13 Days of Halloween

by Jerry eBooks

  “Mom thought I should stay away, so I don’t catch that stomach virus or whatever it was that hit you last night. But I figure if I was gonna get sick, it would have already got me by now. Hey, we all had the same dinner, right?

  “Anyway, I kinda wanted to apologize for being such a jerk about Halloween. I worked you so hard with those afterschool chores, and even made you mow the lawn last weekend and then, you know, let my friends pressure me to ditch you so I could go to Amy Bowler’s party instead.

  “I didn’t feel so bad about it until today—which is funny, since now I’ve got a real excuse not to take you trick-or-treating.

  “No, not because you’re sick—though that lets me off the hook, too. Mom said you were pretty much awake all night, throwing up or feeling nauseous. I have to admit you look pretty green.

  “Hey, you’re half way to zombie-looking. You wouldn’t even need any makeup if you went out tonight. But that’s the tough deal: nobody in this town is going out tonight. It just wouldn’t be respectful.

  “Your mom didn’t want to tell you, since you’re not old enough or something, and maybe she didn’t want to upset you while you weren’t feeling so hot. But I think I should treat you a little better now, more like an adult I guess, after I’d been such a jerk these past weeks.

  “Want to know the weird part? When Mom and Dad told me, I swear it was like they gave me the third degree: maybe not thinking it was me, exactly, but implying it might be the kind of thing Chris or Phil or Roger would do. I mean, seriously? If I believed any of my friends had done that—or even thought about doing that—I think I’d need to beat the crap out of him. I wouldn’t want to be friends with him anymore, that’s for sure.

  “Okay, I see you getting anxious to hear what happened. It was at the Myrick’s place. The cousin’s daughter was named Jeannie, okay, the one who died, and she was about twenty years old. A college student, and really beautiful. They had a picture in today’s paper, long blonde hair, pretty smile, and these wide-open eyes like she was in love with life, you know, and she wanted to take it all in. Now, people say nice things when somebody dies, no matter who they are, but for this Jeannie it was apparently all true. She did all her school work and got great grades, but she still made time with her church group to help poor people with, I don’t know, canned food or second-hand clothes and stuff; and she helped out at the animal shelter, too, all volunteer work, so she was like the best-hearted person you could ever know. Jeannie met this guy her freshman year, really nice too, and they were what you call college sweethearts. Their wedding was scheduled the same weekend as graduation, so the families could attend both celebrations. Instead, they got together a bit earlier, for her funeral.

  “Can you imagine? You plan for something really wonderful, and then that poor girl’s life gets cut short. It’s already the saddest story ever, right? But there’s more.

  “I told you about her work with the animal shelter. Well, she was such a loving and open person, and animals responded so well to her, so the rescue-folk didn’t think twice about bringing her along for some of their call-in emergencies.

  “In this instance, some stray dog had wandered into a family’s shed, and it had given birth there. Nah, I don’t know what kind of dog it was—Mom head this part from Mrs. Singleton, so we don’t have all the details. Maybe what you’d call a mongrel, or one of those ugly ones with the strong jaws. Well, apparently it had a litter of tiny pups, but when Jeannie and the animal control guys got to the shed, the mother had turned against one of her babies. That happens sometimes, when one of the pups is smaller or sickly, and the mother decides to cast it out or shun it. Except—and this part is kinda gross, so I hope it doesn’t make you sick to your stomach again—well, when Jeannie opened the door of the toolshed, the mother dog was under a workbench and she had all these blind little newborns in a wet mess around her, and she had the runt in her mouth. It was dead, and the mother dog was . . . eating it.

  “This Jeannie, she’s not thinking of herself but about the other little pups, fresh in the world and blind, so they can’t see what their mother is doing and figure out they might be next. Jeannie sees for them, since it’s a rescue mission after all, and she’s closer than the pros with their nets and shock-prods and padded gloves, and she reaches down to scoop those other babies away from their evil mother.

  “Except the mother dog was only getting rid of the runt—since it wasn’t going to amount to anything, you know, kind of putting it out of its misery. The mother wasn’t planning to hurt those normal babies at all. So what does it think when this sweet, pretty girl starts grabbing at her newborns? Exactly. That animal or maternal instinct kicks in, and the dog jumps up at Jeannie, and its big jaws clamp right down on her face. She backed away and tried to stand up, and the dog was just hanging there off her face, jaws locked in place, its body dangling heavy and the legs moving, front paws scratching at her neck.

  “Okay, here’s a detail Chris told me about at school. I kind of wish I hadn’t heard it. One of the rescue workers said she was screaming the whole time, but the dog’s jaws were closed so tight over the girl’s face, so it was like she tried to scream through a hot, wet rag—all muffled, you know? Pretty nasty.

  “The guys tried to get her loose, I guess they zapped the dog or tried to pull it away, pressed their gloved hands against the side of the animal’s jaws to loosen its grip, but it held on tighter and kinda shook its head back and forth, and those muffled screams kept coming . . . but no words, since the girl’s mouth and tongue were getting messed up about this time.

  “Dad said, he wished she would have gone into shock, since most people would have from this kind of pain. Even better if she’d died right away. Her family, they had to learn afterwards how much she suffered.

  “She lived for a day or two. Long enough for her family to visit her in the hospital. It must have been really rough on her boyfriend, you know? The girl’s head was all bandaged up, even her eyes and mouth covered. He didn’t get to see her beautiful face again, or hear her voice.

  “It was a mercy when she finally died.

  “Jeannie’s grandparents used to own the house Albert and Elizabeth Myrick live in now, and the family burial plots are over in Gadsden, so it made sense to have the funeral here, and the wake at the Myrick home. They had to take down all their Halloween decorations, of course. I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like—moving this plastic skeleton and fake coffin out of the way, to make room for a real body and coffin for the viewing.

  “Yeah, it’s part of their tradition to hold the viewing in a family home. Make some kind of party out of it, as best they can. Except viewing didn’t seem the right word in this case, what with Jeannie’s face being mauled and all torn up. It was going to be closed casket, all the way.

  “But get this: the morticians in Gadsden must have been miracle workers. They had a lot of pictures to guide them, I guess, and ended up doing such a great job reconstructing Jeannie’s face that it turned out they could have an open casket after all. They used wires to hold the mouth together and God knows what else underneath to fix the shape of her cheekbones. They’d put a marble or something in one of the sockets, then fastened the lids closed; you couldn’t tell which of the eyes she’d lost. And they used a lot of makeup. A lot.

  “Strange, if you think about it too much, but Mom says it gives a family a nice sense of closure to see the body one last time. Especially in this case, since Jeannie had been all bandaged and in pain before she died. They got to see her the way she always was: beautiful. Everybody said she looked so peaceful lying there in the coffin. Like she was sleeping.

  “Last night, the fiancé kneeled by her coffin, and he sobbed quietly, saying how much he missed her already. I wish you could open your eyes, he said. I feel like you want to smile at me again. He was crying so bad, and the guys parents were there too, falling apart like the rest of them so they were kinda helpless. Elizabeth stepped in. She moved next to the poor guy, put
her hand on his shoulder to comfort him while he shook with sobs. Elizabeth was standing over the open coffin, right next to Jeannie’s angelic face.

  “Then some asshole threw a rock through the window. It was practically a cannonball, people said, glass flying everywhere, and the rock sailed across the room and straight toward the coffin.

  “It landed on that beautiful reconstructed face. Smashed right through the mortician’s meticulous, fragile work, and the face crackled like an eggshell. Bone and plastic, chipped teeth and twists of wire, wads of cotton and fleshy red clumps all spilled out the sides of her collapsed head onto the silk pillowcase. It gunked up her blonde hair. Some of it spattered onto her weeping boyfriend.

  “The way Mrs. Singleton told it to Mom, everybody was just stunned. Nobody said anything. The house was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

  “Then Elizabeth Myrick screamed, and it was like she gave the rest of the guests permission. Everybody started crying at once, and it seemed like they’d never stop.

  “Can you blame them? That sweet-natured girl, taken so young and so violently. They must have thought: this is as horrible as it gets; nothing else can compare. Then the family comes together and grieves, and they’re able to comfort each other a little, sharing nice memories of Jeannie, and they’re so lucky the mortician did such a nice job, she looks so life-like, she’s at peace—and maybe her loved ones can have some peace now, too.

  “Then that rock comes flying in out of nowhere. That family had already been through so much. How could somebody do something so cruel? It’s unimaginable.

  “Wow, I see how upset you are, kiddo. Don’t be ashamed to cry if you need to. I’m not gonna call you a baby. I got pretty choked up myself when our parents told me about it.

  “Seriously, are you okay? Yeah, blow your nose and wipe at your eyes, all right? I’ll still be around for a while if you need more tissues or water or maybe some crackers to eat. Just yell for me.

  “Yeah, I’m still going to the party at Amy’s. It’s across town and we’ll be inside, you know—so, not flaunting all our fun in the Myricks’ faces like it would be if kids went trick or treating tonight.

  “Again, I’m real sorry what a jerk I’ve been to you lately. It’s a bummer you’re so sick, and on Halloween, too. Not that it would have been that great a Halloween anyway, but still.

  “Hey, cheer up. Your Dracula costume will be just as cool next year, okay? And you’ll feel better before you know it. I promise.

  “Take care, Jeremy.”

  * * * *

  He woke with a start, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark room. Jeremy had no idea how long he’d been asleep. Actually, after a second restless night in bed overcome by frightful, guilty thoughts, the possibility of sleep had grown foreign to him. And yet, exhaustion had eventually won out—at least in the short term.

  Of course, now he was awake again. The awful memories rushed back, and he felt himself wanting to cry again. He turned his face into his pillow, so nobody could hear him.

  If they heard him, his family would realize it was more serious than a sick stomach. He could never let them know. What would they think if they’d found out he was the one who’d thrown that rock through the Myricks’ window?

  Yeah. Right when his stepbrother was being nice to him for a change.

  If I believed any of my friends had done that, I think I’d need to beat the crap out of him. I wouldn’t want to be friends with him anymore, that’s for sure.

  They’d disown him. He lose his friends at school, too. He wept into his pillow until his throat felt sore and dry. He wished he could forget—at least for a few minutes, so he might fall asleep again.

  Then he realized he’d been too loud. His mother had come into the room to check on him. She sat at the end of his bed where Sammy had been earlier today. Her hand rubbed his leg through the bedspread, comforting him.

  Maybe she hadn’t heard him crying. She only thought he was sick. Jeremy sniffled, then gave a small cough. She patted his leg a few times.

  He noticed the outline of her hair in the darkness. His mother kept her hair tied up during the day, but loosened it when she slept. She always looked different at night.

  Her hair seemed brighter than its usual brown. Almost golden.

  She slid closer up the bed. Her hand lifted up to test the temperature of his forehead.

  He sat up in bed and tried to distinguish the features of his mother’s face. Was her expression loving? Was she sympathetic, or suspicious?

  He couldn’t find her smile or her eyes. Her face was blank, as if she wore a dark mask.

  There were bumps on the mask, like the chips and shadowy protrusions on a rock. A heavy rock, the size of a softball.

  He remembered Elizabeth Myrick’s scream again. He saw what had made her scream.

  Wire and chipped bone poked through either side of the collapsed face. The blonde hair was matted with patches of wet cotton and gristle. A tooth rolled off one side and dropped onto his blanket.

  Her hand swept the air between them. Her index finger curled and pointed at her ruined face and the rock he’d put there.

  What did she want? A confession? If she’d come to his room, she already knew what he had done.

  Even so, Jeremy couldn’t speak his crime aloud. He couldn’t tell anyone.

  Her hand made a slow circle around her face, around the stone embedded there.

  What could she want? This good-hearted girl, generous to the poor, kind to animals . . . Why had she come to him?

  She grabbed his wrist. It was a gentle grasp, coaxing. She lifted his hand, guided it toward her face, and he understood. She was giving him another chance. A chance to take back what he’d done.

  His hand closed over the rough stone. That shape, so familiar in his hand the previous night, a match for the curve of his fingers. The stone was cool, then; tonight, its surface was warm, as if something tried to breathe through it.

  Take it back, the ruined face breathed through the stone, and the heat tickled his palm. You can take it back.

  His fingers tightened. He thought of the shattered horror beneath, and he wasn’t sure he could bear to look into the exposed face.

  He pulled the stone forward, and the head moved with it, coming closer to him. Jeremy wanted to push it away, but the whole awful shape slid closer to him in the bed.

  In a sudden fit of revulsion, Jeremy thrust his hand forward, his fingers locked in the grooves of the heavy stone, and he screamed and twisted his wrist, back and forth, back and forth, like grinding a halved orange into the metal wedge of a juicer.

  Jeremy screamed again and he battered at the young woman’s corpse, hating her for dying, for being in the coffin beneath his blind throw, for visiting him tonight in some ridiculous gesture of forgiveness. He hit her face again with the rock, repeatedly hit her shoulders and her chest, screaming out, losing himself in the attack, and then his mother was in the room, his father in the doorway too, and Sammy behind him in the hall blinking out surprise, the bedroom light on overhead, the ghost and the stone gone but Jeremy’s fingers holding that stone’s shape, tensed for the next throw as he screamed at nothing, screamed how he couldn’t take it back, how life didn’t work that way, how he knew he could never take it back.

  Introduction

  ‘Simon Clark’s going to swallow a stone! Everyone come and watch him eat it!’

  I was five years old and showing off on the school field. For a joke, I told a couple of friends I’d swallow a stone. Immediately, the news spread as fast as a forest fire through the school yard.

  Children aged between four and seven gathered round me in a huge, excited crowd. I’d only been kidding about swallowing the stone. I’d no intention of picking up a grubby pebble from the ground and actually devouring the thing. But like so many other people who have captured the attention of a crowd a kind of madness took over. With the flourish of a conjuror I picked up a black stone (admittedly, no larger than a baked
bean), showed it to the crowd—and that’s when I noticed that expressions of astonishment were turning to ones of horror.

  But there’s no going back, I realized. If I disappointed my audience they would become a mob and turn on me. What’s more, being the center of so much attention gave me such a wonderful buzz.

  GULP—the stone slid down my throat. I can still remember how cold and hard that rock felt as it moved down through my chest into my stomach.

  For a moment, my audience stared in disbelief. Then came pandemonium.

  ‘Simon’s swallowed a stone! He’s going to die!’

  A hundred children erupted in panic. Some fled to tell school teachers. Others found it impossible to look away from my face, waiting for some dreadful fate to strike me down.

  And, yes, the five year old Simon Clark loved what he’d done. The attention! The reaction! The horror! The horror!

  If the audience had been older they wouldn’t have reacted in the dramatic way they did. There’d have been no panic, no stark terror. Older children would have shrugged and told each other that Simon might puke, or the stone would eventually find a different exit in a day or so.

  My particular audience was too young to reach those kinds of conclusions. For them, stone swallowing was a voyage into the unknown, with perhaps magical consequences. From the expressions on some of those faces I could tell that they expected some mysterious transformation would take place, because I’d ingested the pebble. Maybe I’d develop an outrageous appetite for stone? Maybe I’d run amok and start biting huge pieces of masonry out of the school? When I walked through the crowd nervous girls and boys flinched away from me. I’d become the devourer of rock.

  It’s possible some children had nightmares after my irresponsible stunt, but as for me I had no side-effects. Of course, the black pebble might still be rattling around behind my ribs as I write this, but I never morphed into Boulder Boy (even though I might have enjoyed childhood daydreams about doing exactly that).