Brian found the paved road and turned down it, his headlights sweeping over the stubble of the field. It was October 31, and in upstate New York, you couldn't count on there not being a killing frost by the end of October, so most of the farmers had finished their harvesting—reaping—whatever it was farmers did that meant the produce was all out of the fields and in those nice little containers at the supermarket.
Brian passed by the traffic sign that showed a curve in the road, almost missed the forty-five-miles-per-hour sign that was his next landmark, then turned into what appeared to be a narrow unpaved road—but which, if Kyla's directions could be trusted, was really a long, windy driveway.
Finally, he came to the house—saggy porch, mud-splattered old pickup of indeterminate color, propane tanks. Yup. He had arrived.
He seriously considered just tapping the horn, but since this was his first date with Kyla, he figured he'd better go to the door and ring the bell. When he'd been going out with Maranda, he'd once beeped for her, and her parents had been dead-set against him ever since.
You'd think, though, seeing as how he was late, that Kyla might have been waiting for him.
Brian got out of the car. He'd forgotten how cold it was. His breath smoked in the air as he climbed the porch stairs and rang the doorbell. If there wasn't at least a dusting of snow by morning, there would definitely be a frost.
The light went out in the window, which Brian hoped meant Kyla was about to come outside and not force him into a meeting with The Parents.
In the sky, a multitude of stars twinkled merrily but did nothing toward brightening the night.
Brian stamped his feet impatiently for warmth and just barely restrained himself from muttering out loud, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon."
The door opened slowly and with a squeak.
A woman and a man stood there. In the light of the candle she held, Brian saw she had waist-length dark hair, and she was dressed in a long, black gown; the guy had hair that was slicked back, and he was wearing a black tuxedo and a black cape with red satin lining. The man rested his hand on the doorjamb, showing fingers with long, clawlike nails.
Brian took a step backward, startled—he told himself—by the fact that they weren't Kyla, and not by their pale faces and their fangs.
"Velcome to our house," the man said in a thick accent from somewhere between Hollywood and Transylvania. "Come in and let us drink your blood."
From inside the house Kyla's voice called out, "Brian? Don't let my parents freak you out. They aren't usually this weird."
Also sporting an accent of some kind or another, Mrs. Zolla said in a throaty voice, "Trick or treat."
How. Totally. Lame.
"Um," Brian said. "Yeah."
Even Maranda's family, which included six or seven kids younger than Maranda, didn't go this overboard about Halloween.
"Vhere is your costume?" the man—Kyla's dad—demanded. Neither of them had made any move to invite Brian in off the porch. "Don't you know vhat night this is?"
Brian pointed to his T-shirt, which was black. Of course, he'd probably have worn the shirt even if it wasn't Halloween, but nobody else had to know that.
Kyla's parents stayed rooted in the doorway. "Ah," the mother said in her gravelly voice that sounded more Russian than Transylvanian, "he is wearing disguise of American teenage boy. Beneath disguise, he is fifty-two-year-old South American dictator."
Momentarily minus the accent, the father said, "He better not be if he expects to take our daughter out." He grinned, either to indicate he was joking or to show off his fangs. And he wiggled his clawed fingers on the doorjamb to make sure Brian noticed.
You can't hold people accountable for their dorky parents, Brian reminded himself. On the other hand, he was ready to get back into his car, when Kyla's voice called, "Mom? Don't let Dad scare him away. I'll be down in a minute, Bri."
He was only twenty minutes late. How silly of him to think she'd be ready.
"Bri?" Kyla called again. "Mom? Dad? You have invited him in out of the cold, haven't you?"
"Of course, dahlink," Mrs. Zolla said, stepping back.
Mr. Zolla stepped back also. "Ve vill keep him entertained before ve drink his blood," he called over his shoulder.
Wonderful, Brian thought. Life would be so much easier if girls came without parents.
Kyla said, "Well, don't drink too much of his blood. He needs to have enough energy to be able to dance. You okay, Brian?"
"Yeah," he assured her.
"Don't make him sit in the dark, Dad," Kyla said.
The father switched the lights back on. The living room was nicer than Brian would have expected from the outside. Big old heavy mahogany and walnut furniture that his mom, who loved antiques, would have drooled over.
From a table that was by the door, Kyla's mother picked up a silver tray that held candied and caramel apples. "Trick or treat," she repeated. Brian was just thinking that in the city you could never have Halloween treats that weren't wrapped and tamper-proof, when she added, "Ones on right-hand side are without razor blades or broken glass."
"And here I am, on a diet," Brian lied.
A set of stairs curved up to the second floor. Kyla peeked her head around the corner. "Hi, Bri. Costume issue here. I'll be another minute."
"You know," Brian started, "I've been to these things before, and usually it's just the ninth graders and the dorkiest tenth graders who wear..."
But she'd ducked back into her room. All he'd seen of her was that she had her long blond hair pinned up on her head. He hoped, as long as she was going for a costume, that it would be a sexy outfit—more French maid, and less, for example, Humpty Dumpty. Last year, Maranda had gone as Tinker Bell and had wanted him to go as Peter Pan. "Yeah, right," he'd told her. He'd known before they started that it would be difficult enough to get her interested in making out when she was wearing wings and pixie dust; and he could only imagine how the night would have gone if he'd had to contend with that stupid hat and green tights.
Mrs. Zolla said, "I go up and help dahlink daughter."
While she went upstairs, Mr. Zolla, still sounding like the Count on Sesame Street, asked Brian, "May I get you something to drink?"
There was no telling how long a costume issue could take, so Brian said, "Sure," and followed him out into the kitchen.
The kitchen was large and very modern—white paint and brushed stainless steel. Brian guessed it was too much to hope that he would get offered a beer. Mr. Zolla knew Brian went to high school with Kyla, no matter what the fake ID in his wallet said.
But when Mr. Zolla opened the refrigerator, which was one of those super-expensive ones with the flat-screen TV built into the door, the refrigerator was empty except for maybe a dozen of those bags like the Red Cross uses to collect blood.
"Ve have A, B, or O-negatiff," Mr. Zolla said.
This Halloween routine was wearing awfully thin. Even knowing that the dark red substance in the bags had to be some kind of fruit punch, Brian's stomach went queasy. "I think I'll pass," he said.
Mr. Zolla shrugged and took out a bag for himself. Using the tubing as a straw, he slurped a mouthful, then gave an appreciative mmm. Then, "No?" he asked Brian. "Sure?"
"Oh, yeah," Brian said. "I'm sure."
They went back into the living room just in time to hear someone climb up onto the porch.
Mr. and Mrs. Zolla would probably scare the pants off any young trick-or-treaters, Brian thought with a certain amount of anticipation. But the door opened without the doorbell having rung, and a young man walked in.
"Hey, Dad."
Had to be Kyla's older brother: His hair, though almost military-short, was the same color as hers, and he had her smile, which he flashed at Brian. "Hey, you must be the new boyfriend. Brian?" He offered his hand. "I'm Trevor."
Mr. Zolla was scowling at Trevor's Old Navy sweatshirt and jeans. "Vhere is costume?" he demanded.
"The night's still young," Trevor told him
. "The moon isn't even out yet."
Mr. Zolla didn't look mollified, but Trevor wasn't paying attention to him. "Hey, that must be your Camaro out there," he said.
Brian was ready to accept a compliment about the vintage car, when Trevor finished, "Your back left tire looks awfully punky."
"Oh, no. I just bought those tires."
"Maybe you ran over a nail or some barbed wire coming up here." Trevor shook his head. "Country roads can be murder on tires. Here, let's go take a look."
Mr. Zolla held up his Red Cross bag. "Vant some blood, Trevor?" he asked. "O-negatiff, your favorite."
"Better save some for the party," Trevor said. "Leave the front door open so we can have some light in the driveway."
Party, Brian thought as he followed Trevor back outside. Duh. Then it made a little more sense how done-up Mr. and Mrs. Zolla were. Because—now that he thought of it—how could there be many trick-or-treaters when farmhouses were so far apart?
Brian crouched down in the gravel next to Trevor. Punky was an understatement. The tire was flat.
Kyla better be something really special before he'd ever come out here again.
"Got a spare?" Trevor asked.
"One of those stupid doughnuts," Brian said. That would probably not last from here to the dance, back here, back home—never mind any potential side trips. Besides looking stupid, like a Loony Tunes tire.
"You know," Trevor said, "we can probably fix this one."
Brian looked at him skeptically.
"Country roads," Trevor reminded him. "If we had to go to a service station every time we ran over something sharp, we'd have had to sell the farm years ago."
Brian resisted the urge to ask, And that would be a bad thing?
"Can you jack it up and get the wheel off?" Trevor asked. "I'll fill a vat of water so we can dunk the tire and tell from the bubbles where the leak is. Then I can put a plug in, we put the tire back on, jack the car down, and you'll be all set to go. Who knows? By the time we're done, my sister might even actually be ready."
"Yeah, right." Brian snorted.
"I'll get set up in the barn," Trevor said.
Brian got the jack out of the trunk and had the lug nuts off and the car up before he realized that Trevor hadn't come back. He pulled the wheel off the axle, and still there was no sign of Trevor. Brian looked up the driveway to the barn and thought, So much for what WE will do. Despite the coldness of the night, he was hot from struggling with the wheel. It would have been nice for Trevor to reappear now so he could lend a hand. Brian checked the tire, but there was no obvious puncture.
Still no Trevor.
Brian set the wheel upright and tried to roll it up the driveway the couple hundred yards to the barn, but there was so little air in it, the tire kept catching on the flat side. Still, it would be wimpish to leave the tire here, go to the barn to fetch Trevor, and ask him to do the carrying.
Brian picked the tire up, knowing he was getting dirt and gravel on his hands as well as his black T-shirt.
He struggled his way to the barn and kicked open the door, then simultaneously let the tire drop. "Here we are," he said, with only the slightest emphasis on the "we."
No sign of Trevor.
There was a light on overhead, which illuminated bales of hay and all sorts of equipment that Brian, a city boy, didn't recognize. One whole section of the barn was set up like a workshop where, conceivably, someone could do stuff like, for example, plug a tire. But there was no tub of water, no Trevor.
"Trevor?" Brian called, thinking there were lots of places behind which Kyla's brother could have gone to fetch whatever it was he needed.
No answer.
It was eerily quiet out here. No traffic going by, no neighbors, no animals—beyond the hint in the air of a recently startled skunk. Didn't all farm families have at least a pet dog or cat or chicken?
"Trevor?"
Maybe the vat Kyla's brother had been looking for wasn't in the barn. Maybe he'd gone back into the house to see if it was there.
Except, of course, that then he would have passed by Brian.
Brian brushed the dirt off the front of his shirt and looked at his watch. Ten after eight.
Even if Trevor had gotten distracted and wandered off, you'd think maybe Kyla might have been concerned enough to check up on her date.
"Trevor?" he called again, very loud this time.
Brian went outside. He could check around behind the barn, just in case Trevor had gone there. But he remembered what night this was, and he remembered how enthusiastic Trevor's parents were about Halloween, and—normal, reasonable, and friendly as Trevor had seemed—there was the chance that he might be waiting back there in the dark, ready to leap out at Brian, cause him to jump in fright. The story of Kyla's gutless boyfriend that the family had pranked would go down in the annals of Zolla family folklore to be repeated and laughed about at graduations, weddings, picnic reunions, and Halloween parties for years to come.
Halloween parties reminded him that guests were expected at the house.
No sign of any cars. Just his Camaro, sitting with its driver's side rear end sticking up in the air, bathed by the light from the still-open front door.
How late a start were they getting for this party?
Brian walked back to the house. Unless there was a prank going on that Mr. Zolla was in on, too, you'd think he might have had some curiosity about how his son was faring with changing his daughter's date's tire.
"Hello?" Brian called from the porch into the open doorway. He felt self-conscious about just walking in, but Mr. Zolla wasn't in the living room, and Brian wasn't going to wait outside in the cold and dark, with Trevor potentially looking out for the opportunity to shout "Boo!" at him.
Brian walked into the house.
"Hello," he called, thinking maybe Mr. Zolla was in the kitchen, hitting some more of that "O-negatiff."
The house was as quiet as the barn had been.
"Kyla!" Brian called from the foot of the stairs. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Enough is enough.
There was a click! behind him, and the Zolla family was just strange enough that—even as he whirled around—he found himself wondering if a secret door had opened. But there was no door, and in another moment the source of the click became evident as the big grandfather clock in the corner bonged the first quarter of the Westminster chimes melody.
It was a fancy old piece, massive, obviously hand-carved, with an impressive pendulum and weights, a dial to show the phases of the moon, and a clear but resonant tone.
A lot of money in this family.
Brian supposed that made them eccentric rather than nuts.
When the last echoes of the chimes had died away, Brian became aware of another sound, this time coming from the kitchen—a hissing, crackling sound.
"Trevor?" Brian called, not because he believed anymore that Trevor would ever answer, but because he felt funny walking through the house without announcing himself—just in case he ran into Mr. or Mrs. Zolla and they accused him of snooping. And of doing away with their son.
The lights were all still on in the huge, white kitchen. No one was there, but someone had put a pot on the stove. It was boiling over, which was the sound Brian had heard.
So they planned to serve their party guests something beyond blood-colored punch in Red Cross collection bags, after all. But then someone had lost track of what he or she was doing. It would serve them right if he just ignored the overflowing pot and let their dinner get ruined. But now that Brian had walked in here, he couldn't very well claim he hadn't heard it. He was sure somebody would come running in at any moment and catch him and berate him for being a fool who didn't know how to take care of boiling water.
Brian walked over to the stove and turned the heat off under the pot. The water was white with foam and continued to spill over the edge for another moment or two, sizzling on the still-hot burner. Even so, Brian considered it beyond his strictest responsibility to find
a pot holder or a towel to move the pot onto a cold burner where it would cool down faster.
And still no sign of the Zollas.
Brian considered whether he should just fetch his tire from the barn, stick on the doughnut spare, and go home.
He glanced around the kitchen and saw there was a back door. Trevor could have gone from barn to house without passing him in the driveway—but why? Maybe he had been unable to find that vat for the water and had come in here to ask his dad where it was, and the two of them had gone down to the basement to look...
For fifteen minutes?
And all this while, Kyla and her mother were upstairs, oblivious to anything beyond hair, nails, clothes, and shoes?
Who knows? Brian thought. Who cares?
He was going to give her exactly one more minute, before he was out of here.
Watching the second hand on the wall clock made the time seem to pass even slower: the old watched-pot-never-boils syndrome. Brian glanced at the pot on the stove. The water had ceased bubbling, and Brian looked in, expecting to see pasta.
What he saw was a rat.
For a moment he hoped it was a rubber or plastic toy, but chunks of fur were floating on top of the water.
Brian backed away in revulsion. Clean as the kitchen looked, there must be rats in the walls; perhaps one had been walking along the back of the stove and fallen into the water.
Note to self: ABSOLUTELY, accept no snacks from the Zollas, here, or anything Kyla might ever bring to school.
And that, of course, was giving the Zollas the benefit of the doubt: that they hadn't been cooking the rat.
Brian left the kitchen without waiting for that full minute to be up. Enough was enough. He and Kyla were history.
In the living room, he paused.
Had he closed the front door behind himself when he'd come in?
He hadn't thought so.
But surely he would have heard if the wind had slammed the door shut.
All Hallows' Eve: 13 Stories Page 7
