Strange Tales for Cozy Nights 1

by Brian Bakos

  ***

  A glorious vision of Jodie accompanies me out the door, seeming to hover in the air before me. But once I’m in the parking lot, it begins to fade. Deep anxiety replaces it. I look back toward the Pine Knot, but the sight of an uncouth crowd heading toward the place repels me.

  “Look at that damn thing,” somebody gestures toward my car. “Must be a millionaire here.”

  “Yeah, let’s go in and kick his ass,” another one says.

  The group of idiots guffaws; I get into my BMW and drive out of town.

  Turn back, you damn fool, says a cautionary voice in my head. You’re a loser; Jodie doesn’t want a loser!

  “Shut up!” I cry.

  My headlights poke a tiny distance ahead into the gloom. I flick on the high beams, but the illumination scarcely improves. It’s as if life itself is being sucked away. The turnoff appears before I know it, and I drive right past.

  Good move, the voice says, now keep going.

  I back up instead; a vehicle coming behind me honks its horn and swerves. I make the turn.

  A terrible sense of foreboding grips me as I drive along the narrow dirt road. I try to call Jodie but am immediately sent to her voice mail. She’s clearly switched of her cell. I think of trying the land line.

  What if she’s asleep, though? The jangling of the old-fashioned wall phone would be guaranteed to put her in a foul mood. I toss my cell onto the passenger seat. I already have enough bad news for her as it is.

  Then a real terror thought strikes me – what if somebody is in the house with her? What if some local whack job has broken in and caught her unawares – the shotguns still in lockdown and her weaponized purse out of reach? What if those cruds from the parking lot are there, aching to brutalize the uppity woman from downstate?

  Again, I sense a presence in the darkened back seat. I can smell cold death.

  “Get out, you bastard!” I shout.

  I’m approaching the turnoff to the house. Ordinarily, I’d plow through this final 100 yards and park by the garage, but I’m not willing to do that now for some reason. I pull off into the underbrush and kill the motor. As I get out of the BMW, silence presses in like a coffin lid.

  Don’t go up there, you idiot! The voice in my head shouts.

  Then it is abruptly silent, as if a cord has been cut. I know it won’t bother me again.

  I start walking. The familiar stretch of woods seems full of threats now; anything could leap out of the shadows and carry me off to hell. I sense a presence walking behind me, then beside me, but I dare not look over.

  “You’re late, Ben Osterman,” it says. “That country band is starting to play already, and you’ve only just got here.”

  Jodie’s car is parked outside the little garage, which strikes me as peculiar. Usually, she’s very careful to protect it from the elements. I pause. Why the hell am I acting like this?

  As if in a trance, I walk the final yards to the house and peer in through the kitchen window.

  I see them sitting close together on the living room couch, drinks in their hands and smiles on their faces. Jodie scarcely resembles the ball of nerves I’ve had to deal with in recent days – she looks younger, happier, radiant almost. He is generic handsome, obviously successful. He’s got his arm over Jodie’s shoulder; he whispers something in her ear, and she laughs . . .

  Then I am at the shore; I do not recall how I got there. I wade into knee-deep water; it’s very warm and soothing. It invites me to swim out to the middle where the lake turns rough and return is impossible. The eerie wail of a loon beckons me, and beneath it rumbles something deep and seductive:

  Do it! Join us!

  It’s the voice of Keith Anderson. Beneath it are the wails of his family and the other dead things in the lake. I wade farther out until the water tops my hips; I prepare to dive and reunite with the glassy-eyed corpse floating in the darkness.

  I take a last look back at the house. The bedroom light upstairs flicks on.

  Damn you both!

  Then I look beyond the house, through the dark woods, toward my BMW parked in the underbrush. And beyond that to the little country bar with a woman aching for ...

  And I know in that moment, on the cusp of extinction, that the final choice is up to me.

  Voyage

  My ship has no rudder, and it is driven by the wind that blows in the undermost regions of death. The Hunter Gracchus, Franz Kafka

  The man always sensed that he was not alone on the voyage, that some other presence inhabited the ship with him, lurking within the sails, the rigging, and the dead hold which he dared not explore.

  On, perhaps, the third day out, as he stood at the rail viewing the diseased ocean, a figure approached him. The man averted his eyes from its rigid, colorless face and inquired:

  “What do you want?”

  His voice scarcely masked the dread he felt. The form stood very close to him now, rocking slowly – a great pendulum in cadence with the ship’s motion.

  “Come with me,” He felt it say.

  He followed it to the helm. At a gesture from his frightful companion, he grasped the wheel in trembling hands.

  Then he was alone again. The ship moved fast, an unholy wind filling the sails. As it raced ahead, snippets of memory appeared to him – all of them bespeaking an evil life which was now over.

  The Man Who Loved Winter

  The old man stood on the rest home lawn watching the cars spray wakes of dirty water behind them as they hissed by; their headlights pierced the foggy evening air. Cold drizzle penetrated his robe. He looked up toward the leaden, claustrophobic sky.

  “Middle of December and it ain’t snowed once,” he said. “Some damned winter!”

  He puffed on his cigar; the luxurious smoke soothed him a little.

  “Mr. McKinney! Stanley!” an authoritative female voice called.

  He turned to see a nurses’ aide advancing toward him under an umbrella.

  “How did you get out here?” she demanded.

  Stanley held his ground, refusing to answer. The aide gripped his arm and brought him under the umbrella’s protection.

  “You must come back in right now.” She indicated the cigar. “You’d better give me that, too. You know the doctor says you can’t smoke.”

  Feeling deeply humiliated and unmanned, Stanley handed over the cigar. It still had plenty of good tobacco.

  Godammit, he thought, I’m 87, what the hell difference can a cigar make now?

  Slowly they made their way back to the building entrance. Moisture from the sodden grass penetrated Stanley’s slippers adding to his misery. Light rain pummeled the umbrella. He resented being corralled, but didn’t really mind walking with the aide as she was one of the more attractive ones. She moved ahead up the front step, her white pants stretching over her rear.

  Nice ass, he thought.

  He wanted to grab a handful. That would be the act of a dotard; however, and he was not going to be regarded as an old fool. Also, it would ungentlemanly, and he’d always prided himself as being a gentleman.

  They entered the building, and the stink of the place attacked him. The home was clean and well maintained, but it stank nonetheless – a hopeless, beaten down odor that identified the place as the last stop before the graveyard. It cancelled out whatever cheer the occasional Christmas decoration tried to project.

  The aide led him to a sofa in the patient lounge before the nurses’ station. Stanley groaned inwardly. This was the ‘Goner Lounge’ where the most demented and severely disabled patients were placed. The more able bodied ones, like Stanley, avoided the place if they possibly could.

  “Just sit here and watch TV, Stanley,” the aide said. “The nurse will be along soon with your medication.”

  She bustled off.

  “Medication,” Stanley scoffed.

  He knew that tonight his tranquilizer dosage would be increased, due to his escapade with the cigar. What was so bad about goi
ng out for a little walk? Certainly he was old enough to decide such a simple matter for himself.

  He narrowed his attention to the TV screen, blanking out the Goners around him as best he could. The weather report was on.

  “Looks like that storm will be moving south of us tonight, dumping 5 to 7 inches of snow in northern Ohio,” the weatherman was saying as he pointed at swirling cloud patterns on his map. “Our viewing area can expect continued warm temperatures with light rain.”

  “Isn’t that great!” said the bubble headed girl standing next to the weatherman.

  Stanley grunted. He wanted to hurl something through the TV screen. The woman sitting to his left suddenly cried out:

  “My boy’s coming to see me tonight!”

  Stanley flinched.

  “Shut up!” another woman spat, “I’m sick of hearing about your boy. He ain’t coming tonight any more’n he did last week.”

  “Well I’ll be . . . ” the first woman muttered, wringing her gnarled hands. “I’ll be.”

  The other lounge occupants remained flopped on sofas or lined up in wheelchairs like a battery of worn-out artillery pieces. They cared little about the altercation or about what might be blaring from the television.

  A young man pushing a broom hurried down the hallway past the lounge. It was Tom, one of the clean up men. He gave Stanley a thumbs-up. Stanley felt a rush of pleasure.

  Tom was the one person he could really talk to; the only one who seemed to listen. Actually, they talked very little, but Stanley felt they had much in common, a certain understanding – even though there had to be more than 60 years difference in age. Tom had been laid off from his regular job a couple of months ago and had been working here part-time ever since.

  Stanley glanced at the wall clock. Tom might be taking his break soon at the small lounge area down by the cafeteria, the only place in the building where smoking was permitted. If Stanley could just get there somehow! Escape from the Goners; talk to somebody young and alive.

  He looked toward the nurses’ station and caught the RN’s eye. She smiled professionally – pleasant but firm. She wouldn’t let him get away, he knew. He resented the power she had over him and despised himself for being unable to do anything about it. He tried to stare her down, but she merely returned to her paper work.

  She wasn’t bad looking, though. Forty years ago he might have asked her out, if he’d been single that is. But this line of thought only brought back aching memories of Leni, his deceased wife.

  This was such a terrible place for her memory to reside. Yet, increasingly these days, he felt her presence. Sometimes it seemed as if she were sitting right beside him.

  But not in the Goner lounge, please!

  He glanced to his right. A woman stared back at him vacuously from her wheelchair. Her twisted hands lay in her lap, in front of her plastic bib. Stanley turned away with a shudder toward the TV. A quiz show was now playing, and he tried to get interested in it. He’d not be able to get away to the smoking lounge, and the thought depressed him deeply.

  But then an opportunity for escape miraculously appeared.

  One of the patients, a huge and ancient man, was filling a paper cup from the nearby drinking fountain. Some water slopped onto the floor. When he tried to walk away, he slipped on the little puddle. He fell stiffly and slowly, like some great tree in the north woods crashing to the ground. He knocked over a waste basket as he hit the floor. The RN and two aides rushed over to him.

  Stanley rose from the couch and walked off, covered by the mayhem. He wanted to go quickly but could not surpass a leisurely shuffle. Every arthritic joint ached as he passed the group around the fallen man. Nobody noticed him.

  Helluva a lousy getaway! he thought miserably.

  Of all the deterioration he’d suffered in recent years, the inability to walk properly was the worst. He realized that soon he, too, would be sitting in a wheelchair staring at the TV screen in the Goner lounge, along with those others.

  He finally made it to the smoking area, hobbled to a sofa, and plopped down next to a worn looking middle-aged woman. He took her to be a visitor taking a break from a depressing call on some relative. A few other patients idled about, including Stanley’s new roommate ‘Senator’ who was sitting in his wheelchair beside the sofa. Stanley did not bother to say hello; the poor guy wouldn’t have noticed anyway.

  Stanley’s previous roommate, Red, had suddenly died a week ago, and Senator had been unceremoniously shoved in as a replacement. These events had devastated Stanley’s morale. He’d liked Red. They were both avid Pinochle players, and together they had battled the other rest home card sharps. Stanley had no children, and Red’s didn’t care much about their dad, so the two old men had made a sort of family for each other.

  Now Red was gone, and Stanley had to put up with this new man who was quite senile and talked incessant nonsense.

  “We held committee hearings about that,” Senator spouted off in a loud voice, “back when Williams was governor. Good man, Williams, miserable taste in ties, though!”

  The middle-aged woman nodded her head wearily, her eyes unfocused.

  “Pay no attention to him,” Stanley said. “He just rattles on. You know, he tells everybody that he used to be a state senator!”

  He chuckled sarcastically.

  The woman gave him a sharp look. “Well, I’m his daughter, and he was a state senator.”

  “Oh ...” Stanley said.

  He felt like an idiot. To cover his embarrassment, he made a big project of adjusting his robe, flicking off bits of lint, tightening the belt. To his immense relief, the woman soon rose and wheeled Senator away.

  “That’s my roommate back there!” Senator said.

  “How nice,” the daughter replied.

  Stanley had the whole side of the lounge to himself now. Attached to the wall above, a big air filter hummed its purifying tune. Stanley liked the sound because it obscured the cheerless noises of the rest home. He could focus on the machine’s low rumble and pretend not to hear the babbling patients, the shuffling feet, the whisk of wheelchairs being pushed along.

  He could narrow his eyes and imagine himself someplace else, in another time. Glancing through his slit eyes, he could pretend to be a young man again.

  Tom appeared.

  Stanley voiced his standard greeting: “Hello, Boss! Getting caught up?”

  Tom smiled; he had such a kind face. He was not a big guy, but powerfully built like a wrestler or gymnast. The arms bulging from his T-shirt looked strong enough to snap the broom handle like a match stick. Stanley’s arms had once been like that, back in the days when he still had hair and teeth. Tom walked with a slight limp, but that only seemed to enhance his masculinity – like an eye patch or a facial scar.

  “Afraid not, Stan,” Tom said, “the other clean up guy didn’t come in, so I’m doing his work, too.”

  Stanley gestured to the sofa. “In that case, you’ll need an extra long break.”

  “You talked me into it, Stan.”

  Tom leaned his broom against the wall and sat down on the sofa next to Stanley. His broad shoulders took up plenty of room; his whole body radiated vitality.

  “That’s a lot of floor to clean, eh?” Stanley said.

  “Sure is,” Tom said. “I’ll probably be here til midnight.”

  Tom lit a cigarette. The smoke curled elegantly up before disappearing into the air filter. Stanley watched it hungrily. He’d surely like a puff, to hell with what the doctor said. Tom glanced at him from the corner of his eye and grinned conspiratorially. He handed Stanley a fresh cigarette.

  “Be careful with this,” he said, firing up a match. “Give it to me if anybody comes.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  Stanley savored a lengthy drag. He was a cigar man, usually, but a cigarette did just fine in a pinch.

  “What do you think of this weather?” he asked.

  “Can’t say as I like it much,” Tom replie
d, “especially not with all these visitors tracking in mud.”

  “Mmm, bad weather for the skiers. Do you ski, Tom?”

  “My girlfriend wants me to go sometime.”

  Stanley instantly warmed to the topic. “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like ... serious girlfriend?”

  Tom grinned and puffed his cigarette. “You might say things are tending that way.”

  Stanley chuckled.

  Probably best not to pursue this topic further, he thought.

  Still, he felt like taking the young man’s arm and telling him urgently: “Grab this girl, if she’s special, and marry her quick. Have lots of children with her!”

  Stanley had never really missed having his own children, not while Leni was alive, anyhow. Their love was so powerful and exclusive that there scarcely seemed room for anybody else. But now that she was gone, his lack of offspring pained him severely.

  “I used to ski a lot when I was younger, at my cottage up north,” Stanley said. “Hell, what else could you do? Wasn’t none of them snowmobiles back then.”

  Stanley visualized the snowy woods around his little cottage. He could almost feel the invigorating breeze in his face as he glided on his cross-country skis, Leni at his side.

  “Must have been nice,” Tom said quietly, as if he, too, could see Stanley’s vision.

  Leni was a true northern girl, of Scandinavian heritage. She knew skiing well and had taught Stanley. The happiest hours of his life were spent on skis with her touring the woods around their little love nest. In honor of her memory, winter had become his favorite season.

  “Sold the place a while back,” Stanley said, “couldn’t afford to keep it.”

  What did it matter? The soul had gone out of the cottage twelve years ago when Leni had died.

  Tom was looking at him, an odd, melancholy expression on his face. Stanley tried to push away his own sadness with chatter.

  “Lots of people don’t like snow,” he said, “They save all their lives to retire in Florida. Then they have a stroke, or something, and end up in this place.”

  He cackled derisively.

  Tom said nothing, only listened quietly with that same little pensive expression on his face. Stanley felt a bond with him, a silent handclasp across the generations.

  Such is the way of men, he thought, you just know certain things without having to say a lot of crap.

  Tom blew a large smoke ring, then shot a small one through the middle. Both of them rose to the air filter and disappeared.

  “Must be kind of depressing for a young fella like yourself to work here, eh?” Stanley asked.

  “Sometimes,” Tom said. “I won’t have to do it much longer, though. Did I tell you I’ve been called back at the plant?”

  “No . . . no you didn’t,” Stanley said.

  “Yeah, right after new year’s,” Tom said. “Me and my girl are taking a trip to San Diego to celebrate.”

  “So, you’ll be quitting here soon?” Stanley asked.

  Tom nodded. “This is my last night, and it’s bound to be a long one.”

  Stanley puffed his cigarette silently, trying to absorb this latest terrible news. The smoke had lost all flavor. Tom snatched the cigarette away from him just as the nurse rounded the corner with her medicine cart.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Mr. McKinney,” the nurse scolded.

  “Been here all along.” Stanley tried to sound hearty, failed miserably.

  “That’s right,” Tom said. “I’ve been keeping watch.”

  “Really?” She eyed the cigarettes in Tom’s hands with obvious disapproval. She handed Stanley a little paper cup.

  “All right, Mr. McKinney, please take your pill now. Then it’s bed time.”

  Stanley quaffed the tranquilizer, carefully lodging it in a back corner of his mouth. Then he swallowed the cup of water the nurse gave him.

  “There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” the nurse said.

  Stanley got up to leave,

  “See you later, Tom,” he said.

  “Take it easy, Stan.”

  As he walked along, Stanley coughed into his hand and blew the pill out. He then slipped it into his robe pocket. A bit of pleasure washed over him at this tiny victory.

  Back in his room, he searched the night stand drawer for his extra cigar; felt degraded when he couldn’t find it. No doubt it had been confiscated. Cursing quietly, but with great passion, he climbed into bed. The cigars had been a gift from Red.

  Across the room, Senator was sleeping with his toothless mouth agape. Stanley wondered what the man had been like years ago when he was a state legislator. He must have been an interesting guy before he’d become the human wreckage he was now, like they all were in this awful place.

  Although tired out from the night’s exertions, Stanley could not sleep for some time. He lay awake listening to the night sounds of the rest home, feeling the dead weight of the place press down upon him like a tomb lid; his nose wrinkled at the stink that never went away. Finally he drifted off. The standard dream began playing once more:

  He was a young man again, skiing on a gently sloping wooded hillside. He zoomed along, dodging the trees. The snow fell so heavily that it made an almost solid sheet in front of him. Big, ragged flakes stung his face; the air had an almost unbearably clean scent.

  It was night time, but the snow radiated a wonderful brightness. His muscular arms dug in the poles, pushing him on to greater speed. A warm presence radiated out in the trees, unseen through the dense snowfall.

  Then . . . a whirring sound filled the air, getting louder.

  Stanley awoke back into the dreary reality of his room.

  He glanced at the night stand clock. A red 11:18 p.m. glared back at him, casting an eerie glow over his pillow. He stroked his forehead, saddened by his abrupt removal from the dream. His eyes drifted over to the window with its half opened drapes.

  Snow!

  He got out of bed and moved to the window with more alacrity than he’d had in years. Huge snowflakes were coming down in a furious deluge. A couple of inches had already accumulated.

  So, that damned weather man was wrong after all!

  Stanley shaded his eyes against the brightness and peered out into the storm. Somebody was out there. She was out there!

  He grabbed his robe and rushed to the door. Trembling with excitement, he poked his head outside the room and cased the hallway. The nurses’ station at the far end was empty. Closer by, Tom was operating a buffing machine, his eyes fixed to the floor. The machine’s low whir resounded softly off the walls.

  Stanley crept across the hall to the exit door and pushed his slight weight against the handle. It didn’t budge. He tried again, throwing himself into the task. The door banged ajar.

  Tom jerked his head up. Surprise shot across his face, then a frown. He opened his mouth to speak, but Stanley silenced him with a fierce stare. The buffing machine ran on, polishing the same spot of floor.

  “Let me go, son,” Stanley said.

  His words were covered by the machine noise, but he knew that Tom understood. Stanley raised his hand and waved gravely. Tom lifted one hand from the machine and waved back.

  Stanley forced the door fully open and the alarm sounded. No matter, he was free! He passed over the patio and out onto the wooded grounds. Leni waited for him there, young and lovely, her laughter sparkling amidst the snow flakes. He moved faster toward her, his arms swinging invisible ski poles. The flying snow forced his eyes into a squint.

  He had the proper rhythm now. He was far out into the grounds. When he looked over his shoulder, the rest home prison was no longer visible.

  Adios all!

  Unable to continue any farther, he sank to the ground and onto his back. He looked straight into the sky at the snow flakes coming for him. They gathered on his face with enticing coolness. He rose to join them. Nothing would ever hold him down again.

  Haunt
ed Woods Excursion

  Stu Parish couldn’t see properly through the rubber skull mask. No matter what adjustments he made, blind spots still remained. He felt rather foolish in the mask and black robe, standing amid the drizzle in front of the nature center. He sneezed ferociously.

  Ugh! What am I doing out here?

  He took off the mask and wiped out the inside. The air felt even chillier on skin that had been sweltering under the rubber.

  “Sounds bad.” A man in a ghoul costume said. “You should’ve stayed home.”

  “That’s what I’m beginning to think,” Stu replied.

  If another lodge member hadn’t begged off at the last minute, Stu would have been home nursing his cold. Instead, he’d been coaxed into working the second annual Haunted Woods Excursion – the lodge’s Halloween Eve fund raiser for youth athletics.

  Stu had been a prime mover in the first tour, but this year he’d been largely inactive in Lodge affairs. He ran his own real estate office now and just didn’t’ have the time he used to. And there were the health issues, as well – the angina, the admonitions from his doctor to “slow down,” his occasional shortness of breath.

  Jim Burton, the lodge president, walked up. He wore a mad scientist costume, complete with bloodstains on his lab coat.

  “Good to see you, Stu.” He shook hands. “I really appreciate your coming out on such short notice.”

  “Just remember this when you’re ready to sell your house,” Stu said.

  “You’ve on!” Burton grinned broadly.

  Stu forgot his misery for a moment and basked in the president’s good will. Jim certainly was an adept politician. No wonder he’d been able to oust the former president in the last election.

  Burton unfolded a map and handed it to Stu.

  “I’ve marked out the whole route for you.”

  Stu examined the map in the dim light. “Sure hope we don’t get lost.”

  “Not much chance of that,” Jim said. “You’ll be sticking to the main nature trails. Besides, weren’t you a guide last year?”

  “Yeah, but that was at the little county park, this place is huge.”

  Stu gestured to the darkened woods around the nature center.

  “It’s not that big,” Jim said. “Besides, even if you did make a wrong turn, you’d still end up back here.”

  “Sometime next month,” the ghoul added reassuringly.

  A group of people was coming toward them from the parking lot. Some boys ran on before them.

  “Hey, bonehead,” one of them called out to Stu. “Is that a mask, or are you really that ugly?”

  Stu ignored the brat and walked into the nature center.

  After glancing about the displays for a few minutes, he entered the little auditorium where Hank Duda was orienting a group for their trek in the woods. Hank was showing slides of witches, werewolves, and other abominations and giving brief histories of each. The audience seemed to enjoy the show, laughing at Hank’s jokes and outrageous puns.

  The lights came back on.

  “And now you’ll have a chance to meet some of these creatures in person,” Hank said. “Good luck! I think you’ll need it.”

  The group exited through a side door.

  Burton approached Stu.

  “That’s your bunch,” he said. “If you’re still concerned about the route, I’ll have Hank tag along part way.”

  “Only part way?”

  “Yeah, I’ll need him back here,” Burton said.

  “Okay, thanks,” Stu said.

  Stu’s party was waiting for him outside. There were fifteen people in all; family groups, with one young couple by themselves. Many carried flashlights. Stu noticed with dismay that the kid he’d encountered earlier was among them.

  “Why don’t we get going?” the boy demanded loudly.

  Stu looked to the boy’s parents, hoping to see them assert some discipline. They didn't seem to care, though.

  Hank came out from the building and took up an unobtrusive position in back.

  Well, let’s get this over with, Stu thought sourly.

  He flicked on his big metal flashlight and led the way onto the nature trail. He was in no mood for banter. His clammy mask increased the discomfort of his cold, and his eyes watered. Having that obnoxious brat along – Dougie the parents called him – was an added irritant.

  Stu walked along glumly, not even noticing the phony coffin lying alongside the trail. He’d already passed it when the vampire leapt out.

  “Blaaa!” the vampire howled. “Where’re you going? I vant to talk to you.”

  Several people jumped back. Then, feeling rather foolish, they crowded up in a semi-circle.

  “I see you have nice red faces.” The vampire said in a fake Hungarian accent.

  He advanced, baring plastic fangs.

  “Why don’t you come closer, my friends? I’m not such a bad guy.”

  Most of the people stepped back. Except for Dougie.

  “You don’t scare me,” he said.

  As if intimidated by the defiance, the vampire crept slowly backward.

  “I’m going home now,” he said. “I need a ‘coffin break.’ Then I’ll turn into a bat.”

  He moved behind the box and crouched down out of sight. A moment later, a little baseball bat was tossed over. The crowd groaned.

  “Whew, that stunk!” Dougie commented.

  The boy’s father seemed impressed with such wit. Chuckling indulgently, he placed a hand on Dougie’s shoulder. The man was big and blubbery, like an old football player gone to seed.

  Stu resumed the journey. He heard people moving in the woods alongside the path. They flicked on red lanterns and swung them wildly.

  Woooo! the lantern bearers howled, startling everyone and bringing delighted screams from the children.

  Stu judged that two other groups were on the trail, one ahead and the other behind them. Laughter, howls, and screams filled the air. The clouds had vanished revealing a clear sky with a sliver of moonlight. Magnificent oaks towered above them, rustling in the breeze.

  They arrived at a pond. Stu played his light along the surface until it picked out a figure standing waist deep in the water.

  “Hey, get that light off me!” the water demon bellowed.

  He waded toward shore, jabbing angrily with his trident.

  “Some guy in a rubber suit,” Dougie remarked derisively.

  The outfit was pretty fake, as were those of the other ‘monsters’ they encountered. The routines were fun, though, and very entertaining to the children. Stu was impressed with the job his lodge brothers were doing. Despite himself, he started getting into the spirit of things.