Halloween Chillers: A Box Set of Three Books of Horror & Suspense

by Douglas Clegg

  I went over to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of gin. Uncapped it, took a good swig.

  Then another.

  I started crying.

  Poor little me! I thought. Poor little Nora Chance! Poor little girl whose mother didn’t love her, whose men abandoned her, and now this old lady went and died and took away Nora’s only shot at living the high life! Poor, poor girl!

  I wandered that house in a daze aided by booze and then I see this door that looks like the door to heaven or something. The place was spinning around from all my drinking. I see this door with an arch, and it’s all dark wood.

  Around its edges are these cute little carved angels, and in the middle of the door is this inlaid picture of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God. I look at her a long time.

  I say to Mary, “Look you may be the mother of baby Jesus, but you got no right to take away the old lady from me. She was my bread and butter.”

  I raise the last of the gin up and just splash it across the picture of Mary.

  Then I’m feeling repentant, drunk and sorrowful. I just blasphemed the Virgin, I know my life is a damp hell, and I need to get down on my knees and beg Jesus’ forgiveness right then and there. Words from my childhood come up, words of preachers, words of my mama, the words I saw written above the little chapel door:

  BLESS THE FRUIT OF HER WOMB

  And I’m thinkin’, now what the hell does that have to do with anything? The fruit of her womb? What fruit? She’s made out of stone, this particular Virgin. I open that little door, and walk into this room. Only it’s a little chapel with pews and banners and little stained glass windows and I walked down and then drop to my knees.

  The chapel gets cold, real cold. I’m weeping and asking Jesus forgiveness, and then I hear something moving behind me.

  The door closes, and the room gets real dark. Some kind of smoke comes at me—it’s incense, it stinks, and I start coughing. When it clears, a yellow mist seems to come off the altar, and I go up. I know I’m drunk, so I know this is half me and half a miracle because I know now Jesus is there with me. I know how wrong I’ve been. I see the error of my ways. I’m begging Jesus! Beggin’ him! “Help Nora Alice Chance!”

  My voice echoes in the room. I’m raising my hands. The bottle goes crashing to the floor.

  And I see something behind the altar as I crawl up to it. The altar’s no ordinary one, either. It’s stone slab on stone slab. And as I crawl up to it, penitent sinner that I am, I see metal behind it, some kind of metal box. A big one, one almost as big and long as the altar itself.

  I pull myself up and I see the mist coming off the top of this box. It’s made of copper or something. Looks real old, all hammered out, and it has this...this figure sort of dented out around the top...this thing sort of sleeping in the picture, as if dead, and I think it looks like one of those Egyptian mummy cases, you know, and I’m wonderin’ what in hell these Crown people are into.

  This gets my curiosity going, and I look at it for a minute thinking it’s strange.

  And then, I hear someone weeping from within the box. Or maybe it’s just a child outside the chapel. Or maybe it’s some animal in it.

  And then, I see its hand reach out from the small square window on the copper box. Bars like a prison there.

  The hand.

  * * *

  2

  * * *

  Nora took a long breath, pausing in her story. Then, she continued.

  * * *

  3

  * * *

  I don’t remember what I thought then, whether I wondered if this were a child playing a game or if this were someone trapped there—

  But it didn’t matter. The chapel door opened and light flooded the place.

  I turned around, and there, standing in the doorway, was the man.

  “What the hell are you doing in here? I told you never to go wandering,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Look,” he said, as he swiftly walked towards the alter. “You come into my house and I clothe and feed you and ask so little of you and now you betray me.”

  He walked right up to me, grabbing me by the back of the neck with one hand, and slapping me hard across the face with the other.

  Then, he looked from me to the box.

  “You see it?” he asked. “It’s what you came in here for isn’t it? You want to see what has been forbidden from mankind for centuries to get near, don’t you? You want to gaze upon it, you drunken whore.”

  I pulled away from him, but he grabbed me around the waist. I was too drunk, I felt weak. I started screaming and kicking out, but he lifted me up and then threw me down in front of the box.

  “You want to see it! You want to!” he’s shouting. “Then look! Gaze upon its radiance!”

  He opened the door to the cage, and for ten seconds I saw what seemed to be the burst of a thousand suns. Dazzling yellow and green light and within it something else.

  A being.

  A creature.

  Something that you only read about but never see.

  And then, the colors melted, the light dimmed, and a pain shot through my eyes as if someone took their thumbs and pressed them deep.

  I was thrown back, and the wind got knocked out of me.

  When I came to, the light still seemed dim, and I had a pain in my eyes. I was lying in bed in my room, and two of the servants were holding my arms and feet down.

  The man leaned over me, his eyes wide and blank as if he were not looking at a human being but a thing.

  In his hand, a small blade that was bright orange with heat.

  “She’s coming to,” he said. “Quickly.”

  Someone pushed their hands down on my forehead and the flat side of the red hot blade came down to my left eye. As I screamed, I realized that rags had been stuffed in my mouth. I felt as if I were choking.

  Then he raised the blade and brought it to my right eye, too.

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  “I wandered for days in these woods, until my mother found me. I had been sleeping in the mud, eating grass and weeds, talking to myself. If someone had shot me then, it would have been a kindness. But my mama was a good woman. She took me in, and she and my sister never spoke of what happened, and neither did I. I learned to make candles and bring in peoples’ wash, the old way. My mother and some of her friends built this shack for me so that I’d never again have to go into that village. She told me the old stories, and she gave me the corn doll for protection,” Nora said. “She warned me about the village, but I still went back sometimes, Stony. I still wanted to know what that was, that light—as if by some miracle the old man could bring my eyes back to me.”

  Stony remained silent. “Who was he?”

  “It was Mr. Walter Crown. He got killed doing some business deal in the Far East, years ago. But his son, who is now Mr. Crown, was eighteen by then and took over the duties of the family. Before they were Crowns, they were Crowninshields. And it’s they who own this two hundred acres of land called Stonehaven. The lady I sat with, her name was Miranda, and she was Walter’s older sister, not his wife. I don’t know what became of her that day, whether she died or whether—as I suspect—she was destroyed by that demon in that cage.”

  “It couldn’t be a demon. Nora, come on,” Stony said, almost playfully. “Come on. Demons? Monsters? That’s for movies and junk.”

  Her face seemed to shine, as if there were ashes and fire beneath her skin. “I saw its hand, Stony. It was almost a human hand, but it had this...this...smoke coming off it. And when I beheld it...”

  Then he said, “Why are you making all this up?”

  Nora pushed herself up from the ground, using one of the large stones to help balance herself. “Truth and lies get mixed up with people, Stony. You know that. But I have been preparing you your whole life for who you are and what you are part of. You are a Crown. You are the son of Johnny Miracle and a Crown. And the Crown
s are of the Devil. It’s a blessing that they gave you up to your mama and daddy rather than let you be raised by those Devil worshippers.”

  Stony squinted at her as if trying to understand. “This is ridiculous. This is totally ridiculous. If this happened...if this really happened...” He shook his head violently. “Not that I believe it, it’s totally nuts, but if this did happen, why would they give me up?”

  Nora reached over and held his hands still in hers. Her face, lined and dark, was nearly calm. He knew she was not a liar. She had never been one to lie outright. She was a storyteller, but had always separated her spins from the truth of things. He wanted her to be lying to him. He wanted it badly.

  “When you were born, Mrs. Crown could not give you life. She could not take care of you. They needed a mother, and they needed a mother who would keep this secret. And I suspect that your mother never told you that she worked as a nurse in the Crown house the year you were born.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Stony asked, feeling numb.

  “Because you are going to be a father soon, and a man. There are things you must know,” Nora said, her voice gentle. She reached up to the sky, her hand balled into a fist. “I vowed to God I would tell you everything when you came of age. I vowed I would not let them do to you what they intend,” her voice grew in strength, and a cold wind blew down through the trees, bringing with it damp brown leaves. She turned her face upward, sweat shining on her dark skin. “I am not going to let this lie live any longer. It has eaten at my soul as surely as if a wolf had crawled into my bed. I will not let them have the little boy who I came to love as my own son!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE VILLAGE, AT THE END OF OCTOBER

  * * *

  1

  * * *

  So many things happened that morning in Stonehaven Borough, so many threads that invisibly emanated from Stony Crawford, that to know everything, one would have to spread like fire from house to house, to see the Indian corn on Alice Everest’s front door, which she had just finished nailing up, and the fat little jack-o’-lantern she’d put out, hoping that the teens in town didn’t throw it into the street for just one Halloween night—

  Yes, Halloween, Johnny Miracle laughed within himself, hanging onto a tree branch. All Hallow’s Eve! It’s glorious, it’s glorious and it’s coming in the wind, all has been foretold, all that has been now will be—

  From his mouth, words that were mangled, spreading like the red leaves of the nearby birch across the drying grass of the Common. He struck match after match as if trying to set the air around him on fire.

  * * *

  2

  * * *

  Down at the General Store, Martha Wight had the cheap plastic masks and flimsy costumes of fairies and goblins and superheroes from half a dozen comic books, all hanging from a wire above the dry goods. Few children came in to buy them anymore, and even fewer would be trick-or-treating. Times had changed, and even though some of the adults would have Halloween parties in the houses on High Street, the children more often than not were warned of candy corn gone bad, or chocolate bars stuck with heroin needles, of apples poisoned and studded with razor blades by wicked witches right out of Disney’s Snow White. But the old ways of Halloween still showed through the cracks in Stonehaven. The multicolored corn strung across doorways like mistletoe, the pumpkins and stacked sheaves of straw leaning against the sides of the clapboard houses, the pumpkin-head scarecrow that the Doane sisters set out on their porch swing, all of it bespoke a remembrance of the harvest. The sons and daughters of Stonehaven had harvested the sea for centuries, from the now near-extinct whales off the islands, to the lobsters, crabs, clams, mussels, herring and cod that they were still supplying to restaurants along the coastline.

  Harvest and bounty were two words that were strong in the soul of New England, and Stonehaven for all its isolation was no exception. The sea and the earth had provided all that the town really needed for centuries. All outside influence was superfluous at best; at worst, a curse. The forests of the area had provided the material for boats and housing, the granite quarries to the south had laid the foundations and sidewalks, the bounty of sea and woods and field had fed the original founders of the village, and although now tourists in the summer tossed coins in the local coffers, you’d never see this acknowledged.

  Tamara Curry was the only resident who did not love the signs of Halloween as it approached. She felt it was far too pagan, too far removed from Jesus and the Bible. She told this often to Fiona McAllister at the library when she went to get her romance novels from the paperback section. “It all comes from witchcraft,” Tamara said, pointing across the desk to the poster of a big orange moon with a witch flying across it. The text of the poster read, “Halloween Is For Scary Reading,” which Fiona tried to point out to her, but Tamara would have none of it.

  “It’s worshipping the Devil, bottom line,” Tamara said. “And I only wish we were living a couple hundred years back. They knew what to do with devil worshippers back then.”

  “You know,” Fiona said. “It used to be assumed that a woman with a lot of cats was a servant of Satan.”

  “My cats are all Christian cats, you know that better than most, Fee,” Tamara huffed. “All of them been baptized good with the sign of the cross and no one can say otherwise, and blessed. You know how they’re blessed.” She grabbed her books and stomped out of the library.

  Walking down the granite steps, and then across the Common, she saw what seemed to her to be one of the signs of the Devil in Stonehaven itself.

  Johnny Miracle, sitting up in the great old oak tree.

  “That tree has been there for hundreds of years, Johnny, you just quit polluting it.” She raised her fist at him. She was in a bad mood now, what with Fiona’s smart mouth making a blasphemous joke about her cats. “You—you—Spawn of the Devil!” she spat.

  Johnny Miracle smiled, as he usually did when someone yelled at him, and waved from his perch among the thick autumn-gold tresses of the oak.

  * * *

  3

  * * *

  Stony heard Nora calling to him, but it was too late.

  He had to run, he had to run and get the hell away from her. Something was wrong with her, maybe living in the woods had gotten to her finally, maybe it had been there all along—her insanity—but the stories she was now telling could not be true, they had to be the imaginings of a crazy old woman who he had got too close to—

  He ran across the mud and damp leaves, nearly slipping at points, wondering why the hell Lourdes hadn’t shown up—if she had, he would never have heard Nora’s ravings—

  Nora whom he had TRUSTED! Nora who told him these crazy stupid things that could never be real! Nora who believes in demons and devils and old Indian curses and old slave ghost stories and was not logical—and had no electricity, for Christ’s sake, she didn’t even own a phone or a TV, how could she possibly know ANYTHING about ANYONE!

  When he got to his house, he flung his bike across the yard, and ran up the steps. Throwing open the door, he shouted, “MOM! Where the hell are you?”

  He took the stairs two at a time, and when he came to the landing, his mother stood there in the doorway. She wore her bathrobe, and her hair was greasy and hung in strands around her face.

  “Stony? Something up?” she asked, almost suspiciously.

  He pulled the roll of bills from his pocket. Taking off the rubber band, he threw the hundreds down at her feet. “Where the hell did you get this money?”

  She was silent. She looked from him to the floor. Her lips trembled. “What you been getting into?”

  “I want to know where the hell you got all this money. Two thousand dollars. In a box under your bed. I saw it when I was four, and it’s been sitting there ever since. You can’t pay your bills on time, but you have two thousand dollars cash sitting in a box under your bed.”

  “Your father put you up to this?” she asked, her voice a whispe
r.

  “No one put me up to this and I don’t give a damn what you think, you just tell me about this money. And tell me about when you worked at the Crown place. When you worked as a nurse there.”

  “Who told you that?” she asked. “What liar told you that filth?”

  “Just you tell me. Never mind anything else.”

  “Don’t you come into my house acting like some nasty little man,” she spat. “You don’t know nothing about what my life is. And you going through my things and taking money. Money I been saving for you and Van all these years.”

  “For me and Van? Is this how much it cost to keep you quiet? Is this how much it cost for you to raise me up? I know who my father is, Mom. I know I’m not your son! I know that’s why Dad always fought with you, because he knew. And you knew, too. You knew and they paid you off and now you’re gonna tell me just what it is that’s so damn secret that no one in this town is gonna give me a straight answer on!”

  “You just shut up you bastard,” his mother said, her voice different in tone than he’d ever heard. She pointed to the money. “That is blood money, and you are lucky that your head wasn’t smashed against a rock the minute you were born. I’ll tell you who you are, you bastard. I’ll tell you how you changed this family when you were born. How my husband would never touch me again. How I’ve had to pretend I care about you when you didn’t even smell like a baby, you smelled like nothing when you were a baby, you wouldn’t even cry. You just stared at me like you knew everything, and I had to put your mouth to my breasts and it would turn my stomach when you suckled. It would make me want to vomit.” Her mouth was a snarl. “My son had to DIE and you have to LIVE and I had to take care of you because of this money that I can’t even touch because I know what I did. I know what I was part of!”