October

by Michael Rowe

  “And if not?”

  “Then we’re on our own, Mikey.” Wroxy knelt down and gathered him in her arms. “We’ve always been on our own, haven’t we? Just you and me, babe.”

  “He used to call me that,” Mikey said softly. “He used to call me ‘babe.’”

  Wroxy was momentarily confused. “Who?”

  “Adrian.”

  [40]

  Police cars had been parked outside Auburn High School all day. In anticipation of a full-scale panic, the police were doing their best to keep the news of Dewey Verbinski’s disappearance as low-key as possible until they had their bearings, but news like that was hard to keep quiet in a small town.

  Mikey had sat in the principal’s office as the police grilled him about his friendship with Adrian Johnson.

  Where had they met? At school.

  How were they connected? They had become friends on Adrian’s first day of school.

  Was there anything more? No.

  Did Adrian ever hurt him? No, why would he?

  He broke Dewey Verbinski’s nose. Was there bad blood? No, just two guys settling a score—Dewey called Adrian a faggot and Adrian punched him in the nose. Nothing more.

  Was Adrian homosexual? No.

  Was Mikey homosexual?

  “I think I want my parents, or a lawyer,” Mikey said. “I don’t want to answer any more of these questions, please.”

  “Mikey,” Constable Prothro said, leaning toward Mikey with what he hoped looked like paternal compassion. “Where does your friend Adrian live? You know, we checked the school records, and there’s no documentation about a transfer student named Adrian Johnson from Connecticut to Milton, Auburn, or Campbellville. Everyone says they saw it, but no one can find it now. Do you know anything about that?”

  “He said his father was from here,” Mikey said. “He said his father was coming back and that they’d be together.”

  “There’s no record of a father, either. Your buddy seems to be a blank slate, even though, as I said, everyone claims to have seen his paperwork. Again, any thoughts?”

  “I want to see my parents or a lawyer. I don’t know anything about any of this.”

  “Stick close to home for the next day or so, would you, Mikey? Let’s see what we can figure out about what’s going on here.”

  Mikey had promised that he would.

  [41]

  In October, in Auburn, the Halloween streets are tinged with fire. From darkened porches jack-o-lanterns glare with slashed eyes lit by candles, and dead leaves blow through the deserted streets, tossed in the black night wind. The town is dappled in hues of orange and black. This year, the few children who were dared—or were allowed—to trick-or-treat were accompanied by parents who stayed close, wary that whatever force had come to spirit away the two young men should decide to come calling again.

  In the night skies above Auburn, the full moon had turned the colour of blood.

  The eclipse had begun at eight o’clock, and by nine-fifteen the moon began to cross from the penumbra, the lightest part of the planet’s shadow, into the darkest heart of its umbra. By ten-thirty, when Mikey pulled up to Wroxy’s house in his mother’s car, the sky was filled with copper light as the moon moved into the earth’s shade.

  “Do you remember where we’re going?” Wroxy asked him, climbing into the passenger seat. “Can you find your way back there?”

  “What do you think?” Mikey said coolly. “Of course I can find it. So could you.” To Wroxy something was different about him. Mikey looked older tonight. The shape of the man he would eventually become was pressing against the flesh and bone of the boy he still was. His eyes looked very black by the light of the dashboard. “Do you doubt it?” He looked up at the moon burning like a hulking live coal in the black sky. “Do you doubt it at all, especially tonight?”

  “No.” Wroxy shivered at the sound of his voice. “Not tonight.”

  Mikey turned the key in the ignition and backed the car onto Wroxy’s street. She stole a furtive glance at Mikey out of the corner of her eye as he drove. In the light of the dashboard his face seemed carved from shadow. She touched the front of her sweater where, beneath it, the silver pentacle lay against her breast.

  Mikey stared straight ahead, saying nothing. He abruptly turned left off the main road. Wroxy peered out the window but saw nothing. After fifteen minutes of driving, she sensed the road widen and clear.

  “Look there,” Mikey said, pointing. “The fire. You see it? We’re here.”

  Wroxy looked to the left, then to the right. Fifty yards away, she saw the bonfire. Mikey steered the car toward the light, then put it into park. He turned off the ignition and opened the door.

  “Come on,” he said. “We have to talk to these people. We need their help.”

  “I’m afraid,” Wroxy said, pulling back. “This is a bad place.” She reached for Mikey’s arm, but he brushed it off.

  “Come on. Let’s get this over with. If we’re going to send him back, we need their help. These are the only people who can help us.”

  [42]

  The twelve robed figures stood motionless and silent in a semicircle around the outer edge of the fire. Sparks sputtered up into the night and the air was full of the scent of woodsmoke. The tallest of them, the man in the crimson robe decorated with gold symbols, stepped forward, arms open in a gesture of benediction.

  “Hello, Mikey Childress.” The man removed his half-hood. He looked vaguely familiar, though Mikey couldn’t immediately place his face. The man’s voice, however, was quite familiar. It was the goat-killing voice from his nightmares; the voice he’d imagined that night in August when he lay awake praying the phone wouldn’t ring. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “You know my name,” Mikey said stupidly. “How do you know my name?”

  “Do you really need to ask? My name is Kelvin Cowell. I’m your mother’s pastor. But that isn’t the only place I know you from. You have seen us before, haven’t you? Only, the last time you visited us you didn’t stay to introduce yourself.”

  “My mother . . .”

  Cowell laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. “No, don’t worry. She isn’t one of these,” he said, gesturing behind him at the eleven robed figures. “She’s part of my other flock.” He winked. “My day job, as it were. Ministering to the sheep that worship the sheep god. What you see here is my real parish. This is the real church. Not those idiots to whom I minister the rest of the time. The irony is rather intoxicating, isn’t it? I preach to your mother about the dangers implicit in the sin of sodomy, and we pray to sweet Jesus that the demon of homosexuality leaves you, but all the while I’m keeping track of her faggot son. Her same faggot son who sneaks around on summer nights on his bicycle far from home.”

  “I need your help,” Mikey blurted out. “I’ve done something bad.”

  “What did you do, Mikey? What did you do that was ‘bad’?”

  “I cast a spell,” he said, weeping. “All I wanted was for the guys who were beating me up to pay for what they did, and to stop. You guys know about this stuff. I’ve brought something to life and I need to send it back.”

  “Send it back? Why would you want to send it back? And to where? If you gave it life, it exists. It’s here.”

  “It keeps on hurting people. This thing. It’s all my fault. This isn’t what I wanted. I need to send it back.”

  “Is that really the truth, though? You say you wanted them to pay. From what you say, it sounds like they’re paying.”

  “What do you mean? I want it to stop!” Then the awareness came to him, coldly and inexorably.

  All this time I thought I was alone. But I haven’t really been alone, have I? Not since that night. Maybe even before.

  “No, you haven’t been alone.” Dimly, Mikey realized that Cowell had read his thoughts and answered him with words. “For that matter, you’re an intelligent boy. Haven’t you asked yourself how y
ou knew where to find us? You’d never been here before that night, had you?”

  “I need you to help me!” he screamed. “I need you to send this thing back!”

  Cowell sighed. “Mikey, you still don’t understand, do you? We already did help you. You called out to us and we answered.”

  “What?”

  “You found our website, didn’t you? Or rather,” Cowell added with saturnine humour, “it found you. Auburn is special, Mikey. Haven’t you noticed? It has a very special history. I know you’ve heard the stories. I hadn’t, till I moved here to start my . . . other church. These hills have been home to people like us for over one hundred years. There is tremendous power here. I found the coven soon after I moved to this perfect little town, with its pretty houses and shady streets. It didn’t take me long to become the leader, either. I have . . . well . . . let’s just say, a certain past of my own that made me a more natural and appropriate leader than any they’d found before.”

  “But why me? Why did you choose me?”

  “You were drawn to us,” Cowell said. “You saw us. You discovered our secret. You know what we can do. So we struck a bargain with you, one you could have never dreamed you were entering into. Everything has led to this moment. Even your grandmother’s heart attack was a gift from us. If your parents had been home that night, you would never have had the courage to kill that poor cat, or cast that spell. So we sent them away. It’s all led to tonight. You do know what tonight is, don’t you, Mikey?”

  “Halloween,” Mikey said dumbly. “It’s Halloween.”

  “Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows Eve . . . it has so many names. But it’s a holy night. Especially tonight. Tonight the earth and the moon are perfectly aligned.” Cowell seemed to notice Wroxy for the first time. He turned and bowed to her in a courtly fashion, then nodded to two of the robed men behind her. They seized Wroxy’s arms and twisted them behind her back. “Isn’t that how you explained it, little witch, with your cards and your crystals? Well, little witch?” For a moment, Cowell’s eyes seemed to catch the sullen glare of the firelight, turning them red. “Shall I tell you what the lunar eclipse really means tonight, especially here in Auburn?”

  Adrian stepped out of the fire, nude and unburnt. The skin of his glorious body shimmered in the reflected glow of the flames, golden and translucent. Mikey swam with familiar longing at the sight of him in spite of himself, in spite of everything.

  Someone to love me, someone to hold me.

  Mikey looked down. Adrian was floating. His feet hovered six inches above the ground.

  Adrian’s voice was soft, familiar. The voice of a lover, the voice of those long, secret hours in his bedroom after school. The voice from his dreams before that. “Hello, Mikey.” He reached out to touch Mikey, who flinched and drew away. “I love you. Do you love me?”

  Mikey shook his head wildly from side to side. “No! Go away! I don’t love you! I hate you!”

  Adrian began to change again. This time, the wide chest sank, becoming frail and crepuscular. The strong legs buckled and collapsed, becoming thin and weak, undefined and spindly. The thick blond hair darkened to brown, becoming thin and lank. The broad planes of Adrian’s face narrowed, the skin becoming pale and dusted with acne above the cheekbones.

  Mikey stared in horror. It was a face he knew well. His own.

  “I love you.”The voice was mocking. A high, fluty voice that trembled, a voice often derided as effeminate. Mikey’s own voice. “Do you love me? Please love me! Please love me! Somebody love me!”

  Mikey turned away, feeling the familiar shame and revulsion for himself that he’d been taught was the normal and correct response to who he was. To what he was. To what he would always be.

  Cowell sounded almost regretful. “You didn’t understand the spell at all, did you? Didn’t you understand what you were asking for?” Gently, he pulled Mikey’s hands away from his face and looked into his eyes, like an earnest father who needed to impart wisdom to an errant son.

  And suddenly Mikey did understand. His call had been answered after all. The demon he had summoned took its power from the realm of Mikey’s own hatred and terror. His own hatred and terror had left his body when he cast the spell. Adrian was the incarnation of his own desire for revenge. The form Adrian had taken to seduce Mikey was Mikey’s own idealized vision of beauty.

  Adrian had watched Mikey’s classmates torment him, and Adrian hated them. Adrian had watched Mikey’s parents dismiss him and hold him in contempt, and Adrian hated them, too. Adrian lived inside him and always had. Adrian loved Mikey to death and would love him from world to world. Adrian had always been there, and always would be.

  “You came here to stop him, didn’t you?” Cowell said. “You wanted to send him back. All right, we’ll help you. But we need something from you, too. Adrian told you, I believe, that his father was from here. Indeed he is. Auburn is his home, and always has been. Tonight is his homecoming. But Adrian’s father can’t just come through the doorway with only the blood of goats. Goats just whet his appetite.”

  “Adrian’s father—”

  “The true father of this world. He has so many names, and so many children. Adrian is only one of many.”

  “Oh, God, Mikey, get away from these people!” Wroxy thrashed against the bodies that held her. “Get the fuck away from them! Don’t listen to them! Don’t help them!”

  “Take this knife,” Cowell said. He offered Mikey the gleaming blade. Mikey shook his head. “You have a choice,” Cowell continued. “Spells have to run their course. They always do. But if you want to send him away, you can. Just kill yourself. Be tonight’s sacrifice. Bring Adrian’s father home. Your blood will make this ancient soil richer, and Adrian will die with you, and the spell will return to the earth.”

  Cowell paused, idly testing the sharpness of the blade against his thumb. “Or else,” he mused, “let Adrian live. No one will ever love you as much as Adrian does. Let him grow stronger. Be fair, after all. He’ll kill and kill, and maybe you can learn to live with the guilt.” Cowell watched Mikey’s face, waiting for the words to sink in. “You already know real horror, Mikey. It isn’t killing or demons. The only real horror is being alone. Don’t you ever get tired of crying? One way or another, you can end it tonight.”

  Mikey felt a heavy, warm hand on his shoulder behind him. A strong arm slipped around his waist. “I love you,” Adrian whispered into his ear. His white-blond hair shone in the firelight, and there was only tenderness in the bluest eyes Mikey had ever seen. Adrian was again the nineteen-year-old boy Mikey had first seen walk into his homeroom class and sit down next to him. “My love is eternal. I’ll always protect you. And you’ll never have to see my true shape again.”

  “Or,” Cowell said, “there is a third choice. We need the sacrifice one way or another, and it had to come to this place of its own free will. One life or another, He doesn’t care who opens the doorway.” Without turning, he gestured behind him, toward Wroxy, with the knife. “We can make it so that no one ever finds out what happened to her, Mikey. You already know what we can do. You’ve seen how far our powers can reach, haven’t you? Besides, Adrian can take the guilt away. That’s a promise. And you and he will be together forever. No more guilt, no more pain. No more tears, ever. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? All you have to do is kill her.”

  Wroxy’s mouth opened in a perfect oval of horror. “No, Mikey,” she whispered. “Oh, God, no. No, please don’t. For the love of God, Mikey, I’m your best friend. Don’t do it.”

  It was me, Wroxy thought wildly. It was always me. The cards foretold this. I thought I was reading for Mikey, but they were about me. I am the Queen of Swords. I was the one being led by the malefic force, not Mikey. The moon is mine, not his. I am the betrayed friend. I am the sacrifice.

  “Change your life, Mikey,” Adrian whispered. “Change theirs.”

  Mikey felt general love wash over him for the first time, a terrible
yearning love that overrode all his fear. Love for Wroxy, love for Adrian, love for the town of Auburn and all the people in it he yearned to forgive. And yes, he was very tired of crying.

  Above the earth the low red moon slipped completely into the penumbra and entered full eclipse. Mikey’s eyes met Wroxy’s and she saw his mouth form the words: Forgive me.

  Then he swung the knife in a wide arc and plunged it very, very hard into Wroxy’s chest.

  Wroxy gasped in shock. There was no pain, merely enormous pressure at her sternum as the blood began to leak out around the seven-inch blade that protruded from her chest. She looked at Mikey through dying eyes, then her world went dark and her eyelids fluttered and closed.

  Mikey caught her heavy body as it fell. He cradled her, rocking back and forth in his twisted, loving grief, weeping, knowing at the same time that this was the last time he would ever have to cry. Mikey held Wroxy close, not wanting to let go. He knew what was coming next.

  In the air above them, a cloud bank began to form. Inside it, lightning flashed, and Mikey smelled the metallic tang of blood and sulfur.

  Adrian ran his fingers through Mikey’s hair and gently drew him to his feet. He led Mikey away from Wroxy’s body, away from the circle of witches who had joined hands and begun to chant.

  Passively Mikey allowed Adrian to guide him into the shadows outside the ring of firelight. Adrian turned Mikey around slowly and put his arms around Mikey’s waist, pulling him close. Then Adrian kissed him. Mikey surrendered to the insistent pressure of Adrian’s open mouth and felt himself drain away like water.