A Pumpkins' Halloween

by Mark Kasniak

  It wasn't the first time Alan Monroe had poisoned children... In fact, he had tried it for the first time more than twenty-five years ago when he had poisoned the Duval kids. He remembered fondly as he was filled with joy over the news of the five Duval children dying. It had ripped through the hearts of the town folk like a tornado.

  “Ohhh... I don't like this part of the story,” April said, cutting into Ally’s tale.

  “Ma-knee neider,” Tilly added.

  “Would you two shut-up,” Murray harped. “Go on, Ally… let me know when it gets good.”

  “Bite me, Murray,” Ally quipped.

  Alan had dressed up like a cowboy that night when he poisoned the Duval children—his costume complete with chaps and duel colt 45 cap guns on his hips. Looking the part, he walked up and down the darkened streets of his little town looking for his victims—children unaccompanied by parents.

  When Alan had come across the Duval kids, he had no problem what-so-ever gaining their attention, especially the smallest and youngest of them, a silly little girl. With a series of rope tricks that Alan performed with his lasso, he kept the brown-haired, brown-eyed little darling glued to him like she was in a trance. It was only when her oldest brother—a cranky little shit—insisted that they be on their way, did Alan tip his hat and then whistle his way into the night’s darkness. But, it wasn’t before he had handed each of the kids a candy bar laced with arsenic from his leather satchel.

  After hearing about how the Duval children becoming violently ill and having suffered horrifically before succumbing to the poison—Alan could hardly contain his giddiness. He poisoned children again, in the same manner, the very next year, this time in another state, though. After his scare with Colin Matthews, he made sure he was careful not to stay in the same place for too long, that way he could throw off the authorities. And, his absence only helped to convince the people of the naive little town that the killer had moved on.

  Over the years, Alan had come up with different ways of luring his victims. He was once dressed as a soldier... another year, a baseball player, even Big Bird once. But that plan had backfired on him when the only children he could attract were ones young enough to still be accompanied by their parents.

  Alan had also experimented with different methods of slaughtering his victims, too. He had sliced-and-diced a kid up one year when he had dressed as a butcher. Another year, he had beaten a child to a bloody pulp when he had dressed as a boxer. He had even buried a child alive once when he had dressed up as a convict whose job it was to dig ditches in a chain gang as punishment for his crimes. But, none of those murders had given him the thrill that he’d felt twenty-five years ago when he had poisoned the Duval children.

  So here Alan found himself back in his hometown again, this time dressed like a wide-smiled clown, with a pocket full of virulent candy. He mused at the thought of what he had become, a twenty-seven-year career serial killer once more back where he started, on the prowl whilst looking for another unsuspecting child to murder.

  Only this time wouldn’t turn out like Alan had hoped.

  Because what Alan didn’t know was that on All Hallows Eve it was possible for the dead to make contact with the living. And, what he also didn't know... was that right at that very moment while he was ambling up and down the neighborhood streets in his over-sized clown shoes, looking for his night’s fun, several blocks away there was a stirring that was happening on the grounds in the local cemetery. A stirring just below the graves marked Duval.

  Breaking up through the cool autumn ground was tiny hands that began reaching for the night’s sky. As they worked feverishly to dig themselves free of their eternal slumber, a miasma wafted from their tattered clothes and mummified flesh. Slowly, a sound started to emanate from their throats that hadn't been heard in twenty-five years. It was the sound of anguish and torment, the sound of despair and revenge.

  They shambled their way through the cemetery illuminated only by moonlight, their decayed bones cracking and creaking loudly as they made their way to the street. They then headed up the dusty county road in search of the tiny community that lay just beyond the hills.

  Alan, having become irritated at not being able to find his perfect victim made his way through the neighborhood dejectedly. He was almost all set to give up… but then… But then, there she was… a perfect angel in her pure white angel costume. She was accompanied only by what appeared her big sister, who was not terribly much older than she was.

  A smile came to the clown’s face that stretched comically almost ear to ear. “Yes... Yes, she will do just fine,” Alan whispered, and he then began to make his way over to her since she was still several houses away up the road.

  Hiding, he waited for his angel to approach where the street took a wide turn and there was a large opening between the houses. He stood in the shadows which filled in the gap created by a copse of apple trees. The light was dim there, the nearest street lamp having been another thirty yards behind him.

  Alan waited patiently as his angel neared and then he stepped out from the shadows just when the girls were about to pass.

  “Oh, my God!” the older girl gasped when she'd seen the clown.

  “Look, Carrie, it's a clown,” the little angel said, beaming at the sight of Alan.

  “Yes, it's a clown,” agreed the big sister. “Now let’s go.”

  “No, wait...,” Alan proclaimed as he did his best to sound goofy in a clown voice. “Happy Halloween to you girls, would you like to see some tricks?”

  “Oh, please, Carrie, please can we see some tricks?” the angel pleaded. “It will only be a couple of minutes.”

  “Yeah, please, Carrie...,” Alan chimed in helping the angel to double team her big sister.

  “Oh, alright, but only for a few minutes,” Carrie sighed. “Mom and Dad are expecting us home soon.”

  “Yea!” was the collective cry coming out of both the little angel and Alan at the same time.

  It was on, and Alan knew he only had mere moments, a few minutes at best to work his magic. He started off by pulling a bouquet of fake flowers from his tightly wadded fist, a lame trick, but to which the angel clapped her hands at the sight of them appearing out of thin air. He then offered the flowers to the big sister, but when Carrie went to take them from him, at the core of the bouquet a stream of water ejected from the flowers hitting her in the face.

  The little angel erupted into laughter.

  “Ha-Ha, very funny,” the big sister said, wiping her face dry with her jacket’s sleeve.

  Next, Alan asked the little angel what her favorite animal was. She then excitedly told him that it was a giraffe. Alan then pulled out a long, limp, red balloon and with a deep breath blew it into a tube. He then wrangled it in his hands, twisting and pulling it every which way until it almost burst. Finally, with a “Wah-la,” he presented the little angel with her giraffe, which didn't look much like a giraffe at all, but she didn't care, she was too excited to even notice.

  “Look, Carrie, a giraffe,” the little angel said gleefully holding it up so her sister could see.

  Carrie took one look at the mangled balloon giraffe—which reminded her more of a picture of an Ebola virus she'd seen in a National Geographic than a giraffe—and said, “That's great, but we really do have to get going now, so goodbye.”

  As Carrie took hold of the little angel by the hand and began guiding her towards their home, Alan began to panic at the thought of the little angel getting away. He then called out to the girls in a hurried voice, “Wait... wait, I almost forgot.”

  The girls turned around abruptly to see the clown reaching down into his knapsack which he had slung over his shoulder. After a moment, Alan fished out a few of the poisoned candy bars and offered one to each girl. “Here ya go, young ladies, Happy Halloween.”

  Carrie hesitated to take the candy at first and thought about telling the clown “No thanks,” but before she could even say anything the little angel had leaned
forward to take the chocolate bar from the clown. But, just when the tips of the little angel’s fingers felt the smooth edge of the candy bar wrapper, the calm and silence of the night they’d been experiencing in that dark, little section of roadway was suddenly halted. A hand had come lunging out of the darkness grabbing Alan by his wrist. It then pulled the candy bar he held back from the little angel’s grasp.

  Carrie, the little angel, and Alan all stared at the stranger's cold rotten hand simultaneously—then peering up to see whom the hand belonged to.

  The stranger's face was gaunt, sunken and hallow from twenty-five years of being in the ground. Parts of his skull showed through his scalp where his brown hair had once been, and his eye sockets seemed empty and dark like a void. He wore a tattered and torn up suit that barely still clung to his exposed bones and petrified flesh. But they could tell he was young... or had once been young, possibly not much older than Carrie.

  The little angel screamed at the sight of the dead boy and flung herself face-first into her older sister’s arms.

  Carrie, thrown into shock, started to inch away from the clown and the encompassing trees but ended up backing right into another one. This time it was a girl she was looking at... maybe all of eight-years-old at the time of her death. She was still wearing the white gown she’d been buried in and appeared extremely decomposed, just as frightful as the male.

  Carrie pulled herself and the little angel away from the dead little girl and stared at her for a moment, her face frozen in terror.

  “Poison...” the corpse of the dead boy wheezed weakly as he squeezed down on clown's hand like a vise.

  Alan cried out softly when the dead boy crushed all the bones in his hand, his voice leaving him and being replaced by muted terror.

  “Poison,” said the dead little girl repeating what the dead boy had just said as she also inched closer to the clown.

  “Poison...,” another boy zombie called out from the shadows, then stepping forward into the wash of the street lamps. He was soon followed by a fourth and then a fifth trailing close behind, both young girls.

  “What do you want?” Alan cried out finding his voice again.

  “Poison,” the larger of the dead boys rasped as he struggled to push stale air out through his rotted voice box. He then pulled Alan's hand up to his face, causing Alan to drop the laced candy bars.

  “Poison,” cried out the smallest of the dead little girls and then she tripped over her dingy and dirt covered gown that she wore.

  “Poison,” the brown-haired dead boy then grumbled again before sinking his gnarled and blackened teeth around Alan's fingers, severing two of them off at the base of his hand.

  Alan screamed out in agony, and the little angel buried herself further into her big sister’s chest at the sound he had made.

  The tallest of the dead girls was next to sink purchase on Alan's flesh, biting him on his bicep as the brown-haired boy zombie continued to remove fingers.

  The other boy’s corpse shuffled forward, grabbing hold of the clown’s other arm in his waxy, scaly hands. “Poison...” he said, choking out his words right before he slammed his equally blackened teeth down into the supple flesh of Alan's shoulder.

  Alan, wincing from the pain felt himself begin to fall into shock. His legs began to buckle and shake as the two smallest of the dead girls began to go to work on them.

  Carrie watched as the littlest of the female zombies with incredible strength ripped the clown’s left foot from his body like a Doberman tearing into a drumstick from a cooked turkey.

  The five dead children feverishly continued devouring into Alan's limbs as Carrie stayed locked in horror. She could hear the sounds of the zombies choking down the clown’s flesh, which helped to mute what was left of their expired voices. The only sound Alan could hear was the sound of his own voice fading as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  From the darkness, then came a light and Alan began to blink rapidly at its sharpness.

  “Oh, you’re awake,” he then heard a voice come out and say from somewhere in the distance.

  Alan tried to reach up, hoping to rub his aching eyes, but couldn't feel either of his arms move. As his vision focused more clearly, he could see that he was in a hospital bed—his arms gone from the shoulders down.

  “Wh-What...” he tried to utter, but before he could get the words out another voice said, “Try not to talk. You've been through a serious trauma.”

  “What... What happened?” Alan asked, pleading with the man who appeared as if he were a doctor.

  “We don't know,” he said and then sighed. “You were found unconscious and bleeding in the middle of a roadway more than a week ago. Something gnawed off your limbs. We suspect it may have been coyotes or another pack of wild animals.”

  “But... but, how? Why?” Alan muttered before becoming weak and needing to close his eyes.

  “Try to relax,” the doctor urged. “There’s also something else we need to talk about.” The doctor then paused and pulled up a stool next to Alan's bed—sitting down. “Alan,” he said tentatively. “You were found with a satchel of candy laced with arsenic that we believe may have been used in the murders of five children right here in this town twenty-five years ago. A police search of your house also came up with evidence of many other child murders that have gone unsolved over the last quarter century.”

  “So, I've got no arms, no legs, and I'm going to jail!” Alan cried out as he began to sob uncontrollably, his eyes flooding with tears.

  “Well... yes, you would be if...” the doctor began but then cut himself off.

  “If what?” asked Alan.

  “Well, the thing is... the thing is that we found something in your blood, some type of poison,” the doctor said, sounding a little dumbfounded.

  “What kind of poison?” Alan asked.

  “We don't know, but we do know what it is doing,” the doctor told him and then paused again before standing up. He then grabbed a hold of the blanket that was covering Alan's torso all the way to his neck and he yanked it down exposing Alan's naked body.

  “The poison is causing you to rot from the inside out,” said the doctor.

  “Wha-what?” replied Alan terror-stricken as he gazed over what was left of his body which was now turning black with dappled cancerous decay in different areas. “You mean I'm just going to rot until I'm dead?” Alan asked, barely able to stammer out his words.

  “No, that's the thing, Alan,” the doctor then said with an air of smugness to his voice. “You already are dead, Alan. Welcome to your Hell.”

  And, with that, the doctor left the room and in shuffled all the corpses of every child Alan had ever killed. They shambled up close, surrounding him on his bed. They then began to bite down, feasting on his flesh for all eternity, and all Alan ever knew from that point forward was pain, fear, and regret.

  “Yeaaa, we finally got that bastard!” cried April.

  Henry said, “Wow! I really think you take the top spot this year, Ally.”

  “She doesn't take it,” Murray protested. “Mine was better.”

  “Uh-uh,” Tilly responded.

  “In your dreams,” April added.

  “Yes, it was,” argued Murray, “mine was better.”

  “Okay... I know how to settle this,” Henry put forth. “All those in favor of Murray's story say Yea.”

  Silence.

  “All those in favor of Ally's story?”

  A unanimous cry of Yea, went up.

  “There it’s settled,” Henry proclaimed. “Ally's the winner this year!”

  “But that's unfair. You're all bias because I kept making fun of Tilly. You all agreed just to spite—”

  “Shh!” hushed April. “They're coming.”

  A very groggy old man shuffled past the jack-o’-lanterns on his way into the house and then off to bed. He was soon followed up the porch by the old woman who helped guide him up the staircase to the second floor of their home.

 
“Next year I'm not going to let any of you have a turn at telling a story if you’re all going to cheat,” Murray griped again once he knew it was safe to talk.

  Ally responded, “Yeah, you say the same thing every year, so...”

  “Shh,” April whispered. “She’s coming again.”

  The old women entered back out on the porch where she approached the jack-o’-lanterns. She carefully pulled the top from the largest one, bent down, and gently blew out its candle. The scent of cinnamon mixed with smoke immediately filled the air soon after its flame had extinguished. She repeated the process with the next three leaving the little jack-o’-lantern with the upside down face for last. As the old woman bent down, blowing out its candle, thoughts of her youngest daughter and how much she used to love Halloween entered her mind. With a sigh and a good breath, she extinguished the flame before heading inside, only pausing briefly when she thought she heard a small voice say, “Goodnight, Mom.”

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