by William Bebb
Boris nudged Billy's leg and they went toward the next street while in the distance the music of a band playing at the country club drifted over and mixed with the sounds of hundreds, maybe thousands of kids running around enjoying their one night of legalized extortion. Billy smiled as he pictured his grandfather having to serve out the three months of detention the principal had given him.
He was a great guy and I miss him but there's no way I'd try something like that. Billy thought as he walked up toward a porch covered in hay straw with a scarecrow leaning against the wall.
Boris wagged his tail and moved to sniff the scarecrow's foot, as Billy rang the doorbell. Everything slowed down for the next few seconds. Boris barked loudly as strobe lights flicked on and the scarecrow jumped up and reached out for Billy. The boy screamed as the dog chomped down on the towering scarecrow's leg. Acting in reflex, Billy turned and kicked as hard as he could, the giant thing reaching for him, right between the legs. The scarecrow collapsed in a heap while Boris jumped up on its chest.
Time went back to normal speed as Maria opened the front door laughing.“That's one video I definitely want to see.”
Bo was exhausted and several times tempted to go home after the first hour of following Billy around. The boy was easy to follow partly because of Boris at the end of the leash, and also the cell phone application that allowed him track the phone he gave him earlier. No, keeping track wasn't his problem, it was his alcoholism. Ever since he quit the sheriff's department, Bo had been getting steadily worse. At first it was just a few drinks to help him forget the horrible things he saw last summer. But over time the few drinks had turned into a daily regimen of full blown alcohol consumption.
If he hadn't run out of booze, the previous night, he would undoubtedly be where he usually was- sitting in the den staring at the multitude of crap masquerading as entertainment pouring mindlessly out of his TV, obliviously drunk to the world. Over the years spent as a police officer, Bo had dealt with plenty of alcoholics and though now shaved and cleaned up he knew he was one. His pounding headache was all the evidence he needed, but his craving for just a shot of something or even a can of beer, reinforced the truth that he was undeniably an alcoholic.
To make matters even worse, people were staring at him suspiciously. Mostly it was mothers escorting their children or teenage girls, who feared he was some sort of pervert, which shot him wary and nervous looks while he walked amongst them.
At one particularly awkward moment an acquaintance of his in a police cruiser recognized him and waved him over.
“Hey Bo. How ya been?” The young, still wet behind the ears, officer had asked. Though a rookie, he'd been a pretty decent cop who had actually served under Bo many months earlier. The problem was, he couldn't remember the kid's name. He knew the face though and smiled while squatting down so they could talk. Bo's knee joints made noticeable popping noises that made the rookie wince.
“Hey hey, I'm fine. Just out stretching the legs. So, they got you doing some babysitting tonight. Any excitement?”
“Caught a kid spray painting a wall in an alley few blocks over, a while ago. Other than that, I'm just trying not to run over any goblins.” He said smiling, then asked “Some of the guys were wondering if you ever planned on coming back on the force. I know Lopez has missed having you around.”
“Captain Lopez, huh? What's he been up to?” Bo said, casually avoiding the question about coming out of retirement.
“He's Major Lopez now. And trust me he's not hurting a bit. The sheriff actually has him and a couple of guys working tonight over at the country club. You know, watching for party crashers, trying to keep people from driving home drunk, grabbing a few asses in the dark. All the really difficult stuff.”
The country club was only a few blocks away and once the cop had mentioned it Bo wondered how he hadn't noticed the music drifting across the golf course and neighborhood.
“Hope I won't have to call in a noise complaint, later tonight.” Bo said, smiling.
“Nah, in another hour or so they'll probably knock down the volume a bit.”
“Well, it's been good -” Bo started to say as the radio in the car interrupted.
“All units be advised, there are streakers reportedly in the vicinity of Bella Vista Park.” A dispatcher announced over the radio.
“Streakers? Like naked?” The rookie asked Bo, as his eyes opened wide.
“Yeah, some of the college kids do stuff like that every year.”
“Girls too?” He asked, reaching for the handset.”
“Mostly guys, but yeah there's usually a few passable girls out there too.” Bo said grinning.
“All right. Listen Bo, it was great seeing you but I better see if they need any help handling the situation.” The deputy said, and radioed headquarters he was on his way.
Bo chuckled as the police car quickly moved away with its lights flashing. Walking stiffly to the sidewalk, he bent down and rubbed his sore knees thinking for the first time that he really did miss being a cop. Major Lopez. He thought. I bet he having a lot of fun telling rich people to behave over at the country club. It's only a few blocks away. I could swing by and see him. But, then there's Billy and the kids who messed with him earlier.
He checked his locator application and quickly realized Billy was over at Josey's house. Well, if he's visiting him, I think a quick detour to the club would be okay. It would be nice to see Lopez again, plus he might even offer me a little drink.
Walking quickly, Bo turned and followed the music almost able to taste and smell the whiskey.
“Dr. Reynolds was worried. Inevitably, every Halloween, some kids would be brought to the emergency room usually complaining of stomach aches but this was different. Aside from the regular cases of too much candy consumption, he had two cases that scared the hell out of him.
One little girl, wearing face makeup to make her resemble a puppy, was brought in unconscious and unresponsive by her parents. The other, also wearing makeup but that of a clown, was a boy who had nearly identical symptoms. Both were in a nearly catatonic state and the blood beginning to seep into their eyes indicated some sort of brain trauma or infection, but what exactly caused it he couldn't imagine.
He was rapidly searching through the computer database for similar cases when the voices of several people shouting outside interrupted him. Quickly crossing the office and opening the door he saw a nurse running down the hallway, clutching her bloody arm. She was looking over her shoulder and ran straight into a custodian, knocking him to the floor before landing on top of the old man.
The doctor started toward them but when more shouts came from the emergency room, he turned. What the hell's going on? I swear, if it's those damn gang members again I'll strangle them myself. This is a hospital not a war zone. He thought, running toward the shouts and now screams.
Slapping his hand on the access panel, the automatic doors began to swing open but the little girl ran between them and tackled him before they had even opened halfway. It was the same girl who had been made up like a puppy, yet her face was covered in so much blood the doctor barely recognized the girl as he tried to push her off his leg. Growling, she lifted her face up and bit down hard on his hand. Screaming, as she chomped off one finger completely, the doctor punched down as hard as he could, hitting her in the face. The little girl flew back and landed unconscious between the slowly closing doors to the ER. The automatic doors, sensing a blockage retracted back to their open position.
Cradling his bloody four fingered hand, the doctor struggled to his feet. He heard more growling but this time from behind. He turned and saw the nurse attacking the custodian. The old man was trying to get loose and run but she leaped up on his back and began to bite and tear at his neck like some sort of animal.
The CDC alert! Dr. Reynold's mind screamed, as he ran back to the office. No, oh God no!
The symptoms of the children matched those listed in a Class A Critical Report sent from the Ce
nter for Disease Control, he'd read several months earlier. The report explained how a virus codenamed Keck could spread, sometimes within an alarming speed, by blood or other bodily fluids transmission. Those infected were to be considered irrational and homicidal. At the end of the report, there was an emergency number listed to call if any patients were suspected of being infected. One of his colleagues had laughed after reading it and taken a large red marker and written call in case of apocalypse on the page before hanging it on the office bulletin board.
At the time he'd thought the notation to be in bad taste, now however ripping the sheet from the wall and hurrying to the phone he thought if anything it was an understatement.
Blood was still pouring out where his missing finger once resided while he grabbed the phone and put on his glasses. More screams echoed from the halls as he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his brain He focused on the numbers and started punching them in trying desperately to hang on. His eyes felt dry as they turned a bright red and the numbers seemed out of focus on the phone. He punched in the last few numbers but dropped the receiver and started screaming as a voice at the other end spoke.
“Bebinos Pizzeria, tonight's special is a large Italian sausage with extra cheese.” There was a pause then the voice over the phone said “Yeah yeah, Happy Halloween to you too ya jerk. Some numb nuts just called up and started screaming.” The voice said laughing to someone else, before hanging up.
Janette pretended not to notice the boys across the room leering at her and instead focused on Sheila, while she dipped her stick with a string tied on the end, behind a big piece of cardboard painted with fish. She leaned around the partition and winked at a bored, sorta cute, boy sitting behind it saying “Sure hope you catch something really nice, Sheila.”
“I'm gonna get a whale, and you gotta help me carry it home when I do.” The little girl said, bouncing her fishing pole around so much the boy couldn't grab onto the clothe pin to hook on her prize.
“Don't bounce your pole so much, sweetie. You'll scare off the fish.” Janette suggested.
“I don't think a whale would be scared, but okay? Sheila said agreeably.
The boy blushed and smiled back at Janette while attaching a pretty blue plastic necklace that twinkled with built in LED lights to the clothe pin.
“Okay Sheila, reel in your fish.” Sheila said, walking back to watch.
The little girl squealed and jumped up and down when she saw the prize.
An old lady, dressed as a Raggedy Ann doll, had been staring at Janette's slutty costume but ceased her disapproving scowl briefly as the girl helped Sheila put on her new necklace. Seconds later she returned to her previous expression thinking What's wrong with that girl, dressing up like a slut and apparently having no sense of shame about it.
The old lady's sense of fashion aside, most of the boys and even a few older men were deeply moved by Janette's Little Red Riding Hood outfit. The low cut top and extremely short skirt, combined with the knee high socks inspired most of them with thoughts not exactly appropriate for the basement of the Baptist church. Janette had bought the costume over her mother's objections, remembering what a friend of hers had said at school. Halloween is the one time of year where you can dress as sexy as you want and no one can say anything about it. It's just a costume.
The Fall Festival was nowhere near as crowded as the organizers had hoped but those children in attendance seemed to be having a good time. In addition to the fishing booth, there were seven other games for them to choose from.
Father Tim, operating the dart toss game nearby, was frustrated that no one could pop any of the balloons because the tips were made of some blunt plastic stuff. Safety tipped darts. Whoever got these should be ashamed of themselves. Have we really gotten to the point in the world where we have to worry about metal tipped darts? He thought, shaking his head.
To keep the kids from being too disappointed with his booth, Father Tim held a thumb tack in his hand and would wait until a dart bounced off a balloon and quickly reach out and pop it. He'd then act like the noise scared him. It was kind of stupid but the kids seemed to like it.
He saw the elderly Mrs. Vaughn, dressed in her Raggedy Ann costume, scowling at Janette and smiled. Some things never change, he thought. Handing the darts to a boy dressed up as some kind of monster, he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to be, he heard kids outside running around screaming like the world had come to an end and smiled again.
He checked his watch and saw it was almost eight o'clock and wondered how two hours had managed to slip by so fast. They'd have to start getting ready to close up the festival soon, yet seeing the smiling kids carrying around their bags of candy and prizes he felt it had certainly been worth all the work. Wondering briefly why no parents had come back to pick up the kids they'd left, he then smiled realizing even a couple of hours of alone time could be priceless. He handed out a prize after popping a balloon and jumping up shouting “Whoa!”
Waving one of the volunteers over, he went to the registration desk by the stairs leading outside. Old Henry was snoring in a metal folding chair behind the table with his head leaning back against the wall. How he could sleep through the sounds of kids playing inside and others screaming and shouting outside was beyond his understanding. Father Tim climbed the stairs to see if any parents had shown up to gather their kids.
In the floodlit parking lot, there was a dead man lying in the parking lot. He knew this wasn't a Halloween trick, not just because of his mostly skinless face, but because of the blood spattered children running and screaming in all directions. One little boy, no more than six years old, was tugging on what Father Tim first mistook as a long red rope. He shuddered and clutched the silver cross hanging around his neck when he realized it was a piece of the dead man's intestines. The stretched out piece of digestive tract was still attached to the corpse, but even that revelation isn't what made him reach his trembling hand out and lock the deadbolt on the glass door- It was when the undoubtedly dead man rolled over and stood up, spilling the remainder of his intestines on the pavement, just a few yards away and stared back at him.
The zombies had him surrounded and he was out of ammo for his Colt .45 pistol. Whipping out his wickedly sharp knife, he slashed out fearlessly in spite of the several wounds he'd sustained. Running back into the corner of the room, he fought on without fear assured nothing would be able to sneak up from behind.
“Are you still playing that dumb game?” Sgt. Paulson asked, coming back into the control room while zipping up his pants.
“It's not a dumb game. I'd think with all the shit that went down in this valley last summer, you'd see the wisdom in developing skills like these.” Private Copeland said, frantically pressing the buttons on his game controller.
“It's a game, dumb ass. In real life you don't get to push pause and go grab a soda or take a shit. Oh, what's the point of arguing with a moron?” The sergeant asked, looking up at the ceiling. “And you'd better have all that video game crap stowed away our relief gets here. If one of them wanna make brownie points they'll let the captain know yer not watching the monitors.”
“Okay, okay.” Copeland said reluctantly, before saving his game and looking at his watch. Yawning hugely, he began packing up his game system. “I still say it's good practice though. I mean, what would you do if we were driving back into town tonight and ran into a horde of undead ghouls? Seriously, what would you do, sarge?”
“Turn my car around and floor it.”
“Not me, no way. Think about how exciting it would be.” Copeland said dreamily.
“Son, yer nuts.”
Strolling by the monitors, the private laughed and sat down routing the camera feed covering Bo Autry's front yard to the one of the big flat screens hanging on the wall.
“What's so funny?” The sergeant asked, staring out the window hoping to see their relief's headlights on the dark deserted road.
“Autry, you know the drunk guy who used to be a
cop, his wife or girlfriend is a freak.”
“Yeah, how so?”
“Check out how they decorated the place for Halloween.” The private said, laughing.
Sighing, the sergeant walked over and stared at the screen with his mouth hanging open for several seconds before grabbing the phone and speed dialing Dr. Peters number in Atlanta.
“CDC switchboard, how may I direct your call?” Came a bored woman's voice over the phone.
“I'm calling Dr. David Peter's, it's an emergency.” The sergeant managed to say while the private looked at him in confusion.
“Come on sarge, it's just them being goofy. That's not real. Yer gonna get us in trouble for this.” Private Copeland said nervously.
“I'm sorry, he's gone home for the evening. I can take a message though.” The bored sounding operator explained.
“Lady, I need him on the phone NOW! I don't care how you do it but get him!” Sergeant Paulson screamed into the phone.
“Please hold.” The operator said, in disgust.
While listening to the wait music, the sergeant thought the choice of AC/DC's Highway to Hell was horribly appropriate as he stared at the bloody porch of Autry's house.
The private stood up and backed away from the bank of monitors, finally beginning to see the possibility what was on the screen was not just a Halloween prank.