The Halloween Children

by Brian James Freeman

  Standing on tiptoes, I reached up for the mask. My fingers brushed against the coil of noose. I slipped them under the warm flap of latex and felt human skin beneath. Was this the neck I used to caress? The neck I’d lay gentle fingertips upon in the middle of the night, when Lynn slept so soundly I feared her heart had stopped beating, and I’d wait, wait for the reassuring pulse that always came?

  No pulse.

  The hat fell over and toppled to the floor. I grabbed the mask and began to pull at it like peeling the skin off someone’s face.

  Not Lynn’s face. It can’t be my wife.

  And I made a deal then, with God or whatever devil ruled that Halloween night.

  If Lynn has died, change what happened. Take it all back.

  I’ll give you someone else.

  Because didn’t she and my wife have similar figures, indistinguishable beneath a robe and mask? Even a husband can be fooled.

  The pieces clicked in my mind. It’s perfect! She canceled Halloween, too!

  The idea made sense. It could have been Shawna’s corpse all along. Didn’t matter that I never much liked my boss. She still made a worthy sacrifice.

  I convinced myself these vile thoughts were noble rather than selfish. A wish born out of love, a heroic attempt at keeping my family together.

  Take Shawna.

  Hang her instead.

  The mask fell off easily, and I crumpled it in my hand.

  —

  I grabbed the door handle. A knotted rope was still attached, though the noose now dangled empty from the ceiling. I pulled open the door, then entered the assembly room.

  It was like walking into a cave. This windowless half of the large room, the section directly beneath the apartment building, had typical basement features: wood-paneled walls, industrial carpet, and thick concrete support pillars at regular intervals. The far half of the room, which extended beyond the building at the back, opened into a higher ceiling and featured aboveground windows along the perimeter. The shutters remained closed, the windows covered with black and orange cloth. Black streamers of varying length draped from the ceiling, and they rolled like waves among other scattered decorations. Paper cutouts of ghosts, skeletons, vampires. Frankenstein’s monster, a werewolf, witches on brooms. More pumpkins and bats and owls. Several ropes dangled down, each empty noose inviting a fresh guest. A few of them were already occupied, ropes pulled tight over the plastic necks of baby dolls.

  Despite the many lit candles—along the floor, on scattered chairs, on every tabletop—the room remained dark. The ends of a few streamers dangled near a flame, as if straining toward oblivion. I remember having a morbid thought that Shawna was lucky not to be here. She would never have allowed the potential fire hazard.

  She wouldn’t have allowed this party, either.

  The food setup matched that of previous years, with two long tables on each side for cake and candy, and a punch bowl at the far end. But the middle seating area had changed. Instead of chairs arranged around banquet tables, with a space up front cleared for dancing and games and the costume contest, the chairs had been placed in rows with an aisle down the middle. Kind of like a church.

  People sat in every chair. Almost a hundred, by my quick estimate, which was a good percentage of the community residents—possibly with some of their guests in tow. How had news of the event spread so quickly?

  I moved closer, trying to locate my kids. I aimed the flashlight to supplement the weak glow from the candles. Hands went up to cover faces as my beam passed over.

  The people all wore masks, as was proper for Halloween. But the partygoers also wore black hoods over their heads, with long robes covering the rest of their costumes. I could barely distinguish the adults from the children.

  One shape on the right edge seemed the approximate size of Mattie or Amber. I moved closer and waved my beam beneath the hood, and protesting hands covered the eye holes of a goblin mask. The rubber hands sported thick black hair and yellow talons.

  “Mattie?”

  The hooded head shook back and forth. “Go away.”

  “It’s your father,” I said.

  A rubber hand reached into the hood, lifted the bottom of the mask to reveal the person’s mouth. “You’re nobody’s father.” The figure spoke in a deep voice that didn’t match the child’s frame. A full red beard surrounded his mouth.

  I heard a stifled snort a few seats over. “Where’s your costume, Naylor?” A robed figure elbowed a person on his left who was doubled over as if laughing. The mocking questioner reminded me of Andrew Tammisimo, emboldened by the presence of his pathetic friends.

  But I’d seen what happened to all four of them, how their bones had been snapped, how their skin was cut and stretched and rearranged, and how those writhing things had been pressed inside their opened bodies…

  As I stepped back from the goblin dwarf, I bumped against one of the long food tables. My hand pressed down into a piece of cake or pie, and an awful custard oozed between my fingers.

  What kind of food might be served at such a gathering? I imagined gelatin molded in the shape of a brain and hard-boiled eggs with eyes painted on them. Cupcakes with black icing and cookies shaped like pumpkins and ghosts. The punch, of course, would be red; something small and hairy would swim through it.

  A large shape rose above the nearest section of the table. Though it had been transformed, I recognized the structure instantly: Amber’s dollhouse, turned into a haunted centerpiece. The white siding with pink shutters had been painted over with black and gray, simulating a dilapidated mansion. In the cutaway rooms, most of the tiny furniture was broken, and the little walls were covered in grime. Instead of doll men and women, several large cockroaches scurried across the miniature floors, tiny action-figure heads glued to their backs. A legless mouse, with a makeshift leash tied tight around its torso, writhed on an upstairs bed. A salted slug trailed over the kitchen stove and over tiny plastic plates and pans.

  Instead of curtains, cut sections of flypaper adorned the windows. Insects coated the sweet glue, and the paper rustled from the buzz and wing flaps of those alive enough to struggle.

  The whole thing was like a grade-school diorama project gone horribly wrong. But Amber loved her dollhouse—the prettiness of it, the delicate small things. She never would have altered it like this.

  I thought again of the nearby food and of the insects on the flypaper. The residue of custard on my fingers now seemed to crawl with life.

  A new sound chittered from a row near the front: the clack of fingers on a computer keypad. It reminded me of the college girl in 6C, how I never heard her voice if I listened outside her door but always heard that frantic tap and click, a sad attempt to connect with the world. If I’d visited her in the middle of the night, I probably would have heard the same thing.

  My broken cellphone began to ring and vibrate in my pocket. More heads turned, as if I’d violated etiquette at a movie or a funeral. I pressed down, feeling glass break against the fabric of my pocket.

  Joanne Huff’s voice emerged from the phone: It’s getting worse, Harris. It’s everywhere. Her voice was loud but muffled, like someone speaking from behind a mask.

  Perhaps she didn’t speak from my phone at all. She could have been any one of these masked attendees.

  It occurred to me that they might all be here. All the people who died in their apartments.

  Their violent deaths gave their spirits extra power. They possessed the living and spoke through them. On this special night of the year, their ghosts assumed earthly form.

  Some of these people were my neighbors. Some of them were unholy monsters.

  There was no way to tell them apart.

  All the seated figures faced the front now, ignoring me, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. In the gloom amid the streamers and decorations and candles, I searched for the red glowing eyes of surveillance cameras. The cameras all pointed at me, waiting to see what I would do.
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  Then a figure stood from the front row and stepped forward. The figure turned to face the audience, and an expectant murmur rose from the crowd.

  This person wore the same hooded robe as the others but stood with a commanding posture that suggested leadership. Something about the shape suggested a woman’s form to me—similar to the witch I’d seen in the noose outside the room.

  Two smaller figures stood from the front row and stepped to either side of her. They didn’t turn around.

  The woman raised her hands to her hood and began to pull it back.

  I thought it might be Lynn, it might be Shawna, but I couldn’t distinguish any features. She wasn’t wearing a mask, but her face wouldn’t settle into focus.

  She made a gesture with her finger, pointing to herself, then to the crowd, and it was similar to the “You and me” motion I used to make with my wife. But it had a horrible beckoning quality, too—as if it was an invitation to participate in something awful.

  The smaller figures on either side of her kept their backs to me. I was pretty sure I knew who they were.

  A chant now filled the hushed room. The song was low and somber, and the words didn’t make any sense. It was like a hymn in a foreign language. A dead language.

  I blinked and glowing letters seemed to dance in front of my eyes. The twisted letters took obscene shape like the demonic phrases scrawled on the wall of the upstairs room.

  The letters flickered red and hot.

  They spelled my name. And they spelled “fire.” And they spelled “now.”

  Several black streamers hung low near my face. I pulled one of them and the pleated paper stretched slightly. I brought it toward a tall orange candle on the nearby table.

  Flame caught the end of the streamer, and I let the paper go. It bounced back in place, swinging a small arc over the crowd and toward other hanging papers.

  The fire spread to the tall ceiling. As the streamers burned, sections broke off and rained fire and ash over the people seated below.

  The crowd continued to chant their tragic hymn.

  —

  You know the rest, probably better than me, especially since I can’t remember where the real events end and where the fictional mixed-up world of my reoccurring nightmares begin.

  Even if you won’t give me all of the facts, everyone knows it couldn’t have happened the way it does in the nightmares.

  But everyone did burn, right?

  That part was real, wasn’t it? It had to be. Just look at my hands.

  They all burned, right?

  All the residents of Stillbrook Apartments, including my wife and children.

  They all burned.

  Didn’t they?

  The Final Interview

  He’s different than I expect. Older and worn down, the way time in such a place can alter a man’s grooming habits and posture. A person’s pride slips away, along with his inner spirit.

  The medications typically don’t help. Per my request, they’ve limited Naylor’s dosage today to keep him alert.

  The previous director at the Klinenberg facility, Sylvia Jeffers, had severely restricted Naylor’s access to facts uncovered in subsequent investigations for fear such details might confirm the patient’s delusions. She and her team essentially kept Naylor in a bubble with no access to media reports and strict instructions on what visitors could and could not say. Thomas Edgeworth, newly appointed, has granted me far more leeway than his predecessor. He’s allowed the investigation to take precedence. To his way of thinking, uncovering the truth, facing it directly, should benefit all parties.

  On the various recordings he’s made, Naylor doesn’t provide a full explanation. However, in most occurrences that seem to incriminate the children, he offers an excuse or diversion—sometimes casting suspicion on himself, more frequently on his deceased wife. A few sections seem to incriminate the community manager, Shawna Diedrichs, but that seems a red herring.

  His voice is instantly familiar, the way a celebrity’s might be. I’ve listened to his recordings over and over: I know his cadences, the way he speeds up when he’s ready to make a wry comment, how he’ll drop to a slow whisper when he describes something ominous or terrifying.

  His voice is also familiar like an old friend’s. Though he addresses the therapist du jour on each segment, he achieves an easy rapport throughout most of the narrative and even a disinterested listener could get drawn into his story.

  In all fairness, I could hardly call myself disinterested.

  The most startling aspect of his appearance, to me, is his hands. Whatever surgery they were able to perform hasn’t corrected the problem. In fact, multiple skin grafts seem to have made those hands even more monstrous—and doubtless left wide scars on hidden parts of his body where the transplant skin had been borrowed. He wears no bandages to hide the damage received in the fire. Scars and red bumps cover his hands and his fingers are fused together.

  But he still waves those hands in the air as he talks, as if they aid his expressiveness. He’d offered his right hand when I first stepped into the room, and it would have been impolite for me to refuse.

  As we shook, it felt like I gripped a charred steak, crusted over and giving off excessive heat. In the medical portion of his file, a doctor notes Naylor’s complaint that the nerve endings remain raw, and he suffers pain as if his hands are still on fire.

  Several psychiatric evaluations interpret these complaints as psychosomatic.

  —

  Detective Stephens: Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.

  Harrison Naylor: Didn’t realize I had a choice. [Laughs.] Kidding. I wouldn’t turn down any visitor. Every day here’s pretty much the same, so it’s nice to have company.

  Stephens: I assume you don’t object that I’m recording this?

  Naylor: Fine, yeah. Oh, I catch your inference. I must be comfortable with voice recordings, since I made so many of them myself. Well, I couldn’t very well write or type with [indicates his hands]…with these.

  Stephens: You probably expect you’ll get something out of this meeting as well. Answers.

  Naylor: I was hoping you might fill in some gaps. That’s what the new guy said, at least.

  Stephens: I’ll reveal what I can. But there’s a process we’ll need to fol—

  Naylor: Oh, here we go.

  Stephens: —need to follow. I will tell you things. I promise. But we have to talk first. I don’t want the details in these folders to influence your initial comments.

  Naylor: You’ve got my initial comments. Hours’ and hours’ worth. I’ve waited so long, and they tell me nothing here. Nothing. It’s all word games and activity time, meals and pills and lights-out on schedule.

  Stephens: I understand this has been frustrating for you. For me as well.

  Naylor: For you. [Takes a long breath, is visibly calmer.] They taught me that here. Counting to ten.

  Stephens: Good. I wanted to go through the different theories, if that’s all right.

  Naylor: Sure.

  Stephens: Okay. Um. First, I guess, the theory that you did it yourself.

  Naylor: Did what? I’m not trying to be cute here. I’ve had no confirmation of the events I described on those recordings. As if they never really happened, and hell, I’d probably like to believe that. Find a way to convince me. I won’t resist.

  Stephens: The fire, of course. You’ve already admitted some role in that. But also the alterations to apartments in buildings five and six, including the basement lounge. The decorations. The elaborate stagings. The bodies.

  Naylor [an inappropriate relief, as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders]: They never said. A fire, yeah, they couldn’t hide that the fire happened. That my wife and kids are gone. But they never confirmed the other stuff.

  Stephens [relenting]: I can confirm that now.

  Naylor: The man on the stairs? The pirate girl?

  Stephens [opening a folder, sliding photographs across the table]: T
he concrete construction of the basement helped shield the rest of the building from fire. Smoke damage, mostly.

  Naylor [searches through the photos like viewing vacation shots; a kind of distracted excitement]: Here, just like I said. The thing in the birdcage. The sludge in Mrs. Huff’s chair. My upstairs neighbor guy, feet nailed to the floor and pumpkins on his hands.

  Stephens: There’s one I haven’t shown you.

  Naylor: [pause] The Tammisimo apartment. Those four teenagers. I don’t want to see that one.

  Stephens: Stay with me, Naylor. You asked for proof…

  Naylor: Careful what you ask for. Right?

  Stephens: We were discussing any role you played in these deaths. The fire at the end. You made that happen.

  Naylor: I think so. Of everything, that seemed most like a dream. I remember the motion of my hand, grabbing the streamer and guiding it toward a candle. But maybe something coerced me. A voice in my head. They were all there? They all died?

  Stephens: The whole community attended the Halloween party. You were the only survivor.

  Naylor: And that automatically makes me guilty, I guess.

  Stephens: How did you get out?

  Naylor: I really don’t know. I woke lying on the ground outside the building. The basement was in flames and the fire trucks began their work. Smoke everywhere, and I felt the heat on my face. On my hands.

  Stephens: You mentioned being exhausted. Earlier that day, I mean. Your shoulder muscles ached and your hands were sore like you’d spent the day building things.

  Naylor: Shawna’s list. I did some plumbing work. I made a lot of shelves.

  Stephens: And possibly some work with saws and knives. Redecorating. Moving equipment around. Tying knots.

  Naylor: If I’d killed those people, if I’d made all the changes to their apartments, set the bodies up in that way, then why was each room a surprise when I entered? They shocked me. Horrified me. I’d have to have a split personality for that theory to make sense, and nobody’s ever mentioned that possibility. Nothing like that in my files, is there?