13 Days of Halloween

by Jerry eBooks

Among his fellow Death Row inmates at Oklahoma State Prison, David became known as the Candyman. They hated him bitterly for his crime and shunned him. Even surrounded by other killers, he spent his last years friendless and alone.

  After three postponements, still insisting that he was innocent, David Allen Strauss was executed by lethal injection on March 31, 1984.

  Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,

  Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

  Within the guilty closure of thy walls

  Richard the Second here was hack’d to death;

  And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,

  We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.

  William Shakespeare

  (Pomfret is the Elizabethan name for Pontefract, a market town in the English county of Yorkshire. Legends say that King Richard the Second was murdered in Pontefract Castle in 1400, and Shakespeare described the death,in verse, in his play Richard the Third. Pontefract Castle was besieged several times during the English Civil War of 1642 to 1651. Both the town and the castle were badly damaged as a result of prolonged artillery bombardments)

  “Hello?”

  Mark called up to the boy who stood on top of a ruined fragment of castle wall. The boy was more than adozen feet above the ground and swayed as he gazed out over North Bailygate, Skinner Lane and Denwell Terrace.

  “I said, ‘Hello.’” Mark watched as the boy slowly rocked backwards and forwards like he was drunk or something. Mark went cold inside. He’s going to fall, he told himself. He’s going to fall and I’ll see his head get splattered all over the ground.

  The October breeze made him even colder in his Halloween fancy dress costume. Shivers ran up his back.

  Mark scanned the grounds of Pontefract Castle. The area consisted of a large central lawn surrounded by trees, and mounds covered by grass, and chunks of old masonry. It was getting dark and the place appeared deserted apart from him, in his monkey costume, and the boy, who looked about twelve years old, which was the same age as Mark. There were no adults in the vicinity that could take control of this odd situation that Mark found himself in. He was alone with a strange kid who stood there on top of the chunk of ruined wall. The boy stared over the rooftops, saying nothing, just moving in bigger and bigger backwards and forwards swaying movements; without a shadow of doubt, he was going to fall off at any second. If he toppled outward he’d drop at least thirty feet because the castle had been built on a high mound. A fall like that would kill the boy for sure. But then if he fell inwards into the castle grounds he’d plummet over ten feet which would bust a bone or two at least.

  Mark whispered to himself, “It’s nothing do with me. If he breaks his neck it’s not my fault.” He started to walk away. Five seconds later he stopped dead, clenched his fists tight, then turned back to shout at the swaying kid. “Hey? I said, ‘Hello.’ Why didn’t you answer me? What are you doing up there? Don’t you realize you’re going to kill yourself?”

  The boy didn’t react to Mark’s voice. He certainly didn’t answer the questions.

  Mark took long, savage steps back to the base of the ruined wall.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?”

  The boy said nothing.

  Mark slapped his palm against the stonework, trying to attract the stranger’s attention. “You’re going to fall off that thing and bloody-well kill yourself.” The boy didn’t speak. Mark shouted more loudly, “Hello? Can you hear me?”

  The boy’s head slowly turned and he looked down, fixing his pale blue eyes on Mark’s face. He said something. It sounded foreign.

  Mark shook his head. “I can’t understand you. Do you speak English?”

  “English?” The boy’s accent was a strange one. In fact, to Mark,the word seemed more like “Enn-liss” rather than English. “I am English,” continued the boy in a deep sounding voice. “What’s happening to the towns? To Castleford? Ferrybridge? Are they on fire?”

  “On fire? Are they heck.”

  “There is an orange glow in the sky above them. They must be burning.”

  “An orange glow.” Mark shrugged his shoulders. The boy’s accent puzzled him, and his strange comments absolutely bewildered him. “Don’t be daft. There’s always an orange glow like that at night. It’s the streetlights shining up into the sky.”

  “Street . . . lights.” The boy repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before. “Street . . . lights make the orange glow?”

  “Of course they bloody-well do. Are you going to come down from there?”

  “You would like that?”

  Mark shrugged again. “I couldn’t care less. It’s you that’ll get splattered if you fall.”

  The boy came to the edge of the wall and looked down. His face resembled a pale mask against the night sky. “My name is Charlie . . . Charlie. Like the king.”

  “I’m Mark Whitby. Whitby. Like the place.”

  “You are of Whitby.”

  “Of Whitby? You talk funny. No, my last name’s Whitby.”

  The old stonework was quite smooth with not many bumps to hold onto. Climbing down would be tricky. Yet Charlie made itseem easy. Mark thought it was like watching an animal scurrying down toward him.

  Mark looked Charlie up and down as he reached the ground. “You’re in a Halloween costume, too. What are you supposed to be?”

  “Me, of course,” answered Charlie. “Look at you. Monkey boy. You are dressed for a fair? Or a jest?” He reached out and pulled one of the monkey ears on Mark’s hood.

  “Hey, don’t rip it. My mother’ll go mad.”

  “Your mother is afflicted with madness?”

  “She will be if I go back with this spoiled. It’s my onesie. She only bought it today so I could use it for Halloweening.”

  “You have a strange way of talking,” Charlie said.

  “You should hear yourself. Are you German?”

  “No. You shouldn’t accuse me of being German. I’m of England.”

  “Of England? It’s you who speaks funny.”

  Charlie stepped out from the gloom near the base of the wall. It wasn’t much brighter here on the pathway but there was just enough light to see Charlie’s clothes. He wore a white shirt that was all crumpled. It didn’t have a collar, and instead of buttons it seemed to be held together down the front by little white sticks, or were they pieces of white bone? He wore boots that were too big for him. Above those were old fashioned trousers. The phrase “knee-breeches” popped into Mark’s head. The stranger wore a jacket that was about the dullest green ever. Charlie’s eyes were big and wide—they might have appearedhugelike that because his face was so thin that the bones seemed to poke hard from the other side of the skin—like his skull was trying its hardest to break through and run away. The expression on that thin face was serious, like the kid had never learned how to smile. In fact, he seemed worried. As worried as someone who was completely lost and didn’t know where to go.

  Mark felt he’d done the right thing by persuading Charlie Grim-face here to climb down from the wall. Now that he’d succeeded in doing that he simply said, “I’m off,” and started walking toward the gates. Beyond those,the road led into town. Mark wanted to get back to his friends who were Trick-or-treating people heading to the pubs. They’d discovered this was better than going from house to house, knocking on doors and warbling “Trick or treat.” People going to pubs didn’t have “Halloween candy”—what they did have was cash. Mark and his friends had done well, filling their pockets with coins. He’d also made girls shriek when he leapt out from shop doorways in his monkey mask. That had been so funny. He had . . . “Wait a minute.” He stopped.“Where’s my mask?” he muttered to himself. “I haven’t got it.”

  He turned back to look where he’d been standing a few minutes ago, when he’d been shouting up to the strange kid on the wall.

  Speaking of the strange kid . . . Charlie stood behind him.

  “Are you following me?” asked Mark.


  “I need you to tell me the way back to the castle.”

  “Did you see my mask back there? It’s a monkey mask. I dropped it.”

  “I didn’t see a mask.”

  “I’m sure I had it when I came in here.”

  “We shall look for your monkey mask together, friend Mark.”

  Mark laughed, thinking that Charlie talked strangely for a joke. “Okay, friend Charlie.”

  They returned to the section of wall. Mark checked the pathway while Charlie rooted through bushes.

  Charlie asked, “Will the loss of the monkey mask send your mother insane, too? After all, you said she would go mad if I tore your garment.”

  “Nah. The mask’s mine. I bought it years ago. It was all manky from being in the shed anyway.”

  “I can’t see a mask. Are you sure you had it when you found me?”

  Mark tried to remember. “I dunno. I might have dropped it earlier.” He shook his head, puzzled. “I started coughing back near the Buttercross. I nearly choked a lung up. I must have dropped it there.”

  Charlie gave a sympathetic nod. “I’m sorry, Mark. I can’t see a monkey mask. You must have lost it before you came here.”

  Mark shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll buy another if I want one.” He paused as he remembered something else. “Wait a minute. You said you wanted to know the way to the castle?”

  “Yes.”

  Mark laughed. “You idiot. You are at the castle. It’s right here.All these stones are what’re left of the walls and battlements and stuff.”

  “You are the idiot. This isn’t the castle. I must have wandered to a ruin.”

  “Of course it’s the castle. Look. Those are the remains of the towers. Over there is where the portcullis was. You can even see the slots in the walls where it ran down them. Over there is a trap door that leads down to the dungeon. You can even see—”

  “Liar!” Charlie grabbed hold of the front of Mark’s onesie. The kid was strong. He jerked Mark toward him so fiercely that Mark’s head whipped backwards, causing a sharp pain in his neck.

  “Hey, that hurt!”

  “I help you, Mark, and you reward me with untruth! This can’t be the castle. Where are the stables, the baker’s house, and barrack rooms? Where have all the soldiers gone? Are you saying that someone stole the banners from the top of the keep? Why is it as silent as grave?

  “Let go of me, you damn idiot!”

  “Only when I know why you, monkey boy, are lying to me! Where is the castle?”

  “It’s here. All around you. Now, get your hands off me!”

  “I need to find the castle . . . that is my home! I live there!”

  “You’re crazy, or . . . or a druggie!”

  “Take me to the castle.”

  “Get off!”

  Mark swung a punch at the kid. Although his fist smacked into Charlie’s head the kid didn’t seem hurt. In fact, it only made Charlie madder. He threw himself on Mark. Both fell onto the grass. Both tried to punch the other, but neither could fight properly as they rolled over, each one pushing and pulling at the same time. Charlie yelled. He was so angry his blue eyes glittered and his face turned crimson. He grabbed hold of Mark’s ear and tried to hold his head down with it. Mark howled in pain.

  “My ear—ow, bloody ow! Stop it!”

  “Tell me the way back to the castle!”

  “I can’t! Ow!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re already here. This is the castle. I told you . . . ow. Get off, you’re hurting me!”

  “Liar!”

  “I’m not.”

  “This can’t be the castle. I live there. I work in the stables.”

  Mark shouted, “You can’t. Look! It’s all smashed up. Nobody’s lived here for hundreds of years. Let go of my ear. You’re going to rip the bloody thing off!”

  Charlie took his hand away from Mark’s ear. But only so he could grab him by the throat. The kid’s hands were strong and suddenly Mark couldn’t breathe. The pain of those gripping fingers made Mark freeze up in shock. The stranger was going to murder him. Mark pictured his little sister and his parents at home. They’d be watching television. They wouldn’t know that he was going to die tonight.

  Charlie knelt beside Mark as he lay on the grass. The kid’s hands were around Mark’s throat.

  Charlie screamed, “I want to go home!”

  The next second he took his hands away, turned his back on Mark, and sat there shaking his head.

  Just then, Mark understood the truth. Charlie wasn’t angry. He was terrified.

  *

  They walked through Pontefract. The church clock told Mark Whitby that it was just coming up to eight. Even though the sun had set a while ago the pedestrian precincts were brightly lit by streetlamps. Men and women were making their way to the pubs. A group of women emerged from the narrow street of Gillygate in Halloween costumes—imps, witches, hellcats, vampires, things like that. Mark noticed some younger people of around hisown age—eleven, twelve, thirteen—they were in Halloween costumes, too, and were heading away down Ropergate in the distance. Mark recognized some of them andcalled out their names. They didn’t hear. The evening had a carnival feel. People were laughing and shouting out in a good natured way to each other. A couple of police officers in bright yellow hi-viz jackets stood near the Buttercross. This unusual-lookingbuilding consisted of a slate roof standing on thick stone pillars—something to do with the market in olden times, or so Mark had heard.

  Mark walked with Charlie. Mark caught sight of their reflection in a shop window. He wore the monkey onesie. Charlie wore the green jacket with the knee-breeches. Lots of people were in costume so nobody paid any attention to them.

  A man ran by spilling French Fries from a Macdonald’s wrapper.

  He shouted to a woman who wore a pointed witch’s hat. “Cheryl . . . Cheryl. It’s not my fault. I didn’t know that he’d want the money back today. Cheryl . . . ”

  Charlie turned to Mark. There was such an expression of misery on the lad’s face. It was like he’d just discovered that someone he cared about had died. “This is Pontefract, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah, sure it is.”

  “Some parts are familiar to my eyes. The way the streets run. The church is all-but the same. Yet the buildings are strange. They’re lit by lamps that are the brightest I’ve ever seen. People wear strange clothes. The words they use are alien to my ears. I have seen carts moving that aren’t pulled by horses.”

  “Do you mean cars?”

  Charlie was in a daze. His eyes seemed even bigger in that sad face. He couldn’t take in what he saw or heard.

  He spoke quietly: “I’m in Pontefract, but ithas changed beyond what I recognize. You told me that the ruined place where we met is the castle. It is just stones and ruin. How can I live there now? I slept at night up in the hayloft at the stables. I had warmth and comfort. For a long time now I’ve been walking alone through the ruins. I don’t know where to go.”

  Mark’s ear was still sore from the fight. “You hurt me, you know. And I thought you were going to kill me. Bloody thug.”

  “My spirit was in turmoil. I was frightened.”

  Mark tried to catch the smell of booze on the kid’s breath. It had to be booze or drugs making Charlie say these strange things. He sniffed again but couldn’t pick upalcohol’s distinctive tang coming from his mouth. Maybe Charlie was insane? Perhaps he’d escaped from one of those hospitals where they send people when they can’t separate imagination from reality.

  They continued walking slowly through the town. Music thudded through the doors of some of the pubs. A man in a white coat sold hotdogs from a handcart. Three girls, wearing heels and dressed in red devil outfits, click-clacked from an alleyway. They were laughing happily.

  “What happened to the castle?” Charlie asked Mark. “Was it destroyed by fire?”

  “I dunno. I think it just fell down.”

  Charlie lo
oked so unhappy that Mark found himself talking in order to fill the silence between them.

  Mark said, “We did stuff about Pontefract Castle at school. It was built nearly a thousand years ago by someone called de Lacey. Hundreds of years later there was a war between Roundheads and Royalists. The Roundheads wouldn’t let anyone in or out of the castle. Siege . . . that’s what they called it: a siege. Over where my grandmother lives on Chequerfield the Roundheads lined up their big guns and fired cannon balls at the castle. That’s how the Old Church got smashed up.”

  “The Royalists are led by King Charles. Most hereabouts know him as King Charlie.”

  “Yes, I remember. You said your name was Charlie, ‘like King Charlie.’”

  “I am sorry I hurt you, friend Mark. I got so frightened I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  Charlie held out his hand. Mark shook it. His ear still hurt but he didn’t feel so angry with Charlie now that the boy had accepted that he was in the wrong. When they shook hands Charlie held onto Mark’s hand tightly. In fact, he didn’t want to let go.

  “Friend Mark. I am pleased we met. I can’t remember how long it is since I spoke to another human being.”

  “Maybe we can find out where you live and get you home . . . uh, you can let go of my hand now, Charlie.”

  Charlie released his strong grip on Mark’s hand. Mark realized that the palm of Charlie’s hand was rough and hard. He’d never met anyone before with a hand like that.

  They walked by a boy in a Halloween costume. Mark wondered if the kid was supposed to be one of the Doctors from Doctor Who. He wore a brown suit and a green bowtie. The kid in the bowtie watched Mark and Charlie walk past with a look of surprise on his face.

  Mark studied Charlie’s get-up again. The boots had no real shape to them. They were far too big for his feet. What’s more, it looked as if they’d been stuffed with straw in an attempt to make them fit better. The knee-breeches had been repaired with patches. The jacket sleeves were frayed to the point where he couldn’t tell where the actual sleeve cuffs ended and wispy strands of wool began.

  “Where did you get the costume from?” asked Mark.