Within three months, he bought the old Wal Mart and made the Devil’s Dungeon into a radical new youth church. Their numbers were still small, but his web-sermons racked up a couple million views every week, tax-free donations rolled in, and people started to take notice. Within nine months, he had the mayor and town council on his side.
This year in the town of Shafter, celebrating Halloween was against the law.
And he was just getting warmed up.
Something like this would never fly in Sacramento, but his congressman had tried to force a floor vote on the Save America’s Soul Act, which included, among other things, a national ban on children trick-or-treating, and restrictions on going masked or wearing lewd, provocative or blasphemous costumes in public.
But would it be enough, on the day of the vision that stopped Todd’s heart?
Gary knew he should welcome their anger at his work, but weathering it took its toll. He had to flush them out in the open, had to make the good people see what was coming for them before it was too late.
Whenever he came away exhausted and angry from a TV appearance, he went straight to the mail pile and read letters until he felt grounded again.
Dear Pastor Gary, My son was killed by a drunk driver last Halloween night—Every year, they egg and TP my house, but THIS year—Our daughter overdosed on one of those club drugs at a Halloween party—Pentagrams and pentacles and “666” gouged into the front doors of our church—Said if I didn’t “shut up and fork over the candy,” I could move away or someone might burn my house down—Sometimes I see behind their faces, the sin that rots, the demons that possess—They don’t put on masks at Halloween, they take them off—Where will it end? Who will stand up?
Who?
Facts were important. And the fact remained that the local authorities could find no evidence to discredit Gary Horton’s account of what happened last Halloween night.
He told them he saw someone lurking in the haunt when he discovered Todd, but they escaped. He didn’t tell them what he saw. He insisted it was one of the vandals who’d defaced the haunt, and let them conclude that they somehow caused Todd’s death. The inquest concluded the cause of death was heart failure caused by an acute shock. The only evidence of trauma was mild abrasions and bruising around the photographer’s throat and traces of skin under his fingernails, which proved to be his own.
It was just enough to set the public imagination on fire. The Devil’s Dungeon was the only working haunt in America with an actual body count. Attention focused on Gary Horton and his hell house, opening only on Halloween night in the town that banned it, on the anniversary of Todd’s death.
And it would be the only attraction in town tonight.
Outdated laws forbidding masks or facial coverings dating back to the days of bank-robbers on horseback were trotted out, and public nuisance laws were beefed up to cover the rest. No public events could represent or allude to Halloween unless they were affiliated with a church. The only other attraction in the whole county was a corn maze just outside town limits, which was supposedly attracting a big crowd with nowhere else to go.
A lot of people were out front of the Devil’s Dungeon, though not many seemed to be on God’s side. The crowd spilled out of the serpentine roped area into the parking lot, where a wall of angry protest signs chopped up the orange light from the street into a fitful, fiery glare. They looked defiant, rowdy, drunk and hateful, those who were recognizably human at all.
Leah came over and took him by the arm. “We’re not going to open while there’s people out there wearing masks, are we? Isn’t it against the law now?”
Gary looked out where she was staring. “Nobody out there is wearing a mask, sister.”
She grabbed Gary’s arm and leaned on him. “C’mon hon, let’s get you into makeup.”
In the dressing room, he looked at himself in the mirror, and saw not his blunt, balding pate or lopsided mustache framing lipless mouth clenched between musclebound jaws, or the fire engine red greasepaint and goatee and rubber skullcap with droopy horns devised to make him a cartoon.
Instead, he saw the Real Thing, looking back at him, as it had in the Black Chapel.
He averted his eyes, feeling his blood turn to salt. First, he thought it must be a prank. How could he not? He knew not how, but nothing was impossible when smartass boys set out to make a fool of you.
The cold returned, a blade of frozen nitrogen stropping his brain and lightning frying his temporal lobes and his agony squealed, brain tumor.
If it was cancer, then let it be cancer… for this was what he prayed for, this was the divine hand touching his soul as it did the prophets in the gospels. If it was just an epileptic fit that struck down Saul and turned him to Paul on the road to Damascus, then strike me down, too, Lord, shake me, make me your instrument—Let me show them the Way, let me change them—
But answer there came none.
If he was slipping, it was long overdue. Seven years of year-round work on the Devil’s Dungeon had finally broken him, and it would surprise nobody. He had already chalked it all up to a pending nervous breakdown and prayed for serenity, when he turned and witnessed a pulsating mound of flyblown entrails and offal whimpering at him to say if he liked how he looked or not.
Jolted by sheer terror, Gary laid hands upon the abomination, only to find it was Wenda, wailing at his feet. Wenda the haunt’s den mother, the jovial spinster. Wenda the gossip. Wenda the glutton, the bloated husk of thwarted lust…
Worst of all was the look she gave when he apologized, the leer that turned to pus encrusting her doughy face as he stormed out of the dressing room.
The show must go on, he told himself. And it had, up until the passing strange moment at the opening prayer huddle. Some of the kids stared at him oddly as he went through the obligatory pep talk. It was easier if he didn’t look right at them. Lice, earwigs and worms infested their scabbed and flaming features, and the fecal stench of unborn and aborted sin washed off them like the outgassing from rat carcasses.
It took Gary’s breath away. Babies fresh from Sunday school, innocent kids, thoroughly screened, disqualified by the slightest sign of risky behavior, but not one among them was untouched by the vile parasites of sin in thought and wish, the ravages of a million petty transgressions.
And these were, Gary had to admit, the cream of the local crop, the kids who never really had the chance to sin, because they were fat, acne-scarred, spastic losers, or they never would’ve come to the haunt. Even in a town where possession of a single joint by a minor triggered asset forfeiture laws designed to knock down drug cartels, so many homeless families living under bridges because Junior snuck one of dad’s PBR’s when the deputies came about a noise complaint… Even here, there were plenty of parties, make-out spots and cool things to do that none of these kids ever had the opportunity to turn down.
When he looked them over, he saw only one face unblemished by the mark of sin… the stolid, back-of-a-shovel profile of his right hand, Burt Coughlin—who, everybody was pretty sure, was deeply mentally impaired—absently scrubbing his few remaining teeth with the toothbrush he always carried in his hip pocket.
He heard Wenda and some others buzzing about the news back east. In Fort Lauderdale, five kids were dead and nineteen hospitalized for strychnine poisoning. Police were conducting an extensive neighborhood search, and the mayor was ordering every household outside the suspect neighborhood to throw away its trick-or-treat candy.
A retired Sunday school teacher in Muncie was under arrest after a child bit into a candy apple with a razorblade in it, and similar foreign objects turned up in all the treats sold at a local elementary school Halloween fundraiser. Before lawyers retained by an anonymous donor took her away from the cameras, she claimed that the forces of darkness possessed little children at Halloween, and she couldn’t abide it any longer. She cited the same passage
s from scripture that Gary had invoked again and again in the last year. She said she was just an envelope. Her Master had written the message for all with eyes to read it…
Just the envelope—
There were others, too many to keep track of. Rumors and instant urban legends ran amok, but this Halloween came after a hot, dry summer and two weeks before the ugliest, most divisive election in modern history. People were looking for any side in any argument as an excuse to fight, and the War on Halloween had come at a perfect time.
People all over America were throwing out their candy and keeping their children at home, trashing their slutty cheerleader costumes and Donald Trump masks and praying for God’s forgiveness, if they knew what was good for them.
Two crying boys hugged and blessed him before he hit the stage. One of them wept into his ear, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t believe you… but sweet Lord Jesus, I can see them…”
“You’re spreading His message,” a teen girl said before she kissed him full on the mouth, smearing his makeup. Another one he didn’t recognize hugged him against her bosom until his manhood stirred, then pressed a box cutter into his hand. “Be safe,” she said. “Be ready.”
The prayer meeting with the cast had been an ugly revelation. Stepping out onto the stage and looking at the crowd was like cracking open a long-sealed casket. Expecting it didn’t begin to prepare you for the overwhelming, septic stench of their sin.
Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, his earlobes, until his head stopped spinning. They’d spit on the message and cause trouble, but he saw news cameras out there too, so he rallied.
The opening was rocky, but he stayed calm, oddly disconnected from the nerves that seemed to extend out past his body like antennae, conducting bad luck and entropy into everything he touched when he was least able to cope. It was just another massive crowd, if he didn’t look too closely, idly curious shading to openly hostile, frustrated young locals grudgingly checking out the hell house because it was the only show in town.
But he couldn’t stop seeing, even as he whipped out his bullhorn and played the role. Looking out over the crowd, he pointed here and there and called out what he saw. He couldn’t seem to stop egging them on. It was the reason his hell house was a national sensation, and angry money spent the same as the cold kind.
“I see a secret drunk,” he witnessed, “and another who steals from his church to gamble every night. I see a righteous man who sponsors starving children around the world to assuage his guilt over the children here at home he’s molested, and I see a beloved teacher who delights in sex tourism with little children overseas. I see faithless women and two-faced men, liars and shiftless idolators, drinkers and druggers and masturbators. I thought this was a god-fearing town, but just about all of you are bound for Hell without any help from me!”
The crowd was angry, churning and growling. Catcalls came thick and fast. Gary turned up the bullhorn. “What the hell did you rubes expect, I’m the Devil! You want to taste the fruit you’re going to reap, then come ahead and buy a ticket. Maybe this Halloween, you’ll be saved from ending up on my plate!”
Someone threw a pumpkin. Their aim was lousy, but the smallish jack o’ lantern burst at Gary’s cloven-hoof feet. A wave of nauseous rot splashed him. People laughed. Lit cigarettes and a few beercans followed. Gary tried to reclaim his self-control. He knew how to deal with hecklers.
“I hope you didn’t sell your soul for that throwing arm!” A few laughed and he felt like he’d won them back. He reminded them not to touch the performers inside, or there’d be real hell to pay. He waved for Burt to start taking the tickets.
Someone threw a bottle.
It hit him in the back of the head. The glass and foamy backwash caromed off his skull in a thorny corona. The impact sent him down on one knee, like he was going to sing or propose marriage.
“Close the doors!” he shouted, but he restrained himself from diving for cover. Give them enough rope, let them show the world what they’re really like. If the martyrs could walk into lions’ dens and brave arrows and torture and the stake, he could stand for a little rough heckling.
More bottles, cans and pumpkins, candy and trash and rocks. “We’re not going to sell a single ticket until you people move back,” he said, and then he heard the sirens.
All over town, they howled like hollow dogs, but they seemed to come together at the far end of Main and fade to the east, where the fat orange harvest moon was obscured by a column of black smoke.
Gary ran off the stage to the doors. Without a word, Burt turned and ran away, the stinking coward. Leah had closed the ticket window, but the monsters in the crowd were burning trash and pushing it through the bars.
“Someone set fire to the corn maze,” Wenda told him.
“Dear Lord,” Gary said, but he felt only that insidious, seeping cold under his ribs.
“There were at least a couple hundred in that field, Gary,” she said. “All of them dark-sided.”
“I know, it’s terrible,” he said, but he didn’t know anything. A couple hundred people in this town, it was like lopping off a limb. But a rotten, sick limb could only be amputated. “Did you know anyone who was there…? Do they know who… who did it?”
She shook her head. “God bless them, whoever it was. If those godless creatures were struck by lightning, it couldn’t a clearer sign of God’s anger.” Her eyes bright, brimming with joyful tears. “All those idolators and arrogant unbelievers, they’re gonna find out what real fire feels like…”
He could tell she saw it too, when she looked at them. Saw what they did, knew what they were… And once you saw it, how could you turn a blind eye?
The crowd simmered as the breaking news spread from their phones. Gary was thinking they could let things settle down for a half hour and then try to reopen, when the truck came.
The big old blue Ford Ranger jumped the curb, V-8 engine screaming, and pounced amid the thickest of the serpentine crowd. It bore down several dozen people, screeching wheels grabbing horrible traction on a road paved with bodies. They tried to run, but tripped over the ropes and turned to stacks of screaming meat.
Gary ran out onto the stage and screamed at Burt to stop, but he couldn’t even hear himself.
The truck stalled, the axles choked with limbs, quivering on an unsteady terrain of dead and dying sinners. The door flew open and Burt climbed out onto the bed of his old Ford with that stupid toothbrush in his scowling mouth and an AR-15 with an extended banana clip on his hip, and commenced firing into the sea of survivors.
“You’re monsters,” he kept shouting, “You’re all monsters…”
Gary looked around for someone to help him stop it, to bring order and peace, to block the damned cameras—
Four kids dressed in hippie costumes came out onto the stage. One of them lit something in the hands of the other three, and they lobbed bottles with flaming rags stuffed in the necks into the crowd. Most of the people still in the lot were dead or wounded. Burt patrolled the perimeter, shooting anyone who still moved.
Gary ran in the only direction he could, back into the haunt. Something had gone horribly wrong, the message he sent was meant to unify people against the adversary, it wasn’t meant to inspire hatred or violence.
He ran into the Black Chapel and collided with Todd.
“Hey, Pastor Gary,” Todd mumbled in a cracked voice. His hair was shot through with white, his features drained, hollowed out by horror.
“It sure as hell works,” Todd said, “this hell house of yours. Did you ever really experience it, do you know what it really does…? I went in and got lost… and then I got out, but I wasn’t really out. It trapped me in something that looked like my life…
“The first room, I got sucked into a cult, and… we… sacrificed babies… and worse… We all committed suicide when the cops came, and then… oh, God… I died
, and guess where I went? To Hell, right?
“Wrong! I woke up in the next fucking room!
“I was molested by a priest… It was like a false memory I couldn’t make myself forget… and I didn’t want to do it, but I was going insane with the nightmares, the wanting. I never touched them, I just took pictures… but people found out, and I went to jail, and they really, really don’t like child molesters in jail…
“See, after the first four rooms,I realized the only way out, was to die… So I took the easy way out… but I’m still stuck… and here we both are, what a surprise!”
Gary shook his head, this was not just impossible, but wrong. “You don’t understand, Todd. You died a year ago, and everything after that…”
“No, you don’t understand, you fucking idiot! We’re inside the hell house! We went into the Black Chapel last Halloween, and we never left! The last time I saw you, I was twenty-four, but I’ve lived four fucked-up lives since then, and I still can’t find the exit…”
“Todd, get a hold of yourself. Things are a mess outside, but come with me. I can prove that God does miracles…”
“Miracles?” Todd cracked up. “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a miracle, in here. This is a miracle, right now. How do you like it?” He pushed past Gary and ripped down a black curtain to bare a window overlooking the parking lot.
The survivors from the crowd were long gone, and the police and fire were still busy across town. The Devil’s Dungeon cast and a big mob of the faithful had gathered the bodies into bonfires, and were stringing them up on the lampposts. The faces of the ones doing the burning were monstrous, things he thought must be cemons when he’d seen them before, on Todd’s camera. They were singing a hymn he didn’t recognize as they fed the fires.
What October Brings Page 5