“Naw,” he said, flipping the end of today’s tie, a mass of smiling pumpkins, in her face. “I’m playing my hero, Robert Gallow, Esquire.”
“Oh sure,” Flo said. “What is that he says, ‘Just call me Bob?’ Caught him on the tube last night, something about a runaway wife and stolen kids. He’s insisting on APB’s and BOLO’s—all that copper stuff. Pretty exciting, Nick. The man makes Cape Brendan look like Hooterville.”
Seeing the pallor on Nunie’s face from the mention of All Points Bulletins and Be On the Lookout fors, Nick gave her ice cold fingers a squeeze. “That’s my boss all right. Ranks right up there with Bozo and the rest of the circus clowns. Don’t let his bluster con you. He’s all talk and no action.”
When she did not remove her hand, but simply twisted her fingers so that they twined with his, he decided he’d wait till they were alone to tell her he’d resigned from GYP first thing this morning. Attorney Gallow was not happy. Particularly after Nick told him the reason behind the sudden change in employment.
Staring at their hands, MaryJane covered her mouth with her order pad. “Can I getcha another piece of pie? Warm up your coffee for ya?”
Nick glanced up at the grinning waitress. “Ms. Doyle and I are discussing the Terminal Ball. She insists I follow tradition and wear a costume. I’m reluctant to dress up as someone or something I’m not.”
“You could always come as Sherlock Holmes, master crime solver,” MaryJane wisecracked. “I think you’d look real cute in a herringbone cape and deerstalker hat and one of those fancy pipes stuck in your mouth. Watcha think, Nunie?”
He turned his head far enough to see the twinkle had returned to Nunie’s eyes. “I think he should do what he feels is right, not pretend to be someone he’s not.”
Her words performed two important functions that day: they humbled as well as sparked an idea.
“How difficult would it be to create something that resembles a horse’s ass?”
Epilogue
Five years later...
Nunie waited until after dinner to open the letter whose envelope said simply: Aunt Nunie, Vincentian Lane, Cape Brendan, New York.
Over the years she’d received missives addressed in a similar fashion. The Canadian postmark told her who’d sent it. With a cup of fresh brewed coffee in hand, she sat at her favorite chair and opened the letter.
Dear Aunt Nunie,
I hope it’s all right that I contact you. Mum said it would be okay but not to feel sad if you don’t write back.
I think of you often. Today, of all days because it marks the five year anniversary of our safe arrival in Canada. I finally feel strong enough to write about our escape from the man who called himself our father. I don’t know my brother’s name for him; Monster Dad works for me.
My mother rarely speaks of the bad times, what we called those years when we were under his power. I remember she cried the whole time we were on the ferry. No matter how hard my brother coaxed her, nothing made her stop.
For the longest time I didn’t understand; now I know the tears came from relief. Once she saw Grandpere and Grandmere waiting for us at the ferry stop, Mummy broke into a smile and never stopped. Every day she smiled. No matter what. Sometimes she sang. I knew when she started to sing, everything would be all right.
My brother talks of going back to the States and can’t figure out why I don’t want to return. The Monster Dad died last year; his parents are dead, too, so I’m not afraid of what they might do to us. Mummy says it’s my choice, and will support me, but says I should wait till I’m eighteen before I decide.
There is only one reason why I would return: to see the person whom we called Aunt Nunie. You hid us inside your house while we waited for the ferry to take us to freedom. I never knew your whole name, but I remember your voice, thick with an Irish accent and that your house always smelled like apple pies and vanilla.
I remember you sometimes dressed like a witch because there was a big celebration going on in the whole town. Witch or not, your hands were always gentle; you always smiled and never raised your voice. Even when my brother and I spent hours racing down the hallways or running up and down the stairs. You even showed us how to slide down the banister. You laughed so hard the first time we flew down the rail and were there, waiting to catch us up in your arms. It was awesome.
I will always remember you, Aunt Nunie. You told my brother and me that things would get better. Whatever it takes, you said. Things did get better, like you said.
I hope you are happy and that all your dreams have come true.
Your friend,
LaurieAnn Anderson
With a sigh, Nunie carefully folded the letter before slipping it back into the envelope. She rarely kept the letters; it wasn’t safe. This one, however, was special for so many reasons.
On the opposite side of the cozy room, now lit by a warm fire, the man who’d made her realize it was never too late for dreams to come true dozed in his favorite recliner. Truth be told, Nick Forrester would insist he was only resting his eyes, but it didn’t matter. The contented smile on his face confirmed what he said the day they exchanged wedding vows:
Whatever it takes, don’t give up on me and I won’t give up on you.
Ever.
ShriekWeek
by
Anne Knol
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
ShriekWeek
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Anne Knol
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Crimson Rose Edition, 2014
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-563-0
Halloween Anthology 2014
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For Ma Knol,
who kept her family safe throughout World War 2
in the Netherlands,
and who loved reading romance novels.
Chapter One
Wednesday
The last gaggle of ghoulies and ghosties shrieked off with parents and minders into the night. In the cloakroom of the Victorian school, now the local community centre, Maggie Ballater whistled out a sigh of relief. Alone at last. Tired and fractious after the long dress rehearsal for Creektown’s first Halloween pageant, the pre-tweens had worn her out with their wriggling while she took off their ghostly robes and cleaned the face paint from their contorted features.
The longed-for silence settled over her like a shroud. Too fanciful, girl. The creepy Halloween atmosphere was infectious. Muffled footsteps and subdued chatter of night class students in the corridor behind recalled her to the job in hand. With a tsk of annoyance, she swooped to the far side of the room to pluck a crumpled bed sheet from the floor. Easy to guess who’d dropped his ghost costume instead of hanging it up. She latched it onto an iron hook on the wooden partition dividing the space into improvised dressing rooms.
“Jimmy Tolliver,” she said aloud, half-amused, half annoyed. Small and sparky, he was the archetypal scruff kid, endearing on a good day. This had not been it.
According to Kyle, dress rehearsals were always grim. Even with her limited experience Maggie knew this had been worse than most.
No one had said at her interview that the events organizer would stage-manage an open air pageant on a dark night in freezing October gales. The ghost walk, planned on a summer day, now
felt unbelievably long in the bitter autumn chill.
And for the vicar, of all people, to be the one to wreck the rehearsal with his erratic behaviour…
Poised with her hand on the light switch, she took one last look round. Something wasn’t right. But what? Just as she snapped off the lights, the Gothic door to the street creaked open and amber light spilled down the corridor.
A cold draught curled round the back of her neck, and she shuddered. The ghostly robes on the cloakroom pegs fluttered into life, then subsided again into limp sheets with black holes for eyes.
The oak door crashed shut, and her boss, Kyle Lachlan, creator, producer, and director of ShriekWeek, strode down the corridor toward her. “No dithering, Maybe.” He did not wait for an answer, never did. “We’re late.”
“You’re late.” But she did not say it. And she hated being called Maybe, but she did not say that either. The nickname created by her initials M.A.B. had followed her since primary school, and wherever she travelled there was always some smartass who thought he’d invented it for the first time.
His Cuban heels clacked like a tap dancer’s over the stone flags. His black cloak swirled around him, and the night lights flickered in the pumpkin lanterns on the tables lining the walls.
Spooky. She shivered. Someone walking over her grave, her granny would have said. But it was just exhaustion, and the chill of a Victorian building after hours.
Irritation swept away her nagging uneasiness. She turned the old-fashioned key until the lock thudded into place and scurried after her boss toward the lights ahead.
A wisp of music curled out from the classroom on her left, followed by a cacophony of heavy chords. The night class for guitar beginners. She’d seen it advertised. A quick glance told her the tutor was new. He looked up, winter-sky eyes and ruffled blond hair enhanced by the all-black polo and jeans which silhouetted his lean line. A little hoop of excitement ricocheted round her ribs. She shot it down fast. “Not for you, my girl,” she muttered and passed into the far-too-bright modern hall.
The adult cast for ShriekWeek sat chatting round the trestle tables, waiting for Kyle. He stood on the dais at the front, rustling a sheaf of papers and making them too sound irritable.
“Notes, then.” He rapped the desk in front of him with a pen. “Find somewhere to sit, Maybe. Quickly, and we’ll start.”
There was a time when Maggie would have collapsed flustered on the nearest seat. But after four months of meetings and rehearsals, she knew most faces in the tight-knit Island community. Emma Dalrymple waved and shuffled along a bench at one of the furthest tables. Maggie squashed down into the space by her side.
Kyle scowled and cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded cigarette-croaky. “I’ll take the scenes in order, okay? As we walk them.” He flicked back through his papers.
“Starting at The Fish and Anchor. Maurice and Marsha—”
“Not here.”
His tongue clicked in annoyance, and he fumbled left-handed in his jacket pocket for a phone.
“No use phoning. They’re working—unlike some.” Police Sergeant Pamela Carter grinned and waited for the raspberries from the hall before suggesting, “I can call in if you like—it’s on my beat.”
Pam was everything Maggie used to wish to be—wildly attractive with her long red-gold hair and slim figure. Maggie put up with a frizzy brown bob and a body best described as sturdy. And the woman was so confident in herself and her abilities. She took every opportunity to wind Kyle up, and as always he fell for it.
“I can call in at The Fish myself, thank you.” He drew a spiral notebook from a pocket and flipped through it fast. “It’s too bad one of them couldn’t have come. We’re doing this for everyone’s benefit, after all. More publicity, more tourists, more money in the coffers.” More money for Kyle and his B&B at least, Maggie thought.
He looked round the tables for approval, but as far as she could see, there was more resentment than reaction. Kyle was an overner like herself, a mainland man, not Isle of Wight born and bred.
“Monastery ruins next, then. That’s you, Vicar. And where the heck were you? You were supposed to be at the altar. If the kids hadn’t run up and down hooting and hollering, there would have been no haunting there at all. What happened?”
As always, his mind flitted off on a tangent. “And as for Maybe and the makeup”—all heads swivelled in her direction—“effective, but taking too long. Start earlier or be done faster. Up to you. Look at the vic, for instance.” Everyone focused back on the vicar. In his sacking robes and still wearing stage makeup, he looked ghastly. “He doesn’t need to be so luminously green. Less face paint the better.”
And indeed the vicar’s face was glowing brighter. Sweat accentuated the sheen, creating mossy rivulets of his wrinkles. A small squeak escaped his mouth or body. Afterward no one was certain which. Slowly he slid from sight.
“Quite an achievement,” said Emma Dalrymple trying to stop a nervous cackle with a cough and a splutter. “Never thought to see the day I’d drink the vicar under the table.” But then she took in what was happening and stopped her mouth with her hand.
“Get an ambulance.” Pam swept her out of the way and took charge. “Clear off, all of you. Give the man air. Looks like some sort of allergic reaction, probably from the face paint.”
She knelt down beside the old man and slipped a hand behind his ear. “Still breathing. Anyone got one of these allergy pen thingies?”
“Epi-Pen? I have one for school.” Why hadn’t she thought of that first? Maggie bent down toward the policewoman, rummaged in her bag. “Full dose in the outer thigh.”
“Thanks.” Pam was always so competent, assessing situations on the run, and glamorous as a runway model even in her police uniform. Guiltily Maggie brought her thoughts back to the vicar. He did look ill. That accounted for his dreadful performance at the dress rehearsal: fluffing his lines, forgetting his moves, not remembering to use his props.
He groaned and fluttered his fingers, which caught on Maggie’s coat sleeve. He was pulling the strangest faces, trying to speak. She bent closer, and his wheezing breath fanned her cheek.
There was no sound, although his lips moved, but she had trained herself to lip read. “Carer,” she guessed aloud, and he nodded. He must want Emma. She was his housekeeper and the nearest thing in his life to a carer. Maggie tried to look round for her friend, but the scaly yellow fingers with their long nails scrabbled again, catching in the wool of her brown coat. They reminded her incongruously of hens’ feet scratching for grain, and she quelled an impulse to recoil. “Nighty night hood.” Was that what he’d just said? Reverting to some childhood security phrase? She repeated it aloud, and he nodded. And finally, on a sigh, “Wolf.”
“Ambulance on the way,” said Emma.
“Off with the rest of you till we get the vic to hospital.” Sergeant Carter’s knees clicked as she stood, and someone tittered.
“I have your names, know who you are.” The titter stopped abruptly. “If we need statements later, I know where to find you.”
“Meeting adjourned to the pub.” Kyle prodded Maggie in the back and waited for her to stand. “Emergency, if the vicar’s out of action.”
She should have said no. She still had the next day’s work to organize. The Spanish club she’d agreed to run for the primary school was fun but time consuming. She hesitated a moment too long and was left to follow as he stormed off into the night.
Instead, she opened the cloakroom door again and looked round, using the light filtering in from the corridor. This time she knew what had been bothering her.
****
Her search of the cloakroom left her last to leave the building, and she locked up carefully. The click of the security lighting triggered by her presence sent her skittering across the small car park, and she looked round, embarrassed. But everyone was gone. The wind bit into her bones, and her fingers, stiff with cold, fumbled to reset the padlock code on the f
ront gates.
Across the road, the small seventeenth-century fishermen’s cottages huddled together along the alley to the square protected her from the sea wind. The lighting was fitful, the current erratic.
Her heels clicked briskly on the cobbles, echoed by a soft slipper-slap of leather keeping pace a footfall behind. No use telling herself she imagined it. Her chest constricted. She panted to breathe. Her feet of their own accord increased their pace, and the echo did too. She fought back panic. This was Creektown, for goodness’ sake, an unspoiled Island village, not some troubled sink estate on the mainland. The pub and safety were only yards ahead.
But the following feet padded faster now, nearer. A gloved hand caught her by the shoulder, and her heart stuttered to an agonized stop.
“Glad I caught up. Hope I didn’t frighten you.” The hand relaxed its grip, dropped away.
Her heart, still distrustful, kick-started with an irregular beat. She swivelled round to face her fear and saw the other hand of her assailant held a guitar case. Unless it belonged to some member of an unknown Creektown mafia, it must belong to the night class guitarist. His dark clothes blended into the night, but his face loomed pale, and in the lamplight his eyes glittered a silver grey.
“Surely you left before me,” she said when she recovered her breath. She’d seen the evening class leave while she waited for the ambulance.
“I live beside the school—popped back home for spare strings. You teach Spanish, don’t you? Saw you at the induction for Adult Learning tutors. Coming to the Pumpkin?” he said. She recognized the local name for The Coach and Horses. Made her feel more belonging.
“Kyle’s diverted the pageant post-mortem there,” she said. “And I’ve missed the last bus home, thanks to…” The sentence tailed off as she realized how insensitive it sounded. She wondered how the vicar was.
“Mmm. Heard the commotion. Hope he’s okay. A stroke perhaps, or a heart attack? He’s old, been retired for ages.”
Hauntings in the Garden, Volume Two Page 11