The Case of the Halloween Ghost

by John R. Erickson

  What I’m saying is that if there’s any kids around who might have a bad reaction to heavy-duty hardcore scary stuff, you’d better take up their books right now before this thing gets wild.

  Because it’s fixing to get WILD.

  Pause

  Pause

  Paws

  Pa’s

  Pas (French)

  You ready? Take a deep seat and grab hold of something solid. Here we go.

  Okay. Let me set the scene again: dark night, coyotes howling off in the distance, a whisper of wind sighing through the bare limbs of the cottonwoods, and, behind me, the rumble of the motor of the Mysterious Black Car.

  Just for a moment I had allowed Drover to distract me. Then I heard a sound to my left. It seemed to be coming from the porch. I turned my head and saw . . .

  HUH?

  Holy smokes, you won’t believe this, hang on because here it comes . . .

  TWO SKELETONS, ONE GHOST, ONE PIRATE, AND ONE WITCH!!!!

  Fellers, I still didn’t believe in skeletons or ghosts, but there they were right in front of me. Well, my ears flew up, just as though somebody had tied strings to them and give the strings a yank, I mean, we’re talking about ears that almost flew off my head.

  My eyes popped open, and I think they even crossed. My lower jaw dropped a good six inches and my tongue fell another six inches beyond that.

  The hair on my back stood straight up, and I mean every single hair from my eyebrows all the way out to the tip of my tail, stood straight up, you’d have thought I was a porcupine.

  Naturally, my first reaction to this nightmare was to bark, but when I tried to activate my barking mechanism, what I got was a squeak, not a bark.

  Squeaking at goblins and skeletons is a poor response, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice. So I squeaked.

  Up to this point I hadn’t known whether these goblins were friendly or the dog-eating variety, but I soon found out. One of the skeletons saw me there, and at that very moment he or she (with skeletons it’s hard to distinguish hes from shes) made claws with his or her hands, jumped at me, and screeched a poisonous magic word: “BUGABOOOOO!”

  By then my feet and legs were moving. I could hear my claws scraping across the sidewalk, but they were moving at such an incredible high rate of speed that they couldn’t get traction.

  In other words, I was running in place, and I can reveal that my claws were throwing up sparks on the cement, and I mean showers of sparks that lit up the night.

  You’ve seen guys welding after dark? Same deal: sparks, fire, smoke, the whole nine yards.

  Well, the first skeleton had laid a curse on me with that poisonous magic word, and that would have been serious enough in itself, but just then the other goblins came after me.

  The second skeleton had a mysterious paper bag in his left hand. Gripping it at the top, he or she raised it above his or her head and began shaking it. It contained something, perhaps roots or magic herbs or even bones.

  Yes, they were bones. See, when skeletons go walking around, sometimes their bones fall off and they carry a paper sack to hold all the loose ones. When they get back home, or wherever it is that skeletons go when they’ve finished terrorizing people and dogs, when they get back home, they have to stick all the loose bones back in place, otherwise they would soon fall apart.

  So there you are, a little footnote on the behavior of skeletons.

  And there I was, spinning my tires, so to speak, on the cement, and being attacked by two skeletons. Serious enough, right? Well, you ain’t heard it all yet.

  Suddenly this little witch jumped off the porch, and in case you haven’t been attacked by any witches lately, let me describe this one. She was dressed in black, had a nose as long as a carrot, was missing two front teeth, and wore a very strange kind of pointed hat on her . . . well, on her head, of course.

  In one hand she carried an object that resembled a broom. In fact it was a broom. Yes, I’m sure it was. In her other hand she carried a round orange object that resembled a punkin, but it was like no punkin I had ever seen before.

  It was made of plastic, see, had a handle on it, and also a face. I know that sounds crazy, a punkin with a face, but this punkin by George had a face on it.

  Anyway, this little witch . . . I say little witch, but come to think of it, maybe she wasn’t so little. Maybe she was pretty big. In fact, she was HUGE.

  This huge witch, she must have stood, oh, seven feet three inches tall, biggest woman I’d ever seen, she jumped off the porch and yelled, “Tricker Tree!”

  And at that very same moment the ghost said, “WOOOOOO!” and he came flying off the porch.

  Did I describe that ghost? Scariest thing I ever saw. No ears, no nose, no hair. Just two horrible eyes and a big round mouth. Oh yes, he was wearing tennis shoes.

  And then the Pirate came after me too. Descrip­tion: little bitty short guy, must have been a midget or a widget or whatever you call those short guys, only this one was wearing a black patch over one eye, had two teeth missing and a big scar on the left side of his face, terrible scar with blood still showing, and he carried a sword.

  Oh, and he was wearing tennis shoes too. That was another interesting clue, a ghost and a pirate wearing tennis shoes, but you might say that I wasn’t in any position to put those two clues to­gether and come up with a hypotenuse.

  I mean, I was under attack, fellers. It was time to do some serious lifesaving.

  One last thing about the pirate. When he jumped at me, he waved his sword and yelled those same two words: “Tricker Tree!”

  Speaking of trees, it was time for this old dog to head for tall timber, but before I could get that deal accomplished, I had to endure one last shocker.

  Slim and Miss Viola came to the door and looked out. Do you think they came to my rescue? Do you think they ran for a gun and started shooting? Do you think they even lifted their voices to help their loyal dog, their Head of Ranch Security?

  No sir. Here’s exactly what they did. Miss Viola slapped her knees, threw back her head, and laughed. That’s right. She laughed!

  And are you ready to hear what Slim did? He roared with laughter, and then he had the gall to yell, “Git ’em, Hankie, sic ’em, boy!”

  Well, I had never been so . . . after years and years of loyal service . . .

  Let’s just say that this came as a bitter disappointment to me. It would have served them right if I had been eaten by those two skeletons. That would have left their dumb old ranch defenseless.

  The time had come for me to, shall we say, fall back to another position. Or to put it another way, to run for my life.

  At last my claws got traction on the sidewalk, and I went zooming away from this collection of goblins, spooks, and crazy people. No ordinary dog could have . . .

  Only trouble was that I forgot to jump when I came to the fence, guess my mind was on other things, and boy did I come to a sudden stop, center-punched that dadgum fence and liked to have broke my nose off at the roots.

  Well, I bounced off the fence, backed off and took another run at it and this time went flying over the top.

  I don’t know who parked the wheelbarrow over there, and don’t particularly care, but it was a dumb place to park a wheelbarrow. I knocked it over, scrambled to my feet, and escaped a terrible death by a matter of inches.

  It was then that I noticed that my legs were wet—very strange because I hadn’t come in contact with any water whatsoever.

  Beat anything I ever saw.

  You may think the scary part is over, but just wait until you find out what happened in the cake house. Don’t read the next chapter unless you’re pretty derned tough.

  Chapter Eleven: You’ll Think It Wasn’t a Ghost, but It Was

  Where do you go when you’ve got ghosts and goblins on your trail? I di
dn’t know. I mean, they can walk through walls and see in the dark. It’s hard to hide from that kind of enemy.

  I went streaking away from the yard and came to the cake house, figgered that was as good a place as any, leaped through door and went inside.

  It was very dark in there, with just a little rod of moonlight coming through the open door. I stumbled over junk and stuff, sacks of feed and wads of baling wire, and made my way back to the northwest corner, which was as far away from the door as I could get.

  There, I found a stack of burlap feed sacks, and I proceeded to burrow under the sack on top. If those goblins wanted to eat me, they would have to eat a sack first.

  And then I waited. I could hear my heart pounding: tah-DAH, tah-DAH, tah-DAH. I could hear the wind rumbling across the tin roof. And beyond that . . . nothing.

  Nothing had ever sounded sweeter than the nothing I heard at that moment. I mean, I was ready for some heavy silence.

  But then . . . what was that? Footsteps on the wood floor? Holy smokes, they were coming after me! I was backed into a corner and all I had for protection was an old cake sack.

  My mind began racing, as I searched my data banks for some kind of response that would save me from those horrible creatures.

  In this type of situation, did a guy come out fighting? Did he try to hide? What the heck did he do? It was kind of an important question, don’t you see, because the wrong answer would get me more than a bad grade. It would get me . . .

  I really didn’t want to probe that matter too deeply. I wasn’t sure what-all that collection of ghouls and goblins could do to an innocent dog, and I didn’t want to know.

  At last I came up with a plan. Instead of trying to hide or fight my way out, I would pretend that I was one of them—another ghost, in other words. It’s common knowledge that one ghost won’t eat another ghost.

  Seemed reasonable that one ghost wouldn’t eat another ghost.

  I sure hoped that one ghost . . .

  So I gathered my courage and raised up. I hoped that my legs wouldn’t give out on me, because they were shaking.

  And wet. I still didn’t understand that part.

  Disguising my voice, so that it sounded more like a ghost than a dog, I said, “Wooooo! Who’s in my cake house?”

  I heard the ghast gosp—the ghost gasp, that is. “Oh my gosh, who said that?”

  “It’s meeeeeee, the ghost of the cake house. You are disturbing my sleeeeeeep.”

  “Oh. Ohhhh. Ohhhhhhh!”

  It was a ghost, all right. Yes sir, I had me a live one. The next question was, what could I do with him? Get rid of him, I think was my basic answer. But how?

  Once again, I went into the Ghost Voice Mode. “What are you doing in my cake house?”

  I heard a gulp, and then, “I’m hiding.”

  “What are you hiding from?”

  “From ghosts like you.”

  Hm. That was odd. A ghost who was hiding from another ghost? It occurred to me that this might be a ghost I could do business with. But first I would have to probe his thought patterns and develop a profile. It would require just the right touch.

  “Tell me, spirit, why should you be hiding from a ghost?”

  “Because I’m scared!”

  “Why should a ghost be scared of another ghost?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”

  “Tell me, spirit, was it something that happened in your former life?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the ghost said, “I’ve never been a farmer.”

  “I said ‘former,’ not ‘farmer.’”

  “Ohhhhhhh.”

  This was getting me nowhere. Apparently this ghost didn’t want to give out any information about his former life. Either that or he was a little stupid.

  “Another question, spirit. Do you eat dogs?”

  “I ate a hot dog once.”

  “But do you eat dogs?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Suddenly it occurred to me that I had heard that voice before. There was something about it . . . yes, I was almost sure I had. “Spirit, do you have a name?”

  “Yes, but it isn’t Spirit.”

  “I see. Well, we’ve eliminated that as a possibility, haven’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “But instead of going through all the other names in the language, maybe you could just come out and tell me what it is.”

  “Well, okay. If you promise not to eat me, I’ll tell you that my name’s Drover.”

  HUH?

  Suddenly the pieces of the puddle . . . puzzle began to fall into place: The goblins had seized Little Drover, had killed him, and now he was a GHOST!

  “Drover, listen to me. This is Hank.”

  “Hank!” I heard him gasp. “Oh my gosh, they got you, I knew you shouldn’t have . . . Hank, I tried to help you, honest I did, but this leg . . .”

  “I know you tried, Drover, but I just want to say right here and now that I regret all the mean things I’ve done to you.”

  “Yeah, and I regret all the chicken things I’ve done to you, and I hope you won’t haunt me.”

  “Yes, well, that’s exactly what I was going to say to you, Drover. I hope you won’t . . . wait a minute. Did you say you hope I won’t haunt you?”

  “Yeah, please. I’ll promise to be good for the rest of my life, and I’ll take care of your ranch, honest I will.”

  Hmmmmmm.

  “One last question, Drover. Are you a ghost?”

  “Who me? A ghost? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m not a ghost either.”

  “Oh. Then . . . what are we doing?”

  Ah ha!

  I stood up and walked towards the sliver of light where Drover was standing. At last I had solved the case.

  “What we’re doing, Drover, is performing an exercise in futicity. I think I’ve finally got this thing worked out. This is Halloween night, Drover. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yeah, ’cause Pete . . .”

  “On Halloween, people who are ordinarily sane and normal dress up in masks and costumes, and go around trying to scare others.”

  “Pete told us . . .”

  “Exactly. Those so-called goblins on the porch were just the neighbors’ kids wearing costumes.”

  “Yeah, and Pete said . . .”

  “Yes. You were duped. You gave me a false alarm and sent me into combat against a group of imposters. I had suspicions all along, of course, but I had to check it out.”

  “You mean . . .”

  “Exactly. And another thing, Drover. You know the Tricker Trees you were telling me about? Those kids weren’t saying ‘Tricker Tree.’ They were saying Trick or Treat, you little dunce, but you managed to garble the words just enough to throw me off the track. I should have known.”

  “What does Trick or Treat mean?”

  “How should I know what it means? But that’s what kids say on Halloween night. They always have and they always will, and it has nothing to do with trees.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad! Does this mean that we don’t have to believe in ghosts any more?”

  “That is precisely what it means, Drover. As I’ve told you many times, there is no such thing as a ghost. A ghost is nothing but a frigment . . . what are you looking at?”

  He was staring with wide eyes towards the back of the cake house. “Hank, there’s a man standing over there.”

  “Impossible. There was no man in here when we arrived and no one has come through that door. Hence, there can’t possibly be a man standing back there.”

  “But I see him, and Hank, he looks like a ghost.”

  I couldn’t help chuckling at that. “A ghost, Drover? Look again. Maybe he’s a pirate. Or a skeleton, or maybe even a witch.”


  “No, he’s a ghost, I just know he is.”

  “Drover, when will you ever learn? What does it take . . .”

  He started backing towards the door. “Hank, I want to get out of here! That guy doesn’t look natural to me.”

  “Drover, only a dope could be duped twice in one night. I’ve tried to explain . . .”

  At that moment I heard voices. Someone was singing . . . the same mysterious . . .

  I turned and looked towards the . . . HUH?

  There stood an old man, wearing a long black coat. He was holding a hymn book in his hands. He was singing. He glowed in the dark. He looked very much like . . .

  “Come to think of it, Drover, it seems a little stuffy in here, maybe we ought to step outside and get a breath of . . .

  We both edged towards the door, but at that very moment THE DOOR SLAMMED SHUT.

  Uh-oh.

  We were trapped inside the cake house with a . . . fellers, I didn’t want to jump to any hasty contortions, but that thing looked very much like a . . .

  GHOST!!

  Chapter Twelve: Don’t Worry, We Escaped but Just Barely

  In the darkness, we listened to the song. I mean, we didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

  It started out with just the old man singing, then a whole bunch of voices came in, until it was a whole entire chorus of voices singing. Here’s how it went:

  Followers of the Lamb

  Oh brethern ain’t you happy?

  Oh brethern ain’t you happy?

  Oh brethern ain’t you happy?

  Ye Followers of the Lamb.

  Oh sisters ain’t you happy?

  Oh sisters ain’t you happy?

  Oh sisters ain’t you happy?

  Ye Followers of the Lamb.

  Oh sing on, dance on, Followers of Emanuel!

  Oh sing on, dance on, Followers of the Lamb!

  Oh sing on, dance on,

  Sing on, dance on!

  I’m glad I am a Christian,

  I’m glad I am a Christian

  I’m glad I am a Christian,