The October Boys

by Adam Millard

  Tom made his excuses and went into the house, where he called Danielle. She answered after the eighth ring, just as Tom had been about to cancel the call. “Hey.” She sounded out of breath.

  “Hey,” Tom replied. “Just thought I’d check in, make sure those boys aren’t bullying you too much.” He lit a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table. Wood had tidied up after breakfast, but the myriad smells—toast, eggs, coffee—remained.

  “They’re hard work, but nothing I can’t handle,” Danielle said. There was an awkward pause, the sound of something crunching underfoot, more panting. “We’re actually out at the moment, Tom. Jayden wanted to pick his own pumpkin for tonight, so we decided to head out to a PYO farm.”

  “Leaving it a bit late,” Tom said. “I’d be surprised if there are any left.”

  “Well, we’ll see when we get there, though to be honest I think you’re right. I just didn’t want to be the one to tell Jayden.” Quieter now, so that her nephew didn’t hear. “Let him find out for himself.”

  Danielle wanted to know what Tom had planned for the day, and Tom told her he would be taking it easy. She said he should expect a call from Doctor Kurian, who was a little concerned about him and his erratic behaviour, and Tom told her that there was nothing to worry about, that everything was fine—he was fine—and he wouldn’t be doing anything silly.

  “So, the whole thing…” She trailed off, but Tom knew what she was getting at. She wanted reassurance that he wasn’t losing his mind, that he didn’t actually believe some demonic Ice Cream Man was going to pierce the thin veil between their respective worlds tonight and steal another child.

  “Just bad memories and even worse dreams,” Tom said. “I’m thinking about taking a little time off work, you know? Take better care of myself, and to hell with Michael & Michael for the time being.” He wasn’t lying; he had been considering a few months off, only now that he had verbalised it, he wanted—needed—it even more.

  “If you think it’ll help,” Danielle said. “I’m sure Kurian will write you a note.”

  “I’m sure he will, and if he doesn’t, next time I see him I’m going to steal his pen. Steal his pen and defecate on his desk.”

  Danielle erupted with laughter. Breathy laughter which was like music to Tom’s ears. He hadn’t heard his wife laugh in… well, a long time. He had almost forgotten what it sounded like. He knew, then, that he would do whatever it took to get her back, for he couldn’t survive without her, couldn’t make it through another week without seeing her or waking up to find her wrapped around him in bed.

  “I promise,” Tom said, “everything is going to be okay, Dani. I know you can’t see it right now—and that’s understandable; I’ve been selfish, and a dick—but we’re going to be together again. Once all this is over… once I’ve got my head sorted…”

  “I know,” she said. “And you’re not a dick, Tom. I wouldn’t be with you if you were. You just need to… you just need to get some treatment, okay? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I’ll be with you every step of the way, if you want me to be.”

  Tom told her he would like that, he would like that very much, despite knowing that there was nothing wrong with his head, with his mental stability. He was as sharp as a tack, and this thing was very much real. Since Danielle was never going to believe in it, however, he knew he had no choice but to play along, just like Nicholson did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Anything for a quiet life.

  “Guess what?” she said.

  “What?”

  “There are some pumpkins left. Can you believe that?” Then she was shouting, calling after Jayden, who must have gone off a-running, excited at the prospect of picking his own pumpkin. “I have to go, Tom,” she said. “Better make sure he doesn’t pick a rotten one.”

  “I love you,” Tom said. It felt like the last chance he would ever have to tell her, and maybe it was. “I love you, and I’m going to make everything right between us, you have my word.”

  “I love you too, Tom,” Danielle said.

  Then she hung up.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  October 31st, 2016,

  Redbridge, London

  Night seemed to fall quicker than ever before. Darkness descended upon Redbridge, and with it came a chill. Tom, Luke, Marcus, and Wood piled into the 4x4, with Wood’s wheelchair folding away in the spacious boot. It had taken Tom and Luke to lift Wood across into the back seat, while Marcus held the door as wide as he could. By the time the former copper was loaded up, Tom was sweating sheets. Ten minutes later, he would be shivering again.

  “So, how are we going to do this?” Luke said as he climbed into the passenger seat. Marcus was happy sitting in the back with Wood. ‘Me and Sarge, sitting in a tree’ was how he put it. “We just going to drive around, listening out for Pop Goes the Weasel, and hope for the best?”

  Tom pushed the button which electrically took his window down. “You got any better ideas?”

  “I think we should head to Havering,” Wood said. “That’s where this all started, that’s where it’s going to end.”

  Tom didn’t know how Wood could be so sure, but there was a certain poetry to what he was suggesting. A perfect circle, he thought. And thanks for all the nightmares…

  Turning the key, Tom listened as the engine started. It wasn’t a noisy car—not idling, anyway—but he would have to keep the window down in order to listen out for the discordant chimes of the phantom ice cream truck. Marcus would complain about how the chill was hitting him right in the face less than five minutes after pulling off, but Tom new they couldn’t risk it. They had one shot at this, one chance to bring this fucker down.

  “Into the abyss,” Luke said as Tom pulled the 4x4 away from the kerb.

  “Amen,” Tom added.

  “I think I need the toilet,” Marcus said.

  “Shut up, Banger,” Wood groaned.

  * * *

  October 31st, 2016

  Bromley, London

  It wasn’t the greatest carved pumpkin in the history of Halloween, but Jayden seemed pleased with himself, and Danielle had managed to escape with only minor cuts to her fingers, so the night was off to a good start. In the background, an album Rebecca had put on—The Best of Halloween, or Now! Halloween, some such compilation—was already starting to grate. There were only so many times you could listen to The Monster Mash without wanting to punch the next Trick or Treater to knock the door.

  Justice, Joel, and Oscar were bobbing for apples at the kitchen table. Oscar wasn’t doing too well, since he hated water in his eyes, and was already begging for his brothers to play a different game. “Stop whining and get your head in the bucket,” Justice said. “Joel and me have already managed to get our five-a-day.”

  Oscar cried. Oscar threw a tantrum. And then Oscar went to bed. Halloween didn’t mean anything to Oscar, and Danielle was honestly surprised Rebecca’s youngest had stayed up this late, since he hadn’t a clue what was going on.

  “So, remind me,” Danielle said, settling herself down at the kitchen table with a small glass of wine. It didn’t feel right drinking, knowing that Tom was going through hell trying to quit. But one little glass wouldn’t hurt. “Who are you two supposed to be?”

  Justice was painted green from the neck up and the wrists down. Other than that, he was pretty much the same old Justice. “I’m the Hulk,” he said. “You know? Avengers?” He said it as if he were talking to a simpleton.

  “I know The Avengers,” Danielle said, bobbing her tongue out at Justice. “John Steed, Emma Peel, British intelligence, black umbrellas—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Joel said.

  Danielle couldn’t help herself; she burst out laughing. “I’m just winding you up,” she said. “I get it: The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain Armenia—”

  “It’s Captain America!” Justice said. To Joel he said, “She knows what she’s saying. Don’t take any notice of her.”

  Joel nodded before
bobbing for an apple. When he came back up, mouth empty and gasping for air, Danielle said, “So your brother’s the Hulk? Who are you?”

  “I’m Aquaman,” Joel said.

  “Oh!” Danielle said. “Does Aquaman wear an orange tee-shirt and green marigolds?”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Justice reminded his younger brother. “She’s just jealous because Halloween is like dress-down Friday for her.”

  “Smart-aleck,” Danielle said. “Where did you hear that?”

  Justice grinned. His front two teeth at the top were missing, and it made his smirk even more mischievous. “Jayden told me to say it. Only he told me to say it to Mom, not you, but Mom wouldn’t have taken it as a joke.”

  “Good call,” Danielle said. Then she realised something; she hadn’t seen Jayden for almost five whole minutes. She was so used to him always being there, hanging on her every word and defending her to the hilt, that she had just assumed he was in the room, silently watching, perhaps jealous she was giving the time of day to her other nephews.

  But he wasn’t in the kitchen, and when Rebecca walked in a moment later—dressed as a black cat, replete with eyeliner whiskers and lipstick-pink nose—Danielle said, “Is Jayden upstairs?”

  Rebecca frowned. “I didn’t see him. Is that music loud enough, do you think? I’m trying to piss of the neighbours.” She was already slurring her words; Danielle could see it was going to be a long night.

  “Music’s fine,” Danielle said, standing from the kitchen table. Maybe even turn it off, yeah? she thought but didn’t say. This wasn’t her house, and these weren’t her children (not that she would ever find out what that was like) and so it was best to keep her opinions to herself.

  “I’m going to check on Jayden,” Danielle said. She stood from the table and walked toward the hallway. When she reached it, she discovered that the door was open; not fully, but enough for a chill to seep through the crack.

  Jayden was still outside. But surely it didn’t take that long to find the perfect spot for a pumpkin. Unless he was admiring it, or perhaps he’d got chatting to a group of Trick or Treaters, friends from school. Either way, it was time to come in now. Outside it was cold, and the last thing Rebecca needed was to have Jayden off school, sick.

  Danielle pulled open the door and…

  She saw the pumpkin first, or what had once been a delicately carved pumpkin. Now it was reduced to mush, an orange mulch whose candle had gone out. It was right there on the path; Justice and Joel’s pumpkins still glowed either side of it.

  Lost. Danielle felt suddenly lost, and so she called out to her nephew. “Jayden? Jayden, are you out here?” She looked toward the end of the path; the rust-eaten gate swung gently back and forth on squeaky hinges.

  And then she heard it. A sound so surreal at this time of night—this time of year—that her brain struggled to comprehend it.

  Pop Goes the Weasel.

  Ice cream van chimes, terribly out of tune, repeated themselves over and over, and now Danielle was running toward the gate, her heart racing within her. “Jayden! Jayden!” But no matter how many times she called out his name, her nephew did not appear, for he wasn’t hiding in the front garden, wasn’t playing silly buggers for the sake of one good scare.

  Danielle knew where he was, and yet she still refused to believe it.

  Refused until she reached the gate, spilled out onto the dimly lit street just in time to see the yellow-and-white ice cream truck go whizzing past, its driver nothing more than a dark shape behind the wheel. A dark shaped with blood-red eyes.

  She screamed.

  From somewhere inside the truck, Jayden Lebbon screamed back.

  * * *

  October 31st, 2016

  Havering, London

  The Trick or Treaters were out in force in and around Havering, despite the chill in the air and the frost on the ground. Gangs of kids—some accompanied by grown-ups, others simply out to create mischief, something you can’t do with a responsible adult watching your every move—walked the streets. Many were dressed as their favourite superheroes, something which Tom didn’t quite understand. Halloween was meant to be about ghosts, about spirits and the dead and things that make your hair stand on end; it was not an excuse to throw on last summer’s Spiderman costume and hope no one noticed.

  Under advisement from Luke, Tom drove past Luke’s mother’s house, just to make sure everything ‘looked okay’. And it looked more than okay. Carved pumpkins peppered the driveway. Dave’s TR7 now wore a ghostly sheet of its own, but perhaps that had more to do with its recent broken handbrake than the fact it was Halloween.

  “Happy?” Tom asked Luke as he pulled away from the kerb.

  Luke nodded. “I feel like I should be in there, you know? Protecting Lydia, making sure that son-of-a-whore can’t get anywhere near her.” He sighed, lit a cigarette and dangled his arm out of the window so that the smoke didn’t offend Marcus in the back seat.

  “You’re protecting her just fine,” Tom said as he reached the end of the street and took a right. They had enough fuel to drive around Havering all night long, and that’s what they would do, if it came down to it. Tom almost wished the truck would appear now so that they could get it over with. He had considered the possibility that it wouldn’t show at all, that a child in some other part of the country, hundreds of miles away from where they now patrolled, was already on its way to Ghuul’s netherworld. A feeling of helplessness washed over Tom, but it was a feeling which he quickly dispelled. There was no time for weakness tonight.

  They had to be strong.

  They had to be ready.

  And when it came right down to it, they had to be mentally prepared.

  “This is going to be one long-ass night,” Marcus said from the back seat. “Does anyone else feel a bit strange, cruising the streets while all these kids are out here? I mean, I know we’re not doing anything wrong, but I’m pretty sure there’s a register for people like us.”

  Ignoring his comment completely, Wood said, “How’s your father doing, Banger? He still collecting money for people more powerful than him?”

  Tom looked in the rear-view mirror, saw Marcus smile before answering. “You do realise my dad’s an old man now. Almost as old as you, Sarge. He hasn’t done anything illegal for at least three years, and I don’t know how illegal it is to eat a grape from a supermarket display without paying first.”

  Wood sucked in air through his teeth. “I’d say six-to-twelve in the Scrubs. It all depends on whether the supermarket wants to testify.”

  Laughing, Marcus said, “Things have changed since you were on the force, Sarge. Everyone knows it’s community service for grape theft nowadays.”

  “This country’s too soft by half,” Wood said, and then he and Marcus were both laughing. Another surreal moment in a long line of them, Tom thought.

  Just then, Tom’s mobile started to ring; Rossini’s William Tell Overture filled the car. Tom fumbled around in his jeans pocket, managed to pincer the phone and pull it free before the call rang off. He answered it, slowed the car to twenty as he spoke. “Hey, babe. Everything okay?”

  Danielle was hysterical. Screaming down the line at him and uncontrollably crying. It took Tom a while to realise she wasn’t yelling at him about something he had or hadn’t done. “Babe, Dani, please try to calm down. What is it? What’s happened?”

  Everyone else in the car watched Tom as he tried to placate his seemingly panic-stricken wife. Tom slowed the car even further before pulling over completely. Danielle’s frenetic voice filled the car. Tom’s heart was now racing. And then she said three words which seemed to grip his heart and squeeze it tight.

  Ice

  Cream

  Man

  “Just stay there and call the police!” Tom said, shouting now. “We’re on our way.”

  Danielle began to say something else— “We’re on our way? who are you with? —but Tom didn’t let her finish the question. He cancelled the ca
ll and passed the phone to Luke. “I don’t fucking believe it!” Tom said, hammering the steering-wheel with both hands. “I didn’t see it coming. We thought it was going after Lydia, but it never was. It never was!” He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and sped away from the kerb. The 4x4’s tyres squealed beneath them.

  “What is it?” Wood asked, leaning forward. “What’s going on, Tom?”

  “It got Danielle’s nephew,” Tom said. “It got Jayden. Fuck!” He took the next corner without braking; a trio of witches, pound-store plastic buckets swinging from their arms, stopped and glared at the speeding Range Rover with open mouths.

  “How far?” Marcus asked.

  “Forty-five minutes with no traffic,” Tom said through gritted teeth. “It’s Bromley. Just past Greenhill Nursing Home.”

  “Shit!” Luke said. “By the time we get there it’ll be long gone.”

  Tom grunted agitatedly. Luke was right; there was no way they’d catch up to the Ice Cream Man if he was all the way over in Bromley. They had never stood a chance. All this time it had been throwing them off with nightmares, appearing to them in visions with threats and revealing to them their true fears. Misdirection. All of it.

  The feeling of helplessness returned as Tom screeched around another corner, only this time there was no pushing it down, no light at the end of the tunnel. Ghuul had won, had destroyed another family, a family he and Danielle were a part of.

  “Stop the car!” Wood said, so suddenly that Tom almost crashed the car.

  “Why? What are you—”

  “Just pull over!” Wood said, tapping the back of Tom’s seat with his hand.

  “We don’t have time for—”

  “Just do it!”

  Tom reluctantly slammed his foot down on the brake, and the Range Rover skated to a halt. He was about to ask Wood what the hell was going on when he heard it for himself. Distant, but getting closer. Perhaps an estate away, maybe closer.