by D A Fowler
Carol’s tear-brimmed eyes lit with remembrance. “Lana mentioned something about one of Spiro’s hands —palms—being badly burned. She suspected that his mother had done it to him on purpose, as a punishment for something. But he wouldn’t admit it. So Mrs. Guenther came out on the porch an’ apparently she and Lana had some kind of confrontation. I guess Mrs. Guenther confessed to it, so Lana warned her that if she ever did anything like that again, she’d report it to the police. I know I should’ve called anyway, but frankly I…I didn’t really care.”
She had to compose herself before continuing. Pate waited patiently. “Come to think of it, the dog disappeared right after that. Spiro gave it to Lana because his mother wouldn’t let him keep it. If she was sick enough to burn his hand, maybe she killed that poor dog…”
Pate wrote furiously in his notepad, the tip of his tongue protruding from the left side of his mouth, reminding Carol of a five-year-old Luke studiously drawing his first masterpiece with crayons.
Both eyebrows shot up when he finished, and he let out a slow breath. “Yeah, well, no telling what all she could have been doing to the boy all these years…maybe he just finally cracked. Happens all the time, I guess, but not around here. Not until now anyway. Anything else?”
Carol shook her head, her gaze settling somewhere in space. But when Pate stood to take his leave, she came back from her astral voyage and asked meekly, “Do you know if a boy named Bruce is one of the missing?”
“Bruce…last name?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know the last name, sorry.”
Caressing the handle of his .357 Magnum, Pate said, “Well, we got so much thrown on us at once, truthfully I don’t know any of the names, except your daughter’s. Why do you ask?”
“He was spending a lot of time with Lana, that’s all. Guess that probably makes you wonder why I don’t know his last name, doesn’t it?” She laughed bitterly. “Never mind. Well, if Bruce is missing, Lana’s probably with him, an’ I would be very surprised if they weren’t on their way to Tyler. But better that than being involved with the rest of this…this madness.”
“Well, if you have a picture of your daughter I could take with me, that would help. We’ll also put APB’s out on your vehicle and this Bruce, if he had one. You know if he did?”
“Just an ol’ pickup, missing most of the paint. A real horror to have parked in front of your house every evening.” She left to go get a picture of Lana.
A slight smile touched Pate’s lips as he remembered the “horror” he had driven in his youth, and parked in front of Janet Shelby’s house night after night. But her parents hadn’t seemed to mind.
Carol reappeared a few minutes later with Lana’s junior year school picture and handed it to him, her eyes pleading. “Please find her.”
“We’ll do our best, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and left, after cautioning her to keep what she knew to herself.
Thirty
The sun finally yielded its azure brilliance to frothy blackness. A full moon appeared in the center of a massive halo which glowingly displayed the entire spectrum of colors like a round rainbow. To the simpleminded it was a sign in the heavens. To the aesthetically inclined it was a thing of beauty, a natural work of art, and they scrambled for their cameras. To a certain group of teenagers it was the signal to party down.
The usual ritual of Trick or Treat had been unanimously canceled. By sundown very few in Sharon Valley— basically those in the nursing home or too young to understand the English language—remained in total ignorance of the Happenings. Teenagers were ordered to stay at home—and play Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit with the family for once!—but most of them thought not. They had gone to painstaking trouble to create their new costumes, hoping to win the Most Gross title, an unparalleled honor among the juvenile set. Watching their parents strangle each other over pieces of meaningless property, or seeing younger siblings smirk every time they held out their greedy little paws and said “I own that!” or even worse, playing a game that made you seem like you had an IQ of minus six, was asking a bit much. Those who didn’t retreat to the solace of their headphones, and who had the nerve to do so, snuck out, stuffing pillows under the blankets on their beds to make it look like they’d sacked out early. If they hadn’t been nailed to the floor. They found ways to get out.
Miss the Halloween party on Beacon Hill? Get real.
They lay on the stone, side by side, surrounded by burning candles. For a moment Lana imagined she was an icing decoration on a huge birthday cake, and pretty soon a giant was going to come along and eat her with one hot swallow. The image evoked no fear, and was soon forgotten.
Directly above them the moon shined brightly, glorified further by the loveliest ring that surrounded it like a mother-of-pearl bracelet. No renegade clouds dared to invade the iris of that perfectly round eye, the pupil white instead of black, and thereby inhibit its vision of the proceeds conducted below it. It stared down at them without emotion.
Azrahoth stood behind their heads. Forming a triangle, Nephyrcai stood to the right of Lana’s feet, Vikael to the left of Dennis’s, both of them facing Azrahoth, who had just opened the ledger.
“The hour has come for the High Priestess Morganna Ober and her consort to return to this domain,” it said with a voice like crackling flames.
As it began to read the incantation, the ancient ‘Open Sesame’ of spiritual planes, the rectangle of candle flames flickered wildly. The words held no meaning for Lana; she’d never heard any of them before. They certainly weren’t Spanish, the only other language she was even halfway familiar with. German, perhaps; the words were harsh and overloaded with consonants.
The halo around the moon seemed to grow slightly smaller, and the stone on which they lay began to vibrate. Like a massage bed, Dennis lay thinking. Someone had just dropped in a quarter. They could also hear, vaguely, the distant sound of music.
The demon Azrahoth eventually finished its recital and fell silent, whereupon Nephyrcai and Vikael lifted their arms and together began chanting solemn praises of Satan. The vibration in the stone gradually escalated to a rumble.
“Dy-no-MITE!” Jeff Lindy exclaimed at the approach of the best Dracula he had ever seen. “Hey Starkey, is that you, man?”
The green-faced vampire hissed and snaked out a red tongue.
“I am Deraculaaaaah,” it boomed darkly, heavily-lined eyes fixed longingly on the throat of Jeffs date, the Bride of Frankenstein. She had painted a temporary silver streak up the part of her naturally wavy hair and had plastered the whole lot upright with mousse and three quarters of a can of hair spray. She had to avoid low-hanging limbs; she was afraid if her hair hit something, it would break off. She returned Dracula’s leer with one of her own and wantonly offered her neck.
The party was in full swing, blood alcohol levels quickly rising—several of them had had the foresight to raid their parents’ liquor cabinets before dark. The degree of drunkenness one could attain was directly proportionate to the fun one would remember having the next day. When you could remember puking in your pocket, you knew for certain you’d had a gas.
Mike Owen, S. V. High’s token black, had brought along his monster boombox, though he still proudly referred to it as his Ghetto Blaster. Through the speakers DJ Duane Gunn played their favorite rock hits, the volume loud enough to wake the dead. Mike’s family was one of the richest in Sharon Valley, and the Owens had learned that green covered a multitude of dark pigment.
A few couples were gyrating spastically to the music; one of them, a matching set of Egyptian mummies with greatly exaggerated sex parts, slammed against each other like warring pogo sticks. Others sat leaning stuporous against the south side of the Obers’ tomb, staring at the small mellow campfire they had irreverently built right on Christina Warner’s grave, unaware of the hacked and mutilated remains of Roger Snell scattered on the other side. S
omeone needed to put more wood on the fire, but it would never get done. Behind the cloak of leaves still others groped and fondled, exchanging wet, sloppy kisses, pausing as little as possible to breathe.
What appeared to be a two-hundred-year-old man wearing a tan trench coat cursed loudly, “Mother fuck, man, the booze is all gone!” He opened his coat and jiggled the obscene foam rubber appendage protruding from his zipper.
There was a consensus of groans. Mike, who had come as a zombie—he’d had to explain a dozen times why he hadn’t had to change his normal appearance, always with the same robust laugh—silenced the boombox and rubbed his hands together. “That means it’s Gory Story time, kiddies.”
The partiers responded in unison: “Ahhhhh!”
The ghosts and goblins, pasty corpses with nooses around their necks or fake knives protruding from their chests above a generous application of ketchup, the Jasons and the Freddie Kruegers, Lizzie Bordens and warty witches, gathered around the fire. Only two, the Cat people, remained in their leafy sanctuary because Gory Story time could in no way compete with Lose Your Virginity time. Their absence was not noticed.
The Bride of Frankenstein, Amy Lusk, giggled nervously. “We don’t have to make up any stories this year. We’re living a real one.”
Heads nodded, bloodshot eyes grew wider.
The male mummy, whose stiff penis suspiciously resembled a paper towel holder covered with papier-mache, added after a hefty belch, “Yeah, my parents would shit their pants if they knew I was out here.”
Jeff Lindy snuggled against his girlfriend, whom he’d encased in his satin cape. When he opened his mouth to speak, his fangs fell out, which brought a short relief of laughter to the mounting tension. He popped them back in and asked in his most otherworldly voice, “But WHOOO are the VICTIMS?”
Everyone looked at everyone one else. No one knew. “I heard they found somebody that was so messed up they couldn’t tell,” Cory Fulcher said behind his Freddy Krueger mask. Gasps all around.
Mike said in a deep baritone, “I’ll tell you what’s happening, my little white brothers and sisters. Just look at the moon.”
They all looked up and shuddered appropriately.
“That’s what they call a witches’ moon,” Mike continued, circling the group in a much-practiced zombie walk. “Yes, a witches’ moon, children. And we knew before tonight that there were real live witches in our midst, not to mention any names or anything, like Nancy Snell and Marla Mingee; but like fools, fools, we let them continue on their merry wicked way, and now you see what they’ve done, picking off their victims one by one, all those who might pose a threat to their evil craft. And tonight, under the spell of the hellish moon, they will seek out the rest of their prey…I don’t doubt that they’re on their way down the path at this very moment—”
“Ooh, hey, let’s do another story,” Amy interrupted. “You’re really scaring me, Mike.”
He grinned the grin of the dead. “That’s what it’s all about, my pet, my lovely punk poodle. That’s what you came here for, what we all came for. To DIE!” He bellowed out a hollow string of laughter.
A scream punctuated his laugh like a siren, setting off a chain reaction of similar shrieks in the group. Even Mike jumped and turned a few shades lighter, but for ego’s sake he composed himself quickly.
He called to the bordering wall of trees, “Very funny, who-the-fuck ever you are. Come on out now and join the party, we’re trying to tell ghost stories here!”
His command was answered by another scream, another voice, with the same genuine-sounding terror. Mike was neither impressed nor amused; someone was stealing the show from him. His audience, now captivated by the unknown screamers, began to scoot together in a tight bunch against the wall of the Obers’ tomb, horror stamped on every face. The trees in the direction they were staring rustled and swayed, making way for the mass that was moving between them. There were audible intakes of breath. More than a few were picturing ten-foot Nancys and Marlas appearing before their eyes in the clearing, pointy black hats atop their heads, black robes flowing, fingers arranged in the hexing position, green lips prepared to hurl curses of the worst kind.
The costume disguised him fairly well from the neck up, but the size and shape of his body, the way it moved, and the clenched fists at his sides gave him away very quickly. They all began to laugh.
It was Tardo come to join the party.
Cory Fulcher was first to get up. He pulled off his Freddie Krueger mask and sauntered over to the tree-framed hulk, still snickering. “Hey Tardo, you wanna borrow my mask instead? Yours just doesn’t—” His words faltered as he realized that Spiro Guenther wasn’t wearing a mask. In fact, he was hardly wearing a face. The muscle tissue, exposed veins, and blood clots bordered by ragged skin flaps were real. “Gross, man!” Glancing toward the group he yelled, “Come check this out! Tardo’s cut his fucking face off!”
At that moment the Bride of Frankenstein and Lizzie Borden shrieked in unison, because Spiro apparently intended to cut Cory’s face off next. He lunged at the smaller boy with outstretched arms, one hand clutching something that looked like a knife. Acting instantly on the girls’ warning screams, Cory ducked, just barely escaping Spiro’s mortal embrace. Everyone was on their feet now, the girls screaming for all their lungs were worth, the guys arguing over whether or not to take Tardo on as a team or just play it as every man for himself. After several moments of watching Cory dodge Spiro like a matador dodging an enraged bull, they decided it was every man for himself. The group began to scatter.
“Help us!” Christie Luben screamed through the narrow mouth slit in her mummy costume. She and her boyfriend Bill Roberts were having a hell of a time just standing up. “God, you guys! Please!”
Ironically, the only one who paid any attention to her plea was Spiro. He stopped chasing Cory and settled his gaze on the two gauze-wrapped figures making a very slow and clumsy getaway, leaning against each other for support. Still, one or the other fell every few feet.
Spiro smiled, creating a fresh ache in his raw cheek muscles. He’d take off all the faces, all of them, and then he could be anyone he wanted to be. And if they laughed at him then, they would only be laughing at themselves. He charged toward the mummies, who both began to yell and scream with dire urgency, but no one turned back to help. Spiro took the boy first and yanked him away from his girlfriend’s embrace, toppling her over in the process. Bill landed on his back, and in the blink of an eye Spiro was straddling his chest and brandishing the straight razor in Bill’s bandaged face.
“Don’t hurt me, man!” Bill cried in a falsetto voice. “Come on, Spiro! You know I really like you! Chill out, okay?”
Christie continued to scream as she crabbed away on the dead grass, and Spiro turned to look at her for just a second before slicing the lethal blade deeply across Bill’s swathed neck. A backup chorus of screams came from the nearest trees, where some of the others had apparently hidden, waiting to see what would happen. Now they’d seen, and were buying more distance wholesale.
Bill made a gurgling noise as the white gauze began to turn red. He seemed to be trying to say something, but the only thing coming from his throat was blood. Christie’s screams escalated, and they were beginning to give Spiro a headache. Leaving Bill to finish spilling out his life’s blood, he went after Christie. Until the gauze was cut away he wouldn’t know if she was pretty or not, but if she was, maybe Lana would like to look like her sometimes.
Seeing Spiro rise to come after her, Christie’s overload of fear hurled her into unconsciousness. He knelt beside her still form and began to unwrap the gauze, becoming impatient when it got tangled. With the sound of Bill’s death rattle in his ears, he started making indiscriminate slashes, each evidenced by the gradual surfacing of a thick red line.
Now this was a Halloween party. After slicing the girl mummy to a mass of bloody ribbons,
he went in search of more fun. He could always come back for his faces later.
Thirty-One
A distant wails of human terror wafted through the continuing praises of the dark god. If the demons were aware of them, they showed no sign; their contorted mouths chanted on with enthusiasm.
An atomic rocket was tunneling its way through miles of compressed earth and stone and would eventually thrust its warhead through Lana’s back. She calmly wondered what it was going to feel like. On the other hand, maybe they were just having an earthquake, in which case the ground would soon split and swallow her up forever. She tried to guess who was doing all the screaming and why. There was simply nothing to get that excited about. It didn’t seem to last for very long, although Lana’s perception of time had become greatly distorted. She could easily believe she had been lying on the cold stone for a whole year.
Cold? No, as she came to think of it, it really wasn’t so cold any longer. In fact, it was growing rather warm. The heat seeped into her flesh like a dog’s moist, hot breath, panting. She felt the rhythm of a heartbeat—hers?—the mounting tension of a woman in labor. The rumbling continued to grow louder, the vibration sensation more intense. Soon it would happen, whatever it was. Oh yes. Her destiny. The High Priestess was coming to take over her body.
Lana gratefully absorbed the heat pulsating from the stone and waited, realizing with little surprise that the ring around the moon had become so small that there seemed only about an inch of the iris left. The rainbow colors had deepened to glittery brilliance; the eye had become a diamond brooch with a pearl in the center, surrounded by a thin band of onyx. Lana watched it twinkle, spellbound.
Suddenly the demons fell silent. The offerings lay still and ready. The stone grew from warm to hot, the rumble became a roar, the vibration strong enough to jar the entire planet, or so it seemed to Lana.