Halloween and Other Seasons

by Al

  “Maybe he’ll kill you!” Jim said, and then there was another, longer, silence.

  Eventually the car came to a stop, after going into and then leaving a pothole.

  “I think we ought to leave it here,” Jim said, his voice clearer.

  “Sounds good to me,” Mitch said.

  Car doors opened and then closed. There were sounds of fumbling and then Scotty heard them leaving the car.

  The shuffling footsteps suddenly stopped.

  “Hey, Pete, did you bring the camera?”

  Amidst more laughter, Pete said, “Shit,” and Scotty heard a car door open and then close again.

  “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

  “And you brought a flashlight?”

  Again the word: “Shit!”

  Mitch laughed. “Stay with me, bozo. If we find the Pumpkin Boy, we’ll let him eat you.”

  “Eat this,” came Pete Henry’s reply, and again there was laughter.

  The voices, laughter and shuffling steps receded.

  In a few moments, Scotty was alone.

  And, suddenly: he felt alone.

  He realized he had not brought a flashlight, either.

  And where was he going to go?

  He had no idea where he was, or where to look.

  He knew his only chance to find the Pumpkin Boy was to trail along after his brother and his two friends.

  Otherwise, he might as well stay in the trunk of the car.

  He reached out and pushed the glow bar.

  Instantly, the trunk popped open.

  Scotty climbed out.

  It was not as dark as he feared. There was a fat rising moon that peeked through the trees with yellow-gray light, and Scotty’s eyes were already used to being in the dark from being in the car trunk. The car was parked on the side of a rutted dirt road, with thick woods to either side.

  He could still hear Jim and his friends, though barely; there was a blurt of laughter and he went that way, to the left of the car, into the woods.

  To his relief, there was a narrow path, half-covered in leaves and pine needles.

  The laughter came again, a little closer, but still far away.

  And then, suddenly, there was real silence.

  It was as if a stifling cloak had been thrown over the forest—nothing moved, or breathed.

  Scotty became very afraid, to the point where he had no further interest in the Pumpkin Boy. All he wanted to do was go back to the car and wait for his brother to come back.

  He turned around, but now was unsure which way he had come. The path had branched off and there were two paths in front of him, which split at a fork. He walked tentatively up one, looking for scuffmarks of his own sneakers, but it was smooth and untouched.

  He turned back to find the other path, and now couldn’t locate it.

  The moon dipped into clouds, leaving darkness—then burst out with orange light like the light through Venetian blinds, cut into slats.

  Scotty had no idea where he was.

  He heard a single sound, a loud thump, and then stifling silence again.

  As if the forest was waiting.

  Then: a faraway snort of laughter.

  He wanted to head in that direction—but there was no path.

  Then he saw a flash of light, close-by.

  “Jim?” he called out, loudly.

  The light flashed again, just ahead and to the left of the path he was on.

  He walked in that direction.

  A third glint, and he broke through a rank of bushes and found himself in a clearing.

  The moon glared down, higher now, filling the leaf-scattered bare spot he was in with orange-gray light.

  He took a step and fell into a depression filled with leaves. He sank almost to his knees, then waded to the lip and pulled himself out.

  Now he saw that he was surrounded by holes and depressions. It was like being on the cratered Moon. He remembered what his brother and Mitch had talked about in the car: a place where the police had been, full of holes.

  Now he became very afraid.

  There were muted sounds all around him now: rustlings, the break of a twig, scampering sounds.

  He felt like he was going to wet himself, and closed his eyes, beginning to whimper.

  A rasping voice said: “Scccotty?”

  He thought he knew the voice, and opened his eyes with hope—

  But it wasn’t Jim.

  Scotty yelped.

  The Pumpkin Boy stood right in front of him, his huge orange jack o’lantern head glinting in the sallow moonlight.

  “Ohhh…”

  Scotty wet himself.

  The Pumpkin Boy cocked his head to one side; his smile, lit dimly from within, looked almost comical. When he spoke again a slight hiss of steam issued from his mouth and eyes and nose holes: “Sccccotty, it’s me. Jody Wennnndt.”

  A portion of Scotty’s fear left him, but he was still trembling. The wet spot on the front of his jeans and down one leg began to feel cold.

  With a series of little creaks, the Pumpkin Boy sat down on the leaves in front of Scotty. His thin metal limbs jutted out in all directions. “Sit down, Scccotty. Talk to mmme.”

  Scotty felt himself almost collapse to sit in front of the mechanical man.

  “Is…it really…you?” Scotty got out in a halting whisper.

  “I…thinnnk so. I can see, and wwwwalk, and talk. It feels like I’m in a ddddream. And my hhhhead hurts all the ttttime.”

  “I…” Scotty didn’t know what to say.

  “And I nnnnever sleep, now. And my eyes are hhhhot.”

  “You went to your house—?”

  “Yes, I ccccan’t do that again. He won’t llllet me. He ccccontrols what I do.”

  “Who—”

  As if he had forgotten something, the Pumpkin Boy suddenly unfolded his limbs and stood up. The process seemed to take a long time. There was the faint odor of machine oil and heated air.

  Scotty looked up; the Pumpkin Boy was now looming over him, his gloved hands opening and closing.

  “I’m ssssorry, Sccccotty,” Jody whispered.

  “For what?” Scotty said.

  With the sounds of metal sliding on metal, and a faint metallic groan, the Pumpkin Boy reached down and gripped Scotty around his waist. Scotty felt himself hoisted slightly up and then pressed tight to the Pumpkin Boy’s cylindrical chest.

  He heard a faint beating there.

  The smell of oil was stronger.

  The Pumpkin Boy walked with Scotty pressed tight against him with one enfolding arm.

  Scotty, his own heart hammering, counted five long steps.

  He let out a long weak cry.

  Jody’s voice said, very softly, “I’m ssssorry, Sccccotty, but he says I’m not a ggggood Ted.”

  7

  Grant felt as yellow and dried out as he knew he looked. It was getting bad again—like it always did after Pumpkin Days began. He couldn’t get through the mornings without that first drink at breakfast, and, by lunch, if he didn’t already have a pint in him, his hands began to shake and he couldn’t concentrate.

  But, with the booze in him, he was as good at his job as he ever was.

  He still knew he was a great cop—even if he was a walking car wreck.

  And today, with the first pint already smoothly settled in his gut and veins, he could even face the Pumpkin Festival itself.

  God, how he hated this town—and loved it. As Len Schneider had told him, people were the same all over, a healthy cocktail of good and rotten, and they were no better or worse here in Orangefield. There was greed, corruption, untamed anger, cheating, thievery, and, occasionally, even murder, just like anywhere else on the good green Earth. All the deadly sins, all in a pretty row. But Orangefield was one of the lucky communities of the rotten creatures called men who had learned to put a good face on it. They had dolled it up, made it pretty, which, somehow, made it bearable. The entire history of Orangefield was one long cavalcade of greed,
one long pursuit of money, and the town fathers had finally, when they discovered—and then exploited—the serendipitous fact that pumpkins grew here like nowhere else on the planet, found a way to have their cake and eat it too. They could make money hand over fist, and, like Las Vegas, still pretend to be one of those “nice” places to live. Good schools, good facilities, good services, a mayor who always smiled and a police force who kept things in order.

  As corrupt and rotten as anywhere else, only with a much better make-up job.

  Grant took a deep breath, coughed, and chided himself; he knew damn well how cynical he had become, and knew that his problems came from something outside the normal proclivities of Orangefield itself.

  From…the weird shit.

  The weird shit that had begun that Halloween night when Peter Kerlan was killed, and then continued until that other Halloween, the one he wouldn’t talk about, after Corrie Phaeder came back from California…

  He shivered, a physical reaction, and ducked off the midway of the main Festival tent into an empty space behind one of the booths. He fumbled the new pint out of his raincoat pocket and twisted the top off with shaking fingers, putting the bottle quickly to his lips.

  Two long gulps, another racking cough, and most of the demons went away.

  This would be a bad day, and he would end up in his bed alone tonight, with the night sweats, and insomnia, and a hangover with all its own requisite horrors…

  Still, he felt like he had a job to do.

  One that Len Schneider wasn’t doing.

  He firmly screwed the cap back onto the bottle, and thrust it deep into his pocket.

  No more until you’re finished for the day, Billy boy. He took a deep breath. You’re still a cop. The best.

  He looked at his trembling hand, which eventually steadied under his willful gaze.

  Go to work.

  ~ * ~

  Grant was in the midway again, standing out in the lights under the huge tent, with the ebb and flow of the crowd around him. It was like being at a carnival, only a one-color one: everything, everything, was in shades of orange. The tent was orange- and white-striped, the booths hung with orange crepe paper, the display tables covered with orange table cloths. Light was provided by hanging lanterns shaped like pumpkins.

  And everything displayed was pumpkin related—pumpkin toys, forty different foods made from pumpkins, books on pumpkins, school projects made from pumpkins, the biggest pumpkin, the smallest pumpkin, one and a half inches wide—

  The sweet, cold, slightly cloying smell of fresh-carved pumpkin hung in the air like a Halloween libation.

  Music drifted in from outside the main tent—there was a bandstand in the auxiliary tent, and tonight, thank God, it was forties dance music. He did not want to be here when it was rap night…

  The lights overhead flickered, there was a gust of chilled October air…

  He was entering the entertainment section of the midway: nickel and dime games of chance (proceeds to charity), a local magician, a balloon-toy maker. The hiss of helium brought an oddly nostalgic tinge to Grant’s mind: he remembered when television was in black and white and on Saturday morning there was a guy who twisted impossibly long balloons, which he first inflated with that same insistent hiss, into impossibly intricate animals—a giraffe, a rabbit, a dachshund that looked like a dachshund. He paused for a moment at the booth—this guy was not as good. His latest creation was something that looked like a duck but which the balloon-twister proclaimed an eagle. He presented it with a flourish to a little girl, who promptly declared, “It’s a duck!”

  Grant snorted a laugh, and moved on to other booths and displays:

  Someone selling rug shampoo, who had managed to procure a bright orange rug to demonstrate on, a pumpkin cookie stand, a pumpkin-colored-pretzel stand, a dark, long, well-enclosed booth with flaps over the cutout windows. Inside there were rows of benches in the dark, and an ancient 16mm movie projector showed black and white cartoons against the back wall. Grant peeked in. Popeye and Olive Oyl on the screen, and, sadly, only a few children with their parents watching.

  Grant turned away—another reflection from his own childhood, only then the benches would be packed, and popcorn merrily thrown at the screen…

  A wide, high booth near the end of the midway caught Grant’s eye. Immediately, and for no reason he could put his finger on, that sixth sense that he knew made him a good cop tickled and came alive.

  There was something about it, about the guy who was in it…

  The booth was brightly lit, deep and wide, and had attracted a crowd. Behind a rope barrier covered with crinkly black and orange crepe paper, on a white wooden platform far away so that he couldn’t be touched, a clown solemnly performed. He was dressed in orange and black motley, head topped with a white hat with orange pom, his face painted flat white with a huge orange smile and black lashes completely circling his eyes. He was juggling three balls, two orange, one white.

  Behind him, plastered on the back of the wall, was a huge, grotesque poster of a more vivacious clown dressed in brighter clothing, which proclaimed, UNCLE LOLLIPOP LOVES YOU!

  On the bottom of the poster, in small letters, was written: Brought to You from Madison, Wisconsin.

  The little tickle of awareness in Grant’s head turned to a buzz of recognition.

  Wisconsin…

  Grant studied the clown for a moment: he was of medium height, medium-weight. He barely looked at the crowd. His lips were thin inside the painted smile. His eyes were empty, staring at nothing.

  Grant moved past the remaining booths—an orange juice stand, a table selling gardening tools: “Make Your Pumpkins the Biggest in Orangefield!” a homemade sign proclaimed—and pushed through the tent flap to the outside.

  Crisp night air assaulted him. The band music, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” not played very well, was louder. Rainier Park was filled with strollers, a lot of teenagers milling in groups, the occasional policeman put on extra duty since the second child abduction.

  He hurriedly lit a cigarette.

  Butt firmly between his lips, Grant buttoned his raincoat as he walked around the tent to the back facing the booths he had just observed.

  A cloud darker than the night sky came toward him, and he held his breath as it resolved into what looked like a swarm of hornets.

  It fell to the ground and swirled past him: a tornado of tiny leaves moved by the wind.

  No weird shit this time, he thought, with a strange peace.

  This time it’s merely real horror.

  Again he briefly thought of Peter Kerlan, and Corrie Phaeder who came home to Orangefield from California…

  There were vehicles parked in a ragged line—Winnebagos, SUVs, a couple of old station wagons, at the far end a semi with BIFFORD FOODS painted on the truck in bold letters. Grant counted down from his end to approximate the back location of the clown’s booth, and found a large white panel truck without markings bearing Wisconsin rental plates.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  He studied the back of the truck: there were two outwardly hinged doors, closed at the middle, and locked through a hasp and staple with a large, heavy, new-looking padlock.

  The front of the truck was empty; the door locked, no key in the ignition.

  He walked to the back and put his hand on one of the doors.

  In a fierce whisper, he called out: “Jody? Scott?”

  There was no answer.

  He slapped on the door with the flat of his hand, and put his ear to it, but was met with only silence.

  What he wanted to do, and what he was supposed to do, were two different things. He wanted to borrow the nearest crowbar and pry open the back of the panel truck. But if he did that, no matter what he found, none of it would be admissible in a court of law.

  Even ‘just cause’ wouldn’t cover it.

  Then again, if he did nothing, he would not be able to live with himself for much longer.
If that truck held what he feared it held, and he did nothing, and his hesitation was the difference between those two boys being alive and dead, he knew that the demon memories that chased him, the things he wouldn’t think about, never mind talk about, would catch up, and that would be the end of him.

  He thought of Len Schneider briefly—this was, in essence, Schneider’s dilemma: I waited too long…

  “This one’s for you, Len.”

  Grant tramped farther down the line of vehicles, avoiding thick electrical lines which led from the tent to ground outlets farther off, till he came upon two men sitting on the dropped back end of a pickup truck and smoking. He showed them his badge, angling it in the faint light so they could see it.

  “You guys have a crowbar?”

  One of the smokers flicked his cigarette away and nodded. “Sure thing.”

  In a moment Grant had what he needed. Gripping the strong metal bar, he went back to the panel truck.

  Throwing his own cigarette aside, he angled the crowbar into the curl of the lock’s closure and gave a single hard yank.

  With a weak groan, the lock snapped open and fell away with a clank.

  One of the doors, uneven on its hinges, swung slowly towards Grant, opening.

  Light filtered into the back of the truck, illuminating the interior.

  “Shit almighty,” Grant whispered.

  8

  Len Schneider dreamed. Except for the one about the kid with no face, he didn’t dream much. But when he did they were significant.

  In this one, he was flying like a bird. He had wings of long blue feathers, white-tipped, and he soared high into the clouds and then dived, his mouth open in exultation.

  And then: in the manner of dreams, things changed, and he was in a balloon. His wings were gone. He was floating, at the mercy of the wind. The basket, which was constructed in a loose weave that let him see through the breaks in the bottom, shifted precariously when he moved, threatening to break apart. But he was unafraid, and held tightly to the ropes that secured the gondola to the balloon. He peered calmly out.

  He was passing over a huge green forest that spread out below him in all directions. At one horizon was a line of mountains, impossibly tall and thin, their peaks like snow-capped needles. The sun was either setting or rising. A glint of something that might have been a vast body of water shimmered in the direction opposite the sun.