The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  She felt sweet cold air in her lungs.

  Kathy slowly opened her eyes.

  Annabeth Turner knelt on the grass beside her. The inhaler was pressed tightly to her mouth. She drew a long ragged breath and then lowered the inhaler.

  “You—” Kathy began.

  “I wouldn’t let him take you,” she said.

  The librarian raised herself on her elbows. She saw the knife and cut noose beside her on the grass. She looked at Annabeth, who was suddenly crying.

  “He promised to show me—”

  “I… saw…” Kathy Marks began. “I… saw… something…”

  The young girl fell into her arms, crying, and Kathy held her for a long time.

  Around them, Halloween went on. The moon came out from hiding, became sharp and white and round, with a smirking face. On porches, candled pumpkins flickered bright, and, up and down streets, children dressed as monsters of a thousand kinds pounded on doors demanding candy, and filled handled bags and pillow cases to the brim with goodies. Trees rattled their bone branches, and made the wind moan through their wooden instruments. Black cats tiptoed under circling, flapping bats.

  And then — a curious thing happened. There came curfew, and then midnight. The pumpkins lost their fiery faces, the monsters scattered, and the porch lights went dark and the window cutouts were hard to see. The winking Halloween lights went off, and the papier-mâché spiders went to sleep in their vast rope webs.

  The world went quiet.

  Tomorrow it would all be gone, all of it.

  Halloween was over.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  You’ve failed.

  That’s true. What are you going to do: kill me?

  You’re usually not one for levity. You must know how disappointed I am.

  We’ve tried this twice now, and it hasn’t worked. Perhaps it’s time to try other things.

  I agree. We have few enough opportunities. Though, as you realize, it will be more difficult.

  As I said, these… creatures are fascinating in many ways. A mixture of weakness and tenacity and, sometimes, surprising strength. The girl and the woman, and the detective, Grant…

  You sound as if you almost developed feeling for them. They were the reason you failed.

  They were too strong, and, ultimately, too resilient.

  Perhaps we should avoid females in the future, and police detectives.

  Perhaps. But there’s a toughness in many of them, regardless of gender.

  Would you like to return to the time of burning wicker men, stuffed with goat innards and human criminals? Or perhaps to an earlier time still, when they crawled on all fours through their own fetid muck—

  Your own levity is noted, Dark One.

  They have known both of us by many names since the beginning of this wretched place. They will know me again.

  I shall succeed for you yet.

  And then I will rid this world of every speck of life.

  Yes. I’m glad I let the girl and woman possess the merest hint…

  Hint of what?

  Never mind. My own realm. Don’t be alarmed.

  For someone who’s failed me, you show a remarkably cavalier attitude. It seems to me we have much work to do.

  Yes. There’s always next Halloween…

  HALLOWS EVE

  Book Two of the Orangefield Series

  By Al Sarrantonio

  A Macabre Ink Novel

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2012 / Al Sarrantonio

  Copy-edited by: Patricia Lee Macomber

  Cover image courtesy of:

  Jeremiah Morelli

  To

  my

  sister

  Theresa

  Chapter One

  Any train ride through any town, any October.

  The soothing clack of the rails almost had him asleep. His newspaper lay crumpled in the empty seat beside him; the lights in the train car had flickered off in the middle of the sports page and he finally gave up, leaning back against the stiff headrest and turning to watch the night outside. They were passing endless cornfields under a mounting harvest moon; under the strong white light the stalks looked dry as paper, stiff as soldiers at attention.

  Something caught his eye ahead in the field of corn, towering above it — an orange and yellow shape that resolved itself into a scarecrow topped by a pumpkin head. As they drew abreast of the figure a fire ignited behind the triangle eyes, the sickle mouth, and it turned its head to look at him. As the train left it behind, he watched the scarecrow move one of its long arms to point directly at him.

  Did you dream that? Corrie Phaeder asked himself.

  Did you dream any of it? Or was it real?

  As always, he found that he had no answer.

  And now he was back.

  As the train slowed into the station, he gave an involuntary shudder at the sight of the sign on the platform.

  He had promised himself that he would never come back. And here he was: gathering his things together — his suitcase from the overhead rack, his camera bag — and standing as the train hissed to a stop, and walking to the end of the car and stepping down from the train.

  The air was noticeably colder than it had been in New York City that afternoon.

  It smelled like autumn up here, cold as the chilled edge of a knife.

  It always had — sometimes even in the middle of summer.

  He gave another involuntary shudder, and stood looking at the sign as the train huffed into life behind him and pulled slowly away. There were cold fingers of air on his back at the sudden emptiness behind him.

  The sign said:

  ORANGEFIELD.

  He had a feeling in the deepest, coldest part of him that he would never leave here again.

  At least not alive.

  “Need a taxi, kid?”

  At the sound of another voice he broke out of his reverie as if waking from sleep. He turned around.

  The older, still grizzled face of Jeff Luney regarded him.

  “Kid, you been standing there for five minutes staring at that sign, and I doubt it’s gonna change. You need a lift somewheres?”

  Luney’s voice trailed off, and he was looking at Corrie with new interest.

  “Don’t I know you, kid?”

  “Corrie Phaeder,” Corrie said, holding out his hand and trying to smile.

  “Jeez if it ain’t! My God — the Phaeder kid!”

  Luney bounded forward and took Corrie’s hand in his own. “I’ll be damned! We thought we’d never see you again! Big shot photographer and all, making the big bucks on the west coast—”

  Luney suddenly became self-conscious, and dropped Corrie’s hand. He rubbed his own hand on the side of his pants.

  Corrie turned to look at the sign again.

  “Guess I’ll be staying a while,” he said, just barely loud enough to hear.

  The ride through town to the Rainer Hotel was about what Corrie expected. Everything looked pretty much as it had when he left: Main Street with the courthouse and shops, Rainer Park.

  “Guess you’ll be opening up the old house, now that you’re back?” Luney said from the front seat. He hadn’t stopped talking since they got in the cab, pointing out things he said had changed but which looked just the same to Corrie.

  “I’ll be talking to Mrs. Williams tomorrow,” Corrie answered.

  “Strange how it’s been empty all these years,” Luney went on.

  Nothing strange about it, Corrie thought. I tried to run away, and now I’m back.

  “Gee, you think you’ll be picking up with your old pals, Corrie?” They were stopped at a light, and Jeff turned around with his arm resting on the front seat. He had a hungry, expectant look on his face.

  The man eats gossip, Corrie thought. Nothing’s changed.

  He thought of what to say, since Luney’s next forty
passengers would know all about it, and then said, “Maybe.”

  “Hey, I bet Jerry Bayhill will wanna see you, and Pete Morritz, and the other guys from high school — you hung around them, right? Boy, that Bayhill had one hell of an arm, could throw a football …”

  The light changed, but Luney continued to stare expectantly at Corrie. The street was empty, here at eleven thirty; Corrie had no doubt that the cabbie would not budge until he was given something.

  “And how’s about Kathy Marks? You heard there was some trouble with her last year, right? Didn’t you used to go with her for a while?”

  Kathy Marks.

  He hadn’t thought of that name in almost twelve years. Yes, he had dated her for a while …

  The light had turned red again.

  “Sure,” Corrie said, forcing a smile onto his face. “I’ll look them all up. All the old gang.”

  “Atta boy,” Luney said, pleased with some small victory in the gab wars. He turned around and looked at the red light.

  “Damn lights don’t ever change around here!” He laughed. “Ain’t it great to be back home, kid? And Halloween’s on the way!”

  Corrie watched Jeff Luney’s cab, orange and white, with its broken left tail light (hadn’t it always had a broken left tail light?) pull away from the curb. Luney waved back and then gunned the engine.

  In a few moments, Corrie was alone on the sidewalk.

  There was a particular stillness to the night, which, despite the chill, felt almost like summer. It was a hush, like an indrawn breath. The only sound was the faint click and buzz of the light over the Rainer Hotel entrance, the product of a neon light on the verge of an unattained extinction making the ‘H’ in Hotel blink on and off. Besides that, there was no other sound.

  Corrie looked at the two bags at his feet, one filled with the tools of his trade and the other with all the clothes he owned, and he thought, Pick them up, start walking, and don’t stop until you’re back in California.

  He still felt like he was in a dream, one which had started with his screwing up the Mayfair shoot and continuing with Monica walking out (for real, this time, and for good) and then with a week of pills and booze and whatever else he could freeload.

  And then …

  Finding himself on a plane heading east, then a train heading north, and then that sign.

  ORANGEFIELD.

  Pick them up. Walk away from here. Go back to your other life.

  Knowing that was impossible, he picked up the two bags and walked, feeling like a condemned man, into the Rainer Hotel.

  Two hours later, after a shower, and after emptying half a fifth of Scotch, he almost felt ready for sleep. The scotch helped a little, but not much, and, with a tiny flicker of hope born of alcohol, it occurred to him that maybe he would not dream the dreams that were real, now that he was here.

  He had two more fingers of Scotch, capped the bottle, turned out the light and crawled between the sheets.

  Let’s find out.

  Chapter Two

  Bill Grant heard something in the night.

  What the hell is it now, you old fart?

  He sat up carefully in bed, to keep from waking Rose. She was a worse sleeper than he was, blamed it on being the wife of a cop like she did everything else these days.

  “Twenty years of waiting for something bad to happen,” was how she put it.

  Plenty bad had happened, but he always came home.

  But lately …

  There it was, that itch again. Grant now knew what he had heard — it hadn’t been anything outside. It had been that little voice in his head, the one he called his ‘gut voice’ telling him that something bad was going to happen.

  It had helped him out for all his years as a uniformed, and then a detective, but this time it was ringing like a claxon, with nothing in sight, which drove him crazy.

  Come on out and let’s get to it, he thought.

  Don’t hide — show me who you are.

  In answer, there came a slight ruffling of the curtains in the chill breeze.

  Groaning softly, knowing that ‘Mr. I.’, his term for insomnia, which assaulted him every once in a while, was here for the rest of the night, he got out of bed and slid the window closed. Outside there was a half-moon sinking in the west; it made his small backyard, with its fruit trees and trimmed hedges, look black and white.

  In the half light, he searched for his slippers, found and put them on, and quietly left the bedroom.

  There was a night light in the hallway, the result of one of Rose’s constant fears: that they would be attacked in their house. Bill sighed. In the living room there was another of the damned lights, and from the kitchen there emanated a soft green glow, induced by the weird neon-edged clock Rose had bought at a yard sale. She had claimed she liked its cheery large face — but Grant had supposed it was for the prodigious amount of Martian light it gave out at night.

  Grant shuffled to the refrigerator and opened the door — its bright white illumination immediately drowned the green glow. There were the last slices of meatloaf that Rose had been saving for his lunch tomorrow — he took them out and made a sandwich, foregoing the brown bag ritual. He’d grab something at Carpy’s the next day.

  He shuffled back into the hallway, and down the stairs to the basement, which was split into two parts, both belonging to him, the workshop and TV room. No feminine touches here; the walls were covered with paneling and the pictures were of dogs playing poker.

  He settled himself into his recliner, put his sandwich on the table next to it and switched on the television.

  Nothing on seventy out of seventy five channels, and then he hit an old John Wayne western. One of the real old ones, before he became a star —

  There came a tapping on one of the windows.

  Grant stiffened, and immediately went into detective mode:

  breeze outside, uncut rose bushes—

  intruder—

  The house layout rose into his mind — yes, there were uncut rose bushes outside that basement window.

  Something tapped at the other window, twenty feet away from the first.

  Grant’s mental layout of the house was still there — there was nothing in front of that other window.

  Grant was out of his recliner, his hand already into the side table drawer where he kept his 9mm; the clip was hidden in the back of another drawer underneath and he fumbled it out and inserted it.

  Safety off, he moved up the stairs and into the kitchen.

  Damned green light — it kept him from getting a good view of the backyard from the window over the sink.

  He kept moving to the door to the backyard, and eased it open.

  Chill night air and silence.

  He eased himself out, cursing the groan of the screen door, which needed to be replaced by the storm door in the garage for the coming winter.

  He tried to be quiet, but also cursed the clop of his slippers on the concrete stoop as he descended to the patio.

  9mm at his side but ready, he moved along the house, stopping at the window where he had heard the second tap — it was bare of bushes, one of Rose’s annual plantings having recently given up the ghost.

  By moonlight, he saw no footprints in the soft earth.

  He moved on, gun raised now, to the other window.

  It was choked with thorny rose bushes, with hardly a place for anyone to reach in and tap at the window without pricking themselves.

  Movement caught Grant’s peripheral vision, and he stood up, looking out over his back neighbor’s fence to a small slice of the next street over showing between two houses.

  The faintest movement, a flash of orange—

  He heard a faint shuffling run, moving away.

  Silence.

  Far away, a dog barked.

  That gut voice, the itch in the back of his head, was still there, but quieter now.

  He knew that he would be able to get back to sleep, if he wanted.

  He
looked down at the casement window again, frowning.

  Something was stuck in the thorn bushes, at the back, near the window.

  He reached down and around toward it, and after cursing under his breath at snagging his own hand on a thorn, he brought the prize out.

  Before examining it, he paused a moment to suck the blurt of blood from the tiny puncture wound.

  He held his hand up toward gray moonlight, studying what he had.

  He turned it over — long and thin, not a strip of cloth like he’d thought, stiffer, more like paper.

  Giving up on the light of the moon, he carried it into the kitchen, clopping up the back stoop and letting the screen door bang behind him.

  Instantly, a neighbor dog began to bark.

  There was something: he hadn’t heard any dog barking after the window tapping …

  Not even attempting to study his piece of evidence by the green light of the clock, he snapped on the overhead light, flooding the kitchen with white illumination and blinding himself momentarily.

  His puncture wound still bled, and without thinking he passed the long dry thing to his other hand while he sucked the wound dry again. His eyes were on the thing he had found.

  It was something dry and curled, yellowed green—

  A dry leaf of corn husk.

  Chapter Three

  Black.

  No dreams.

  Corrie Phaeder woke up, strangely exhausted for a man who had just slept ten hours straight. He was on his back, in the same position as when he had closed his eyes. It was as if a moment had blinked by, and the world had fast forwarded from dead of night to noon, and he had not slept at all.

  He felt as if he were filled with lead, clammy, unclean. He remembered then that he had taken a half bottle of scotch, his sleeping pill of choice, and then basically passed out.

  The hotel digital clock said it was 12:15.

  He tried to remember: when was he supposed to see Mrs. Williams at the real estate office? He thought it was twelve, which meant he was late. He fumbled in his mind files for her number and came up empty; he had it written down somewhere …