The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "Okay, I guess."

  "Nick?" she asked.

  He was standing nearby, gently touching the top of his head. "I've got a bump."

  "Well, that's too bad, but you asked for it."

  "Did not."

  Donna said, "You busted my damn flashlight."

  Jimmy and I laughed. So did Peggy Pan.

  ET or Yoda blurted, "Language!"

  "You shouldn't go around whumping people on the head," Nick explained. "You can cause 'em brain damage."

  "Not you!" Jimmy said. "You haven't got one."

  "That's enough," Donna said. "Come on, are we gonna check out this house or aren't we?" Without even waiting for a response, she stepped off the sidewalk and started trudging toward the creepy old place.

  I went after her, hurting. Each step I took, it felt like a little hand was squeezing one of my balls. But I didn't let it stop me and it seemed to pretty much go away by the time we reached the porch stairs.

  Donna stopped and turned around. She still held the flashlight in one hand, though it wasn't working anymore. With her other hand, she put a finger to her lips.

  In a few moments, everyone was standing in front of her, motionless and silent.

  Donna took the forefinger away from her lips. She pointed it at each of us, counting heads the way a school bus driver does before bringing a bunch of kids back from a field trip. Done, she whispered, "Okay, six."

  "Seven," I said.

  She turned her head toward me. The moon was full, so I could see her face pretty well. She raised her eyebrows.

  "You," I whispered.

  "Ah. Okay. Right." In a somewhat louder voice, she said, "Okay, there're seven of us right now. Let's hope and pray there're still seven when we get back to the street."

  Her words gave me the creeps.

  One of the girls made a whiny sound.

  "I wanna go back," said one of them. Maybe the same one who'd whined. I don't know whether it was Alice or Olive. It wasn't Peggy Pan, though.

  Peggy Pan whispered, "Wussy."

  Jimmy chuckled.

  And I saw the look on Donna's face and realized she was trying to psych us out.

  Not us, really. Them.

  Nick had made her mad, and she wasn't exactly tickled by Alice or Olive, either, so she figured to make life a little more interesting for them.

  "If anybody wants to go back and wait for us on the sidewalk," she said, "that's fine. It'd probably be a good idea. No telling what might happen when we go up and ring the doorbell."

  One of the girls whined again.

  "You're just trying to scare us," Nick said. In the full moon, I could see the sneer on his face. "Can't scare a Jedi," he said.

  Donna continued, "I just think… everyone needs to know the score. I wasn't planning to mention it, but… I've heard about this house. I know what happened here. And I happen to know it isn't deserted."

  "Yeah, sure," Nick said.

  Lowering her voice, Donna said, "A crazy man lives here. A crazy man named… Boo. Boo Ripley."

  I almost let out a laugh, but held it in.

  "Boo who?" Jimmy asked.

  I snorted and gave him my elbow.

  "Ow!"

  "Shhh!" Donna went. "Want Boo to hear us?" She looked at the others, frowning slightly. "When he was only eight years old, Boo chopped up his mom and dad with a hatchet… and ate 'em. Gobbled 'em up! Yum yum!"

  "Did not," Nick said.

  "I wanna go home!"

  "Shut up," Nick snapped.

  "But Boo was a little boy, back then. And his mom and dad were very large. Even though he gobbled them day and night, night and day, there was always more that needed to be eaten.

  "Well, Boo's mom was a real cat lover. She had about a dozen cats living in the house all the time and stinking it up, so finally Boo started feeding his folks to the cats. Day and night, night and day, Boo and the cats ate and ate and ate. At last, they managed to polish off the last of Boo's mom and dad. And you know what?"

  "What?" asked Peggy Pan. She sounded rather gleeful.

  "I don't wanna hear!" blurted tutu girl.

  "Knock it off, pipsqueak," Nick snapped at her.

  "Boo and the cats," Donna said, "enjoyed eating the mom and dad so much that they lost all interest in any other kind of food. From that time forth, they would only eat people. Raw people. And you know what?"

  "What?" asked Peggy Pan and I in unison.

  "They still live right here in this house. Every night, they hide in the dark and watch out the windows, waiting for visitors."

  "You're just making this up," Nick said.

  "Sure I am."

  "She isn't, man," said Jimmy.

  "They're probably up in the house right this very minute watching us, licking their lips, just praying we'll climb the stairs and go across the porch and ring the doorbell. Because they're very hungry, and you know what?"

  "What?" asked Peggy Pan, Jimmy, and I in unison.

  In a low, trembling voice, Donna said, "The food they love most of all is…" Shouting, "Little girls like you!" She lunged toward Alice and Olive.

  They shrieked and whirled around and ran for their lives. Yoda or ET waved her little arms overhead as she fled. The fairy dancer whipped her magic wand as if swatting at bats. One of them fell and crashed in the weeds and started to cry.

  Nick yelled, "Fuck!" and ran after them, his light saber jumping.

  "Language!" Jimmy called after him.

  Donna brushed her hands together. "Golly," she said. "What got into them?"

  "Can't imagine," I said.

  "What a bunch of wussies," said Peggy Pan.

  "I can't stand that Nick," said Jimmy. "He is such a shit."

  "Language," Donna told him.

  We laughed, all four of us.

  Then Donna said, "Come on, gang," and trotted up the porch stairs. We hurried after her.

  And I'll always remember trotting up those stairs and stepping onto the dark porch and walking up to the door. Even while it was happening, I knew I would never forget it. It was just one of those moments when you think, It doesn't get any better than this.

  I was out there in the windy, wonderful October night with cute and spunky little Peggy Pan, with my best buddy Jimmy, and with Donna. I was in love with Donna. I'd fallen in love with her the first time I ever met her and I'm in love with her to this day and I'll love her the rest of my life.

  That night, she was sixteen and beautiful and brash and innocent and full of fun and vengeance. She'd trounced Nick and done quite a number on Alice and Olive, too. Now she was about to ring the doorbell of the creepiest house I'd ever seen.

  I wanted to run away screaming myself. I wanted to yell with joy. I wanted to hug Donna and never let her go. And also I sort of felt like crying.

  Crying because it was all so terrifying and glorious and beautiful— and because I knew it wouldn't last.

  All the very best times are like that. They hurt because you know they'll be left behind.

  But I guess that's partly what makes them special, too.

  "Here goes," Donna whispered.

  She raised her hand to knock on the door, but Jimmy grabbed her wrist. "That stuff about Boo and the cats," he whispered. "You made it up, didn't you?"

  "What do you think?"

  "Okay." He let go of her hand.

  She knocked on the door.

  Nothing.

  I turned halfway around. Beyond the bushes and trees of the front yard, Nick and the two girls were watching us from the sidewalk.

  Donna knocked again. Then she whispered, "I really don't think anyone lives here anymore."

  "I hope not," I whispered.

  Donna reached out and gave the screen door a pull. It swung toward us, hinges squawking.

  "What're you doing?" Jimmy blurted.

  "Nothing," said Donna. She tried the main door. "Damn," she muttered.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Locked."

  Oh, I thou
ght. That's too bad.

  The wooden door had a small window at about face level. Donna leaned forward against the door, cupped her hands by the sides of her eyes, and peered in.

  Peered and peered and didn't say a word.

  "Can you see something?" Jimmy asked.

  Donna nodded ever so slightly.

  "What? What's in there?"

  She stepped back, lowered her arms and turned her back to the door and said very softly, "I think we'd better get out of here."

  Peggy Pan groaned.

  Jimmy muttered, "Oh, shit."

  I suddenly felt cold and shrively all over my body.

  We let Donna take the lead. Staying close behind her, we quietly descended the porch stairs. At the bottom, I thought she might break into a run. She didn't, though. She just walked slowly through the high weeds.

  I glanced back at the porch a couple of times. It was still dark. Nobody seemed to be coming after us.

  Entering the shadows of some trees near the middle of the lawn, Donna almost disappeared. We all hurried toward her. In a hushed voice, Jimmy said, "What did you see?"

  "Nothing, really," she said.

  "Yes, you did," Peggy Pan insisted.

  "No, I mean…" She stopped.

  The four of us stood there in the darkness. Though we weren't far from the sidewalk where Nick and the girls were waiting, a high clump of bushes blocked our view of them.

  "Okay," Donna said. "Look, this is just between us. They ran off, so they've got no right to hear about it, okay?"

  "Sure," I said.

  Peggy Pan nodded.

  Jimmy whispered, "They'll never hear it from me."

  "Okay," Donna said. "Here's the thing. It was really dark in the house. I didn't see anything at first. But then I could just barely make out a stairway. And something was on the stairway. Sitting on the stairs partway up, and it seemed to be staring straight at me."

  "What was it?" Peggy Pan whispered.

  "I'm not really sure, but I think it was a cat. A white cat."

  "So?" Jimmy asked.

  I felt a little letdown, myself.

  "I think it was sitting on someone's lap," she said.

  "Oh, jeez."

  Peggy Pan made a high-pitched whiny noise. Or maybe that was me.

  "He was wearing dark clothes, I think. So I really couldn't see him. Or her. All I could see was this darkness on the stairs."

  "How do you know it was even there?" Jimmy asked.

  "The cat was white."

  "So?"

  "Someone was petting it."

  "Let's get outta here," Jimmy said.

  Donna nodded. "Remember, not a word to Nick or Alice or Olive. We'll just say nothing happened."

  We all agreed, and Donna led us through the trees. Out in the moonlight, we walked around the clump of bushes and found Nick and the girls waiting.

  "So what happened?" Nick asked.

  We shrugged and shook our heads. Donna said, "Nothing much. We knocked, but nobody was home."

  Smirking, he said, "You mean Boo and his cats weren't there?"

  Donna grinned. "You didn't believe that story, did you? It's Halloween. I made it up."

  Nick scowled. The ballerina fairy godmother princess looked very relieved, and Yoda or ET sighed through her mask.

  "Good story," I said.

  "Thanks, Matt," said Donna.

  "Can we still trick-or-treat some more?" Peggy Pan asked.

  Donna shrugged. "It's getting pretty late. And we're a long way from home."

  "Please?" asked Peggy Pan.

  Her little friends started jumping and yelling, "Please? Please-please-please? Oh, please? Pretty please?"

  "How about you, Nick?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  "Guys?" she asked Jimmy and me.

  "Yeah!"

  "Sure!"

  "Okay," Donna said. "We'll go a little longer. Maybe just for a couple more blocks."

  "Yayyy!"

  The girls led the way, running up the sidewalk to the next house— a normal house— cutting across its front lawn and rushing up half a dozen stairs to its well-lighted porch. Nick chased them up the stairs. Jimmy and I hurried. By the time the door was opened by an elderly man with a tray of candy, Jimmy and I were also on the porch, Donna waiting at the foot of the stairs.

  We were back to normal.

  Almost.

  We hurried from house to house, reached the end of the block, crossed the street, and went to the corner house on the next block. It was just after that house, when we met on the sidewalk and headed for the next house, that Donna, lagging behind, called out, "Hang on a minute, okay? Come on back."

  So we all turned around. As we hurried toward the place where Donna was waiting on the sidewalk, she raised her hand, index finger extended, and poked the finger at each of us. Like a school bus driver counting heads before starting home from a field trip.

  She finished.

  "Seven," she said.

  "That's right," I said as I halted in front of her.

  "Seven not including me," she said.

  I whirled around and there was Jimmy the woebegone mummy dangling loose strips of sheet, some of which by now were trailing on the sidewalk. There was Nick the Jedi warrior with his light saber. And Peggy Pan and the ballerina fairy princess godmother and Yoda or ET and— bringing up the rear but only a few paces behind the girls— someone else.

  He carried a grocery bag like any other trick-or-treater, but he was bigger than the girls, bigger than Nick, bigger than any of us. He wore a dark cowboy hat and a black raincoat and jeans. Underneath his hat was some sort of strange mask. I couldn't tell what it was at first. When he got closer, though, I saw that it seemed to be made of red bandannas. It covered his entire head and neck. It had ragged round holes over his eyes, a slot over his mouth.

  I had no idea where he'd come from.

  I had no idea how long he'd been walking along with us, though certainly he'd shown up sometime after we'd left the dark old house.

  Is that where he joined us? I wondered.

  Speaking in his direction, Donna said, "I don't think we know you." Though she sounded friendly and calm, I heard tension in her voice.

  The stranger nodded but didn't speak.

  The girls, apparently noticing him for the first time, stepped away from him.

  "Where'd you come from?"

  He raised an arm. When he pointed, I saw that his hand was covered by a black leather glove.

  He pointed behind us. In the direction of the dark old house… and lots of other places.

  "Who are you?" Donna asked.

  And he said, "Killer Joe."

  Alice and Olive took another step away from him, but Peggy Pan stepped closer. "You aren't gonna kill us are you?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "Cool costume," Jimmy said.

  "Thanks," said Killer Joe.

  "So who are you really?" Donna asked.

  Killer Joe shrugged.

  "How about taking off the mask?" she said.

  He shook his head.

  "Do we know you?" Jimmy asked.

  Another shrug.

  "You wanta come along trick-or-treating with us?" Peggy Pan asked.

  He nodded. Yes.

  Donna shook her head. No. "Not unless we know who you are." Her voice no longer sounded quite so calm or friendly. She was speaking more loudly than before. And breathing hard.

  She's scared.

  And she wasn't the only one.

  "I'm sorry," she said, "but you'll either have to let us see who you are or leave. Okay? We've got little kids here, and… and we don't know who you are."

  "He's Killer Joe," Nick explained.

  "We know," Jimmy said.

  "But he's all by himself," Peggy Pan said. "He shouldn't have to go trick-or-treating all by himself." She stepped right up to him and took hold of a sleeve of his raincoat and tilted her head back.