by Joseph Fink
No. Not quite empty. Somewhere behind them, though she never looked back, there was an ice cream truck full of apples, creeping slowly down the street. And if it caught them? She couldn’t imagine. Or she could imagine many, many things, but she didn’t want to. A whole variety of horrible fates, borrowed from every scary movie she had ever seen.
But never mind the truck. There was the house: 4391 Spindrift Court. The front windows were brightly lit, and she could hear music blaring inside. Beyond the garage, the side gate was open, with a sign saying: Haunted Maze. Free . . . If You Dare. They dared, gripping at the rotting wood of the garden gate as they passed through it. Black tarp led them into the maze.
Halloween sound effects played. Esther and Agustín jumped at the sound of a woman screaming from an old movie. (The actress screaming was named Maggie Rosenthal. She recorded that scream in 1967. Two years later, she retired from the movie business and moved back to Minnesota to become a geography teacher. She got married and had two children. After thirty years of teaching and fifteen years of retirement, Maggie passed away, surrounded by her loving family.)
But Esther and Agustín didn’t know any of that, and the slow, inevitable passage of time wasn’t what was scary about the sound effect. It was just a startling scream.
There were glow-in-the-dark skeletons in the haunted maze, and more fake cobwebs. But no one was jumping out at them. In fact, the haunted house seemed empty. Mr. Winchell was the neighborhood’s true great artist of Halloween decorations. Esther only loved this house a little more because, well, free haunted house and people jumping out to scare you. Without the people, it was only a big tent, some tarps, and a few skeletons. And the sound effects CD, which had finished playing Maggie’s screams and now was on to an electronic whirring sound that Esther thought might be intended to sound like a flying saucer.
They found themselves deposited back out on the other side of the yard without having seen a single other person at all.
“Okay, what the heck,” said Agustín.
“I don’t know what the heck,” Esther said. “Let’s go inside and find out.”
Even with everything else that had happened, they felt as though they were doing something wrong when they walked through the front door into the adult side of the party. An upbeat rock song with a lot of bass shook the pictures on the walls. There were red plastic cups everywhere, and cupcakes shaped like jack-o’-lanterns. But mostly there were sleeping people.
An entire party of adults, sprawled asleep on the couch, on the floor, face-first into the snack table. Some of them had plates by their hands, or drinks spilled down their chests. Two of them had fallen asleep in a position that would have been horrifyingly embarrassing if they had been awake to know it was happening.
Esther and Agustín stepped over the man by the door, who had fallen asleep with the trick-or-treat bowl of candy in his hand, little foil-wrapped bars spilling onto his face.
“They’re all breathing, right?” Esther said.
“Yeah, they’re breathing fine,” Agustín said. “They’re just . . . they’re asleep.”
“Hey, wake up!” Esther shouted at the guy by the door, shaking his shoulder. Agustín did the same to a woman with a cupcake upside down on her lap, her hand still raised to her face where she had been about to put it. But neither of them moved at all.
“Oh man, are they all poisoned or something?” Agustín said.
Esther was already pulling out her cell phone, calling 9-1-1. Forget getting in trouble. This was an emergency. There was something very wrong, and she needed to get help for these people.
The line rang and rang. No one picked up. She tried it again. Nothing.
“9-1-1 isn’t picking up,” she said.
“What do you mean 9-1-1 isn’t picking up? 9-1-1 picks up.”
“I mean, 9-1-1 isn’t picking up!”
Agustín swore and pulled out his cell phone, but he had the same result.
“9-1-1 always picks up,” he shouted at his phone, but shouting didn’t change the situation they were in.
And then that situation got worse. Artificial chimes playing a lurching waltz, with the notes just out of tune. They went to the doorway. The truck pulled up in front of the house. Queen of Halloween Apples. The horrible man she had met yesterday got out. His uniform and hair were as neat and spotless as before.
“Hey, kids,” he called with a friendly wave. “I’m Dan. Dan Apel.”
“I remember you,” said Esther.
“Well, what seems to be the problem here?”
He strode up the walk, humming to himself, and poked his head inside. Esther and Agustín retreated farther into the house to keep away from him.
“Mmm,” said Dan, with exaggerated concern. “Yeah, this seems like quite a bad situation you’ve gotten yourself into. It looks like all these folks are taking a nap, and you’re in here bothering them. You shouldn’t do that, you know. It’s rude.”
“Did you do this?” Esther said.
“Did I do this?” He laughed, actually slapping his knee. “Oh gosh, I’m not nearly powerful enough to do something like this. But I think I know who did. And I’ll tell you what else, kids.”
He cocked his head. His broad smile was exactly as perfect as it had been the day before, and exactly as false.
“I think whoever did this is only getting started. You should run on home to your parents now.” His voice became cold even as his toothy smile held. “It’s going to be a long night. A very, very long night.”
He chuckled and muttered to himself, “Did I do this? Imagine that,” then walked, whistling, back to his truck, leaving Esther and Agustín alone with the unconscious adults.
“MOM! DAD!”
As soon as the truck had turned the corner Esther started sprinting for home. Whatever was happening was serious and it was bad and she needed her parents.
Her house was silent. There was no sign of her parents in the living room or the kitchen. She ran into the back hall, still shouting for them. The door to their bedroom was open, the lights were on. She could see her dad’s feet in socks and the toes of her mom’s shoes through the doorway.
“Mom? Dad?” Quieter. A question, not a call. She stepped into the room, afraid of what she might find. Her parents were lying on the bed, fully clothed. They were breathing gently, her dad making a soft wheeze with each exhale. They were fast asleep.
She grabbed her dad’s foot. Shook her mom hard by the shoulders. Clapped right between their heads. Neither of them even mumbled or turned over.
“They’re not waking up. Why aren’t they waking up?” she said.
“It’s like the people at the party,” Agustín said. “That weirdo did something to them.”
“What could do this? What could do this?” she asked over and over, as though there were someone who might be able to tell her.
Without a great deal of hope, she tried 9-1-1 again on her phone. Ringing and ringing and nothing at all. Agustín, meanwhile, dialed his house again, then his mother’s cell phone.
“She’s still not answering,” he said. “She might be at the workshop, but . . .”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Esther, although she was not sure of that, and Agustín knew she wasn’t sure.
If her parents couldn’t help her, then the next rung down the ladder was her brother, Ben. Not the most responsible teenager, but older than her by four years, a senior in high school. She checked his room. There was no sign of him. He had been meeting up with his friends. She tried texting him, but he didn’t reply. Ben was never not looking at his phone, so he must be really distracted to not see her texts.
With no one left who could take care of her, it occurred to her finally that there was someone else more helpless than her.
“Sharon,” she said, and ran to Sharon’s room. It would be fine. Sharon would be in her bed (having recently graduated from her crib), tucked in, sleeping. But what if she couldn’t be woken up?
It was wors
e than that. “Oh my god,” Esther said.
Sharon was gone.
“Let’s search around the house,” Agustín said. “She probably just got freaked out and went looking for help.”
They went through the entire house, plus the backyard and the garage, shouting Sharon’s name.
“Nowhere,” Esther said. “She’s nowhere. My parents are asleep and can’t wake up. My brother is out who knows where, and my baby sister is gone.”
She felt blank. Not afraid, just nothing at all. She would have to give up. Sit here and wait until everything got better.
There was a knock at the door. A soft, sharp tapping. They turned to the windows but couldn’t see anything through them.
Slowly, Esther approached the door, with Agustín immediately behind. She cracked open the door.
There was a child in a dinosaur costume. The costume had stains all over it, and one of the big dinosaur eyes was missing. She couldn’t see the child’s face in the shadow of the dinosaur mask.
“Are you lost?” she said.
The child made a buzzing, clicking sound, like an insect.
“There’s something wrong with that kid,” Agustín said.
The buzzing from the trick-or-treater got louder.
She was about to shut the door when she heard a different sound.
“Mom? Mom? Please, Mom, wake up. Mom!”
A girl’s voice from down the street. Esther hesitated a moment, eyeing the buzzing creature in her doorway. But there was another person out there, awake and going through the same horrible experience that she was. She threw open the door and sprinted past the dinosaur costume and down the walk. The trick-or-treater didn’t move, although it made a series of loud clicks as Agustín followed Esther past it.
They made it to the sidewalk, and Esther paused, unsure of which direction to go.
“Help!” the voice shouted, and Esther ran toward it.
There was a minivan parked on the street, and a girl bent over the driver’s seat.
“Hey!” Esther said as she ran up.
The girl turned. She was holding the hand of Mrs. Min, who was slumped in the driver’s seat, asleep.
“Oh god, not you,” Sasha Min said.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Sasha said. She was wearing a baseball uniform and had black stripes painted under her eyes.
“I live right there,” Esther said.
“Oh,” Sasha said. “Oh. Well. Okay.” Her desire to ignore Esther was overwhelmed by her panic. “My mom won’t wake up. Can you help me?”
Esther and Agustín went to take a look. Mrs. Min was exactly like the Golds had been. Peacefully sleeping, breathing normally, but completely unable to be shaken out of sleep. Not reacting to even shouts or hard pokes.
“She was supposed to pick me up after trick-or-treating,” Sasha said. “But when I got here, she was asleep, and I couldn’t wake her up.”
“You go trick-or-treating?” Esther said.
“Well yeah,” Sasha said. “Whatever. That’s not the point. My mom’s in trouble. Help me.”
“I’m trying, Sasha, but I’m not a doctor, and since I’m betting you tried calling 9-1-1 first, you know there’s not a doctor coming anytime soon.”
Sasha looked like she wanted to cry, but she managed to force it into a glare at Esther instead.
“You’re a jerk. Go away, I need to help my mom.”
Esther felt bad about how she had handled this. “Sasha,” she said, trying to keep her voice quiet and gentle, “I know this is scary.”
“You don’t know anything. Go away.”
“I’m scared too. My parents won’t wake up. And my baby sister is missing. And no one is picking up the phone, and we seem to be alone here. Let’s be honest. I don’t like you. You don’t like me. I don’t even know why. We just don’t. But we need to find help. And it’ll be easier to do that together.”
Sasha bit her lip, looked down at the street.
“Whatever, sure,” she said. “Let’s find help.”
“Great, if you two are done arguing about whether you want to argue, I think we should start moving,” Agustín said. “Or maybe you forgot buzzy kid back there.”
“Buzzy kid?” Sasha said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Esther quickly interjected. Sasha was panicked enough. “If no one’s outside, let’s start knocking on doors again. Even houses with the lights off. Someone has to be up still.” She paused, reconsidering. “At least I really hope so.”
They moved systematically down the block, knocking on every door. No answers at any of them. Right when Esther was starting to think there wasn’t another person left awake in the town, a woman swung open her door after three knocks. It was one of the houses with all of its front lights off, and no decorations.
“Do I look like I’m open for trick-or-treating?” the woman said. “And what time is it? You should be ashamed for bothering good people at this hour.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Sasha said, in a different voice than Esther had ever heard. It was a “talking to grown-ups” voice; deferential, polite, but also deeper and less kid-like. “We’re having an emergency, and we need help.”
“It’s late,” the woman said. “And I’m tired. I’ve been yawning for hours. How late is it?” She lifted her arm as though to check her watch, but seemed to run out of energy halfway up and dropped it again without looking. “You kids go to bed. Stop bothering your neighbors.”
“You’re not listening,” Esther said. “Our parents are in trouble. There are lots of people in trouble. Help us, please.”
“Kids think they know everything,” the woman said, swinging the door shut, then shouting through the closed door, “Go to bed! And don’t knock again, because I’m going to bed too.”
Esther met Agustín’s eyes, sharing a moment of despair, and then looked over at Sasha, who was struggling to keep it together. Seeing Sasha like that made Esther want to be strong.
“Okay, not a problem,” she said. “Or, yes, a problem, but we need to keep moving.”
“There’s something horribly wrong going on here,” Sasha said. “That woman wasn’t acting normal. None of this is normal.”
“Hate to side against you, Est,” Agustín said. “But Sasha’s right. This isn’t normal. I don’t think knocking on doors will work.”
Even though she didn’t disagree with anything that either of them were saying, she was furious at Agustín for taking Sasha’s side.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “Then what do you think we should do? Just go back to Sasha’s original idea? Running around screaming help until our throats give out?”
“Are you making fun of me for trying to help my mother?” Sasha said, her fury shaking her out of her panic.
“Est,” Agustín said.
“No, no,” said Esther. “I think it was a great idea. Let’s do it more. Here I go.” She went to the middle of the street and screamed at the top of her lungs: “Help! Help us, someone! If I keep screaming, will you come help us?”
“I’m leaving,” Sasha said. “You’re both jerks.”
“Don’t go,” Agustín said. “We have to stick together.”
“Oh help me!” Esther continued to shout. “I’m a helpless child. Won’t somebody assist little me?”
Sasha rolled her eyes and started to walk away.
“Hey!” a new voice said. “What are you kids screaming about? Are you in trouble?”
They all turned. Mr. Gabler was standing on his front lawn, holding his basket of toothbrushes and mini-toothpaste tubes.
“Esther,” he said, his brow furrowed. “You sounded terrified. What’s the emergency?”
Esther couldn’t believe it. An adult, awake and offering to help her. She wanted to cry, right there in the middle of the street.
Instead, she steadied her voice and forced herself to say, “Oh, Mr. Gabler! I am so glad to see you. May we come in?”
MR. GABLER LED THEM into the kitchen. On the counter was a pile
of that week’s newspapers. He frowned and pushed them aside. Esther saw a headline about the robbery of the collector in the hills and thought of her conversation with Agustín in his front yard. Had that only been a day ago? It already felt like it existed on the other side of some impossible divide in her life.
“Now tell me what is going on,” Mr. Gabler said. “And please be quiet. Mrs. Gabler has already gone to bed, and I don’t want any of you waking her up.”
“Have you tried to wake her up?” Sasha asked.
“Why would I try to wake her up once she’s gone to bed? I should be in bed too, I felt very sleepy, but when I lay down, I got poked by this in my pocket.” He held up a small, sharp stone. “Not sure how it got there. The surprise woke me right up, I guess. Now what are you doing here?”
Esther told him about her sleeping parents and Mrs. Min sleeping in the car, about Sharon going missing, the party full of sleeping people who could not be woken up, the doors that no one was answering, the white trucks with men inside that seemed to want to do them harm, her brother being out at a party, and finally remembering to include that 9-1-1 wasn’t picking up, that no one was picking up, that phones seemed to be useless. She only left out the buzzing trick-or-treaters in their ragged and dirty costumes. She didn’t know what words to use to describe them, how she would get anyone to believe her.
Mr. Gabler listened to all of this with remarkable patience, his arms crossed, only raising his eyebrows at her missing sister and at 9-1-1 not working. When she had finished, he stood there processing it for a second in silence. Then he uncrossed his arms and put his hands on the counter.
“Well,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on that would make you think you could make up stuff like that to anyone, let alone a busy adult who you barely know.”
“I’m not making any of it up,” she started to protest, but he waved her to silence.
“But if any part of what you’re saying is true, if your sister is really missing, then we need to get the police involved. And if you turn out to be making it up, that will be a bad mess for you. Not my problem, though.”