“Here,” came the answer. “Witness seems to be saying our perp is wearing a pumpkin on his head. Repeat, perpetrator is wearing a God damned jack-o’-lantern!”
“We need to shut this thing down,” Hudson said.
Up on the stage, Dennis, oblivious to the burgeoning fracas, addressed the crowd. “This next one is a special request.”
Dennis brushed back his sweaty hair as he talked to his fans. “It’s a cover of an epic soul freezer by our buddies in Scarlet Frost. It’s called…‘Wind of Winter’s Dawn.’”
Pedro played an extended note that was both melancholy and menacing, dissolving into Dennis’s sludgy riffs.
Jill banged a voodoo beat, and Dennis sang, closing his eyes.
“Cold the fog lay upon the bog
where rests the maiden mourned
Her heart remains ever in twain
in a cage of bones adorned
Years she watched with ache she matched
Her pregnant grief unborn…”
Kerwin, escorting Cordelia toward the parade through a breezeway, stopped cold upon hearing the uncharacteristic strains of soul-crushing, dirge-like black metal. “Shit! What are you guys doing to me?”
“This doesn’t sound like the demos you sent,” Cordelia noted.
“No.” Kerwin covered his panicked expression with a sly grin. “They, see, they’re playing a goof on their poor old manager. Yeah, that’s it! Come on. It’ll start jumping in a sec.”
He rushed her toward the street.
* * * *
DeShaun and Stuart jumped back to the crowd side of the barricade just as a furious brawl broke out. Bodies, fists, and screams filled the air as more and more people converged. The boys ran to cover Candace.
Just a few yards away, the parade accordioned on itself. A lavender limousine towing a float for Turner’s Wedding Rentals halted across from this pocket of chaos. Amid the lace, frills, and latticework of the display, the performers, costumed as ghost bride, groom, and parson, craned their heads toward the ruckus.
A teen girl in a Barbie costume ran toward the wedding scene, setting her hair on fire with a lighter as she climbed aboard, screaming, “My hair! It’s eating my mind!”
The faux phantom wedding party tried to circle and corral her, but she wallowed amid the decorations, which caught and carried the flame.
DeShaun and Stuart guarded Candace on either side. They dashed along the shop walls until they found an open alley and sprinted into it, leaping over trash and boxes.
“What’s wrong with these people?” DeShaun wondered.
“Some kinda mass hysteria,” Stuart guessed, trying to catch his breath.
Candace stopped them. “It happened to me last night!” she exclaimed. “I saw…evil things. Everywhere.”
“What about Dad?” DeShaun huffed.
“And Dennis.”
The big man in the orange jumpsuit came around the corner, his hands and chin smeared with blood. Eyes burning with malice, he ran toward them, bellowing like a hippo, his plastic ball-and-chain prop bouncing behind him.
The kids ran around the corner, much faster than their pursuer. Seeing a panel delivery truck, they dashed to the far side and huddled together, covering their mouths as the man ran past. They heard him stop a few yards away, puffing.
He spun, roaring. They knew he was onto them somehow. They dashed around the back of the truck, where DeShaun tried to raise the sliding door—but found it locked.
“Shit!” Stuart said, as they all searched around for shelter.
Pointing at something along the back walls of the shopping center, DeShaun whispered, “Over there!”
Chapter 38
Kerwin and Cordelia arrived at the rear of the undulating crowd. The black metal dirge droned on, scorching Kerwin’s ears. A brawl broke out just a few yards to their left, the combatants snarling and snapping like wild dogs.
Cordelia squealed with fright, but Kerwin ignored them, He craned to see the Outlines, mumbling, “What the hell is wrong with you? You stupid little shits!”
A beer glass flew from the crowd and broke at his feet. “Hey! Watch the suit!” he shouted.
The perpetrator, a man in a caveman costume—appropriate given his size and build—homed in on Kerwin, muscling past the other parade-goers. Kerwin found himself at a loss for words for once, just before the caveman decked him.
Kerwin scrambled up and pushed Cordelia in front of him. “What the hell are y—” she protested.
Salvation of a kind came when someone scrambled onto the convertible Corvair pulling a float for Double S Sporting Goods, tearing at the driver’s oversized baseball cap like it was a rabid cat, then pounding it, still on the driver’s head, into the steering wheel. The Corvair veered toward the barricade, accelerating on its way to bashing the wall of humanity, including Kerwin’s Neanderthal assailant, who was thrown to the ground.
On the street, balls of all sports and sizes sailed from the float, bouncing and rolling in all directions.
* * * *
Sergeant Shavers, having left the bawling Enrique wrapped in a blanket in the back of a cruiser, returned to his post, just as the candy began to work its effect on him…
The costumed patrons all seemed to mesh together, then melt apart again, glowing lava lamp globs of sinister threatening faces.
His radio squawked and startled him, a disjointed chorus of distorted mocking voices assailing his senses. “Suspect is wearing a pumpkin! Suspect-pect is wearing-ring a pumpkin-KIN!”
The fur-suited girl from the Wolf Wagon ran toward him, calling for help, blood from a head wound trailing down her cheek. But her furry bikini was too much for Shaver’s tainted psyche. He saw only a snarling, disembodied jackal head rocketing toward him, streams of hell trailing from its eyes. Screaming, he raised his pistol. Before he could fire, the massive spider exhibit fell from the careening Great Gardens wagon, yanking the vehicle to its side and crushing Shaver.
The spider landed safely away from everyone.
The terrified bikini girl cried louder as vehicles collided, piled up, and crashed through the barricade and into the storefronts, fire hydrants, sidewalk benches. A telephone pole fractured and leaned, suspended by sparking wires.
Watching the catastrophe from her planter perch, Ruth threw her head back in delight, praising The Lording.
For Everett, the tableau was heartbreaking. The most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed, dashed to ruins before his very eyes. His fingers formed claws.
* * * *
A mushroom of fire caught the attention of the Outlines. Opening his eyes from deep immersion in the song, Dennis stepped to the edge of the stage and beheld the mayhem below.
“Where’s Hudson?” Jill shouted.
Dennis shielded his eyes and scanned for him—just as a half-empty bottle of Diamante’s Deep Dark Rum came hurtling from the crowd and smashed into his forehead.
Dennis lurched forward headfirst. He collapsed onto the edge of the stage, his momentum carrying him over, and he plummeted to the ground below.
Jill screamed.
Chapter 39
DeShaun led Stuart and Candace to a short wooden staircase behind the Kronos Cafe. It was boarded in on the front side, but there was a narrow space between the stairs and wall into which the kids scuttled.
They crouched low in the tiny space. DeShaun squinted through a crack between the boards to see the crazed fat man kicking boxes and trash cans nearby. “He’s going the other way. I say we stay here for a minute. Maybe he’ll forget about us.”
“Then what?” Stuart asked.
“We have to help our families,” DeShaun said. “We can’t bail on ’em.”
Stuart looked at Candace, at the exhausted, anguished, terrified expression on her face. “I’m so sorry, Candace.”
“What’s the deal with your brother anyhow?” DeShaun asked.
Stuart slugged him in the shoulder for the impropriety.
“It’s okay,” Candace said. “You guys have to know. Everybody needs to know.”
* * * *
Everett grew sad, seeing the beautiful Halloween decorations burning, people throwing away their wonderful masks, bags of candy spilled and discarded like trash.
The gush from the broken fire hydrant washed loose basketballs, baseballs, bowling balls, and golf balls into the street and sidewalks, toppling already dumbfounded parade-goers. The pilot vehicles accelerated to avoid pedestrians, hydroplaned, and turned sideways, smashing into one another as they flung the floats and hapless passengers about.
An elderly woman, frozen in place by sheer terror at the edge of the street, was smashed between two colliding platforms.
The haunted hollow banner draped across the street erupted in flames, dripping molten plastic onto running and fallen people.
Hay bales and gas from punctured tanks erupted into towering blazes. Loud booms and clouds of erupting flame rose from all directions.
Chapter 40
“Miss Leticia, Miss Elaine, I’m scared!” Little Tina stood in her pajamas near the television, where she had gone to wait her turn for tucking in on her cot. “This isn’t real, is it?”
Tina must have seen the parade on television. Her question raised a lump in Elaine’s throat, the one that her maternal instinct had already planted hours ago.
She and Leticia went to see, walking to keep from appearing too urgent and frightening the girl further.
“Go pick out a pillow and blanket, sweetie.” Leticia guided her away, then joined Elaine.
“Oh Lord…” They crowded against each other as they watched the footage.
“Helen, what we are witnessing is real. We see a fire spreading over here…” Kit Calloway’s mellow baritone betrayed his fear.
The camera turned to focus on a pillar of flame—then came a loud boom.
The camera made a rough pan back to Calloway. Alarm twisted his handsome features. He turned and ran. The shot became an incoherent blur and then—static.
Then Kit’s colleague Helen was on screen at the station, looking like a well-tailored deer caught in headlights. “W…we’ve lost our feed. Apologies to our viewers, we…hope to have some kind of update in just a few minutes. Please stay tuned. Emergency services are on their way, and they have asked everyone to stay away from the parade site!”
“What are we going to do?” Elaine asked.
Leticia hugged her. “We’re going to stay right here with these children because they need us. And we’re going to pray.”
* * * *
Candace blurted the important details that Mamalee had related to her the day before; about Everett’s early childhood strangeness, the assault by the priests—his first Halloween night violence.
Candace, her eyes focused on nothing, finished. “Every year we move to a new place and stay until Halloween comes. We set Everett free on Halloween night, and he goes…‘trick-or-treating.’ The next morning, we move again. Mamalee and Daddy hope…hoped…that one day, he would grow out of it. Now, he’s grown, all right. And he’s strong. And he never got better. Only worse.”
Candace sobbed. “I…I try not to make friends, but…you guys…”
* * * *
Candace touched Stuart’s cheek like all the grown-ups had at his Dad’s funeral. He hugged her, and glanced at DeShaun. There was no judgment in his eyes, only compassion.
“Jeez,” Stuart mumbled. “I thought I had problems.”
“We all do now,” Candace said, sniffling. “Mamalee told me yesterday, before I left, what those priests did to Everett, how he got so messed up, I realized it means he’ll never stop. Maybe he can’t.”
“That’s why you were scared of the church,” Stuart said. “What happened to Everett…Wait!” Gears turned in Stuart’s head. “Maybe if we can all get to the church, he won’t come there. And DeShaun’s dad can catch him.”
“Yeah, but how are we g—”
DeShaun’s query was cut short by their massive jump-suited assailant, crashing his head into their hiding place through the enclosed wall of the staircase. He roared, and the three escapees scrambled to crawl out the way they had entered.
Candace made it out first. As the pursuer charged around the staircase to pen them in, Candace switched into defensive mode and sprang out to face him, raising a weathered two-by-four. “You get away from my friends!”
She smashed the board into the man’s shoulder, knocking him back. “You don’t scare me, you stupid creep!”
The maniac was stunned. She swung again, landing a cornerwise strike to the shin that drew a shrill cry.
“I’ve seen scary, mister,” she shouted, “and you’re not it!”
She smashed the board over the fat man’s head, sending him to the ground.
As Stuart and DeShaun came to Candace’s side, their assailant stirred, blinking up at them with confusion. Then he began to bawl like a baby.
Candace tossed the board away and grabbed Stuart’s wrist. “Come on!”
* * * *
Keeping the wayward biker pinned, Hudson examined the strobe of running bodies and saw Pedro and Jill running onto the street, then McGlazer climbing down from the still-moving truck, toward…
Dennis’s feet, sprawled at an alarming angle on the courtyard just below the stage.
Hudson yanked the handcuffed prisoner up to his feet and dragged him toward the street’s edge, where he hoped the addled partyer would be out of harm’s way—more or less.
“Sorry to do this, buddy!” Hudson said, and knocked the man out cold with a short left hook.
* * * *
“Come on, baby. You’re gonna be okay.” Jill rocked like a mother comforting a baby, as she held the unconscious Dennis on her lap, alarmed to see blood slickening the grass beneath his head.
“Somebody help!” Pedro yelled. “We need a doctor!”
But there was only running, anarchy, panic.
Reverend McGlazer joined them and checked Dennis’s vital signs. “We may never get through this mess in time,” McGlazer said. “But Stella is an EMT. She has her kit at the church.”
“We’ll get him there!” Pedro stooped to lift Dennis in his arms.
McGlazer stopped him. “No. We can’t move him.”
“What are we gonna do?” Jill asked.
“Apply pressure to his wound,” McGlazer said. “Here, use my jacket.”
The insane crowd closed in rapidly, and worse—converged, as if with a single purpose.
Hudson appeared. “What’s his status?”
McGlazer told him about Stella.
“We need to get her down here. Take the next street over,” advised Hudson. “Situation’s no better ahead, I don’t think.” He turned to Pedro and Jill. “You two are officially deputized. Protect Dennis.”
As McGlazer darted away toward an open alley, Pedro patted the unconscious form of Dennis, looked at Jill, and stood. “’Bout time. Haven’t had a good rumble since that Planet Six gig.”
* * * *
The fire was an octopus of flickering, flailing tentacles, growing by the second, as burning patches of hay and paper rose into the air to rain embers and renew the cycle.
Witnessing the chaos ruining the parade, a heartbroken Everett fell to his knees and wept. Then, through the roaring flames and cries of pain and terror, he heard someone laughing.
Not with innocent joy, as he had when he found this giant celebration. It was spite. That haughty snicker of smug superiority, reminding him of those priests, relishing their power over a little boy.
Someone was enjoying this.
Everett’s teary eyes found a figure dressed like a wonderful rag
doll, standing on a brick planter, throwing her head back to address the sky. “Thank you, Lord!” cried the woman. “Praise your holy name!” she said.
Everett followed her gaze to the sky, but saw nothing. Nonetheless, she was talking to the sky like the priests who had raped him. Even a child could surmise that she had something to do with this calamity. And there was no greater a child than Everett.
He took up his hammer and walked toward her.
Chapter 41
“Burn, Sodom, burn!” cried Rag Doll Ruth, enraptured.
Then she saw a strange figure coming through the wall of flame.
Once through the wall, the figure stopped, regarding her with a sinister and threatening smile. It was the Devil himself, clad in a flowing red cape, bearing a bloody hammer.
Ruth’s joy plummeted. “Y…you’ve come.”
Terror gripped her. By rote, she spoke the words that no one else could say. “You are not welcome here, ye old serpent!”
Everett’s glittering eyes were fixed on her. Blood dripped from his hammer. Heat from the flames behind him distorted his devil mask into a shimmery dream-demon face.
Ruth removed the button glasses and threw them away. She took the gun from her candy bag. “Get thee gone, Satan!”
She fired at him with shaking hands, missing once, twice.
Everett was delighted. A new game to cheer him up.
Ruth backed up, almost falling off the planter—but caught her balance and hopped off. “Lord help me!”
She shot again and again. The third bullet passed through Everett’s shoulder—not even slowing him.
Everett walked through another small island of flames, oblivious to them.
Ruth stumbled back against the storefront, screaming, her gun hand shaking. For the first time since her conversion, she felt a sense of utter and complete abandonment. “Help me! Somebody help!”
As Everett drew closer, he raised his hammer—then stopped.
Ruth’s crucifix necklace flashed in the firelight.
The talisman filled Everett with fear. He saw the priests, his would-be exorcists, one smiling before shoving the boy over and ripping down his pants, the other glancing toward the door as he held up his crucifix, bellowing chants in Latin.
Red Harvest Page 24
