The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

Read it, Jordie. Out loud.

  This one was in his mother’s hand. He remembered that now, the careful penmanship, she had written this note for him a long time ago.

  Read it now, Jordie. The voice was impatient.

  “Remember to take your meds, Jordie,” he read. “Remember the doses.” Then there was a list underneath, various doses each of various pills, names like Clozaril, Zoloft, Lithium, Zyprexa, as well as the times he needed to take them:

  The note was signed, “Love, Mom.”

  I want you to begin to take your meds again, Jordie. Only in slightly different doses.

  “But you told me to stop—”

  Yes. And now I want you to start again, in the doses I tell you to take. They’ll make you… receptive, and happy. And now I want you to clean up. I want you to clean up so no one will know.

  “Sure thing.”

  I’ll tell you how to take your meds from now on.

  He held up the note in his hand. “But my Mom—”

  Just listen to me from now on. You don’t need that list anymore. Get rid of it. From now on I’ll make lists for you.

  Jordie stared at the note in his hand for a moment — Love, Mom — and then crumpled it up and let it drop to the floor.

  Very good, Jordie.

  Jordie saw with relief that the electrical cord had dropped to the hallway floor and lay curled and dead.

  When you’re finished cleaning up, the voice said, I want you to sleep. Then I’ll have a new list for you. Tomorrow, you can decorate the house for Halloween.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  On page 21 of the second of the three books she had stolen from the Orangefield Library, A Short History of Halloween, Annabeth Turner found what she was looking for:

  Samhain, the Celtic Lord of Death — whose celebration day was also known as Samhain — had the power to return the souls of the dead to their earthly homes temporarily. Often, though not always, this occurred on one special evening — the evening which eventually became known in the Christian era as All Hallows Eve.

  So that’s who he was: Call me Sam.

  She looked up from the book out through the window over her desk but there was no answer.

  She turned back to the book.

  She knew she had only tonight to learn whatever she could from the three books. Halloween in Orangefield had proved useless: the usual local historian twaddle, written to titillate visitors and tourists without telling them anything of historical import. It was little more than a children’s book, and she wondered why it had been in the restricted area at all.

  A Short History of Halloween must have been placed in the Local History section by mistake, but had proved at least of some use — but besides its discussion of the Celts, and their Lord of Death, it had quickly veered away into modern practices.

  She put it aside, and opened the third book.

  The spine cracked with disuse — she wondered if she was the first to ever open the book and saw by the librarian’s card in the front that it had never been taken out.

  Occult Practices in Orangefield and Chicawa County, New York, 1668-1940.

  She looked at the copyright page, and saw that it had only recently been published, and that a second volume, covering 1941 to the present, was promised by the publisher, who was also the author: T. R. Reynolds.

  She turned to the first page of text.

  Immediately she was disappointed — it was illustrated with a picture of the Salem witch trials, a solemn woodcut of three witches being burned at the stake. Annabeth was a good, fast reader, and skimmed through the accompanying description of the Salem hysteria; her eyes stopped when she reached the following:

  It isn’t generally recognized that a similar episode of hysteria occurred in Orangefield, New York, the previous spring, predating the Salem madness by almost a year. What makes the Orangefield episode doubly interesting — and makes it doubly curious that it has for so long been ignored — is that a total of fourteen women and three men were condemned as agents of the devil, and that ten of them in all — eight of the women and two men — were executed either by hanging or stoning.

  Perhaps because none were burned at the stake this episode has been generally forgotten, both in local lore and in the larger picture of witch hysteria which gripped the eastern colonies during that short, strange period.

  Annabeth skimmed ahead, flying past numerous supposed “possessions” and, during the Civil War, a mass disappearance of local men which the author tried to relate to an earlier Virginia episode but which turned out to be a wholesale avoidance of Union Army conscription.

  The rest of the book, as she moved through it quickly, looked to be composed of similar stories, many of which were backed up by nothing but hearsay and gossip.

  She was about to give up on the book when she moved to the last chapter:

  THE PUMPKINFIELD ERA AND THE BEGINNING OF ‘SAMHAIN SIGHTINGS.’

  The chapter was fronted by a black and white photograph of a field of pumpkins, row after row nearly to the horizon, with a caption that read: First pumpkin farm in ‘Pumpkinfield,’ 1940.

  Once again she skimmed, learning that, during the early part of the Great Depression, the name of the town, as a publicity gimmick, had been briefly changed to Pumpkinfield. When the name change produced little increase in tourist traffic, it was changed back to Orangefield. By this time word had spread about the size and quality of the local pumpkins, and this, more than any gimmick, is what finally made the town prosperous.

  But by 1940, after the town had regained its original name, a curious phenomenon had begun: sightings, around Halloween, of a dark, cloaked figure appearing in pumpkin fields, usually at night, which the locals dubbed ‘Samhain Sightings.’ There didn’t seem to be any specific origin for the sightings, and the author had, by his own admission, been unable to discover why the name Samhain had become attached to the mysterious figure.

  She thought of the Pumpkin Boy for a moment, then shook her head and read on. No the Pumpkin Boy had been real, a machine. This was something else.

  There followed the same short description of the Celtic Death Lord, the pagan rituals which had attended him on All Hallows Eve, which A Short History of Halloween had provided.

  But then there was this:

  In October of 1941, just before the onset of World War II, there occurred in Orangefield an unprecedented rash of sightings of what the locals now referred to as ‘Sam.’ Up until that point the name had been used with an almost cheerful irreverence (see notes, pp. 124-126, interviews with Mattie Michaels, etc.) which mirrored that of the residents of Loch Ness, in Scotland, who affectionately call their lake creature Nessie. But after the incidents of 1941 things changed, and to this day the name Samhain is almost never spoken of lightly in Orangefield, even in jest. It is rare to hear the phenomenon referred to as Sam any more.

  There followed a few descriptions of early Sam sightings, usually of a tall, darkly cloaked, mute figure which appeared in the middle of a pumpkin patch on moonlit nights; the sightings became more numerous as Halloween approached, and continued even after a prankster from a nearby town was caught ‘impersonating’ Samhain.

  In a sidebar, it was noted that the impersonator was later found hanged, and that it was never determined whether or not it had been a suicide.

  Even this, Reynolds admits, might have ended the matter if two grisly murders hadn’t occurred on Halloween of that year; the bodies, of a teenage girl and boy, had been found hacked to pieces in a pumpkin patch. There were unidentified shoe prints near the bodies, and the murders were never solved.

  After that, the name Sam, or Samhain, was never spoken in Orangefield. The murders, allied to other strange occurrences that fall and Winter, which was a harsh one, conspired to turn Sam from a local legend into something taboo. There were economic as well as cultural reasons for this, no doubt — if people were scared of a black-cloaked murderer, they wouldn’t come to Orangefield for the pumpkins or the foliage, and
they wouldn’t spend their money there. That, and the fact that Pearl Harbor was bombed five weeks after Halloween and the murders, which turned local interests to more solid and national pursuits. Indeed, by the end of the war, the ‘Sam’ phenomenon had all but been forgotten, and there were no more sightings until 1951, a period which will be discussed in the second volume of this history, which will also cover the bizarre occurrences surrounding Orangefield’s annual Pumpkin Days Festival, held every year during the week leading up to Halloween, and which was initiated in 1952.

  The book abruptly ended at that point, leaving Annabeth both satisfied and frustrated. She wanted to know more — wanted to know all of it. She searched in vain for some indication of when the second volume would be published, but found nothing — there wasn’t even a picture of the author on the back cover.

  She turned to the copyright page again, noting the publisher’s address: Reynolds Publishing, 1420 Acre Street, Orangefield. She wrote it down.

  Sleep tugged at her, and she readied for bed and slipped under the covers. The room was cold, and she pulled the star-covered quilt up to her chin. Tomorrow she would return the three books to the library when Ms. Marks, the librarian, wasn’t there. She’d learned everything she could from the library, anyway.

  You’re doing well, Wizard.

  The voice was in her head, just as it had been at the library this afternoon. There was almost laughter in it.

  “Sam? Is that you?” she whispered.

  Perhaps. We’ll meet when the time is right. Be patient.

  “But I want to know everything! I want—”

  We all want things. There are things you will do for me. Then you will get what you want, as I promised.

  In the dark, she felt the most insubstantial caress of fingers across her face. She reached out but there was nothing there, the merest hint of vapor. The fingers touched her own, grasping them for a fraction of a second before the vapor melted away.

  The faintest of kisses brushed her lips — she smelled nutmeg and allspice, a hint of cloves. There was almost a face, white and wide, shimmering, deep sockets with no eyes, a mouth opened in an oval, thin red-lipped grin, which puffed apart into mist.

  Soon, Wizard…

  “You promised—”

  There were tears on her face, sobs threatening to well up within her.

  I know what I promised, the voice said. Go to sleep.

  “I want to know where he is…”

  She closed her eyes and slept a dreamless sleep.

  Part Four

  Pumpkin Days

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Pumpkins.

  Everywhere pumpkins.

  Orangefield became an orange town.

  If you had watched from the sky, you would have seen a remarkable thing. In early October, Orangefield was surrounded by a glorious ring of orange, a corona of pumpkin patches and cultivated fields, fruit so clean and bright they seemed to glow. And then the ring began to contract, the farthest layers melting inward toward the town itself. The farthest fields were picked first, fat pumpkins suddenly appearing on farm stand shelves and PICK YOUR OWN PUMPKIN signs springing up like toadstools on roadsides. And the ring continued to contract. By the second week in October it was half as thick as it had been, and now orange began to fill the town of Orangefield.

  By the third week in the month the ring was all but gone, a few spots of orange, a rotted or trampled pumpkin here and there, a few that grew too small to pick, or too large and oddly shaped to sell. The farm stands were bursting with fruit now, the roadside stands top heavy with pumpkins — glorious round fat fruit that smelled orange.

  And Orangefield was filled with pumpkins.

  Pumpkins everywhere.

  By the morning of the third Sunday of the month, the beginning of Pumpkin Days, Orangefield from the air was as orange as its corona of pumpkin fields had been. There was orange everywhere. Every house had a porchful of pumpkins — on some houses, the foundations all the way around the house were lined with orange fruit. Every mailbox had a pumpkin guarding its post; backyards and front were guarded by scarecrows with pumpkin heads. Every front window was filled with pumpkin cutouts; each door bore another, larger cardboard pumpkin face.

  In front of Rainer Park, in the middle of town, the viewing stand was draped in orange bunting. The pumpkin floats would parade by here and, behind the grandstand were the tables lined with hundreds of the best pumpkins for the carving competition. The telephone poles were topped with plastic pumpkins; City Hall sported its orange and white banner proclaiming WELCOME PUMPKIN DAYS FESTIVAL! And under it the mayor’s name in as bold letters as he dared display. He would ride the first float and open the ceremonies himself.

  And more pumpkins.

  And more.

  An orange stripe down Main Street, in washable paint. And Orange Men, the gaggle of college students who spray-painted themselves orange each year; one, after too much beer, inevitably used real paint. And orange costumes — the best imitation of a pumpkin, various grades. And of course the orange and white-striped tent in the park itself, with all its wares for sale and school projects displayed: the science of pumpkin growing, things made with pumpkins (a pair of shoes!), hundreds of uses for pumpkins.

  Then the baked goods and recipe displays — pumpkin cake and bread, and pies of course, and cookies and pumpkin ale (the college students, again) and pumpkin milk and pumpkin juice. An entire meal made of pumpkin, from something resembling chicken (strips of rind from near the skin, boiled in chicken stock and then broiled) and something else resembling mashed potatoes, and things that looked like carrots and cucumbers and even peas, with pumpkin tea and pumpkin ice cream for dessert. Pumpkin ravioli, and soup, and sausage. Pumpkin pancakes, waffles. Pumpkin French toast, made with pumpkin bread. Not to mention the music tent, solid orange.

  Orange everywhere.

  Pumpkins everywhere.

  Pumpkin Days, Orangefield in its glory — with attendant tourist dollars.

  From the decimated corona, the battlefield after the war, the now fallow fields surrounding Orangefield, the Pumpkin Tender heard the celebrations, muted. He never attended the festival, had never even thought much of it before Somalia. Now, he stayed away as a religion. There were his trampled fields to tend, the forgotten fruit, too small or too large or too strange, which had been left behind.

  This was one of his favorite times, after the viewing of the orange corona. He had been in hiding since October 2nd, while the violence had been done, and now he was left alone to fix the damage.

  And collect his own special pumpkins.

  He didn’t mind the strange-shaped fruit, the elongated shapes that resembled huge orange eggplants, the too-thin, the tiny, the massive squat shapes that looked like hassocks. The double-pumpkins, twins growing together. Even triplets, attached at the same stem.

  All day he collected them from the various fields, and brought them all to one of Froelich’s smaller patches. And always, as the day wore on, the raucous sounds coming from Orangefield and its Pumpkin Days.

  By nightfall he had nearly filled the small patch with these freak fruits, and had enough to create a miniature of the fields he had tended for so many months.

  In Orangefield, the lights went on, the festival continued as it would for the next week: the night parade, the march of the pumpkins, more eating, more music, more judging.

  The glow from the town made the Pumpkin Tender’s patch glow with an orange warmth. The moon, waxing fat, rose in back of the field, giving a colder light. The Pumpkin Tender sat down in front of his patch, and pulled his Army blanket around him, and sat quietly.

  There was a large pumpkin in front of him, which had not been picked but had been growing in this patch; it was deformed into two lobes near the bottom but the upper part was perfect, round and firm with a strong life-giving vine still in the ground. He would keep this one alive until Thanksgiving, at least.

  But now, abruptly, there was something wrong w
ith it.

  Though it hadn’t been picked, somehow it had been carved, and now sported a two-toothed grin, triangle eyes and nose.

  A fire, not moonlight, flared up within it, and the smile widened.

  “Time for us to talk, Aaron,” it said.

  Behind it, in the middle of the patch, something dark rose up from the ground — cloaked, tall, with a hidden face.

  The Pumpkin Tender looked at the fat, lobed, still-growing pumpkin again — it was back to normal, had no carved face, was smooth and untouched.

  Time for us to talk.

  This time the voice came from the dark-cloaked figure, which was suddenly closer, standing over him. It smelled cold, like the night, and, faintly, like pumpkin pie spice.

  Aaron remembered the voice — it was the Remember me? voice.

  He remembered other things, which he didn’t want to…

  You haven’t listened to me yet, the voice said, but now I think you will.

  And the cloak covered him.

  And he screamed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Did you notice anything weird at Jordie’s house?” Will Coppel asked. He drained the last drops from his fifth beer and crushed the can, dropping it into the pile in the midst of the four boys.

  The other three laughed, and Josh Hammer said, “Weird? That dude is always weird. Always was.”

  Will fished behind him into the cooler, felt his hand slip into bone-chilling water as he searched for another beer. His hand hit one, two beers and he snagged the third as it swam by.

  “I’m not joking,” he said as he popped the tab. “You know how Jordie has to keep those medications he takes balanced. He’s acting like they’re all screwed up. And by the way, we’re almost out of beer.”

  A collective groan went up. Behind them, inside the Music Festival tent, a circus-sized temporary structure at one end of Rainer Park, rap music burst into the night again; the break was over, and now it was the turn of the third and fourth of their group to groan again and go back inside and help the DJ.