Chapter 34
Ruth the Rag Doll scanned along the parade as it advanced.
Her gaze settled on a wide float with several lithe dancers cavorting around a spiderweb-covered sign that read, the dance macabre featuring the ember hollow drama academy modern dance troupe. The platform was pulled by a 1971 Hemicuda, covered front to rear in plush brown fur and trailing oversized pennants reading wolf wagon! The hirsute-faced driver and a model in a fur bathing suit howled and waved, receiving imitative calls of response.
Ruth ran alongside the float and hopped on, helped up by the well-muscled dancers, even while they gave her quizzical looks.
Ruth did her best to imitate the moves of her stagemates, while tossing handfuls of candy in all directions. She jumped off the other side and disappeared into the onlookers, having such fun.
* * * *
The room opposite the office was where special-needs children spent Sunday school time. Abutting the sanctuary, it had no windows. There was no need for a phone.
It was a blackened trap, and Stella was its captive. The light switch didn’t work, and the door would not open.
Whatever the ghost (what else could it be called at this point?) had in mind for her—perhaps just the tormenting terror of being alone in the dark—it seemed preoccupied with playing the fast tempo yet oppressive series of notes it had begun when she ran from the sanctuary. The notes repeated, and Stella realized she was being tortured.
She reached into her purse, feeling for some memento as a charm or talisman. She found a canister of mace and raised it in both hands, recalling how secure it had made her feel when she walked in darkened parking garages and the like. Against a ghost, or whatever this thing was? Maybe it would hold whatever power she believed it did.
Stella tried to remember what she had learned from the book about communicating with the dead. Now she wished she had memorized the damned thing, or at least kept it in her purse. She recalled that the book confirmed something she had heard often on television and even from Ruth: that Halloween was the night when whatever veil existed between the worlds of the living and dead thinned to nothing, allowing spirits to enter our world at the height of whatever power they possessed.
If this spirit needed to accomplish something on Earth and Ruth’s ritual had somehow muzzled it, it would not be happy.
Then there was the dream, and the wooden cross.
The entity needed it removed to escape. And he used Stella to do it.
The repetitious tune became more frenzied, building to some crescendo.
As it grew faster, Stella recognized “Rumble in Frankenstein’s Castle,” by The Chalk Outlines.
* * * *
Candace blinked tears and dirt from her eyes as she peered around the rear of the truck, still fighting like mad to hold on with one hand and steer the bike with the other.
The lights of the town center glowed just beyond the tunnel of molting trees.
Candace did not spot the pothole that jounced the truck and then met her tire with shocking force, tearing her away from the bumper. The bike careened, both tires blown flat. She veered hard to regain some kind of control, but it was too late. She crashed into a patch of rocky earth at the edge of a pumpkin field.
Candace rolled and bounced and rolled some more, until the momentum spent itself. She lay still. When her breathing settled, she sat up. Her knees were scraped and flecked with dirt, her hands raw.
She lay still again and cried, becoming acquainted, then intimate with a physical pain that matched her lifelong despair.
But still, she had to stop Everett.
She got up and limped toward the tree tunnel.
Chapter 35
McGlazer was having fun with his Summerisle shtick, joined in the truck’s open rear compartment by four church volunteers sporting campy paganesque getups. The ghouls behind in the Cemetery Terrorium were all performing better than rehearsed. The parade passed the fans behind the barricade, true punkers who sported devilocks, skull-painted faces, spiked bracelets, T-shirts with logos reading The Crimson Ghosts, The Other, Spookshow, Black Flag, The Coffin Shakers, and, of course, The Chalk Outlines.
A wall of artificial fog billowed from the theater lobby doors, reducing the vista to a gray blanket in all directions. Excited yelps punctuated this foreshadowing. Then a wall of sound rose and grew ever louder, Dennis/Kenny Killmore, holding a prolonged note.
The note ended, as light beams pierced the fog.
Up on the marquee, Pedro burst through the haze, stopping at the edge as he hit a single crushing note that drew screams of delight from young females, aggressive whoops from their men. Pedro released the note and pumped his devil horned fist into the sky.
Dennis’s sensuous voice targeted eager ears like a heat-seeking missile. “One. Two. Three…”
Jill’s drumbeats punched the air, a lively rockabilly beat soon to be joined by the return of Pedro’s pulsing bass.
The fog cleared, thanks to powerful industrial fans at the corners, giving spectators the full visual force of the performance.
Dennis’s rapid-fire three-note riff filled the gaps, followed by breathless vocals.
* * * *
On the platform, DeShaun ran to the edge and cavorted in his kung fu master getup, making snake- and mantis-like movements, while Stuart walked to the other end. By contrast, he only waved, tossing T-shirts and guitar picks but—just not into it.
Hudson came to the barricade across from the stage, joining Monahan and Yoshida in keeping overzealous rockers from getting too close.
* * * *
Enrique, his zombie costume decaying to reveal his vitality, scrambled out of the long alley between Felcher Fabrics and The Bestaurant, trying to catch his breath.
Turning the corner he barreled into the rear of parade watchers, shouting, “Hey! Asesino! Psicópata! Please! Ah…ayuda!”
Of course, they ignored him. He grabbed the nearest sturdy man by the jacket. “You must hear now! Mató a Guillermo!”
“Okay, we get it!” replied the man. “Scary shit!” The man pushed Enrique down.
Through the legs of the parade-goers, the fear-addled immigrant spotted a deputy, Sergeant Shavers, standing in front of a store window, chatting up a blond in a bar-wench dress.
He fought through the crowd, unaware that Everett was stepping out of the same alley, wearing Guillermo’s Satanás mask, the red cape pulled on over his Dracula cape.
Everett caught his reflection in the store window and waved at himself. Mirrors had been rare in his world.
Then he turned to examine the backs of countless heads that waited to meet his hammer.
Everett caught a glimpse of what they were watching and became bewitched.
* * * *
Pedro mugged at the audience as he beat the hell out of his bass. Dennis held sway with Jagger swagger and Madsen’s goblin Gibson.
DeShaun crouched, vaulted and kicked like the Silver Fox himself, Whang Jang Lee, while Stuart tossed swag between long scans of the road beyond the parade’s tail.
He spotted a familiar figure beyond the rear of the crowd. Candace.
She was dragging herself toward the parade. And she looked like hell.
Stuart shoved his armful of giveaways at DeShaun and ran to the marquee doorway. DeShaun spotted Candace too and mouthed her name at Dennis. He gestured for DeShaun to go.
Chapter 36
Stuart burst from the theater and jumped the barricade, bolting past the deputies shouting at him and alongside the crawling floats, unstoppable. Yards behind the last wagon Candace staggered, her eyes showing as much alarm as her body did fatigue.
With the passing of the parade’s last float, people condensed toward the marquee and the Outlines, leaving an empty street.
Stuart covered this span with all he had, running till he reached Candace. He took her arm,
checking her scraped knees and hands as he walked with her to a bench well away from the parade route, and draped his suit jacket over her shoulders.
“What happened?”
Candace buried her face in his shoulder and cried. Stuart waited till she raised her head. “They’re all dead.”
“Dead? Who?”
“Mama. Daddy. The neighbors. The whole street…” She surveyed the crowd with wild eyes. “Soon…everyone.”
Stuart rechecked her to see how badly she was hurt, wondering what the symptoms of shock were.
DeShaun arrived with a bottle of water. “Everybody okay?”
“Not by a long shot.” Stuart had taken on Candace’s panic. “I think you better go get your dad.”
* * * *
“Alejar a!” Enrique forced his way through the crowd and was jostled back for his rudeness. “Move away! I must talk to policia!”
He raced across the street, shoving through a swath of medal-covered war veterans, all dressed as hobos for the parade.
Shavers spotted Enrique. Assuming his erratic behavior was due to tequila or two, and eager to impress the bar wench, he puffed up his chest. “Hey!” He grabbed Enrique and dragged him away from the marchers. “What’s wrong with you, son?”
“Un loco mató, eh, cutted a Guillermo!” Enrique couldn’t bring himself to mimic a stabbing or slashing motion.
“What?”
“He, he corto el cuello!” Enrique shouted. “Cutted him!”
“Boy, I do not have time for this!” Shavers pulled Enrique toward him by the collar—but found the “prankster” yanking back. The terror on his face made Shavers go cold.
“Es insane, this mother!” screamed Enrique.
“Watch your language!” The sergeant struggled with Enrique’s grip, stunned when the skinny Hispanic grabbed his radio and screamed into it. “Guns! Get all God damned armas! One for both hand, mother!”
Shavers wrested the radio away.
The barmaid watched this unfold, sucking the strange, delicious candy she’d been given by the rag doll. She saw a tiny black tentacle emerge from Enrique’s neck, which the deputy somehow could not see.
Shavers shouted, “You want to go to jail, boy?” Enrique jostled Shavers like a madman. “Si! Take me in jail! Lock me up!”
Shavers keyed his radio. “Hey, Hudson, you there?”
But Hudson, watching the moshing, roiling crowd, could not hear his radio over the music and crowd noise.
* * * *
Kerwin wheeled into the overflow lot, stopping to speak to the reflective-vested attendant. She sat stiffly in her chair, a crinkled paper beauty queen mask on her face.
“Hey there!”
Next to him, Cordelia leaned into Kerwin’s space to take in the sight. “My word! You people really do get knee deep in this Halloween business, hm?”
“Uh, yeah,” Kerwin responded, annoyed with the attendant’s lack of response. “Any good spaces?” he asked.
No answer.
Cordelia’s face showed a bored kind of delight. Kerwin sensed that something was wrong but was too afraid of blowing the big deal to delve any deeper. “Well, sleep tight then!”
He smiled at Cordelia for the one thousandth time, as he drove into the field.
* * * *
Candace worked to control her breathing as Stuart brushed dirt from her clothes and hair. “What about your brother?”
“Everett.” The hard wisdom in Candace’s eyes was too much like that of someone very old. “He killed them. He killed them all, Stuart,” she said with a grim conviction that raised his goose flesh. “And he’s not going to stop. He’s never going to stop.”
Tears filled her eyes. “He’s here, Stuart. I know he’s come.”
Stuart took her hand and stood, feeling very vulnerable. “We have to tell my brother. We have to warn everybody.”
Chapter 37
DeShaun shoved his way through the costumed throngs toward his father, his apologies doing nothing to prevent angry curses, threats, even shoves.
Making it worse was a strange feeling coming off the collected mass, like a fast-approaching storm. He had to ignore this and remain focused on maintaining a course to his father.
Erratic movement ahead of him. Someone stumbled, and the people around, perhaps unnerved by the odd behavior, were quick to clear a circle. DeShaun realized he could not prevent a collision with the thrashing woman, and he feared that if he fell he might not be able to get back up for several precious seconds.
He raised his arms in time to keep from being head-butted. As the woman, dressed as Slave Leia from The Empire Strikes Back, turned, DeShaun saw that is was Mrs. Nettles, his teacher from sixth grade. “Sorry, Mrs. Nettles.”
She stared not at him but through him, her eyes full of terror. What she saw was DeShaun’s false white beard and eyebrows dissolving into thick billowing smoke that formed amorphous devious faces.
She screamed in his face, flailing and falling backward into others, creating a domino effect.
“Jeez!” DeShaun tried to help her up, but she became more and more entangled with others. He realized something was very, very wrong with not only Mrs. Nettles but a growing number of parade-goers. Giving up on helping her. he worked his way toward his father.
* * * *
Rag Doll Ruth paced the sidewalk beside the spectators, praying that her scheme would work. It wasn’t long before her prayers were answered.
She spotted a preteen boy lying in a fetal position on the sidewalk scratching at his cheeks, to the dismay of his alarmed parents. Not far from this, an old man in a wheelchair gaped at his hands, violently shook them, and then shook them harder, terror blooming in his weathered features.
“Thy will be done, Lord,” she prayed. “Make them beg for thy mercy. And turn thy glorious face away from them!”
* * * *
“Dee-scrip-chee-own! Can you describe him?” Shavers, unnerved by the strength of the thin man, made a series of senseless gestures, but they weren’t needed.
“He wears calabaza!” Shavers stood immobilized. “A big-ass jack-o’-lantern!” Enrique insisted.
Enrique dragged Sergeant Shavers toward the parking lot where he had watched his beloved partner die. With growing dread, Shavers shouted once more into his radio. “Hudson Lott! Please respond! Chief Deputy Hudson Lott!”
Just a few yards away Everett cried tears of joy as the majesty of the Halloween parade unfolded before him.
The float for Home Sweet Home Appliances passed in front of him, its washer and dryer mock-ups bursting open every few seconds to reveal a zombified fifties housewife blasting a humanoid sock monster with a Super Soaker. A child sitting on the float in a witch mask waved at him and tossed a detergent sample in his direction.
He dropped his hammer and clasped his hands together. “We all trick! We all treat!” His face had an expression of pure, childlike joy.
* * * *
Outlines crowd favorite “Freakshow Radio” filled the air, enthralling old fans and making enthusiastic new ones. Few could resist moving their hips, head, or hands to the energetic punk-rockabilly sound.
DeShaun had long since tossed away the beard and now worked his way along the edge of the barricade, shouting, “Emergency!” every few feet to prevent irritated shoving. He spotted his father standing with his back to the crowd, almost in reach, if he could just…
A man in a motorcycle jacket and corpse paint flailed in the street, screaming and swatting at invisible things. He ran toward the parade display before him, sponsored by Frenkel’s Exterminator Service, where a cute eight-year-old girl with a water-filled canister spritzed bug-costumed actors as they chewed on huge furniture props.
The “bugs,” seeing the crazed biker, ceased their mock death throes and converged to protect their little executioner.<
br />
Hudson went into action, tackling the man to the ground. DeShaun’s reaching hand missed by a second. The crowd swelled against DeShaun, mashing him into the barricade, where panic and pain double-teamed him.
“Dad!” DeShaun called, but the clamor was too much.
The song ended, prompting an eruption of cheers and clapping. Then Stuart’s hands closed around DeShaun’s arm, dragging him out of the crushing ruckus. “Come on!”
Together they battled back the crowd and squeezed into the street.
The Outlines played on. Now that it was darker, the high-wattage lights blasting their eyes prevented them from seeing the disturbance on the street below.
Hudson was trying to restrain the biker-jacketed man, turning his arm behind his back and pinning him facedown, when he heard DeShaun call to him, saw him running closer. “DeShaun! Get your ass back over the barricade! This is dangerous, son!”
In this pocket of relative silence, he heard the radio squawk. “Hudson! Answer, God damn it.”
With his free hand, Hudson keyed his radio. “I’m here!” He waved DeShaun and Stuart away, as the man on the ground cried, “The invasion has begun!”
“There’s some kinda killer running around here,” Shavers said. “I’ve got a body and a witness!”
“Shit!” Hudson exclaimed.
Stuart turned to DeShaun. “It’s Candace’s brother! He’s psycho!”
Turning to check on Candace, Stuart saw her pressing herself against a shop wall far behind the barricade and the unpredictable crowd.
Mrs. Nettles had plummeted into full-blown, stark-raving paranoia, running and swinging around in a frenzy, knocking people down. In the melee, a large man in an orange prisoner jumpsuit lost balance and fell against Candace.
Stuart ran to help her, followed by DeShaun.
Hudson’s collar, foaming at the mouth, bashed his forehead on the ground, screaming, “You can’t take my brain if it’s ruined!”
Hudson turned him over and embraced him to prevent further injury, keying his radio. “Sergeant, you there?”
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