by Anthology
Bobby shouted back, “Who cares about the science? It’s choking Troy!”
Then he saw why she’d said that: She was pulling the taser out of the bag, and trying to figure it out. She found a power switch, positioned it over her hand, held it near the ghost’s mid-section, and fired.
There was one brief high-pitched scream of unearthly fury and the odor of ozone, then the ghost flared out like a supernova and Bobby was sprayed with some greenish, sticky ooze. Troy crumpled, grabbing his throat and coughing. Lily admired the taser briefly, then turned it off and put it back in the bag. “Ghost busted,” she said, smiling.
Bobby was gagging as he pulled handfuls of goop from his head and shoulders, flinging them at the tumbledown house in disgust. “I hate this! Even the ghosts have to cover me in crap!”
“Ectoplasm,” Lily corrected.
Bobby squinted at her. “If you don’t believe in ghosts, why do you know so much about them?”
“I said I didn’t believe in them—I didn’t say I don’t watch movies and shows about them”
Bobby rolled his eyes and turned to Troy, who was just climbing to his feet. Troy rubbed his throat, coughed, then rasped out, “Man, this is the suckiest Halloween ever.”
“Yeah, somehow it’s more fun when the monsters aren’t real—and can’t splatter you.” Bobby turned and marched right up to Mandy. “That thing didn’t even have candy. How are we supposed to collect candy from ten houses in an hour if they don’t even have candy?!”
“I think the rest have candy—”
Troy marched up to join Bobby. “You ‘think’? But you don’t know for sure?”
Mandy was showing the slightest hint of irritation behind the camera. “We better get going, if we’re going to do this—”
“Yeah, well, ya know what?” Bobby paused to fire the shotgun at a lumbering, shaggy thing that was crossing the yard and coming towards them (he heard Lily mutter something about “Bigfoot”), then continued. “Maybe we’re not going to do this—or at least I’m not. Maybe I’m just going to say you can stick me with a fork, ‘cause I’m done.”
Mandy gaped for a second, then muttered into her headset, “I think you better roll some film.” She dropped her camera then and said to Bobby, “You can’t quit. The Producer won’t let you.”
“Yeah, well, if he doesn’t like it,” Bobby answered, noting Troy nodding beside him, “he can come down here and tell me himself.”
Mandy turned desperately to Lily. “What about you?”
Lily shrugged. “I kind of like killing monsters…” Then, after she looked at her teammates’ scowls, she added, “…but I’m not gonna do it alone unless I get the shotgun.”
Bobby hugged the gun tighter, then sat cross-legged in the middle of the street. “I don’t even care of the monsters eat me. I’m not moving.”
Troy joined him. Lily paused just long enough to squash something underfoot that had wriggled up from a storm drain, then she also sat.
Mandy turned away, spoke into her headset, then looked at the kids again, her face pale beneath the helmet. “Okay, he’s coming. I hope you know what you’ve done.” She backed away, looking around warily.
The door to the haunted house flew back, and a voice boomed out from inside, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!”
A man strode from inside, stepping carefully past the puddles of ectoplasm. He was dapper, ageless, immaculately dressed in a black leather blazer and bright red shirt. Even though he had no obvious horns, tail, pitchfork, Bobby knew immediately who the Producer of Can You Take It? really was, and he knew where the real monsters came from, and why Mandy was afraid.
“I’m sorry, sir, I tried to work with them, but—” The Producer cut her off, pointing and bellowing. “You, shut the fuck up! I’ll deal with you later.” He turned to glare at Bobby, who still sat on the ground, trying not to tremble. “Now, you three—I want you back on your feet NOW.”
Bobby’s voice came out as a squeak. “No, sir.”
” ‘No, sir’? What do you mean, ‘no sir’?”
“No, sir, we won’t do it.”
“Then you’re just going to sit here and die? Or worse. Do you know how the Egyptians mummified their dead? I’ve got a mummy around here somewhere; I’m sure we could arrange to have him pull your brain out through your nose while you’re still alive.”
“It’s not right,” Bobby said.
“What’s not right?”
“This. This isn’t what Halloween is. It’s only fun when you know the monsters aren’t real.”
“Yeah, yeah, and the Great Pumpkin’s going to fly down and leave gifts. Gimme a break, kid. You think I give a bat’s ass whether Halloween is fun or not? Screw that. I’m not after fun; I’m after ratings. Now you get back to the trick-or-treating, or die and find out that Hell’s got a lot worse waiting than a few monsters.”
Bobby glanced over at Troy, but the big boy looked like he was about to stain his football jersey. Could he count on Lily?
“Hey, I’ve always wondered,” she asked, peering at the Producer with intellectual curiosity, “do you have Charles Darwin down there?”
The Producer roared, “That’s none of your business!”
Bobby knew then that this was up to him. Only he could get himself out of this mess. “I might consider making a deal.”
“Oh, is that right?” The Producer tried to snort in derision, but Bobby knew he was intrigued. Deals always appealed to Producers.
“Yeah. You promise that the monsters won’t hurt us, and we’ll finish out the trick-or-treating.”
His brow furrowed, the Producer asked, “What makes you think I can control these things?”
“You can, because you made ‘em.”
The Producer considered a moment, then called to Mandy, “How much time have we got left until we have to go live again?”
Mandy spoke into the headset softly, then answered, “The pre-recorded interviews will run out in fifteen seconds.”
“Okay,” the Producer said, jittering in irritation, “they’ll still come after you, but they’ll be like actors in a haunted house—they won’t be able to touch you.”
Bobby rose to his feet. “That’s what Halloween’s about, sir.”
“But the audience doesn’t have to know that, right?”
Bobby glanced at his teammates, and they both nodded in agreement. “Right.”
“It’s a deal, then.” He nodded at Mandy, who murmured, “We’re back” into the headset as she lifted the camera again.
The Producer walked off through the haunted house, slamming the door behind him, and the three costumed kids looked at each other, cautiously relieved.
“That took some balls,” Troy said.
“Hey, let’s go get candy,” Bobby told him, then asked, “Are you still afraid of monsters?”
Troy thought about that for a second. Just then a leering, hunchbacked maniac came running at them from a side yard, shrieking and waving its straitjacketed arms. “Let’s find out,” Troy said. He raised the bat, held his ground, and swatted the maniac’s head into pulpy oblivion. Bobby didn’t even mind much when he got splashed with more blood. “Guess not,” Troy said.
“Well, at least this night’s been good for something,” Bobby said.
***
The next day, when it was confirmed that Can You Take It’s Halloween episode had been its biggest ratings winner ever, the Producer tried to conscript Bobby into hosting a new show called The Junior Monster Hunters Club. Bobby’s parents, however, used the $100,000 Bobby had received from Can You Take It? to hire one of the best attorneys in the country. The attorney, whose name was Webster, found a loophole regarding minors in the Rights of Corporations Act, and Bobby was released (although he was hardly surprised to hear later that Lily would be hosting the show).
On the morning of November 1st, it took four showers for Bobby to get all the blood and ectoplasm washed off. Clean again, he was happy to return to school, where his sto
ries about Halloween monsters made him the most popular kid in his class.
THURSDAY
Simon Janus
“You’re not still thinking about that dumb fortune are you?” Lisa asked.
Nick was. It was hard not to. How had it known? How could it have known? No one knew, except for him, Rich—and Tina. Neither of them could have had anything to do with the fortune telling machine, especially Tina.
Nick and Lisa were still at the concessions area of the carnival, seated across from each other. Nick tried to enjoy the five dollar hot dog made with fifty cent meat. The food hooked in his throat with every chew despite how much soda he gulped down with it.
“Do you still have the ticket?” Lisa asked.
He hesitated before bringing the ticket out. It would be easy to lie, but he’d lied too much already. He handed it to Lisa, giving him an excuse to put the hot dog aside.
She examined the ticket, looking on both sides and feeling its edges as if it would give some clue to the truth, but it was nothing more than ink on thick, fibrous paper, spelling the word “Thursday.”
“What does it mean?”
“Nothing,” he lied. The fortune didn’t refer to this Thursday or the next or one in the distant future or distant past. It referred to two Thursdays ago.
“Then you’ve got nothing to be spooked by.” She tossed the ticket back at him. A gust of wind snatched it and Nick slammed his palm over it, pinning it to the table before it could escape. He couldn’t afford for the truth to fall into someone else’s hands. He curled his fingers around the ticket and pocketed it. Lisa followed his actions with concerned attention. He smiled to disarm her, but he knew how forced the smile felt on his face.
“Thursday does mean something, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged an answer and returned to his hot dog.
“Y’know, there is one way we can find out if Imelda the Magnificent can tell the future.”
“How?”
Lisa produced a nickel from her pocket and a smile from her heart. “We ask her again.”
He screwed up the hot dog in its cardboard tray and pushed himself away from the picnic bench. He tossed the unwanted meal in the trash. “Nah, I’m not blowing another five cents on that piece of crap.”
“Five cents?” Lisa jumped up from her seat and swooped in to curl an arm through his. “I think we can afford to lose a nickel on this experiment. Oh, c’mon, you know you want to try again. I see it your eyes.”
What does she see in my eyes? he thought.
He tried putting up a fuss, but her mind was set and if he forced the issue, she’d know something was wrong. So he let her drag him over to Imelda the Magnificent.
The painted sign said, Imelda the Magnificent, but Imelda was no gypsy wannabe. She was an antique fortunetelling machine. She belonged in a museum, not the county fair. Imelda the Magnificent looked the way all fortunetelling machines looked. An ornate teak cabinet came waist high with a three-sided glass case on top containing a fortune telling mannequin trapped for an eternity inside. Imelda herself was a gypsy stereotype. She wore a blue silk shawl and an Indian turban with ostrich feathers sticking out. The only thing that separated her from her countless sisters was the single teardrop on her right cheek. It was nothing more than a piece of cut glass, but it refracted the glare from dozens of spotlights just right and glistened as if it were real.
Naturally, in a post Xbox world, Imelda stood like a rock in a fast flowing creek. People raced past her on the way to one thrill or another. A creepy mechanical gypsy just didn’t cut it. Imelda served as decoration—carnival charm at best. Nick and Lisa would have ignored the sideshow anachronism themselves if it weren’t for the dumb crap boyfriends and girlfriends did for fun.
They stood before Imelda the Magnificent again. Lisa offered her five cents up to Nick.
“It doesn’t work that way,” the carnie interrupted.
This moment was private. Sacred. Nick was about to tell the minimum wage loser to butt out, but Lisa got in the way.
“It doesn’t?” she said.
The carnie crossed the trampled grass and leaned against Imelda’s case as if taking her side. “A fortune is a contract between the teller and the seeker of the future. That contract requires payment. The payment must come from the person who seeks the fortune and no one else.”
The carnie layered on the sideshow shtick a little too thick, but it worked all the same. He hadn’t kept his tone quiet and he’d drawn a crowd, albeit just a handful of kids and their parents. Still, it was big numbers for Imelda the Magnificent.
“Looks as if you’re going pay for your pleasure, babe.”
This was no pleasure. Not with the crowd waiting for him to perform for them. He could walk away. He owed these people nothing, but despite not wanting to go anywhere near Imelda the Magnificent, he needed to know. She’d told him nothing with her first fortune. Thursday could mean anything. For all her craftsmanship and showmanship, Imelda was nothing more than a magic eight-ball of her day. For all he knew, she was on a days of the week kick. The next fortune out of her would probably be Friday. But if she could tell him what lay ahead after the events of two Thursdays ago, then he’d gladly pay a nickel a day until the day he died. He delved in his pants pocket for a nickel and shoved it into the machine before he could change his mind.
Imelda the Magnificent went through her act. Her arms, nothing but rods and linkages, lifted and clumsily stroked the crystal ball in front of her. A scratchy recording failed to work in time with Imelda’s snapping jaw. Her words came from the cabinet rather than her mouth.
“Those that seek their fortune be it good, be it bad, come to Imelda the Magnificent. I know all because I see all. I have known fortunes good and fortunes bad.” Imelda’s right arm left her crystal ball and jerkily pointed to the brass plated slot and catch tray at the corner of the cabinet. “And I know your fortune.”
After a grind of gears and the smack of metal against metal, a ticket popped from the slot. Lisa reached for the ticket, but Nick beat her to it. He snatched it up and smiled.
“What’s it say?” she asked.
“Riches come to the good.”
Lisa grinned. “And you thought it would tell you something bad.”
The carnie eyed Nick for a moment longer than was comfortable and turned away. He’d seen through Nick’s lie. Nick didn’t care. The carnie didn’t matter. He swung an arm over Lisa’s shoulder and guided her away before the carnie could say anything.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said and screwed up the fortune ticket with its single word stamped on it—Thursday.
***
Nick drove Lisa home. Her parents, nice but pretentious people, weren’t home from the opera. There was time for a quickie, but he declined. Imelda the Magnificent had drained his libido. He needed to find out who’d talked. Who’d gotten to the machine?
He tried to leave, but Lisa caught his arm. “Nick, what’s wrong?”
Her question wasn’t as innocent as it sounded. He saw it in her eyes. She knew him too well and he’d given her cause to know him that well. She’d known the second his lust had switched from her to another. Instead of calling him on it, she’d fought to keep him. That was when he knew he loved Lisa. Even now, he didn’t understand why his let his dick do his thinking for him two Thursdays ago.
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s not like that.”
He saw she wanted to say something, but she kept it locked inside. He did nothing to release her angst and left.
He drove hard through the wet night. Cold, dank air blew through the gaps in the doorframe, but the two fortune tickets burned hot against his thigh. He needed to know what Rich had to say about them. It hadn’t occurred to him until he pulled away from Lisa’s that the tickets could be Rich’s work. The douche bag always had his fingers in something. He could see him setting this up to clear his name. Son of a bitch.
Nick killed the lights before he pulled up in front of Rich’s pla
ce. If Rich was up to something, he’d run at the first stink of trouble. He needed Rich boxed in before he would talk. It was shy of midnight, but the houselights were on. Rich didn’t have the problem of parents. Their deaths had provided him an environment without attachments. Nick pulled out his cell and called Rich.
“Yeah, man,” Rich said.
Nick kept his gaze on the house. “We need to talk.”
“It’s nearly midnight. I’m hitting the sack.”
“I’m outside. It’ll only take a minute.”
“If you’re outside then why not come to the door?”
“Like you say, it’s nearly midnight.”
Nick wound down a window and listened for a backdoor slamming shut, but heard nothing. Rich seemed to be staying put.
“Seeing as you’re here, come on in. The door’s open.”
“Thanks, man. This won’t take long.” Nick hung up and removed the box cutter from the glove compartment.
He found Rich in the living room. The house had been nice once. Rich’s mom was into interior design. Rich wasn’t. The place looked like a flophouse now. Junk was strewn everywhere. Nothing was cared for. Every room looked like a teenager’s bedroom. The only jewels amongst the filth were the plasma and the home theater setup for his sights and sounds. It had seemed like the coolest place in the world until two Thursdays ago. He tightened his grip on the box cutter buried in his jacket pocket.
Rich had prepared a smile for Nick, but it withered on the vine when he saw him. “What’s up?”
“Someone knows.”
Rich sat up on the sofa. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know I haven’t told anyone.”
Why go there? Nick wondered. Turning rat shouldn’t have been his first port of call, but Nick had known Rich long enough to know he’d do anything to save his own skin.
“Man, I need a drink.” Rich sprang up and headed for the kitchen and Nick followed. Rich delved inside the fridge and brought out two beers.
“Why’d you say that?”
“Say what?”