by JL Bryan
Activity Room B was the “Nightmare Nightclub,” which Ashleigh had neglected to clear with her dad, or mention to him. A junior girl named Brenda Purcell, in a Bride of Frankenstein costume, played club music mixed with Halloween sound effects—groaning ghosts, clanking chains, howling wind. People could dance in there, and rest on cushions scattered along the walls if they got tired. Room B was Ashleigh’s responsibility.
Larry DuShoun supervised Activity Room C, “Ghoulish Games,” which included the games like bobbing for apples, and a series of boxes into which you’d reach your hand to feel things. Larry, in his scarecrow costume, would intone that you were now touching brains, eyeballs, intestines. Last year, Ashleigh had stuck Seth with that room.
Room D was split by a room divider: girls’ sleeping bags on the left, boys’ on the right. Darcy would sleep among the girls, and Larry among the guys, to deter any funny business in the early hours of the morning.
It didn’t take long for Ashleigh’s magic punch to cast its spell. Within an hour, there were kids coming out of the maze holding hands, their masks askew and makeup smeared. Many ended up in the dance room, either dancing much closer than Dr. Goodling would have approved, or openly making out on the cushions along the walls. Darcy complained about this outbreak of inappropriate, sinful behavior, until Ashleigh held her hand for a couple of minutes to dope her up.
“Wow, they didn’t even wait for the chaperones to go to sleep,” Cassie whispered, just after they checked on the maze, where the devil was locking lips with an elf girl. They stepped into the hall, and Cassie looked at the punch bowl. “What did you put in there? Ecstasy?”
“Just love, Cassie.”
“Can I try some?” Cassie grabbed a cup, but Ashleigh took it away.
“No punch for us,” she said. “But we need these cups. Let’s go upstairs and open that wine.” Ashleigh looked down the hall and motioned for Darcy Metcalf to join them.
“Do we have to bring her?” Cassie whispered.
“Don’t worry,” Ashleigh whispered back. “I’m pretty sure she’s a lightweight.”
Cassie sighed. “Okay. What about Larry Douche Long?”
Ashleigh looked into the games room. Larry DuShoun was kissing a junior girl in a cat costume. Kissing was doubly against the rules if you were a chaperone.
“Larry’s doing fine,” Ashleigh whispered.
“Hey, what’s going on, my ladies?” Darcy asked.
“We’re taking a break,” Cassie said. “Come with us.”
“Now? But, but—” Darcy sputtered as she looked around. “We can’t leave now! The kids are out of control.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Some of them are kissing with their tongues!”
Ashleigh put a hand on Darcy’s arm and squeezed. Darcy’s pupils dilated and she melted against Ashleigh, leaning her head on Ashleigh’s shoulder. Ashleigh cast a look of disgust at her, and Cassie laughed.
“Come on, dear,” Ashleigh said, nudging Darcy off her. “Let’s go have a cup of wine. It’ll be fun.”
“Okay,” Darcy whispered.
They went upstairs to the Sunday school classroom where Ashleigh and Cassie had laid their sleeping bags. Cassie unzipped her small suitcase, grimaced at Darcy, and picked the cheaper of her two bottles. She uncorked it and poured generous drinks into the plastic Jack-O’-Lantern cups.
“Wait,” Darcy said. “We’re not allowed…”
Ashleigh soothed her with another touch on the arm. The girl was turning into a real drain. “Do it for me, Darcy.”
Darcy accepted the cup.
“To the most successful lock-in ever,” Ashleigh said, and all three touched cups and drank.
Soon, Ashleigh and Cassie were giggling, while Darcy lay on her back, eyes closed, and moaned about being dizzy. Eventually, she was snoring.
Ashleigh popped open the second bottle and poured.
“To best friends,” Cassie said.
“You said it.” Ashleigh tapped her cup to Cassie’s, and they drank.
Later, Ashleigh and Cassie slipped out into the hallway, wearing jackets, carrying their cups with them. Ashleigh unlocked the door to the narrow, winding staircase that led to the belfry under the church’s steeple, where the bells rang on Sundays and holidays. They giggled more as they climbed, unsteady on their feet.
Ashleigh unlocked the trap door at the top and they emerged into a very cool early morning. They looked over the edge at the town. At three stories, the church bell tower overlooked everything.
“To Fallen Oak!” Cassie raised her cup, and Ashleigh repeated the toast, adding, “May it rot in Hell!” They broke down into laughter, falling on each other and sloshing wine.
When they recovered, Cassie looked out again at the rooftops.
“You know,” she said, “We really rule this town. I mean, people do say that, but also it’s true.”
“I know,” Ashleigh said.
“I mean, everybody looks ups to ush. Up to us. Everybody wants to be us.” Cassie dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “And they’re scared of us.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh said. “But who cares about this stupid little place? There are cities out there. Whole countries. We have to think bigger, Cassie. This is just the beginning.”
“Just practice,” Cassie whispered. “For when we do it for real.”
“You know, I have a secret power,” Ashleigh said. She took a deep breath. Her drunken mind, out of some stupid feeling of camaraderie with Cassie, and maybe tired of keeping it all secret, was about to make her spill.
Then Ashleigh’s cell phone rang somewhere in her jacket. She fumbled around the pockets until she found it.
“It’s Neesha,” she told Cassie.
“Neesha, Neesha. Why does Neesha get to party with the boys on Halloween?”
“Duh,” Ashleigh said. “My dad doesn’t like black people in his church.” Ashleigh clicked the green button. “Hey, girl, what’s up?”
“Ashleigh,” Neesha said. “Are you sitting down?”
“Sure.” Ashleigh was actually leaning over the railing, looking down at the church roof.
“You are not going to believe what I just saw,” Neesha said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jenny and Seth put together their costumes at her house. Seth dressed in a natty old-fashioned tailcoat from the thrift store, looking very gentlemanly until Jenny used putty, latex and dye to sculpt his face into something green and rotting, with open bloody sores and cuts. She thought to herself that she could have done that without make-up—all she had to do was remove her rubber gloves and touch his face.
Seth admired his horrible face in the mirror, then popped in his fangs.
“I vant to zuk your blood.” He waved his black-gloved hands above his head as he tried out his awful Transylvanian accent.
“You vish,” she replied. She wore a lacy dress gone very yellow, with gauzy sleeves she’d made herself to cover her upper arms, black mesh stockings inside high black boots, and the cape and wig from the costume store. She would have virtually no skin exposed tonight, and that relaxed her a little.
She sculpted her own zombie-vampire face in the mirror, while Seth watched with admiration, until he got bored and started rolling a joint from her stash.
When Jenny finished her make-up, she peeled away her rubber gloves and put on the white lacy gloves from the Five and Dime. She unrolled them to her elbow. Ms. Sutland, delighted to see Jenny with a boy, had given her the gloves for free. She’d also had more pottery money for Jenny. Since Seth had insisted on paying at the mall, Jenny paid for everything at the Five and Dime. She didn’t mention that a lot of the money actually came from Seth’s mom.
Now the two of them stood in front of Jenny’s mirror, with rotten faces and prominent fangs. Jenny had even covered her neck with make-up and latex, so there was nothing left exposed to the touch but her black-shaded eyelids and lips. If nobody touched her there, she would be fine.
“We really look like we just climbed
out of our graves,” Seth said. He took her white-gloved hand in his black one.
“And we’ve been in there a long time,” Jenny said.
He chuckled around his fangs. Jenny drew the black hood over her green wig.
“Ve should drive a hearse,” Jenny said.
“Ve haff only my car. Ve shall listen only to dead musicians.”
“Vonderful,” Jenny said. “Ze best kind. Ze night is ours, my love.” Their eyes met in the mirror, and he squeezed her hand a little tighter.
They kept the top on Seth’s convertible to protect their makeup. At the end of October, it was getting a little chilly, anyway.
They hadn’t planned to stop at the “House of Hell” put on by the Presbyterians in Apple Creek, or even known about it. Seth saw the sign by the side of the road and insisted on checking it out.
They were admitted in groups into an old barn, which had been divided into rooms with small raised stages. Groups walked together from room to room, and were told to stay behind the ropes. Jenny and Seth were admitted in alongside a family with four children.
The door closed behind them, and they stood in darkness for a minute while voices whispered hurriedly somewhere to their side. Then a single spotlight fell on a two-foot-high stage, which was separated from the audience by a length of rope. A teenage girl reclined in a hospital bed onstage. She had something the size of a basketball under her hospital gown, making her bulge as if pregnant. Her bare legs had been taken from some department store mannequin—her real lower half was somewhere under the curtained hospital bed.
“Oh, I’m tired of being pregnant!” she said. “I want an abortion!”
“Did somebody say ‘abortion’?” The spotlight was replaced with lurid red lights mounted on the far wall. Three people in devil masks and doctor’s coats ran towards the girl waving pitchforks and hacksaws at the girl’s swollen belly. She screamed and pressed down on it, and blood spurted out between her legs.
“Gross!” Jenny said.
The two parents shushed her. Their kids were gaping, and one of the boys looked ready to cry.
A sheet dropped between the audience and the performers. In the red light, on the sheet, devil-shadows waved their pitchforks around. The girl screamed and the devils laughed.
Eventually the lights went out, and the door to the next room opened. It was an extremely dull morality story about drugs, so bland, even when the devils showed up, that it washed out some of Jenny’s horror at the first room.
In the third room, the scene opened with two boys lying in a bed. One put his arm around the other.
“Stop it, Peter!” the second one said. “How many times do I have to tell you? The Bible says it’s wrong!”
“But it feels so good, Jim!” the first one said. “You’ll like it if you try it.”
“But it’s a sin, Peter!”
“Just try being gay with me! You can always change your mind later!”
“Oh! Okay!” The boys pulled the blanket over their head and rolled around under it. “That feels good, Peter!”
Jenny giggled, drawing angry looks from the family, who seemed to be taking it quite seriously.
“Sorry,” she whispered. Beside her, Seth was shaking, trying to hold in his laughter.
Predictably, devils ran out and snatched the blanket from the bed. They attacked the boys with whips and paddles.
“Ow!” yelled Jim, the unfortunate sucker who’d given in to temptation, as a devil paddled his behind. “That hurts! It hurts so bad when you’re being gay!”
Peter sat up, now wearing devil horns himself. “Oh, it’ll hurt a lot more…down in HELL!”
Jenny’s laughter must have echoed through the barn. Seth broke down along with her.
“Y’all be quiet!” the mother shouted. “I want my boys to see this!”
They apologized to the lady and stumbled together into the fourth and final room. This one was pitch black, and extremely hot wind blew from it, probably from space heaters. Recorded screams and cries filled the dark room. A red light clicked on—a flashlight with a gel lens, held under the face of another guy in a devil mask.
“This is the fate of all doomed souls!” the devil said. “The final destination, the end of the line, the last stop on the track—”
Jenny and Seth were still trying to hold in their snickering from the last room.
“Learn ye well these lessons, those who still live!” The devil approached them now, waving his pitchfork around for emphasis. “The wages of sin is death!”
“That feels good, Peter!” Seth whispered out of the side of his mouth, and Jenny burst into fresh laughter.
“Okay, come on,” the devil said to them. “I’m trying to teach these kids a serious lesson here—” He turned and pointed his pitchfork at the family, and Jenny saw that he actually wore a full red suit, complete with a pointed tail that hung from his butt and jiggled when he talked. At that moment, it was just the icing on the cake, and Jenny collapsed against Seth, laughing.
“Enough! That’s enough!” the devil said, and now the three kids were laughing, too, at the devil’s tantrum. “Guys!”
More devils came into the room from the other stages. Jenny and Seth were escorted out of the House of Hell, even ushered past the smiling people at the exits offering pamphlets on how to avoid the horrible fates you’d just witnessed.
Out in the parking lot, the mother of the four kids yelled at Seth and Jenny as they passed on the way to the car.
“We was trying to teach our children!” she screamed. “We hope y’all proud of yourselves! Your fault if they turn out butt-humpers!”
They hurried into Seth’s car and locked the doors. He drove away, leaving the angry family far behind.
“That was totally romantic, Seth,” Jenny said.
“Sorry.”
“The audience was the scary part.”
“So now you’re ready for the real one in Vernon Hill,” Seth said.
“Will this one actually be scary?”
“Supposed to be the scariest one in the state.”
“Who said that?” Jenny asked.
“The sign advertising it.”
The haunted house in Vernon Hill looked much more promising, a large old grain warehouse with a long line of people waiting to get inside. The line moved slowly, it turned out, because each couple or small group was allowed to enter separately.
“Good luck,” breathed the skull-faced monk who took their cash. “Follow the ghostly glowing trail…it’s your only hope if you want to survive.”
He opened the door, and they entered the dark, narrow passage inside and followed the strip of glowing green tape on the floor, which was the only lighting. The door closed behind them, with the sound of squealing rusty hinges, a loud slam, then cackling laughter. Screams and undecipherable, wailing voices echoed from the darkness around them. Jenny and Seth saw each other as floating, disembodied zombie-vampire faces. If it weren’t for their glowing green makeup, they wouldn’t have seen each other at all.
The glowing strip of tape led them around a corner into a room lit by two stained-glass windows (or plastic, electric-powered imitations). They glowed onto a coffin on an elevated platform draped in dark purple. Velvet ropes kept Jenny and Seth from going too close.
There was a rusty scraping sound, as the lid raised just a few inches.
“Join me,” a voice whispered softly from inside. Then a few pale fingers wriggled out of the slightly open coffin. They weren’t rotten zombie fingers or pointy vampire fingernails, just normal fingers of a normal person.
“Join me,” it whispered again. “It’s so cold when you’re dead.”
Jenny drew closer to Seth. This was actually creeping her out.
There was a hiss right behind Jenny, and a rush of cold compressed air blew on the back of her neck, puffing up her green wig. She screamed and jumped against Seth, who laughed.
They left the room and followed the glowing tape into some kind of psycho
tic surgeon’s operating room, hung with musty green hospital curtains. The surgical lights shown at crazy angles and cast huge, twisted shadows. The surgeon stood at the head of the table, in a blood-splattered surgical mask and smock, gleefully waving a scalpel and a meat cleaver. He cackled maniacally. Jenny thought the laugh had to be a recording, since no one could keep that up for hours.
On the operating table, among buckets and basins filled with gore, were two severed arms and one severed leg jutting up through the table, waving and wiggling around. They occasionally lunged at the surgeon, who struck back with the big cleaver. One arm grabbed the doctor around the throat. As Jenny and Seth leaned forward to see what would happen, a live head sprang up, screaming, from the bloody basin closest to them.
Jenny grabbed onto Seth again, or maybe he grabbed her this time. She was pretty sure he’d screamed when she did, too.
She kept close to him as they stepped through an open surgery cabinet, which led them to the next section of hallway. They heard whispering as they drew close to a barred door. When they reached it, a man with crazy hair and stitches all over his face jumped out against the bars. His arms were bound in a straitjacket.
“You gotta help me!” he whispered. “I don’t belong here! I came in for the tour five years ago, and I’ve been a prisoner ever since. Help me! Come back!”
Around the next corner was a very rickety-looking wooden staircase, under dim, swampy lighting. A sign beside the staircase read: “The Cursed Covered Bridge – Do Not Enter!” The glowing tape led right up the steps, to a black-curtained doorway at the top.
“Ladies first,” Seth said.
“Funny,” Jenny said.
Seth went ahead of her. Each step gave a different creaking or cracking sound as you put your weight on it, and actually sank a little bit. It felt like the whole staircase would collapse at any second. Even the handrail wobbled.
At the top, they passed through the strips of black curtain and onto the covered footbridge.
It was just wide enough to walk single file. The roof, walls and floors all looked like they were made of old, rotten boards, with lots of knotholes and broken slats. The sound of a roaring river, and even the smell of dank moisture, rose from underneath the bridge. A very small amount of pale light shone in through the knotholes in the roof.