“Yes, if he comes. If he doesn’t, then we’ll spend Halloween night drinking beers and feeling like a couple of jackasses. Deal?”
Shawn held out his hand, and after a momentary hesitation, Dustin shook it.
HALLOWEEN MORNING
Officer Workman stood on the sidewalk in front of the station, scanning Main Street. Things were unusually quiet, even for eight in the morning. Things would be even quieter tonight, considering that Sheriff Hammett had instituted a city-wide curfew that would mean all trick-or-treaters would have to be off the streets by six p.m.
That meant a lot of disappointed children in town, but Hammett had made the right call. Besides, he doubted many parents would let their kids out of the house today, sunup or sundown. Things had been quiet last night, no cards or flyers, no sightings of the scarecrow except for one frantic call from an elderly man who mistook some clothes hanging on his neighbor’s line.
The lack of activity last night had Workman even more on edge. Could be that the Hashtag Killer was resting up, getting ready for his big finale.
Workman turned when he heard the door to the station open, and the sheriff walked out to stand next to him. He shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit up. “This damn case has driven me to smoke.”
Workman laughed. “You’ve been a two-pack-a-day smoker as long as I’ve known you.”
“Yeah, but I like to have something to blame it on other than my total lack of willpower.”
They stood in silence for a moment, Hammett puffing away while Workman waited. He knew the sheriff well enough to know when the man had something on his mind. He’d come out with it in his own time.
Hammett didn’t speak until he finished his cigarette, dropping the smoldering butt to the concrete and grinding it beneath the toe of his shoe. “I’m not so sure you should be staking out Dustin Davis’s house tonight.”
“Why not?”
“The guy has airtight alibis. Hell, we have the security footage from the library that proves he was there at the time Sabrina LeClaire was abducted.”
“I know, but something still doesn’t feel right. I have this hunch that he’s involved somehow.”
“Damn it, James, just yesterday I chewed Phillip Guffey out because that pissant reporter was harassing my officers; I can’t now have one of my officers harassing a citizen based on a hunch.”
“It’s not harassment. You said you wanted men assigned to watch all the houses with no decorations. Well, I drove down Gallivan Street on my way to work this morning, and there’s not a decoration to be seen at Davis’s place.”
Hammett shook out a second cigarette. “Fine, but your orders are the same as everyone else’s. You’re there to observe. You do nothing else unless you witness something suspicious. And I mean really suspicious, no acting on hunches. Got it?”
“Got it.”
—
Paulette McDowell could tell she’d overslept by the quality of the light coming through her bedroom window. She rolled over to glance at the clock, but the face was black. She reached over and pulled the chain on her bedside lamp, but the sun streaming through the glass remained the only illumination in the room.
Power outage.
She threw back the covers and swung her feet out onto the hardwood floor. She’d left her cell charging in the den, and she hurriedly slipped into her robe and made her way through the house. The cell had only half a charge, which meant the power must have gone out awhile ago. She cursed to see that it was five after ten and she had three missed calls from the office.
She quickly dialed Mr. Guffey and apologized for her tardiness and assured him she’d be in no later than ten-thirty. She then contacted the Commission of Public Works to report the outage; they informed her there were no other reported problems in her area but they’d send someone out to check her line.
That done, she took a quick rinse in the shower and got dressed, grabbing a packet of cold Pop-Tarts to eat on the way to work. Locking the door behind her, she started to the carport and had made it halfway there before realizing something was terribly wrong.
She turned back and scanned her yard. The well-manicured lawn, the gardenia bushes that ran along the front of the house, the wooden fence that separated her property from the one next door, the flagstone path that led from the sidewalk to her front porch. Everything looked exactly as it had last week before she’d put up her Halloween decorations.
Because now they were gone. All of them.
She hadn’t decorated as extravagantly as others in town had, but she’d had a few pumpkins (not carved, that was a messy affair), orange and black streamers wrapped around her porch railing, and a door hanging that made it look as if a witch had crashed her broom into the house. The same decorations she’d put out for the past several years. They had been up when she’d come home last night, she was sure of it, because she’d stopped on her way inside to straighten the door hanging.
“Damn punks,” she muttered, sure this was the handiwork of the three Wirtz boys down the block. They were always making mischief in the neighborhood, noisy and rambunctious. Playing ball in the street, shooting off firecrackers, skateboarding up and down the sidewalk. Last Halloween, Paulette had been treated to a flaming paper bag full of dog shit on her front porch, and though she couldn’t prove it, she knew the Wirtz boys were responsible.
She veered away from her car and started down the sidewalk toward the Wirtz place three houses down. She had almost reached the fence at the edge of her property when something caught her eye, and she gazed into her side yard. A wire lay on the ground, snaking through the grass before ascending to the electric pole. So that was why her power was out; somehow the line to her house had been cut.
Maybe a branch fell and took it out, she thought, but quickly dismissed that theory. There were no trees on this side of the house. A chill worked its way up her spine.
What if it wasn’t the Wirtz boys? There was a psychopath on the loose—what if he had done this? She couldn’t imagine what the purpose would be, but she suddenly felt very alone and exposed. She ran to her car, locked herself inside, then called the police.
—
Wanda Workman ran to Walgreens to pick up more Gas-X. One thing no one told you about pregnancy was that it gave you some of the worst flatulence of your life. No, people talked about the glow and joy and the feeling of being a part of creation, but they kept silent on the endless farting and the abdominal cramps.
On her way past the candly aisle, she paused. She’d never had much of a sweet tooth until she conceived. Now she craved chocolate like air. There were many Halloween displays, regular candies with sinister holiday wrappings, and surprisingly all the displays were full. With it being Halloween, she would have expected the stock to have dwindled quite a bit.
“Trick-or-treating’s been canceled this year, it seems.”
She turned to find Kay Miller, one of the managers and someone Wanda knew from church, walking over.
“It hasn’t been canceled,” Wanda said with a laugh. “Parents just have to take their kids out a little earlier this year than usual.”
Kay shook her head. “No one I know is taking their kids out at all, and no one I know plans to open their door if anyone does come knocking. Halloween decorations might be out all around town, but no one’s celebrating. Everyone’s terrified.”
Unconsciously, Wanda placed her hand protectively on her stomach, as if to shield her unborn child from the harsh realities of the world. “I’ll be glad when this whole nightmare is over. It’s like living in some horror movie.”
“What does James say, do they have any leads?” Kay asked, stepping close and lowering her voice. “I mean, the police surely have some plan to catch him tonight, right?”
“I’m sorry, James really doesn’t like to talk about work at home, and I don’t press him on it. I figure his job is stressful enough; he needs our home to be a sanctuary where he can leave all that behind.”
“Well, it must mak
e you feel safer to know you have a policeman in the house tonight.”
“James is working a double. He’ll be out there with almost every other man on the force. The state police are even providing some manpower.”
“That makes me feel better, but if you don’t want to be alone tonight, you’re welcome to come stay with Eddie and me.”
Wanda opened her mouth to say no—she wasn’t overly fond of Kay, the woman seemed like the worst kind of busybody—but then she thought about being all by herself in the house after the sun went down and instead said, “Maybe. I’ll call you later and let you know.”
Having lost her appetite for chocolate, Wanda paid for her Gas-X and left the drugstore.
—
Dustin sat at his desk, staring at the screen of his laptop. He’d been staring at the screen for almost half an hour now. He’d written a few lines but deleted them again. He hadn’t made much of any progress on the novel since the morning the police officer had shown up at his doorstep, the day the homeless guy was found in the park.
Don Morse. His name was Don Morse.
It was hard to get immersed in a fictional world of horrors when you were living in a real one. Still, he craved that escape, the ability to find the portal into a story and get lost in it. He’d been able to write his way through many hard times in his life, the pleasure he took in creating story sustaining him when otherwise he might have crumbled.
But he couldn’t find that portal now.
Of course, maybe he could mine his current circumstances for inspiration. Shawn had suggested they could write a book together about the Hashtag Killer. Even if things didn’t go the way Shawn hoped tonight, if they didn’t catch the killer, there could still be a book in all of this.
Dustin couldn’t really think about that right now, and he certainly couldn’t muster much interest for What’s in Their Hearts.
—
Out at the deserted Graham house on Ansel School Road, the door of the storage building around back remained open, blowing in the breeze. Inside, something waited.
HALLOWEEN NIGHT
Shortly after sunset, Larry Butler grabbed his shotgun and took up position in the rocker on his front porch. Larry hadn’t decorated for Halloween since his wife, Natalie, had passed twelve years ago. Halloween had always been her favorite holiday, even more so than Christmas, and after she was gone it didn’t feel right to celebrate. It only rubbed metaphorical salt in his proverbial wound.
And he would be damned if some crazed asshole was going to force him to decorate this year. He was a fifty-five-year-old man, set in his ways, and, by God, he would die before he let someone dictate how he had to live his life. He had a thermos of coffee and he planned to stay up all night if necessary, protecting his property.
A part of him knew this was insane, but he had been a little insane ever since he lost his Natalie. That was why he never ate meatloaf, her favorite meal, and always turned the channel if a rerun of I Love Lucy came on, her favorite TV show. He avoided the restaurants they’d enjoyed going to, never watched the movies she’d liked, shopped at different stores than she did, even switched brands of shampoo because she had been so partial to a specific one. He tried to pathologically erase everything from his life that would remind him of her, and yet this constant cataloging of those things so he could avoid them only ensured that she was all he ever thought about even a dozen years later.
A psychologist might suggest that was why he did it, a bizarre method of keeping her alive in his memory.
And because of that, he sat here with a loaded shotgun, ready to face off against a serial killer rather than simply put up a few decorations.
—
Johnny Wirtz crawled quietly out the bedroom window while his brothers watched. He didn’t want to be out here in the dark, not any night but especially not this night, but he was the youngest and his two older siblings were always riding him, calling him pussy and wimp and chickenshit. He couldn’t refuse their dare or else he’d just be proving them right. Swallowing his nerves, he tried to be brave or at least put on the appearance of bravery.
The window was seven feet from the ground, and he dropped down, landing in a crouch. His brothers laughed and passed down a twenty-four-pack of toilet paper. “Don’t you come back until you’ve used every single roll,” Timmy said in a stage whisper. “Tomorrow morning we better hear about dozens of houses being TPed or we’ll know you’re the faggoty pantywaist we always thought you were.”
“We’re already grounded,” Johnny said. “If Mom and Dad realize I sneaked out, I won’t be allowed to leave the house again until I start collecting Social Security.”
“Don’t worry,” Bobby said. “We’ll keep them distracted. They’ll never know you’re gone.”
Johnny wasn’t so sure. History suggested they’d be the ones to tell their folks he wasn’t in the house, so he’d get home from taking their dare to find himself in massive amounts of trouble. If he told his parents, he’d be in for a lot of torture from his older brothers, so it was easier to take the grounding.
Turning away from the window, he scanned the empty streets. Thanks to the curfew, Greer had become like a ghost town, only with autumn leaves blowing by instead of tumbleweeds. The lack of people might make it easier to go about his business, except he knew the police would be out in large numbers, so he’d have to stick to backyards and alleys if he didn’t want to get caught.
Of course the real fear was that somewhere out there in the dark was a murderer who had vowed to murder again.
This is stupid, I shouldn’t even be considering going through with this. I’m already in hot water because of another stupid stunt Timmy and Bobby talked me into last night. So my brothers will tease me, maybe hold me down and punch me in the arm until I cry uncle…is that really worth putting my life in jeopardy? It’s time to dig deep and find my courage and stand up to them. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to be a man for once and not let them push me around.
“What are you waiting on, you fairy?” Timmy said, and both older boys laughed.
Hugging the toilet paper to his chest, shame burning through him like a bushfire, Johnny headed out into the night.
—
It was almost seven when Dustin answered the door. Shawn stood on the stoop, holding a twelve-pack of Budweiser and a plastic bag that was stuffed full of chips and candy.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he stepped inside, “but I stopped off for provisions.”
Dustin closed the door and watched as the reporter unloaded the snacks onto the coffee table. “Did you remember Veronica?”
Shawn patted at the side of his jacket. “Couldn’t forget her. She’s the guest of honor. You certainly have it cozy in here.”
Dustin glanced at the fireplace, where a small fire crackled and shot sparks up the flue. “Well, it’s a chilly night, thought it might be nice.”
“And it’ll keep the killer from coming down the chimney like the Big Bad Wolf,” Shawn said with a chuckle. “You want to put the beers in the fridge?”
“Sure,” Dustin said, hefting the pack and heading for the swinging door.
Shawn had a seat on the sofa and picked up the remote. “Mind if I turn on the TV? AMC is doing a marathon of the Halloween films.”
“Be my guest.”
In the kitchen, Dustin put the beers into the refrigerator, snagging two. Beers and snacks and scary movies, even a roaring fire to boot. This seemed more like a slumber party than a stakeout for a killer.
Or maybe even a date.
Dustin shook his head and put a stop to that thinking right away. The reporter was kind of cute, but he gave off a definite straight vibe.
After a quick check of the sliding glass door to make sure it was locked, he returned to the living room and gave Shawn one of the beers.
“So,” Dustin said, having a seat in the armchair, “what do we do now?”
Shawn removed the gun and placed it on the coffee table ne
xt to a bag of Doritos. “We wait.”
—
Workman was waiting. Waiting in an unmarked car a block down from Dustin Davis’s house.
He’d been surprised to see the reporter show up a few minutes ago, but he wasn’t sure what that meant. If anything. Still, he planned to keep a close watch on the place tonight.
Earlier, he had worried Sheriff Hammett might pull him off this assignment when he sent him to investigate an incident at Paulette McDowell’s residence. Someone cut her power line and stole her Halloween decorations.
The case had been easier to solve than he’d figured. Doing a cursory search of the neighborhood, he’d spotted an orange streamer in the backyard of the Wirtz home. After obtaining permission from Mr. Wirtz, Workman looked under the back porch and found all of Ms. McDowell’s decorations. A quick five-minute interrogation netted a confession from the three teenage brothers. Bobby, Timmy, and Johnny. Workman knew them too well; they were always getting into minor scrapes with the law. He suspected as they got older those minor scrapes would graduate to outright felonies.
Except maybe for the youngest, Johnny. He seemed the most levelheaded but too easily pressured by his older siblings into stupid behavior.
Ms. McDowell opted not to press charges since her property was returned, but that still left the matter of her cut power line. Closer inspection showed that the line appeared to have been chewed through, and the discovery of a dead squirrel with black char marks around the mouth solved that mystery.
Workman was able to wrap up the case in a couple hours and report with confidence that there was no connection to the Hashtag Killer.
Of course,Hammett and the state police guys didn’t believe there was any connection in the house down the block, either, and maybe they were right, but Workman had that nagging feeling that wouldn’t go away.
He’d rather be wrong and prepared than right and unprepared.
—
While her husband sat in a car on Gallivan Street, Wanda Workman huddled under a blanket on the sofa, watching Hocus Pocus with a large bowl of popcorn sitting on the cushion next to her. She hadn’t been able to decide if she should turn out all the lights or turn them all on, not sure which would be more conspicuous. In the end, she’d compromised, turning on the lights in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, and leaving them off in the bedrooms and dining room.
Halloween Carnival Volume 1 Page 14
