Red Harvest

by Patrick C. Greene

  As little Tina joined her age mates, Elaine and Leticia came together for consultation. “Is it me, or do we have about twice as many kids this year?” Leticia asked.

  “A lot of folks are coming in from farther out of town. I hope Hudson and the deputies don’t have a hard time.”

  Leticia nudged Elaine. “You do know why all these people are here, don’t you?”

  Elaine knew, but was almost afraid to acknowledge it.

  “They’re coming to see your boy.”

  Elaine held her hand to her mouth, awed by the notion that her son was on the verge of becoming a rock star. “Let’s turn on the TV,” she said. “It should be on the news soon.”

  Leticia made a funny O with her mouth and hugged Elaine’s arm. “Kit Calloway! Yum yum!”

  “Uh-huh,” agreed Elaine. “To go, please!”

  * * * *

  The local station broke from its telethon of Hammer Studios horror classics for an update from Main Street, where Elaine and Leticia’s crush, Kit Calloway, wearing a tie silk-screened with dancing mummies, smiled into the camera with just the right whimsy. “Hello, viewers and booers! I’m on Main Street in downtown Ember Hollow—make that Haunted Hollow—where hundreds have gathered for the beginning of the annual Pumpkin Parade!”

  He turned to the costumed crowd behind him, and they whooped, raised their hands, and made monster motions.

  Calloway turned back. “As you can see, we’re having a great time, and eager to see Ember Hollow’s own Chalk Underlines perform!” Although he misspoke, the crowd cheered.

  “If you can’t make it out to see the festivities yourself, don’t worry! We’ll be bringing you frequent updates throughout the evening!”

  * * * *

  Hudson Lott and most of the other deputies were concentrated at the parade’s starting point.

  Hudson resisted the temptation to lean against the light pole behind him. Under the browning sky, he watched the parade-goers gather by the hundreds at the edge of the street, milling, dancing, mugging in their elaborate costumes.

  Figures in family-friendly costumes—local school mascots, firemen, and deputies—walked along the barricade, handing out candy, T-shirts, glow bracelets, and school supplies.

  From a darkened alley just two blocks away, Ruth emerged, costumed as a rag doll. The outfit was well made, despite her disdain for Halloween, and somehow both enticing and frightening. The dress hugged her lean form, except for the puffy short skirt and frilly petticoat ending at the tops of her thighs.

  An orange yarn wig with pigtails jutting at angles from her head curtained a greasepaint-paled face. Ruby red lips blended into a drawn-on stitch smile that arched to her cheekbones. The novelty glasses, round lenses tinted to look like big buttons, did not add the element of harmless whimsy that Ruth imagined they did. However, they did render her a stranger to all but the most scrutinizing passerby.

  Despite the need for anonymity, she made sure to place her crucifix over her costume where she could touch it.

  The gingham bag at her side was more than an accessory. It held several handfuls of tainted candy, as well as the .38 she had taken from the ol’ boys who now rotted in a pit of pumpkin guts along with that filthy Angelo. Another box of the special candy sat hidden behind a dumpster.

  She hopped the barricade and walked along the line, joining the pre-parade warm up crew. “Here we are, brethren!” she called as she handed out little orange-and-black-wrapped horror shows to adults and teens. “Have a blessed evening!”

  An eight-year-old girl in a cow costume ran toward her, hoof-gloved hand held out for a “treat.”

  Ruth leaned close, her insane smile and dead button-eye glasses making the child recoil. “Why hello, little one!” she crooned, taking baby steps toward the little girl. “Can you say please?”

  The child’s mother walked up behind her to stand quiet and uncomfortable.

  “Oh, well,” Ruth crooned. “Here you go anyway.”

  The child looked up at her mother, who said. “It’s okay,”

  The girl took the candy, and Ruth grinned like a joker in a rigged deck. “Bye-bye, now!”

  Then came a startling sound of screams from the four-way intersection a hundred yards away. People in the crowd craned their necks, murmuring.

  First a man, then a woman, then a dozen average folk of all ages appeared, panicked. “It’s coming! Get away!”

  “Agh! It’s horrible!”

  More screams and exclamations, then amplified shrieking laughter, followed by—silence.

  Ruth caressed the outline of the pistol against her hip in the gingham bag.

  A staccato cadence rose, as something heavy punched the pavement with a doomsday rhythm.

  Chapter 33

  Higher than the roof of the shoe shop on the corner, a silhouette appeared against the bronze sky. Its head was two times too big, its bearing was evil, and it wore an orange-and-black-striped top hat—a Halloween-inspired Uncle Sam.

  The onlookers, familiar with this character from parades past, shouted and whistled at the character known as The Night Mayor.

  The insane babble came again, accentuated by grating feedback from an amplifier. Enacted by a man on stilts wearing a long orange-and-black-striped tuxedo to match the top hat, The Night Mayor rounded the corner, raising his oversized white-gloved hands to wave acknowledgment of the cheers and hoots.

  The ghoulish giant was flanked on four corners by “dead” majorettes marching in orange leggings and black-buckled boots, spinning and twirling plastic legs and arms with the same expert precision they did batons during halftime performances at high school football games.

  The Pumpkin Parade had begun.

  The lead Toronado rumbled into view, crawling like a Dune sandworm as it pulled the first exhibit—a massive black cat with a devious grin, its yellow eyes, old-fashioned kerosene lanterns burning behind wax paper, glowing bright. Its mouth opened to reveal kids costumed as mice, cowering in pretend fear and agony, rodent souls doomed to a feline hell.

  The crowd cheered as the squeaking mice tried to escape, only to be trapped in the cat’s foam rubber teeth. Again and again, the act repeated, drawing raucous approval from the crowd.

  On the cat’s back was a kitschy flashing argon sign that read, ember hollow pet and livestock supply.

  A few yards behind this, rode a troupe of skeleton horsemen, astride black horses draped with blankets with a pattern of bones that made them look like equine skeletons. Lady GoDieVa, a skeleton in a tight leotard, tossed candy and packets of doggie treats from a black wicker basket.

  Farther down and across from The Grand Illusion, a crowd more interested in the featured attraction than the parade cheered and strained against the barricade, fists and lighters rising, their homemade placards—cardboard guillotines slicing the air—reading, i’m a casualty of the chalk outlines! wanted: thrill kill jill for sex crimes against my eardrums and kenny can kill me anytime!

  * * * *

  Stella wore her homemade fortune-teller dress, sans the never-to-be-finished scarf. She was determined to be a part of the festivities, even if all by her lonesome. She had modeled her outfit after Maria Ouspenskaya’s costume in The Wolfman, in which the diminutive actress had played the mother of a character played by Bela Lugosi.

  She dropped off her coat and the latest issue of The Beautiful People magazine in McGlazer’s office, holding her head high and faking a yawn as she sauntered to the end of the hall. She opened the door to the sanctuary, and, in no hurry, entered the sanctuary and switched on its light.

  No, sir. No fear whatsoever in Stella’s heart tonight, for she had no reason to fear, and of course no one and nothing would see just how unafraid she was.

  By God, she had endured a midnight trip to the boneyard, all by her lone. What had she to fear from a mere settling foundation?


  She didn’t need all the sanctuary lights. She was alone of course, and wasn’t afraid of shadowed corners. She experimented with the panel of switches until she found the lights over the piano, and left only that one on.

  Stella sat at the bench, propped the hymnal open, and began to play. Soon she was immersed in choosing and practicing Sunday’s numbers. Nothing was going to happen to her tonight, because that was ridiculous.

  Her neck and back muscles relaxed, and she believed the story her actions were selling her mind.

  Then that D key played itself, and Stella’s courage flitted away like a moth sprung from its chrysalis.

  * * * *

  Stella scrutinized the piano key. She touched it with a trembling finger, pushed it, released. For a minute, maybe three, she waited for some response.

  She got it. The lights went out.

  Stella sat rigid in the darkness, trying to quiet her breathing, hoping the ghost would be so kind as to turn the lights back on. When it did not, Stella rose, praying that no cold fingers would brush her cheeks, no glowing figure would float up from behind the piano.

  She reached in her purse and cursed. Her keys with the miniature flashlight attached were still in her coat—which was in McGlazer’s office. Stella made her way up the aisle to the door behind the pulpit and choir benches, pricking up her ears for the reassuring low rumble of people down on the street, just a few hundred yards away.

  Then the D key played again, echoing, building to a machine gun cadence impossible for human fingers.

  Stella stifled a scream, reaching for the doorknob even before she stepped up on the platform.

  The piano was playing an actual tune now, very fast, but with an almost brutal melancholy, and somehow familiar. But Stella didn’t want to hear any more of it, didn’t feel any need to solve the mystery. She only wanted out of this accursed place.

  She stumbled the last few steps to the door, sparking a terrifying vision of falling and breaking her ankle, unable to escape this so-called sanctuary. But she made a deft recovery and found the knob via sheer luck or some sixth sense and, thank God and all his saints, it opened.

  She entered the hallway, found the light switch, and breathed relief as the fluorescence fell upon her like an angel’s wings. Then the door from the sanctuary slammed behind her, trapping her in this narrow corridor with the echo of her own short, shrill scream.

  The lights flickered, randomly alternating from one fixture to another, up and down the hallway.

  At least Stella could see—but when she took a step toward the office door, it almost slammed on her reaching hand. She bolted down the hallway, to the left-turning corner that led to more Sunday school rooms, and beyond that, the door to the gym, where many blessed doors waited.

  But that section of the hallway went dark entirely, while two lights flickered above her.

  She heard doors slamming, opening, and slamming again like thunder in that dark tunnel, and turned back toward the sanctuary door. Now the doors in that section were slamming as well, the lights in those rooms strobing like spring lightning.

  When the office door opened and slammed with deafening staccato to her left, she dashed through the unmoving door to her right, never realizing, till that door also slammed shut, that she had just been herded like a sacrificial lamb.

  * * * *

  Candace pedaled like mad, glancing up at the ever-darkening sky, the empty and desolate fields stretching on either side of the road toward lines of yellow and red trees.

  She churned the pedals with all she had.

  Soon, she passed the pocked sign that read downtown ember hollow 3 miles.

  Discouraged, she pulled over to take a break, gulping for air.

  Just as she crossed her arms over her handlebars and rested her head, a low rumble came across the plain. Candace raised her head, listening as a scrap of hope unfolded in her pounding heart.

  Turning, she saw headlights in the distance behind her. It was a truck. A big one.

  Energized, Candace pushed the bike forward and pedaled again, building speed.

  As the headlights of the eighteen-wheeler drew closer, Candace positioned herself near the edge of the road. Now she could see its haul: a trailer with perforated aluminum walls, behind which was sporadic movement. Poultry cages, filled with turkeys.

  The driver slowed as he passed—and Candace took the opportunity to grab the rear bumper.

  She held on with a death grip, terrified of losing hold and careening into the ditch. The little darting beaks and curious eyes of next month’s Thanksgiving dinners investigated through the ventilated rear door.

  She strained to keep the handlebars steady with her right hand, raising her feet from the fast-spinning pedals. She had lassoed a furious bull.

  Wind blasted her in the face, carrying with it stray feathers and the stench of trapped fowl. A tiny round eye pressed close and focused on her through one of the cage holes, perhaps sensing a shared fate.

  * * * *

  Everett examined the jack-o’-lantern he had carved during the short ride.

  The pickup wheeled into the vast grass field reserved for parade parking, already nearly full. The world across from the field was a long row of asphalt lots with dumpsters, rear delivery doors, cargo bays, and alleys. On the other side of that—something loud, something festive.

  A middle-aged lady attendant wearing an orange vest stepped up to the truck as they pulled in. She was either impressed or appalled by the costumes. “There’s a few spots left over by the creek,” she told them. “Be sure and lock up.”

  “Si,” acknowledged Guillermo. “Gracias.”

  Everett stared at the uncostumed attendant with confusion, forgetting the fresh-carved jack-o’-lantern in his lap, the bounty of orange fruit all around him. The sound of the parade met his ears and drew his attention, filling him with the kind of excitement normal children feel on Christmas morning.

  Guillermo guided the pickup through the labyrinth of cars and parked. “They start before!” Enrique complained, as he and Guillermo stepped out.

  “Si!” said Guillermo, pointing where a watch would be, if he wore one. “It’s gonna be late, I said you!”

  Everett tossed away the soggy, tattered executioner’s hood and put the jack-o’-lantern on like a helmet, inhaling the smell of raw pumpkin. He climbed down from the bed and regarded the two men.

  Enrique’s makeup was failing, the thick scar across his throat peeling off to reveal clean, unmarred skin beneath. Seeing Everett’s new mask, he raised a thumb. “Oh! Muy nice, mi amigo! Primo! Mucho scary!”

  Everett leaned closer to examine the throat scar, understanding with grievous disappointment that it was false.

  Reacting to Everett’s scrutiny, Enrique turned to his side mirror. “Eh, I need glue! Is arruinada!”

  He pushed the scar back in place with one hand, as Guillermo tossed him a bottle of spirit gum. Enrique set to work reapplying the scar appliance, as Everett walked around him, observing.

  “You want some?” Guillermo offered. “We ha’ more scars. Y sangre too.”

  “Nn…not…dead?” Everett asked.

  “Heh. No muerte, no.” Enrique shook his head. “Heh-heh.”

  Everett reached up and pulled another scar off the man’s forehead.

  “Hey! No, no!” Enrique’s patience for the weird gringo was growing thin. “What do you do? It taked a long time!”

  Everett examined the deception as Enrique took it back, then at the deceiver, and drew a meat cleaver from his treat bag.

  “Whoa!” Enrique took a step back from Everett. “What do you…”

  Everett lunged at him and snatched the fake throat-slash scar away, raising the cleaver, insisting, “Trick!”

  Enrique cried out and fell to his back.

  Guillermo rushed around to interve
ne, throwing his mask down in anger. “No! Estancia lejos!”

  Now it was Guillermo who had Everett’s attention. “Trick?”

  “Es no divertido!” Guillermo scalded, reaching for the cleaver. Everett slashed it across his throat. A wide ribbon of blood splashed across Everett’s pumpkin face.

  Guillermo stumbled backward as he issued a gurgling scream, staring down at his companion with confused terror.

  Enrique watched him fall to his back, gurgling and kicking.

  “Guillermo?”

  Too shocked for rage, too deep in denial for terror, Enrique felt Everett coming closer. He could see the seed of murder blooming in the soulless orbs within the jack-o’-lantern.

  “Me deje solo!” Enrique cried.

  Everett held up his red-slick gleaming cleaver. “Dead is trick!”

  Enrique bolted. “Help! Help me!”

  Everett raised the cleaver, calling, “Dead is treat!”

  Rising from her lawn chair, the attendant peered over the sea of cars, seeing only Enrique’s bobbing head.

  “You boys simmer down! I don’t play that shit!” Grumbling, she went back to her seat, spitting as she lifted her newspaper.

  The tatters of his costume trailing like streamers, Enrique screamed as he raced toward the noise and people and safety of numbers, where policía would be.

  As he streaked past her, the attendant lowered the paper, rising to call after him, “What are you boys playin’ at? Huh?”

  Hearing a grating giggle, she turned around to find Everett, now garbed in Guillermo’s devil mask and cape, regarding her with a tilted head and inhuman eyes. Everett dropped the cleaver in his bag, only to replace it with a hammer. Then he drew a paper mask from his pocket, a pink-cheeked beauty queen.

  “Dead is for everyone!”

  The attendant took off at a run, pursued by Everett—the game of victim and monster that he never tired of.