Driving home later that afternoon, I found myself circling the block, stalling. I knew I was too old to be sent to my room or grounded—for chrissakes, I was getting married in a few months—but I have to admit the idea did occur to me. I was also afraid my mom might cut me off from her cooking the rest of my time at home, but that didn’t happen either. Even down the road, when things went from bad to worse to downright horrible, she kept right on feeding me.
As for Carly, her life changed in rather dramatic fashion. Detective Harper assigned a rotating shift of troopers to watch over the Albrights’ house for a period of three weeks, as well as around-the-clock surveillance on Carly herself. While my name—and any mention of the front porch chalk drawing—had been kept out of all media reports, Carly, of course, wasn’t quite so lucky. She was front and center for all of it, the latest star in the Boogeyman’s Grand Guignol production, and the press hungered for a piece of her. “It felt gross,” she told me later, “to be on the other end of all those microphones and flashing cameras. I hated that they were waiting for me like vultures outside my house and the office.” It didn’t take long before she stopped talking to the media altogether.
If there was a single bright spot to come out of all this mess, it was that soon after, Carly Albright was given a promotion at the newspaper. The Aegis, in all of their opportunistic wisdom and greed, realized that they had a staff writer under contract who was now intimately tied to the paper’s number one story: the Boogeyman. Goodbye community events and obituaries; hello front-page features and pay raise.
In the days that followed, I was often tempted to ask Detective Harper if he’d been watching me that evening at the shopping center, or if any of his men drove a silver sedan with dark windows—but I never summoned the courage. It was embarrassing enough that he’d started referring to Carly and me as Nancy Drew and Joe Hardy (from the Hardy Boys mysteries I’d loved so much as a child). I did, however, finally break down and tell him about the prank calls we’d been receiving. He asked if the person had threatened me, or any member of my family, and when I told him no, not really, he appeared to move on without giving the matter a second thought.
9
Kara wasn’t nearly as dismissive about the phone calls, especially in light of what had just gone down at Carly’s house. It was dusk, and we were sitting in the still warm grass beneath the weeping willow tree, watching fireflies dance across the side yard, when she brought it up again.
“I don’t understand why they don’t just tap your phone,” she complained. “It’s been going on ever since you came home. That’s not a coincidence. The guy even said your name, for goodness’ sake.”
“But that’s all he did. He didn’t threaten me. Didn’t threaten my mom or dad.”
“You don’t think him taunting you is the same thing as a threat?”
I offered a half-hearted shrug. I was tired and had a headache and was anxious to change the subject.
“How about the message he left on Carly’s doorstep? You think that’s a threat?”
“I get what you’re saying. I do. I’m just not sure what you want me to do about it.”
“For starters, you can tell Detective Harper to get off his ass and do his job.”
“I tried that.” I glanced at her in the darkness. “You really think it’s the Boogeyman calling the house and not just someone messing around?”
“I do,” she said with no hesitation. “I think he’s playing games with you.”
“Why would he do that? And why me of all people?”
She crossed her legs and turned to me, taking my hand in hers. “Why? Because he’s a sicko who gets off on scaring and hurting people. Why you? I don’t know… maybe because he knows you’re a horror writer. Or maybe he knows you personally.”
“Don’t even say that.”
“He picked you for a reason, Rich,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “And now Carly. I’m starting to get really freaked out.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “Everything will be okay.”
I didn’t entirely believe it, but I didn’t know what else to say.
10
A few days later, I answered the door and found a smiling Carly Albright standing on my porch. Actually, standing wasn’t quite accurate—she was dancing in place, feet shuffling back and forth, like a little girl on the verge of peeing her pants.
“It wasn’t him!” she said.
“Who wasn’t him?”
“The man at my house… the man who drew on my porch… it wasn’t the Boogeyman!”
I stepped outside. “What are you talking about?”
“Detective Harper just left my house. He said one of the neighbors behind us had security footage of a man cutting through their yard the night it happened. The homeowner recognized the man’s face; he was part of a landscaping crew she’d recently hired.
“The detectives went over and talked to the guy, and he admitted it right away. Detective Harper said he almost seemed relieved to have been caught.”
“So how do they know he wasn’t involved with the murders?”
“Rock-solid alibis for two of the three nights. Plus, he looks nothing like the police sketch. He’s really short and scrawny and his ears are pierced. He said the whole thing was just a stupid joke. The guy’s a hard-core metalhead, into satanic rock: Ozzy, Danzig, Black Sabbath, Darkthrone, the whole thing. He got all pissed off when the Aegis ran that article about satanic cults—he thought we were making fun of them. When he found out that someone in the neighborhood worked for the paper, he thought it’d be funny to get stoned and sneak over and draw a six-six-six on my porch. He was planning to draw a pentagram on the driveway, too, but chickened out. He told the police he just wanted to scare me.”
“Jesus,” I said. “So the blue chalk and the numbers… that was all just a freaking coincidence?”
“Yes!”
“That’s pretty hard to believe.”
“I know, but apparently it’s true. How crazy is that? The guy said he wanted to use spray paint, but couldn’t find any, so he borrowed the chalk from one of his roommates. He even took the detectives into the roommate’s bedroom and showed them the box of blue chalk that was in a desk drawer.”
“They check out his roommate?”
“Yeah, he was clean, too.”
“This is insane,” I said. “So no more cop parked out in front of your house? No more hunky bodyguards?”
Her smiled faded. “Well, that’s where it gets kinda interesting.”
“How so?”
“Satan’s little helper has a size twelve-and-a-half foot.”
I looked at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
She sighed like I was an idiot. “The guy they just talked to wears a size twelve and a half. The boot print under my window was a ten.”
“Ohhh,” I said, understanding now. “So, it was two different people that night.”
“They think so,” she said. “The metalhead swears he didn’t go anywhere near my window, and the detectives didn’t find any boots in his closet that matched the tread pattern… so they’re gonna keep watching the house—and me—for another week or so. Just in case.”
“Meaning they’re not entirely convinced that it wasn’t the killer sneaking around outside your window.”
“Maybe… but probably not. What are the chances two weirdos were creeping around my house on the exact same night?”
“What are the chances some random dude decides to play a prank involving blue chalk and the number six?”
“Touché,” she said, tilting her head to the side, thinking.
“And if it wasn’t the Boogeyman at your window, then who was it?”
“Kids fooling around. The Phantom Fondler. Hell, maybe I’m just sleep-deprived. Imagined the whole thing.”
“You didn’t imagine the boot print, Carly.”
She nodded. “It was probably just kids messing around.”
“I hope you’re right.”
11
The rest of September passed quietly.
Annie Riggs (Photo courtesy of Molly Riggs)
Edgewood High School (Photo courtesy of the author)
The abandoned lot where Annie Riggs was attacked (Photo courtesy of Carly Albright)
The killer’s mask found on Sequoia Drive (Photo courtesy of Logan Reynolds)
Task force members revealing the killer’s mask to media members (Photo courtesy of The Baltimore Sun)
Police sketch of the killer (Photo courtesy of Alex McVey)
The mysterious chalk drawing on the Albrights’ front porch (Photo courtesy of Logan Reynolds)
nine October Country
“… an act of madness.”
1
First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys…”
Of all the breathtaking passages of lyrical wonder that Ray Bradbury has gifted readers with during his lifetime, those eleven words from the opening of his seminal novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, may very well be my favorite.
Bradbury goes on to describe a mythical landscape, an October Country, where Autumn is King and Mischief is Queen and anything is possible. The good, bad, miraculous, and unimaginable—it’s all right there, waiting for you in the month of October, hovering just beyond the reach of your fingertips.
Ever since I was a child, it was my favorite time of year—a season of absolute magic. The air smelled of ripe apples and dying leaves and wood smoke. The wind made you ache in some place deeper than your bones. The sky overhead was layered with rich shades of orange and yellow and purple and red and a host of swirling colors too beautiful to be named. The harvest moon—swollen and magnificent, and so close on the horizon you could almost reach out and touch it—paid its annual visit and left you yearning for more. Clouds drifted by, peeking over their shoulders, reluctant to make way for winter’s footfalls. Naked tree branches reached out as you walked past, skeletal fingers hungering for your touch, and packs of fallen leaves crunched beneath your wandering feet, their boundless brethren skittering past you in the chill autumn breeze like miniature ghosts haunting the landscape. Dusks and twilights lingered. Midnights stayed forever. Fat jack-o’-lanterns flashed jagged grins from porch railings and windows, flickering orange eyes tracking your every move.
And then it happened.
The most magical day of all arrived.
Not only for the young, but also the young of heart.
Night crept over the town like a silent thief, and it was finally here.
Halloween.
2
In the town of Edgewood, Monday, October 31, dawned clear and cold with a sense of hopeful optimism blanketing the streets.
It had been nearly two months since Annie Riggs’s narrow escape on Sequoia Drive, and in that time, there had been no further attacks. The local media, eager to keep the story (and newsstand sales) alive, made scant mention of this fact, focusing instead on the latest possible sightings and the occasional interview with a low-ranking member of the task force—any excuse to keep those magic words “The Boogeyman” in their headlines. The fake-tan and chiseled faces of the national press, meanwhile, slowly abandoned ship, hotel room and expense account costs ballooning too high to stick around town without additional violence and bloodshed to cover. The police went about their business, mostly quietly. Every week or so, a spokesperson surfaced to make a brief official statement—all of them sounding pretty much the same at this point; the task force was working around the clock and citizens were to maintain vigilance. It’d been nearly a month since Detective Harper last held a press conference. On that occasion, he’d spoken for only a handful of minutes before revealing an updated police sketch of Annie Riggs’s assailant. Other than thickening the man’s eyebrows and thinning his upper lip, it looked pretty much exactly the same as the original.
As for the townspeople of Edgewood, most believed (or at least told themselves so) that the killer had finally moved on. It’d been fifty-two days since anything bad had happened. After losing his anonymity the night of the Annie Riggs attack, and nearly being captured some time later during a neighborhood foot chase with police, the Boogeyman would have to be a careless fool to stick around and try anything else. And he’d already shown he wasn’t that at all.
Regardless of the surge of optimism felt by many residents, the curfew remained in place—albeit, as of three weeks earlier, a slightly relaxed one of 11:00 p.m.—and a handful of special ordinances had been established for Halloween night. The board of directors for the Edgewood Shopping Plaza announced a trick-or-treating alternative for younger children. From 5:00–7:00 p.m., each of the stores would hand out treats, and participating families were encouraged to give out candy of their own in the parking lot. In addition, children under the age of twelve were not permitted on neighborhood streets without adult supervision, and all trick-or-treaters, regardless of age, had to be off the streets by 9:00 p.m. For the second week in a row, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was the main attraction at the Edgewood Movie Theater, but all late showings had been canceled. If you wanted to celebrate Halloween night with a tub of buttered popcorn and Michael Myers’s latest slow-walk murder spree, you had to get in line for either the 5:00 or 7:15 p.m. screenings, or you were shit out of luck.
Fortunately, the month of October had been a quiet one for Carly Albright as well. Just what the doctor ordered. The press finally gave up on getting her to talk, and despite the occasional nightmare, there appeared to be no more Boogeyman-related excitement or intrigue at the Albrights’ house. No more chalk drawings. No more creepers outside her window. No more police cars parked in front of the house. The concluding theory was that the boot print the police had found in the flower garden outside her bedroom most likely belonged to a random neighborhood kid. Thinking back on my toad-hunting days, when my friends and I’d hit pretty much every single window-well in Edgewood Meadows, I figured there was a decent enough chance they were right. Although she’d yet to be nominated for a Pulitzer—which, even though she denied it, was her secret life ambition—Carly was enjoying covering real news, for a change, and seeing her byline in the weekly Aegis. Her editor had even assigned her an electronic pager so she could be on call 24/7, which sounded like a horrible fate to me, but Carly sure didn’t think so. She was happier about that damn beeper than she was for her pay raise.
October had been kind to me, too. Feeling especially inspired as of late, I’d been fortunate enough to place three more short stories, a new personal best for a single month. None of those tales were about to be nominated for a Pulitzer, either—or any other award, for that matter—but they’d sold to decent enough markets I could be proud of. I was gaining confidence as a writer, and without the constant distraction of chasing the Boogeyman’s shadow, I was able to spend longer and more productive stints in front of the keyboard. I’d even stopped listening to the police scanner most nights.
From time to time though, I still felt as if I were being watched when I was out in public, and I could’ve sworn I’d spotted that same silver sedan behind me one evening on Route 40, but thus far there’d been no repeat of that awful night when I’d taken out the trash and somehow known that the Boogeyman was lurking nearby. The prank phone calls that had plagued the Chizmar household had slowed dramatically over the past couple of months, all of them silent hang-ups. I was starting to believe once again that it was just a random caller, a bored teenager getting his rocks off by trying to scare me. He’d probably seen the article in the Aegis and figured me to be an easy target.
Even my mother was in much better spirits, practically back to her old and relaxed sweet self. As was tradition, she’d spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, baking fresh bread and making meatballs alongside her secret-recipe tomato sauce. For as long as I could remember, we’d always invited friends and neighbors over on Halloween night. Everyone feasted
on heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs and salad, and once the kids headed out trick-or-treating, the grown-ups piled into the living room and basement to sit around and talk or watch college football on TV. Whoever happened to be sitting closest to the front door, usually one of my parents or my crazy uncle Ted, was responsible for handing out candy each time the doorbell rang. I remember always being amazed upon my return to the house several hours later—my pillowcase stuffed with treats almost too heavy to carry—only to see that most of the grown-ups were still sitting around and talking. Whatever could they possibly have to jaw about for so long?
3
By five thirty that particular Halloween evening, our house was packed. The living room and basement were standing room only, and the kitchen wasn’t much better. Norma and Bernie Gentile sat at the dining room table, along with my sister Mary, her husband, Glenn, and my uncle Ted and aunt Pat. All of them stuffing their faces and trying not to talk with their mouths full.
Kara and I sat on folding chairs in the foyer, a big bowl of candy balanced on a TV table between us. It was almost full dark outside, and scores of trick-or-treaters were already on the prowl. We’d been busy for at least the past twenty minutes—football players and fairies, astronauts and aliens, princesses and Smurfs—but had barely made a dent in the mound of candy.
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