Halloween III - Season of the Witch

by Jack Martin

Ellie set the ledger aside. She opened a small appointment book.

  “ ‘October 18,’ ” she read. “ ’Merchants’ Council meeting.’ He was there, I checked. ‘October 19, football game.’ He was there, too. ‘October 20, pick up more masks.’ Probably referring to those.”

  She pointed to a shelf of rubber pumpkins and witches and death’s-heads.

  Challis nodded. “I know them. That’s the kind he had in his hand.”

  “They’re very popular,” said Ellie coolly. “According to Papa’s ledger he couldn’t stock them fast enough. I did a little detective work. The town where they make them isn’t too far from here.”

  “So what?”

  “If he went to the factory to pick up his order—”

  “Why wouldn’t he have it sent?”

  “Too close to Halloween. Besides, any businessman will tell you that if you go to the factory direct, you’ll cut your overhead. If Papa went there, then maybe they know something I need to know.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Look,” she said defensively, “my father wasn’t crazy.”

  “I know. I already told you I believe you.”

  She accepted that and returned to the appointments. “ ‘October 21, dinner with Minnie.’ That was the day after.” She closed the book. “Minnie Blankenship. He stood her up.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure this stuff out. My father ran into trouble somewhere between here and Santa Mira.”

  “Santa Mira?”

  “Where they make those masks. Little place, not too many miles away.”

  The roller skates returned.

  Wheels spun at the front door, and a boy of nine or ten stuck his head inside. He had dirt on his face and grass in his hair.

  “Pop?”

  “The store’s closed,” said Ellie.

  “Uh, sorry. Is Mr. Grimbridge here?”

  Ellie shut her eyes. “No,” she said with great control, “he’s not.”

  “Oh. Too bad. When’s he comin’ back?”

  Ellie lowered her chin to conceal her face.

  “Son, the store’s closed,” said Challis. “It’s not—there’s no one here now.”

  “Oh. Well, is it ever gonna be open again?”

  “We’ll see,” said Challis kindly.

  “Oh. Well, tell Mr. Grimbridge to hurry back, okay? We need him bad. It’s almost Halloween!”

  The boy nosed his skates, his Shuttlers, back to the sidewalk.

  Ellie raised her head and rolled her eyes to clear them.

  “I’m going,” she said.

  “Wait—”

  “No! It’s not too far to drive,” she said reasonably. “Maybe they can tell me something. It’s better than waiting for the sheriff to move.”

  Challis sighed.

  Ellie searched for her keys. “Look. The sheriff can talk all he wants to about some berserko drug addict and I still won’t buy it. I’m surprised you do,” she added contemptuously.

  “I didn’t say I did.”

  “I’m not going back to L.A. until I talk to the people at that factory. And anybody in between, for that matter.”

  She was ready to leave. She would not be talked out of it.

  She stopped at the door.

  “Well?” she said.

  It was probably useless.

  What the hell, he thought. It matters. It matters to someone. It damn well should.

  It matters to that little boy.

  It matters to her.

  Who else?

  It’s none of my business, of course . . .

  The hell it isn’t.

  “Want some company?” he said.

  The day was clear and sunny but the air was close inside the phone booth.

  He slapped his change down. One quarter dropped at his feet among candy wrappers, an old TV Guide, an empty pack of Big Red chewing gum, a rotting, translucent balloon, a matchbook from the Rabbit-In-Red Lounge. He did not try to retrieve it.

  He punched coins into the slot and dialed his— Linda’s—number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Linda? I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to—”

  “Daddy? Is that you? Why aren’t you here?”

  “Bella? I have to talk to Mommy, honey. Is she—?”

  “Just a minute.”

  He felt like a shit, hearing his daughter’s voice drop. He bore down.

  “Dan, where are you? You promised!”

  “I know I promised. But I completely forgot. There’s an all-day seminar, I can’t get out of it, I should have remembered but—”

  He listened to her breath steaming into the phone, then the torrent of words.

  He fingered a coin, tapped out an inane melody on the glass. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down . . .

  Waiting for her to finish.

  She never would.

  Among the graffiti on the booth, someone of great prescience had written: Roses are red/Violets are blue/I’m schizophrenic/And so am I.

  “Look, Linda, I can’t get out of it. I’m really sorry. Uh, just a bunch of doctors talking about boring stuff . . . Linda, take it easy.”

  He took the cold six-pack from under his arm and worked one of the cans free.

  “I’ll call you Monday.”

  He snapped the metal ring back and popped it open.

  “No, I can’t remember the name of the hotel.”

  He poured beer down his throat. It tasted bitter but he knew it would make him feel better in a few minutes.

  “I’ve got to go. ’Bye. ’Bye.”

  Ellie’s maroon Cutlass was waiting at the curb in front of the liquor store.

  He had finished the can by the time she had the motor started. As they glided away into a clear, windswept afternoon, something called his attention to the window of an electronics store.

  There.

  Three, four, a half-dozen TV sets of various makes and sizes tuned to the same channel. And, on every one, an unholy triumvirate danced on and on to the same Irish jig.

  “GLOWS IN THE DARK! ONLY TWO MORE DAYS! BUY ONE, GET IN ON THE FUN!”

  And so on.

  He rolled up the window, leaned back and closed his eyes. Suddenly the beer didn’t want to stay down.

  I should see them, he thought, I know that. God, do I know it. I want to. But I’m no good to them, to myself, to anyone yet. There’s some unfinished business to take care of first. Then, with luck, I’ll know more—enough to understand and pass along the warning to someone else. Like Bella. And Willie. But until I get my own act together . . .

  “Do me a favor,” he told her. “Don’t say anything for a while. It’s nothing personal. Just . . . don’t say anything. All right?”

  Ellie handed him a map and he traced a route for them out of the maze of L.A. freeways.

  The main arteries were printed in different colors, blue lines feeding into the cloverleaf downtown and thick red lines leading away; it reminded him of a circulatory chart of the human body. They bypassed the central bundle and merged onto a branch which avoided the major interchanges and soon swept them along into open country where the air was still relatively clean and the hills had not yet been subdivided into tacky, jerrybuilt housing developments with exotic names. After an hour or so they were driving into the sun. The warm glare made Challis sleepy.

  “. . . My father and I,” he heard her saying. Her voice assumed a low, soothing drone like the air conditioner. “You know what I think started it? A bird.”

  “Mmm,” said Challis.

  “He bought me this bird in a cage. For my birthday, big deal. I was six. One of those little red-nosed kind, he looked so sad. He wouldn’t sing. So I took him out of the cage and threw him into the sky, like that.”

  Challis opened one eye in time to see her lift her hands from the wheel and relive the gesture. Her eyes converged on a distant point, erasing the hills and the years.

  �
�So he could find a place to sing. My dad beat me real good for that. He should have known.”

  “Known what?”

  “A child never forgives a beating. Like a cat doesn’t.”

  She fell silent.

  There was only the drone of the tires again, the occasional swish of a car or camper eating up the miles in either direction. Challis extended his legs as best he could and gazed with her at the exit signs whipping past.

  “How are we doing?” he asked.

  “We’re almost there. Next turnoff, I think. I think . . .”

  His eyelashes feathered shut and he allowed himself to fall into a dream.

  It was all right. She didn’t need him to tell her what to do. She knew where she was going. She had never been there before, yet he was sure they would make it. Not like Linda, who would only go as far as her limited experience could take her, and then only with his urging and constant support. But this one. Ellie. She was different. An old burden lifted from his chest and rushed away on the wind. It was as easy as the releasing of a breath.

  In his dream he awoke to find himself in a place he had never seen before but which was maddeningly familiar.

  It was a town of the kind which exist only in dreams, where the safety net of reality is no longer operative and matters of life and death lie in wait around every corner. In this intensified, exaggerated geography Challis was searching desperately for something he could not name. It eluded him at every turn; but the rapidly darkening sky reminded him that his time was about to run out.

  It was almost nine o’clock. For some reason the hour took on great significance. How could he complete his task if he did not know what he was looking for? And yet the day was rushing past. With each tick of the clock in the sky, with each scythe-like stroke of the minute hand, time contracted until it was impossible to keep pace. He wanted to rest. But even that ultimate reward would be denied him. If he could not find the solution.

  And then. Time. Would stop.

  He concentrated on his surroundings—here, where the night fell too soon and the landscape was suffused with mirages of moonlight. In this place, he realized, the only sound to be heard was a great weeping.

  It was the weeping of children.

  Perhaps they were confused and could not find their way home.

  He saw one now, a boy, at the end of a tunnel-like passage where the walls glowed with an orange-red color. The child was dressed strangely, his clothing from another era and his head too large so that it resembled a fully-grown man’s. He could not see the boy’s features but he heard the crying, muffled as from beneath a false face.

  The children, Challis understood with the sudden clarity of dream logic, had disguised themselves so as to pass through this place without harm. They were crying out to warn each other of the danger.

  As he listened, he heard the cries become a chorus of wailing throughout the land.

  A tall, very tall figure appeared at the end of the tunnel. Challis was not immediately afraid. Apparently the figure was a priest of some kind. Other children, also wearing colorful disguises, came out of hiding and followed the tall man. They trusted him because of the way he was dressed.

  The tall guide led them past wood-frame houses, all but hidden by giant oaks in which girlish spirits murmured at their passing, then between modern buildings with clean walls and a succession of rooms in which people were trying to sleep; over the entrance to one, a restless snake climbed a pole or a vine.

  They came to a barren plain, dotted with rocks which jutted out of the ground like jagged teeth. A fire was burning. The tall figure stopped and gathered the children into a circle. The sun began to rise between the rocks, and at last the figure turned and revealed itself.

  It had no face, only blank, fleshy-white skin with no discernible features and icy eyes lost behind dark slits. It was a face without guilt or remorse or compassion or any vestige of human feeling.

  The children fell back.

  The figure produced a long, shining device from beneath its robe. The object gleamed there long and curved and silver-red in the eye of the sunrise.

  A knife.

  The children screamed. Their screams became the mourning wail of human beings everywhere, begging for mercy and the future of their race as the sky became red and runes of blood divided the landscape of the world.

  Wait! cried Challis.

  He ran forward to stop the slaughter.

  But he was too late.

  The figure turned on him, laughing insanely, the knife raised high.

  It was nine o’clock . . .

  “Want an apple?”

  Challis fought his way up.

  A glare of red sunlight illuminated the veins in his eyelids. He forced his eyes open.

  He was still in the car. Ellie was biting into a ripe, juicy apple and steering with one hand. She gestured at her purse which lay open between them on the seat.

  “Have one,” she said. “They’re good for you.”

  “Trying to keep the doctor away, eh?” His voice didn’t come out right. He massaged his eyes.

  The car was climbing a gentle grade above the main highway. It was late, much later than he expected. They had come a long way. The windshield was dirtied with the remains of countless flying insects. He saw a bee smashed under one of the wiper blades.

  He drew himself up in the seat.

  “There it is,” she said.

  The car slowed to a halt. She rolled down the window.

  A half-mile down, partially hidden by rows of high vegetation, was the tip of a small rural community. The sun was low and from this perspective the simple roofs of the wood-frame houses were shingled by a mirage of silver. Beyond, the Pacific Ocean glittered like spilled mercury flecked with blood.

  Challis whistled softly. “Looks innocent enough,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  Challis found that difficult to answer.

  But perhaps she felt it, too, the sense of foreboding, because her arms were covered with goose-flesh.

  Then she put the car into gear again and started the descent.

  As the angle changed and the view became less spectacular, Challis tried to break the spell.

  “That crappy little place is where all those masks and commercials come from? It doesn’t even look real.”

  Ellie smiled tightly and opened her mouth to speak.

  At that moment a truck roared around the bend ahead, bearing directly at them.

  Challis fell across her and jogged the wheel.

  An air horn sounded and the truck swerved, scraping by on the shoulder in a cloud of dust.

  “Jerk!” she shouted.

  Challis spun around in his seat and watched the truck bounce back onto the road. Barely visible through the exhaust was a large green-and-white four-leaf clover decal on the tailgate.

  “Silver Shamrock,” said Challis. “I should have—”

  “Don’t worry about him. Look at that guy up there! He’s got to stop! He’s—!”

  Ellie was straight-arming the horn and bulldogging the wheel as a second bullet Mack truck charged them head-on.

  Somehow it got by. The force of its passing left the car rocking like a straw in the wind.

  “Welcome,” said Ellie, “to Santa Mira.”

  C H A P T E R

  6

  Santa Mira was real, all right.

  Challis leaned out the window to clear his head.

  He recognized the scent of alfalfa and the dank salt pungence of the sea lacing the air, and something else that was distinctly unpleasant. Sulfur? That was probably what was pouring out of the brick smokestack that dominated the western end of the town. It was billowing with a vengeance. A huge shamrock like the belly of a spider identified the building as the factory. It couldn’t be anything else.

  At the foot of the rolling hills, nestled at the edge of verdant fields, they came upon an old-fashioned unbranded gas station attached to a weathered cottage motel. RAFFERTY�
�S DELUXE, proclaimed a hand-painted sign. Whether that was the name of the station or the motel was not clear.

  As they drove on, a sandy-haired attendant observed their passing from beside the pumps.

  By the time they hit the town square, Challis knew that something about the town was seriously abnormal.

  Though it was not yet dark, nothing moved on the street. Not a dog nor a pedestrian nor another automobile. No one. Not even children.

  Yet, as the storefronts slid by, he was aware of the presence of eyes in every window. There was a shop full of workers’ uniforms; there what appeared to be a quaint, tidy bank; there a grocery store, and the like. All were operating under the sign of the Silver Shamrock.

  Now a few ruddy faces revealed themselves in doorways, some freckled and red-haired, all silently observant.

  Ellie broke the uneasy silence. “Kind of ethnic.”

  “You could say that.”

  “I feel like a goldfish.”

  “Company town,” Challis reminded her.

  “Irish company town.”

  “You know where you’re going?”

  “To the factory. Where do you think?”

  “Might be a little late for that. Looks to me like everybody’s about to batten down the hatches and call it a day.”

  “Well, then, we’ll at least get a look at it up close.”

  The last of the stores fell behind them. Ahead lay a tarnished railroad track and, among the plain, utilitarian residences, an old church of unidentifiable denomination.

  As Ellie swung the car around and changed direction, Challis noted that the front of the church was boarded up. The spire had gone long unpainted. A signboard reading CHURCH OF SAINT PATRICK/REV. FATHER TOM MALONE was hanging peeled and broken from one upright.

  He decided not to call that detail to her attention. Her knuckles were already white on the steering wheel.

  She took her foot off the gas and braked.

  There was the plume of smoke and there was the factory. It was visible from all vantage points, but now they were in position to view it head-on. The front of the plant loomed a hundred yards ahead—and loomed was precisely the word—huge and eerie, bathed in light that was rapidly deepening to crimson.

  “Looks a little spooky,” she said.

  He did not like the hunch in her shoulders, the contentiousness in her eyes. “What do you expect? They make Halloween masks.”