This is Halloween

by James A. Moore

  Four days earlier the deadly mouth of Raley had started troubles by double-dog daring Todd to taunt Jonah Blackbourne. Unfortunately, Todd had listened.

  The Blackbournes were a large group, to be kind. Most people in town referred to them not as a family but as a clan because there were brothers, sisters, cousins and second cousins in such abundance that remarkably few people could keep the family members separate without a chart to sort them out. A good number of the clan lived in Crawford’s Hollow and there were many rumors that not all of the children who lived in the Hollow were getting their proper education, but over time the officials had stopped trying to rectify the situation and had, apparently, accepted that some of them would never manage to get to school with any regularity.

  Jonah was considered a perfect example of why so many of the Blackbournes would never get a proper schooling. Jonah was healthy enough, but he was also unattractive to a fault and he was also slow. Not retarded, not according to the school at least, but slow. The boy almost never participated in class, seldom spoke unless he was asked a question, and tended to keep to himself. In other words, he was a target waiting to get aimed at.

  And Raley was just the person to find that target. And Todd was just the weapon to aim. While they were at lunch on the Monday before Halloween, the boys were all sitting at the same table in the cafeteria—it was pizza day, so everyone was in a good mood—and as they ate their food, Raley started looking for something to do. When he spotted Jonah picking his nose, he knew he had a perfect target.

  “Lookit him.” He shook his head. “Boy’s just digging for gold right there in front of everyone.” Those who knew Raley could almost see the gears in his head working out the proper way to respond.

  CeeCee rolled her eyes. She was one of the guys, true enough, but she had the common sense to leave Jonah alone. He was a sad case and deserved pity, not ridicule. “Leave him be, Walter Raley.”

  Raley looked at the girl as if she had accused him of molesting the local stray dog. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You were gonna.”

  “Was not.” He stared hard until, finally, CeeCee looked away. He wasn't worth having a fight with in her estimation. Instead she turned to Josh and asked him if he wanted to trade his apple for her brownie, because just of late she’d decided that brownies would make her fat. Josh—who would have gladly traded his kidney for her apple if it made her smile—said yes and a moment later was the proud owner of two chocolate brownies. Sure enough, she smiled like he was doing her the biggest favor ever, and he, in turn, smiled like he’d just been granted his life’s ambition.

  So CeeCee was distracted when Raley looked at Todd and pointed at Jonah. “You should go over there and take his pizza.” He chose Todd with great care. Todd had already lamented that his rectangular slice of school pizza was smaller than everyone else’s in an effort to find someone who would take pity and switch with him. To that end, he had eaten everything on his plate except for the pizza, and then watched as those around him failed to offer up their larger and no doubt far tastier slices.

  “No way.”

  Raley looked at his friend with disappointment. “Just do it. He hasn’t even touched his slice. It ain’t like you’re stealing, just trading, and if he says anything you can just call him on digging in his nose like he’s digging a ditch.”

  Probably it was the pizza that brought about his ruination. Pizza was, as Raley knew full and well, the number one food in Todd’s life.

  “I couldn’t. He’s a Blackbourne.” He said it like that explained everything, and for most people it would have, but Raley was not like most people. Raley was a trickster through and through.

  “I dare you.”

  Todd looked at him with wide eyes, knowing what was coming next. “No sir.”

  “It’s pizza, Todd.” Raley spoke seductively, his eyes looking at the pallid, failed slab of cheese and tomato sauce on the green tray in front of his friend. So meager, so very tiny. “I double-dog dare you.”

  And that was it, really. That was all there was to it. From that moment on, Todd had no choice. He had to trade pizza slices with Jonah Blackbourne. His stomach gave a rumble almost as feeble as his slice of pizza in agreement.

  He pulled a napkin from the tin dispenser on the table and used it to lift his slice of lunch. Without letting himself think, Todd walked over to where Jonah was still vigorously digging at his left nostril and grabbed the boy’s slice of pizza. It was, in fact, almost twice the size of the slice he’d been given. He was justified. The boy hadn’t even bothered eating anything and the lunch break was over halfway done.

  Several people saw Todd walk over. More saw him switch the pizza slices. CeeCee looked his way and stared hard, her mouth hanging open in shock. Not because Todd would do something rude, but because he did it to a Blackbourne.

  Todd walked back and ate his pizza on the way, blushing because people were looking at him. Really, as far as he was concerned it was a horrid thing he’d done. He hadn’t asked, he’d just taken what he wanted, but it had been a dare and there was no choice.

  On the other hand, Jonah seemed absolutely unconcerned. Whatever he’d been digging for was apparently still up in his nose, but he pulled his finger free and studied it hard.

  And Raley looked on, his eyes taking in every detail.

  “Good job. And now you have enough to eat, too.” That was good enough for Raley. A dare had been taken, bravery shown and no one was hurt in the process—though, in truth, Raley could have lived with a quick butt kicking had it come from the dare as long as the fanny getting the boot was not his.

  It seemed like all would be well, but for the appearance of Lament.

  Lament Blackbourne was either the older sister or the cousin of Jonah. No one was completely sure. Either way, she was one of the Blackbournes who attended school every day and managed to get good grades. She was, in many ways, the complete opposite of Jonah. Jonah had dark hair and mottled, unpleasant skin. Lament had porcelain flesh, a perfect complexion and hair so pale blonde it bordered on white. The only feature they shared was their shockingly blue eyes. Where Jonah was unattractive, clumsy and not very bright, Lament was pretty enough to make most of the boys stutter, graceful enough to be a dancer if she decided that was what she wanted to do with herself, and a straight A student. Sadly for Raley, she was also far less forgiving than her male counterpart.

  While he was feeling ever so satisfied with his latest manipulations, the older girl came up behind him and grabbed a handful of his hair. She pulled it hard before he could do more than realize he was being touched and she leaned down until her lips were next to his ear. “You think you’re funny. You think picking on Jonah is a good time?”

  Raley froze. He wanted to yelp. He wanted to scream. He very possibly even wanted to run or turn and swing, but there were too many problems with that. He couldn’t run from a girl. He couldn’t scream either, without looking like a sissy. He couldn’t hit a girl and even if he’d been inclined to do so, he didn’t dare hit Lament. Because Lament was maybe a sister to Jonah, but she was definitely a sister to Lorne Blackbourne.

  Lorne Blackbourne could easily have been called the boogieman by almost every kid in the school. Hell, it could be said that he was the source of a lot of nightmares and a few situations where the kids at the school had prayed to wake up before things got too messy.

  Lorne looked a lot like his little sister Lament. He was lean and pale and dressed in jeans and wore black shirts. His hair was too long—almost hippy long, if the truth had to be told—and even though he’d been sent home a couple of times for having his hair so long, he hadn’t cut it yet. Apparently his parents had pulled some strings. Or at least his mother had. No one knew for certain who his father was. He came from a broken home and everyone knew that meant all kinds of trouble.

  “We were just funnin’, is all!” Raley’s words were rushed, and he looked around to see if a teacher might be close enough to do anything about th
e situation. There were no teachers to be seen.

  “Lorne will be funnin’ too, when he cuts your ugly face off.” Lament let go of his hair and stormed away, not bothering to look back.

  That had been five days earlier and no one had seen any of the Blackbournes at school for the rest of the week. It was long enough that they could almost forget the incident, right up until Lament and Lorne showed up on the other end of the Square along with the hulking form of their cousin Frank, who could only be called gigantic by anyone’s standards. Frank was a grown up. He should have been seen as a source of possible protection from any troubles, but he was also known for his temper and he’d be more likely to beat any grownups who tried to help than to stop something from happening.

  CeeCee saw them first. “We gotta go. Now.” She didn’t suggest it; she ordered it. One look where she was pointing and they all agreed. They moved as quickly as their costumes would permit, slipping out of the square before the situation could get bad.

  If the energy of the average highly sugar-charged ten-year-old could be bottled, cities could be spared enormous electrical bills. The group proved that fact over the next fifteen minutes, half running and half speed walking their way to the edge of town while they looked over their shoulders again and again.

  They did not dawdle, of course, but took the opportunity to knock on doors they otherwise might have ignored. If they could not have the fun of movies and music in the Square, then they would surely have extra candy.

  And when they finally slowed down again, they looked at the long, winding road that lead to the old Gramling Place and knew another reason to fear.

  Old Whit Gramling, as everyone knew, was a scary old coot. No one ever dared head toward his place on Halloween. You never knew what sort of trouble you could get into.

  So naturally Walt Raley took one look at the path and felt a smile start to grow on his lean face.

  “Hey guys, I got an idea.”

  “If it’s like last year, forget it, Raley,” Todd said. “Mr. Cantrell is probably sitting there waiting for people to try and roll his yard this year.”

  Raley waved his hand in the air as if he were waving away the protest. “None of that rock salt hit you.”

  “It didn’t hit you either because you were running away crying like a big baby when he unloaded that shotgun, Raley,” CeeCee said.

  “I wasn’t crying,” said Raley.

  “What’s your idea?” said Bodey, trying to head off an argument. It always seemed to fall to Bodey to play peacemaker somehow.

  “Let’s go trick or treat at the Gramling place.”

  Five blank faces stared back at Raley. Not surprisingly, it was CeeCee who spoke first. “You are out of your tiny mind, Raley. Nobody goes out there.”

  Raley grinned. “That’s why it’s such a great idea. We’ll be the first. When we get to school tomorrow we can say we went right up to Whit Gramling’s front door and asked for candy.”

  Todd said, “I don’t know, Raley. My grandmother always says you shouldn’t be out in the woods on Halloween.”

  There were nods and grunts of general agreement. In Wellman, Georgia, everyone knew you didn’t go into the woods on Halloween. The only thing worse than that would be going up on Mooney’s Bluff. Most people weren’t sure exactly why the woods were supposed to be dangerous. The tradition went back over a hundred years to when Wellman could barely have been called a town. But folk tales from the mountain people and legends from the Cherokee all agreed that the woods were a bad place on All Hallows’ Eve.

  “Now who’s a baby?” Raley taunted. “I ain’t afraid to go. Now who’s with me?”

  “I’ll go,” Paul Griffin said. Paul didn’t talk much, so when he spoke the group tended to listen.

  Bodey Harper said, “Count me out. My dad says Whit Gramling can witch water and line bees and all kinds of other stuff. I’m not going out to his place in the dark.”

  That gave even Walter Raley pause for a moment. He had heard stories about Gramling as well. That he was a, whatever it was that you called a man who was a witch. A warlock, that was it. People said he knew all kinds of things that regular people didn’t know about or want to know about. But the idea had been his and Raley couldn’t back down now.

  “He’s just a crazy old man,” Raley said. “Now how about you, CeeCee? You ain’t afraid of an old man are you?”

  It was CeeCee’s curse that she had always felt the need to be the equal of any of the boys. Maybe it was because her dad had wanted a boy and CeeCee was the youngest of three sisters and she had always tried to win her daddy’s attention. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t about to let Walter Raley get bragging rights about visiting the Gramling place on Halloween.

  “Of course I’m not afraid, bone-head,” CeeCee said. She turned to Josh. “How about you, Superman?”

  Up until that moment, Josh had absolutely no intention of following Raley into the dark woods. If his dad found out he was even this far away from the town square, Josh would be grounded for the rest of his life. But somehow he couldn’t say no. CeeCee might think he was scared and he could not stand for that to happen.

  “I’ll go,” Josh said.

  “Down to you, Todd,” said Raley. “You going to show some guts or slink back to the party with fraidy-cat Bodey here.”

  “I am not a fraidy-cat!” Bodey said, and stalked off toward the lights of the edge of town. “I'm just not as stupid as some people!”

  “Should we let him go off by himself?” CeeCee said. “The Blackbournes are back there somewhere.”

  “Bodey will stay clear of them,” Raley said, dismissing the other boy’s chances of getting himself hurt. “Now how about it, Todd?”

  Todd didn't want to go. Not one bit. But he didn't like the idea of Raley taking charge of 'his' group, so he said, “Yeah, I'll go. But won't we need a flashlight or something? There are no lights on that road.”

  Raley said, “Nah, the moon is bright enough. Let's get going.”

  The witch, the clown, the scarecrow, the superhero, and whatever Raley was supposed to be left the last few houses on the edge of Wellman and started down the winding dirt road that led past Whit Gramling's house.

  Raley regretted his rash notion almost as soon as they were among the trees. He had been right about the moon being bright, but he hadn't counted on how dense the woods were. The branches seemed to almost lace overhead, blocking out most of the light, and wherever the silvery moonlight did break through, it cast wavering shadows of the leafless branches on the ground, looking for all the world like grasping claws and withered, skeletal hands.

  The brisk October wind seemed to be picking up and dead leaves went spinning past the group. The woods were so dark on either side of the road that it was easy for Paul Griffin to imagine they were walking through some deep forest like the one the dwarves went through in The Hobbit. He had read that book last summer and several times since.

  “Jesus!” Todd said without warning.

  “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” CeeCee said. “What is it?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” said Todd. “I stopped to fix my mask and I thought I saw something move back there behind us.”

  CeeCee said, “You’re just trying to scare everyone.”

  “No, I swear I saw something. Just for a second I thought I saw someone run across the road and into the trees.”

  “Maybe the Blackbournes followed us,” said Paul.

  Raley said, “Nah, they were all going into the Square when we left. They didn’t see us. You’re just imagining things, Todd.”

  “I’m not,” insisted the boy. “I think it was a man, but he was kind of hunched over. Like Quasimodo!”

  “You’re crazy,” said Raley, holding his hand up beside his temple and twirling a finger.

  “Maybe we should go back,” Paul said.

  Raley said, “Come on. There’s no one back there. And besides, we’re probably half way to Gramling’s place by now. Let’s get go
ing.”

  Raley wished he were as confident as he was trying to sound. Todd looked genuinely spooked. Maybe he had seen something. Then again, it was Halloween and they were out in the middle of the woods. Probably he saw a deer and his imagination did the rest.

  The group walked on in silence. It hadn’t rained for several days and their feet made dry, crunching sounds on the old dirt road. Despite his dismissal of Todd’s story, Raley kept glancing back and forth to the darkness on either side of the road. They had gone perhaps another two hundred yards when Raley saw the eyes.

  He never questioned that they were eyes. They were too big and too round to be human eyes and they seemed to glow with an inner, baleful light, but they were eyes. Raley stopped in his tracks.

  “What is it,” CeeCee said. “Not getting scared are you?”

  Raley said, “I thought.”

  “You thought what?” said Todd.

  Raley looked at Todd’s expectant face. He said, “Nothing. Just an owl.”

  Raley started walking again but now he didn’t look at the sides of the road anymore. He just kept his eyes focused straight ahead. The Gramling cabin had to be around the next bend or two. As many scary stories as Raley had heard about Whit Gramling, he all of a sudden wanted very much to see the lights of the house. Of any house.

  “Guys,” Paul Griffin said. “Guys, there’s someone following us.”

  The group stopped again and Raley turned to look at Paul. “Aw man, not you too.”

  Paul said, “I can hear them. They walk when we do and stop when we stop, but there’s somebody moving in the woods. They’re quiet but I can hear the leaves crunching.”

  Raley felt a stab of fear. Maybe the Blackbournes had followed them. If so they could be in deep, deep trouble. That Lorne Blackbourne was crazy and the older kids said he carried a switchblade. And if their cousin Frank was with them? He was as big as a mountain and everyone said he was mean as a snake.