by Jerry eBooks
Jack had barely finished this thought when he saw a black hole open before him, large enough for a man to pass through—but what came through could barely be called a “man”. It was man-sized and man-shaped, but was bent nearly double, as if it had shouldered decades of burdens; its hands almost touched the ground before it.
And it was covered in blood. So much blood that it instantly created a pool where it stood. Jack stepped back from the pool, and was surprised to find he was standing and no longer felt the pain of dying.
He could distinguish little of the thing’s features beneath the blood, but it seemed to have a pig-like face, with yellow eyes and a long mouth of jagged teeth.
“It’s time, Jack,” it said, in a wet snarl.
Somehow Jack knew then who and what this creature was, but he decided immediately he wouldn’t make it easy for the son-of-a-bitch. “Time for what?”
“We’ve waited too long for you. Step through.”
It gestured at the darkness, and now Jack saw glimmers within: Fleeting faces extended in mute agony, forms tortured out of proportion. He felt a chill arc through him, and decided then and there he wouldn’t share the fate of those pitiable specters.
“So this is a gateway to Hell?”
The demon’s laugh sounded like glass crunching a heavy boot. “To be precise, this is your gateway to Hell. Each of you are born with your own entrance. Some of you manage to avoid using it. But you, Jack . . . is there any sin you didn’t commit?”
“I did my best.”
“Indeed you did.” The demon gestured at the black portal, its impatience growing. “Let’s get this over with.”
Jack returned the gesture. “You first.”
Smoke erupted from the demon’s snout-like nose. “I can make your torment even worse.”
“I doubt that. I think you’re afraid I won’t follow you through.”
The yellow eyes widened in outrage. “’Afraid’? Do you think I’d need to be afraid of the likes of you?”
Jack shrugged. “You’re not so impressive, you know. I’m not the one standing here bleeding, after all.”
The demon shook its crimson-covered arms, and Jack flinched as droplets struck his eyes. “You fool! This isn’t my blood—it’s the blood of those I’ve been tormenting for centuries. And you’re about to join them.”
Jack tried to keep his tone even; he knew what he had to do, but wasn’t sure if it would work. Was he a ghost now, something incorporeal? Could he still touch, still hold? He reached down toward the empty liquor bottle, and was relieved to find that he could retrieve it. “You sure I’m dead? I can pick up this bottle, after all . . .”
“Oh, I assure you, you’re quite dead. You just exist in a twilight state until you cross over.”
Jack upended the bottle above his open mouth, but nothing came out. “Damn, here I was hoping for one last drink—”
The demon bellowed, flames erupting from between the shards of its teeth, and then . . .
It turned and stepped through the portal.
It was just reaching back to snatch Jack, but he was faster—he reached beneath his jacket, pulled out the Holy Bible, and tossed it down in the center of the threshold, the gilt crucifix on its cover forming a sanctified barrier. The demon stared at the book for a second, then looked up at Jack. “You don’t think that will stop me, do you?”
“I figured it might.”
The demon froze, and Jack knew he’d won.
“Pick it up NOW.”
Jack just grinned. “Not a prayer in Hell.”
“This won’t be so amusing when Satan comes for you Himself.”
“Maybe, but . . . if you go to the Boss Man, you’re going to have to tell him you failed to bring me in yourself, and I’ll bet that won’t go well for you.”
The demon sagged in realization.
Jack seized on the moment. “But I’m thinking we can strike a compromise: You give me another year, and then you can come and get me.”
“Another year?”
Nodding, Jack said, “One more year. That’s it. All I want.”
The demon considered, then said, “One more year, then. Now pick that Thing up.”
“I’ve got your word?”
“Yes, yes.”
Jack retrieved the Bible, halfway expecting to be dragged through the void anyway—
And instead he found his eyes opening, his body aching as he came to in the filthy alleyway.
For an instant he wondered if it had all been a dream, but then he saw what he still clutched in one hand: The Bible.
He sat up and stared at the book, astonished and grateful. It had saved his life. Given him a second chance.
He could still beat the Devil.
* * * *
After an hour or so, the bar where Jack had found temporary shelter was crowded, and he jumped from his table when he thought he saw a flash of horns somewhere in the crowd. He headed out a different exit from the one he’d entered through, but the Halloween mob was—if possible—even denser out here.
It was nearing midnight, and with each passing minute the mass anticipation rose. Jack was jostled and pushed, elbowed and spun, as he fought to protect his precious burden. He pushed through the revelers for several blocks until he finally sensed it thinning out slightly.
Suddenly he broke free, and looking around he saw why: He was in the Saint Louis Cemetery, one square block of tombs and vaults incongruously penned in on all sides by regular buildings.
There were a few stragglers like him seeking refuge from the madness in the cemetery, but they clustered around particular graves, lighting candles, speaking softly.
Exhausted, Jack collapsed onto a tomb. He didn’t know how much farther or longer he could run tonight. If he was found here, now . . .
Thinking that, he lowered himself down to the ground and sat there, using the tomb as protection. He realized he was hiding in a necropolis—a miniature city of the dead—and found irony in that thought, considering where he’d come from . . . and what he was running from . . .
* * * *
After Jack had escaped from Hell’s clutches, he’d made plans: He’d repent his evil ways. He’d devote himself to God, no sham preacher this time but a true believer, a veritable saint.
His road was paved with good intentions. And the first stop on the road was a bar, to celebrate his good fortune.
When he woke up two days later, hungover, in a prostitute’s stained bed, he’d remembered his vow: To give his life over to God, to earn Heaven instead of Hell. But he still had 363 days. Plenty of time.
A month later, he killed another gambler when the man accused him of cheating. That the man had been right didn’t matter; Jack carried a small knife in his pocket, and it had found its way into his accuser’s chest.
Oh well . . . he’d always wanted to see New Orleans.
So he fled to a new city, arriving once again determined to commit himself to the Lord. But New Orleans turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of sin: Bars, bordellos, casinos . . . it was almost as if they could be found on every block. And they weren’t like the ones in all those smaller places—the liquor was better, the women beautiful, the stakes high.
Jack had some talent as a gambler (he was a gifted cheat, in other words), and he began to make money. And with money at his disposal, in this city of better and more beautiful things, he pushed aside his plan to find religion. He still had months.
Six months . . . four . . . two . . . one month . . . two weeks . . . three days . . .
On October 31st, Jack was just wrapping up a three-day winning streak in a gambling den illegally hidden behind a restaurant when he looked up to find the Devil before him.
The Devil had chosen to dress like a man for this visit, but Jack knew him immediately—his finely-tailored suit and polished shoes couldn’t hide his claws, his red eyes, or the small white horns that sprouted from the top of his head.
“Hello, Jack,” he said, as if greeting an
old friend.
Jack’s stomach clenched in terror. “No, wait—I had a year . . .”
The Devil laughed. “It’s been a year, Jack. Today’s October 31st. It’s Halloween again.”
Jack looked to his gambling mates, but they stared frozen, into space, and Jack realized he was in that peculiar twilight again. Behind the Devil, the black void waited.
“So,” Jack said, trying to regain his confidence, “you came to get me yourself this time, eh? Not leaving the job to a flunky this time.”
“Not this time, no,” the Devil said, speaking to Jack even as his crimson eyes settled on the cards scattered around the felt-covered table.
“You a gambler?”
The Devil took a seat across from Jack, and began gathering the cards. “Please—I practically invented gambling.”
Seeing his chance, Jack squinted. “Care to make a little wager today?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“One hand. Blackjack. If I win, you let me go. You win, I come with you.”
The Devil said, “That’s not much of a bet for me, Jack—I can take you without playing.”
But he was shuffling the cards even as he spoke.
“Afraid you’d lose?”
The Devil looked at Jack once, and Jack nearly shrank back from the millennia of hatred he saw in those eyes. Then the Devil smiled and dealt.
Jack glanced at his two cards, then sat silently for a few seconds. The Devil did the same. They peered at each other across the table. Finally Jack reached for a bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a shot, then gestured at a glass before the Devil. “Care for a little amber luck?”
“Why not?”
Jack poured, and they both drank. Then Jack said, “I stand.”
Without a word, the Devil flipped over his cards.
He had the King and Queen of Spades. “Doesn’t look good for you, Jack.”
Jack gaped for a second.
The Devil stood.
Distant shrieks echoed from the black hole.
The Devil started to reach for him.
Jack flipped over his cards:
The Ace and Jack of Spades. A perfect blackjack.
The Devil’s eyes grew so red hot they were painful to look at. He stuttered for words and came up with nothing, leaving his forked tongue to flick from one side of his mouth to the other.
Jack knew better than to wait around. “Guess it’s just my lucky day,” he said. He scooped up his winnings and left.
He left before the Devil realized that he’d pulled the cards from his sleeve when he’d poured the drinks.
* * * *
That’d been . . . what, an hour ago? Two? Jack’s head was swimming from everything that’d happened tonight.
Somewhere he heard a bell begin to strike twelve, and he knew that midnight had arrived.
And so had the Devil.
There he was, suddenly standing over Jack, casually, as if he’d been there all night. “Well, hello, Jack. Nice to see you again.”
Jack stood firm, drawing his arms in as if afraid to reveal the sleeves he’d used to cheat the Devil. “What do you want? I won. You can’t take me.”
The Devil stared at Jack in utter astonishment for a second, then burst into howls of laughter that echoed through the New Orleans night like gales shrieking around a house in a thunderstorm. After several seconds he stopped and asked, “If I was going to take you, don’t you think I would have done it by now?”
There was a realization picking at the back of Jack’s mind, but he pushed it down. “What do you mean?”
“How long ago do you think that card game was?”
Jack’s head was spinning. He hadn’t even had that much to drink . . . had he? “It was . . . tonight . . .”
“Not quite. It was this night—but two centuries ago.”
“No . . .” But even as he tried to deny it, the truth washed over Jack like a flood breaking through a levee.
It had been two hundred years ago. He’d tricked the Devil, and yes, he’d won . . . but then he’d died a year later anyway, of syphilis, and he’d wandered the earth ever since, confused and lonely, denied entrance into either Heaven or Hell, unseen and forgotten by the living. And his prize, that which he’d cradled so zealously . . .
He remembered now: That October night when, driven mad by the despair of his situation, he’d found another way into Hell, and had begged the Devil to take him, said that he’d prefer the companionship of demons and souls in torment to his useless, senseless existence, and the Devil had laughed. Oh, how he’d laughed, as he’d thrown a single walnut-sized fiery brimstone out to Jack, a tiny meteor that burned through the side of a ripe pumpkin at Jack’s feet and nestled in the pulpy interior, casting an orange glow through the hole it had created. “There’s something to light your way. Enjoy your travels,” the Devil had said, before shutting the doors of Hell to Jack forever.
And now Jack looked down and realized that he carried no gambler’s winnings, no case stuffed with bills or bag bulging with jewels, but that damned pumpkin, still lit by the eternally burning rock within.
“You should feel honored, Jack,” the Devil said, gesturing around him. “The living celebrate your story every October.”
Jack followed the Devil’s gesture, and saw the candle-lit pumpkins on the balconies and porches of the houses facing the cemetery, and he understood at last: That he’d been cursed not just to wander aimlessly forever, his way lit by a piece of Hell in an autumn fruit, but that he was celebrated once a year by those who had no idea who he was, or why they’d named their carved pumpkins after him.
“Happy Halloween,” the Devil said, before sauntering off, leaving Jack once again alone, his unique torture cemented forever.
* * * *
(I am indebted to William Wells Newell’s 1904 article “The Ignis Fatuus, Its Character and Legendary Origin” for providing a thorough overview of the original “Jack-o’-Lantern” tales, which I have liberally adapted here.)
END
Okay, I admit that I got a little drunk early on, made a fool of myself and lost my head. I’ll be the first to admit it. Facts is facts.
But Stevie, old buddy, you went even more that way. Sure, I’d been messing with your gal, but Jerri wasn’t no innocent thing, as you well know, and I just couldn’t help myself. The way she was coming on to me was criminal. And you think a full minute here and answer this question honestly. The way she was doing, if I hadn’t done nothing, that would have been criminal too, now wouldn’t it? I mean that little old gal was hot to trot, and I damn sure don’t remember you ever turning it down when it was handed to you on a platter. Think on it.
But while we’re speaking of things that is criminal, Stevie, let’s you and me talk about that temper of yours some. You always did have that temper, no matter how many times you’ve tried to hotly deny it. Once you denied it so hard you beat that old antique dinner table your ma left you flat. Remember that? And there was that time we was out at the old graveyard across the creek, one where them Indians is supposed to be buried, and you seen this little grey cat and called it over to pet, and that sucker had a backwoods relapse or something and scratched your face and hands all up, and you wrung that cat’s neck quicker than a papa rabbit makes baby rabbits and tossed it down the creek. I know you hated it after you’d done it, but hating it couldn’t twist that ole cat’s head back in place and give her an appetite.
Then there was that time you got in the ruckus with that Gilmer fellow at the Dairy Queen, picked up that stick and sort of swatted him over the hood of his car, though it took you about three or four good licks to get him to roll on over to the other side. He did say some things about your seersucker suit, as I recall, but that there kind of treatment was more than a mite excessive, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Stevie. As I remember they had to wire that old boy’s jaw back together, and you ended up having to pay the bill for it. Can’t see that you could get much satisfaction out of b
usting a fellow’s chops then having to pay to have them wired and aligned. Least that’s the way I look at it.
Now, in spite of all that, you ain’t never really lose your temper with me before tonight. There had been some moments when I thought you was going to, but I played you down. I mean I knew how to do it on account of I’d been around you so long. And I’ll tell you, Stevie, it’s a mite embarrassing, and silly, to see you lose your temper and rave about how you don’t never lose your cool and always keep your head in a bad situation. That just ain’t the truth, now is it?
Okay, so she was your gal. Least supposed to be tonight. But that old gal was anyone’s gal who had five bucks in his pocket and a gleam in the eye, cause I ain’t had a whole five bucks in months.
And you think about this, Stevie, ole buddy. It was your fault.
That’s right. Your fault.
You was the one that insisted on me and her dancing together while you went out back and did the pumpkin chop. Now I’m not carping the party Billie Sue put together, she done right good with the decorations, all that silly Halloween crap and all. Cardboard skeletons, what have you, but that pumpkin chop was about the silliest thing I ever did hear of. You should have seen yourself. A grown man with an axe, trying to see how many times he could chop at a pumpkin rolling down a hill without getting out from behind a line. Silly game.
And you didn’t just play it once, you wanted to make a career out of it, and you’ll remember, Jerri asked that you stop that and come on in and dance with her, and you said, no, you didn’t want to do that right that minute, but would I take her in there and goosestep a few rounds with her so she’d go on and shut up about not getting to dance.
Well, I did. And I didn’t have nothing to do with them dimming the lights inside the barn, or playing that slow sexy song the bay chose, the one with the saxophone and all, and I didn’t do nothing to encourage Jerri to do them things with her hips she was doing. But I didn’t mistake them moves for no girdle adjusting on her part, if you know what I mean.