13 Days of Halloween

by Jerry eBooks

  And the stories Sammy would tell, far better than those from Mrs. Rubin’s so-called Treasury:

  “We get to the Singleton house, and they have their shades down and the porch light off, no car in the driveway, so we’re supposed to think they aren’t home instead of hiding out, television turned down low or maybe reading books, for god’s sake, letting us knock and knock and praying we’d give up and move along. Phillip squints through the front blinds, says he can’t see them, and I’m like, it doesn’t matter if they’re home or not, what matters is that they’re not giving us candy. Well, Chris is dressed like a mechanic, which means he carries his Dad’s toolbox, and he decides to unscrew the gate to their back fence. Phillip has an old clothesline in his bag of tricks: after I climb a tree that reaches to their roof on one side, he flings the clothesline up to me then loops it through a slat in the gate, and I’m pulling that fence door up through the lower branches, it’s rustling and scratching as the whole tree shakes, and Roger starts to freak out a bit, in this lousy-loud whisper telling me to hurry up, if they’re home they can hear me, hurry up . . . and it is kinda thrilling, the idea we might get caught, but then I think, what have we got to worry about? If Mr. and Mrs. Singleton are in the house, they’re the ones hiding and scared. They can’t rush outside to see what we’re doing, since that would blow their cover. So I want them to hear me, to wonder what horrible thing I might be doing, and I shake the gate free of the branches then heave it toward their roof, and I’m telling you if they were home they must have thought the tree fell over and smacked into their house, or maybe they thought it was some kind of explosion or gunshot. I scramble down that tree fast, since Phillip and Roger and Chris are already running across the street, and I catch up out of breath from exertion and from laughing, and Chris says I can’t believe you did that, and I’m like, it was your toolkit that started the whole thing, and we cut through the Garcia yard for some more trick or treating. Hey, Germy, you can have this Almond Joy if you want. I hate coconut.”

  And Jeremy would accept the unappealing candy bar the same way he resigned himself to the nickname—a grudging acceptance, better than being ignored.

  “And listen, Germy, the Myrick House was even better than it was last year. You think the outside decorations are cool, but that’s nothing. You have no idea what it’s like inside, the way they fix up the whole first floor, kitchen and dining room and living room together converted into a real haunted house. They must spend a fortune: fog machine, spiderwebs, manacles bolted to a dungeon wall, a panel that slides open and a monster reaches out when you walk past. It’s like being on a movie set. There’s this cool trick with a mirror where you stare at your own face, but then there’s a purple glow and it’s like you’re transformed into an old man and then a demon. They had the same gag last year, but I still can’t figure out how it works. Then the floor moves, or the mirror does—it’s hard to tell which—and you stumble into the next set up, a new one this year, like a crypt. There’s this closed coffin and you hear knocking and scratching from inside, and I swear it feels like there’s someone in there, then some moans, then a faint whisper, Let me out, then another moan, and you know it’s a gag but can’t help walking closer in case somebody really is trapped in there. Your hand reaches forward, your foot creaks against a floorboard, and then holy crap the lid flies open with a hiss of compressed air, lights strobe, and a corpse sits up, grinning through a mess of rotted teeth, skin falling off its face as it shakes, and its arm lifts slow, fingertips bloody where the nails snapped off from scratching. Let me out crackles over those rotten teeth, and then the strobe snaps off and the lid shuts, ready for the next guy to step on the floorboard to activate the trick again. It was awesome. I don’t know how the Myrick’s will top that one next year, Germy, but I’m sure they will. They always do.”

  Jeremy hadn’t been old enough to visit the Myrick House. He’d simply been old enough to hear about it, and be jealous.

  But this year, Mom and Dad had finally relented. He was in seventh grade, and if Sammy would agree to let him tag along, Jeremy could trick-or-treat with his older brother for a while.

  “I dunno, kid. You’d mostly be in our way.”

  No he wouldn’t. Phil and Roger and Chris wouldn’t mind. Ask them.

  “True, they do think you’re kind of funny. Funny looking, that is. But you’re a baby.”

  Only three years younger than you.

  “Not just age. You have to be brave, to pull the kind of tricks we do. And you gotta keep your mouth shut, too. No running to Mom to tell what we did.”

  He wouldn’t. He promised he wouldn’t.

  “Maybe. I’m still not sure if we can trust you.”

  How could he prove it? How?

  Sammy had a suggestion—but you’re not gonna like it, kid. Double chores for the month of October. Triple, really, considering that Sammy’s tasks were bigger than Jeremy’s usual load. In addition to emptying the dishwasher and keeping his own room clean, he got stuck with tasks like dragging the vacuum cleaner over every carpet in the house. That, and countless loads of laundry, and scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom counters and even the toilets.

  Amazingly enough, Mom and Dad approved of the bargain—as if it brought Jeremy and his brother closer, as if it held some fairytale lesson about earned rewards being sweeter than those granted freely.

  One weekend, Sammy started the lawnmower then sat on the porch steps and sipped iced lemonade while Jeremy steered the heavy contraption over stubborn grass. “I’m supervising, which is actually hard work,” Sammy said. He took another sip of lemonade, which Jeremy knew was tasty because he’d had to mix it himself.

  * * * *

  As was his custom in the last days of October, Jeremy took a roundabout way home from school so he could go past the decorated house. The Myrick house always stood apart, occupying its own blind lot, an unused, overgrown parking lot behind it, and the fenced-in remains of a long-abandoned factory. Previous years, the detour allowed Jeremy the fun of staring at the cat with its flashing red eyes, of waving at all the hands that waved back from beneath the ground. This year, those same decorations had been a promise of something more. Each day, the anticipation made all his extra chores, and his stepbrother’s tyranny, worthwhile.

  But now those decorations were gone, before their promise could be fulfilled.

  Death in the Family? They didn’t have children, so it must be one of the Myricks who passed on. He wondered which: Albert, round bodied and cheerful, with the carpenter and mechanic’s skills to design contraptions to his wife Elizabeth’s specifications; or Elizabeth herself, stick-thin and imaginative, the gardener who planted rubber gloves each year instead of flower bulbs.

  Jeremy decided to knock on their door, tell whichever one who opened it that the other would want the tradition to continue. “Your wife wouldn’t want you to disappoint this year’s children.” Or, “Your husband worked so hard to put those props together. Dedicate this year’s exhibit to his memory.”

  He couldn’t do it. Jeremy didn’t know the Myrick family well enough. And that “Quiet Zone” sign achieved the same authority as a police uniform or the angry yell of a school principal. A knock would be too loud. The family did not want to be disturbed.

  He felt he was being selfish, upset about his own petty disappointment when one of the Myricks had lost a long-treasured spouse. Here he was, pouting like a spoiled child, when he should have been respectful of their grief.

  All the same, he’d worked so hard this month to make his Halloween into something special. It almost seemed as if his whole life had been leading up to this holiday. Now it was ruined.

  How inconsiderate that one of them should die. What a cruel trick they had played on him.

  * * * *

  “It was a cousin’s daughter who died. On Elizabeth Myrick’s side of the family, according to what Chris heard.”

  A cousin’s daughter? Jeremy had lots of cousins. Three of them lived in Kentucky, two
in New Hampshire. Most of Mom’s family still lived in Missouri, and he met about seven or eight cousins there during a summer trip two years ago. He didn’t remember their names.

  A cousin’s daughter wouldn’t require nearly the same level of grief as a spouse. There was still a chance the decorations would go back up. The house would open on Halloween, as tradition demanded.

  “Afraid not, kiddo. Apparently old Elizabeth Myrick is really close to this cousin, practically like a sister to her. And it was the cousin’s only child. The whole family’s broken up about it.”

  That sounds tough, Jeremy said, and he tried to mean it.

  “Listen, kiddo. Since we’re not doing the Myrick house anymore, it’s kind of changed our Halloween plans. Chris and Phil and Roger think we should go to this party at Amy Bowler’s house. Aw, don’t get that look, okay? But I’ll make it up to you. Besides, you still got your little Dracula cape, and those plastic fangs and everything. You can go trick or treating with your own friends instead, right?”

  Jeremy didn’t have those kinds of friends. He had school friends, maybe saw them occasionally as part of school-sponsored chess or film clubs. But he and his friends didn’t do things after school together. That was studying time, computer time, television time. Not like Sammy and his friends who went to movies or shopping or just hanging out and sometimes getting into trouble. Jeremy was the good kid, the one his mother was proud of.

  And look where it got him. Alone, tired from endless extra chores, and no payoff. He was angry at his brother for backing out of the deal, angry at his parents for allowing the deal to begin with—and for sending him to that baby party previous years while his brother had all the fun.

  And as much as he tried not to be, he was furious at Albert and Elizabeth Myrick, at their whole sad family, and especially at that relative who didn’t have sense not to have a heart attack or get smashed by a car or fall into a pit or whatever else it was that a stupid cousin’s daughter died from.

  Then he felt ashamed and hated himself most of all.

  * * * *

  The night before Halloween, Jeremy went for a late walk without telling his Mom and Dad. Let them worry for a while; that is, if they even noticed he was missing.

  Barely thinking about his destination, he drifted into a familiar roundabout path that led him toward the Myrick house.

  He expected the house to loom in the distance, a shadow of faded wood, dark glass, and jagged angles framed by tall, bare trees. The empty cul-de-sac and the abandoned warehouse behind it would add to the ominous effect.

  Instead, the Myrick driveway overflowed with cars. A Ford Tempo was parked at the curb in front of the “QUIET ZONE sign. Other cars crowded the rest of the street, with a few braving the cracked, bumpy asphalt of the old adjacent parking lot.

  They’re having a party, Jeremy thought—because the porch light was shining in welcome, and a murmur of conversation filtered through the bright front windows.

  No, he corrected himself, not a party. A wake. It’s a gathering. A quiet, mournful gathering where family and friends seek comfort in a time of need.

  Judging from the number of cars, the Myricks had a lot of family and close friends. Jeremy circled the property, keeping his eyes on the front of the house. The shades were open on the lower level. As people walked past the window frames, ripples of black cloth flickered the interior light.

  He stepped onto the old parking lot. The few cars here were trucks or SUVs with big tires, able to maneuver the uneven surface. His sneakers hadn’t fared as well, and he almost tripped over a tree root that had pushed through a segment of asphalt. There were sections of tall grass here, thick with bristles. A boulder sat heavy at the lot’s corner; pieces of it had chipped off to form smaller rocks at its base. Other junk littered the lot itself: food wrappers, cigarette butts, empty and broken beer bottles. Sometimes Sammy and his friends would hang out here. Those beer bottles or cigarette butts might have their fingerprints; Sammy might have been the one who kicked at that boulder to chip off the smaller rocks.

  The advantage for his stepbrother was that cars rarely drove past the dead factory. Plus, the overgrown weeds and junk gave Sammy and his friends some privacy for their underage drinking or whatever. Still, Jeremy thought it was a stupid place to hang out. It was dirty. And if you stepped on a broken bottle, it could push through the sole of your shoe and cut your foot.

  He turned back toward the Myrick house. The shapes in black cloth continued to flicker across the front windows, and their rhythm seemed predictable. It occurred to him that maybe the people inside were dancing.

  He listened for the beat of a drum, for a soft series of notes tapped on piano keys.

  Nothing.

  Then a laugh like a clear bell rang out against the night’s silence.

  He’d barely spoken to Elizabeth Myrick over the years, but Jeremy was convinced the laugh belonged to her.

  More laughter, a chorus this time, muffled by the closed windows. Someone had told a joke.

  Maybe the joke was about a boy. A boy who loved Halloween and looked forward every year to the town’s famously decorated house, yet never got to go inside. Isn’t that funny?

  This was not a house of mourning.

  They were laughing at him.

  He recalled his stepbrother’s stories about families who practically invited a Halloween prank—the Singletons hoarding candy for themselves and hiding in their dark house while Sammy heaved part of their fence onto the roof. Served them right.

  You’re just a baby. You have to be brave, to pull the kind of tricks we do.

  Sure, maybe somebody in the Myrick family had died, a distant relative, but it sounded like they’d gotten over her death pretty quickly. There was no reason for them to take down the decorations, to cancel their traditional haunted house display.

  Quiet zone? He’d show them a bit of noise. Before the night was over, Jeremy would have his own trick or treat story to tell his stepbrother.

  He went back to the boulder, kneeled and felt carefully for the chipped rocks at its base. His hand closed around one the size of a softball. He lifted it, tested the weight. It was heavy, but not too heavy to throw.

  And he was running toward the house, dodging between the bumpers of parked cars, the rock a dead weight at the end of his arm as he raced up the lawn and toward a front window. He was silent, a wind of retribution, but he screamed in his head as he raised the rock behind his ear, arced his shoulder back on that side, still running, tensing the muscles of his arm, then launching it forward, his whole body behind the throw, fingers opening and the rock flying forward towards a top panel of the window.

  What mischievous child wouldn’t find some enjoyment in the sound of breaking glass? The rock smashed through with startling and satisfying force, and glass shards tumbled forward in a sharp sequence of high-pitched notes.

  He’d brought music to their party.

  Take that for ruining Halloween, he thought. A spiteful idea came to him that maybe he should have tied a note to the rock beforehand, some cruel threat misspelled in terrifying, shaky letters: YOUR NEXT, or GRETINGS FROM HELL. That would have been cool.

  He backed up, ready to run like the way Sammy and his friends bolted from a house after a Halloween prank. But he paused, a scant ten feet from the shattered window, and hid in the shadow of a tree. He wanted to hear some reaction from inside. A gasp or curse word or cry of surprise.

  The house was quiet.

  What had he heard before? The window bursting inward, the melodic rain of glass. Something else, too. A thud like a dead weight dropped into sand, and the crackle of dried leaves crushed underfoot. Then this long silence, as if the house were holding its breath—

  “Oh my God!”

  A woman’s voice, weak and raspy yet rising in surprise and horror, growing loud and cracking in the shrill, final syllable. Like the cry of a tortured animal, or of a person going insane.

  It was the most anguished sound he had eve
r heard.

  Then other cries, too, a whole room full of people wailing in agony.

  But he hadn’t done anything, not really. He’d only thrown a rock. The way they cried out, you’d think Jeremy had killed someone.

  That wasn’t possible. Was it?

  * * * *

  That night, Jeremy couldn’t stop thinking about the agonized scream. He heard it each time he ran into the bathroom only to gag and heave up nothing, but he spat and wiped at his mouth while that woman screamed. He heard it while he walked into his parents’ dark bedroom, clutched his stomach and told his mother he’d vomited, and she felt his clammy forehead and said, yes, you should stay home from school tomorrow, and Mom walked him back to his bed and tucked him in while the woman screamed and the other mourners answered.

  As he tried to sleep, he’d thought about how he ran away, not knowing where that rock had landed, what it did, but wondering if its rough surface held his fingerprints for police to discover, and his memory of Elizabeth Myrick’s cry would turn into a siren and flashing lights and an impatient knock at the front door.

  Throughout the next day, Halloween day, Jeremy suffered new horrors as he waited, sick to his stomach, exhausted, still not knowing what he’d done. He listened from his sickbed as his parents and his stepbrother whispered at the breakfast table, but he couldn’t hear them. Dad took the newspaper to work with him, and Channel 9 didn’t mention the Myrick house during their noon report. All day he worried, guessing how hard he’d thrown the rock, where it might have landed inside.

  He was ready to confess, just to learn the truth. Any punishment would be better than the torture of uncertainty.

  Then Sammy came home from school. His stepbrother told him everything before their parents got back from work:

  “Sorry you’re not feeling so good, kiddo. I’ll just sit at the foot of the bed here, if you don’t mind.