were correct: wherever the witch was, if she even had an actual hideout anymore, it wasn't here. And neither were the children. So then what was going on?

  The two of them were about to leave, when suddenly Tommy spotted something in the corner of his eye. He tugged on his sister's sleeve, and he crouched down, peering underneath the table. The surface of it was so wide and thick that it was hard to see beneath it, even from the doorway. But as Carmen bent down, she saw that there was a thin shelf underneath. And sitting on that shelf was a cardboard box, the kind that someone would pack their cubicle up with when they were fired. It was the only object in the entire house that wasn't scorched black.

  "That must be what Dad brought!" Carmen said. They both rushed over to it and Carmen picked it up and placed it on top of the table. She held her hands on either side of the lid, suddenly too frightened to open it.

  Tommy looked at
his sister. "Well? Open it!" he urged.

  But she looked at him with uncertainty. "What if we really don't want to see what's inside?"

  The possibility hit him hard, and suddenly the excitement was washed off his face. He understood her point; what was their father doing here of all places, bringing a box? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

  But with this in mind, Carmen knew the best thing to do was to press forward and find out what was going on. She took a deep breath and then she lifted the lid, setting it aside.

  The box seemed to be filled with rags or cloth of some sort, and Carmen cautiously lowered her hands into it and began rummaging around.

  "Ew!" she cried, pulling her hand out. She held it up to the faint light coming in through a basement window and saw that some kind of goop covered her fingers. "Oh, what is that?"

  Tommy leaned forward and peered in the box. He stuck his finger in and pulled it out, inspecting the slime.

  "No, don't you touch it, too!" Carmen said. "Just stand back." She reached in again more cautiously, wiping the goop on the rags inside. She tried another section of the box and pulled her hand out again. "That was a bug," she said miserably. "A dead bug." Her face scrunched up in disgust.

  Tommy stepped forward and rummaged around against her wishes. He pulled out his magnifying glass. "Dead cockroaches," he pronounced. "And beetles. Grasshoppers, too." He sorted through, pulling out fresh weeds and flowers. His hand dipped into the box again, and his thumb and forefinger closed on something, slowly drawing it out. It was long and stringy, and as they both stared at it, they realized it was a shoelace.

  It pulled taut, and Tommy reached down and retrieved the other end of it in horror. A child-sized shoe came out of the box underneath the rags, then Tommy searched again and pulled out a different shoe.