Halloween (2 page)

But that was in the future, and tonight, October 31, was a time for fun. It was Halloween. Perhaps even more than Christmas, it was the most innocent holiday on the calendar. Yes, more than Christmas, because Christmas celebrated a happy event, and jolly St. Nick was a benevolent symbol anyway. But Halloween's origins were darker, very much darker, and if the children celebrated it as a happy event like Christmas, it was a symptom of how far we'd come from the time when mankind respected the forces of evil.

Little Michael Myers's grandmother clucked her disapproval as the visiting rosy-faced six-year-old showed her the costume in the Woolworth box. "What's that supposed to be?" she said, leaning forward in her recliner and adjusting her specs.

"A clown, Grandma." He ran his hand over the red and green nylon jester's costume, with matching cap with a pompom on top.

"A clown," she sighed.

"Now, Mother," Michael's mother, Edith, came to the rescue, "I know what you're going to say."

"Well, it's true, darn it. We never had that five-and-dime junk when we grew up on the farm. We took Halloween seriously. Why, when we set up scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns, it was because we were genuinely trying to scare off the bogeyman. Bogeyman, now he played
real
pranks and did some
real
damage. He didn't just go around like they do today, slapping people's clothes with socks filled with chalk-dust and soaping their windows.''

"What did the bogeyman do, Grandma?"

Mrs. Myers shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I don't think Michael wants to hear that," she said, looking significantly at her mother. "It might give him bad dreams."

But grandma wasn't taking the warning. "Nothing wrong with bad dreams. At least they remind us that things aren't hunky-dory in this world. Lord, everything is so clean and—
phony
these days. Just one big television commercial. Clown costumes!" she sighed, fingering the cheap material in the Woolworth box.

"What did the bogeyman
do?
" Michael insisted.

The silver-haired woman leaned forward confidentially, a perverse smile lighting her pleasantly lined face. "Well, if you were lucky, you got away with nothing worse than finding some of your chickens beheaded."

"Beheaded?"

"Their heads cut off," she explained with a relish. Michael's eyes widened; his mother grimaced and picked up a copy of
Look
, riffling nervously through it. "If you weren't so lucky, you lost a cow or two."

"Unheaded?"

"
Be
-headed, yes."

"Were the heads just lying there next to the cows or were they . . . ?"

"Mother, that will be enough. Really!" Mrs. Myers gasped, snapping the magazine shut.

But grandma had warmed to the subject. Behind her spectacles, her blue eyes had drifted off to her girlhood, and her head nodded in memory of some awesome event. "Once he burned somebody's barn down. Was it Winfield? No,
Winter
field. Burned Mr. Winterfield's barn down to the ground, livestock and all." She looked at the wide-eyed boy, then at her horrified daughter, and realized she'd gone too far. "Of course, Michael, we always suspected it wasn't the Bogeyman. Perhaps neighbors getting even with each other for some slight. In costumes and masks, it was easier to get away with that sort of thing. But I do remember one incident . . ."

"Not the chimney story," begged Mrs. Myers.

"Oh, tell me the chimney story!" implored the grandson.

"Well," the woman said, taking her grandson up on her lap, "it was Halloween, nineteen-ought . . . nine? Nineteen ten?"

"Just tell it," said Michael. Even at six he recognized a boring attack of grandma's What-year-was-it-again?

"Yes. It was Halloween, but way after midnight. Maybe two or three in the morning. We'd all gone to sleep, leaving the fire burning in the parlor because it was a terribly cold night. Well, suddenly I hear my brother Jimmy shouting, 'Smoke! Smoke! Wake up everybody, the house is on fire!' I grabbed my robe and rushed down the stairs right behind my daddy, who'd picked up the bucket of water we always kept filled at the top of the landing. Sure enough, the whole downstairs was thick with woodsmoke. But I couldn't see any fire. The smoke was coming from the fire-place, and it looked as though the flue had been closed."

"What's a flue?"

Grandma explained what a flue was. "We put out the embers and opened the doors and windows to let the smoke out. Then daddy looked at the flue—and glory be—it was open. Something was jamming up the chimney. Now, we didn't have a ladder on account of daddy having just taken it apart to replace some rotten rungs. So Jimmy had to shinny himself up the drainpipe to find out what was obstructing the chimney."

"What was it?" the boy asked, While his mother shook her head in painful anticipation. "A dead hog."

"Wow!"

"Someone—or something—had cut our hog's throat and laid it atop the chimney." She laughed humorlessly. "The thing is, that hog weighed near three hundred pounds. How did it get up there without a ladder? Without our hearing anything? Without our dog, Toby, raising hob with his barking like he usually did when he heard something prowling? Without disturbing a gate or making a footprint? Answer me that, Mister Woolworth Clown Costume."

"I don't know."

"Well, I do. 'Twas the bogeyman, that's all there is to it."

"Mother, that will do!" Mrs. Myers snapped. "The boy's been having problems enough at night without your adding to them."

"Problems? What kind . . . ? Um, Michael honey, run into the bedroom and try the costume on for Grandma. I'll tuck it if it's too baggy."

"It's supposed to be baggy," said the little boy, carrying the box into the next room.

"Now, what's this about 'problems'?" she demanded of her daughter.

Edith Myers, a younger, darker-eyed replica of her mother, ran a hand through her curly blond hair. "I told you, he's been getting into fights at school. At home, too, with Judith. He's been wetting his bed again, which he hasn't done in three years."

"Fighting about what?"

"Mother, can we just forget . . . ?"

The old Woman's eyes narrowed. "No, we can't. What kind of trouble is that boy in?"

"Voices," Mrs. Myers finally blurted after a minute's tortured pause. "He hears voices."

"Oh, Little Lord Jesus!" the old woman cried. She exchanged a long, meaningful look with her daughter. "I'm afraid to ask what these voices say."

" 'They tell me to say I hate people.' That's how Michael put it when I asked him. Don thinks maybe we ought to send Michael to someone."

"You mean a psychiatrist?"

"Yes."

"I don't put much stock in psychiatrists, but I don't suppose it could hurt. And I don't think it will help, if it's what I'm thinking."

The younger woman began to get agitated. "I know what you're thinking, and that's why I didn't want to get into this with you. You're going to say that that's how it started with Grandpa Nordstrom."

"We have to face up to it, child, that is how it started with your father's father."

"Mother, all children hear imaginary voices. Don't you remember my Bobby Bear, who used to . . . "

"It's not the same. At least, it's not something you should ignore. Does the boy have dreams?"

Her daughter nodded. "Does he remember any?"

"Yes, and they're very violent." Her face reddened and she turned her eyes away from her mother's piercing gaze. "Mother, when Grandpa Nordstrom . . . that is . . . Well, you've never spoken to us about that incident, and I think there are enough similarities . . ."

"Hush, here comes Michael. When you get home, call me as soon as you can, I think the time has come to tell you everything. Ah, there's my little boy," she cooed as Michael came back into the room with a rustle, "right out of a Punch 'n' Judy show."

He stood before them, an angel in red and green nylon, elastic ankle- and wrist-bands making the costume cling at the extremities and bag out everywhere else. A ruff around the neck and the little droopy pompom cap completed the charming picture.

"Grandma's baby!" she laughed, clasping the boy to her bosom. "Edith, please fetch me some cold cream and lipstick from the tray in my bedroom. Might as well complete the picture."

"I don't want makeup," Michael protested.

"Of course you do. You don't want anyone to guess who you are when you go around playing pranks."

"I'm not going to play pranks. I'm just going to ask for candy."

"You do that, child. You just have an innocent, Woolworth kind of Halloween."

She saw them out the door. "Remember, Edith, call me soon as you can."

"I will, Mother. And don't worry."

"I won't," she said, shutting the door. She began to tremble, wondering if she should have said something to her daughter about Grandpa Nordstrom's dreams.

Judy Myers, nude except for a pair of panties with red valentines printed on them, sat before her mirror brushing her long blond hair. She sang to herself, stressing each third note as she pulled the tortoise-shell brush downwards to her shoulders. She liked gazing at herself, noting how her breasts flattened when she brought the brush to her head, then rounded and filled again when the brush reached the bottom of its stroke. She was especially happy this evening because the house was empty, a rare occasion indeed.

The house being empty meant no parents to bug her, no kid brother to burst in on her or try to pinch her boobs or ass, or maybe peek at her through the keyhole. More importantly, it meant that she could make out with Danny on a couch or maybe even in bed without having to worry about interruptions. Fooling around in cars wasn't terribly satisfying anymore. Now that it was getting cold, you had to roll up the windows and keep the heater on and it got stuffy and steamy. And now that she and Danny had gone all the way, she was eager to do it with him in a civilized fashion. Danny's suggestion of a motel in Mapleton was not what she meant by civilized fashion.

The doorbell rang.

"Oh, God, he's here already!" she muttered, snatching up her unsexy bulky chenille robe and stepping into fuzzy slippers. She looked at the alarm clock on the night table. It was a quarter to seven. Danny was fifteen minutes early. "I'll kill him. Look at me. Yuchh."

The doorbell went off again, long and insistent. "Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming!" Though she knew she'd end up undressed anyway, she'd at least wanted to start out clothed for Danny, and clothed in a halfway decent way, for crying out loud, and not like some frumpy washerwoman. She galumphed down the stairs, getting really pissed off, and flung open the door. "Goddamn it, Danny, you told me . . ."

"
Trick or treat!
"

There were eight of them, holding shopping bags. A few also held UNICEF boxes with slots in them for coins to give to their class charity. Their uniforms were all cheap and store-bought except for one girl tricked out in her mother's peasant skirt and blouse and a gypsy shawl. There was a pirate, a cowboy, a ballerina, two Wonder Women in identical five-and-dime outfits, the gypsy girl, a space man, and a clown. The costumes were chintzy and looked as if they'd tear if you stuck your tongue out at them. They all wore masks, but Judy identified most of them. The space man and cowboy were Adam and Charlie Becket, the pirate and ballerina were Chris and Hope Ritzinger. The gypsy was Katie Schaller. One Wonder Woman looked like Christine Frank, but Judy couldn't figure out who the other was.

And of course, she guessed who the clown was, as she'd put the finishing touches on his outfit herself.

"Trick or treat!" they repeated.

"Oh yeah?" Judy teased. "And what if I don't give you any treat?"

The children stood silently, puzzled. No one had ever denied them. They just assumed you filled their bags with goodies. If you turned them down, they wouldn't know what tricks to play. Judy stood in the doorway enjoying their discomfort for a moment. To her right, on a little table in the hall, were six bowls filled with candy corn, Tootsie Rolls, Baby Ruths, Good 'n' Plenty, popcorn, and Hershey Kisses. There was also a dish with pennies in it for the UNICEF collection.

"Huh? What are you gonna do if I don't give you anything?"

They shrugged, shuffled their feet, giggled nervously.

Then one of them said, "We're gonna kill you."

Judy sucked in her breath. "Who said that?"

The children looked at each other, then looked back at her.

"Michael Myers, was that you? Because if it was, it's not funny, and I'm telling mother and father when they come home."

"I'm not Michael Myers, I'm a clown."

Judy caught the glint of Danny's '59 Chevy turning into the street. "Okay, kids, you win. Hold out your bags." She stepped to the bowls and grabbed handfuls of candy, showering it into each bag. Then she took up the dish of pennies and dropped four or five into each of the contribution boxes.

"Thank you," they said politely. "Good-bye. Happy Halloween," they shouted over their shoulders as they toddled off to their next house.

Judy closed the door and bolted up the stairs two at a time, stripping out of her robe as she did. When she reached the top of the landing she kicked off her fuzzies and threw the robe into her closet, grabbing a blouse and skirt, rummaging through her drawers for a bra and a pair of kneesocks and a sweater. She donned these in record time, and when the doorbell rang she was ready in a demure collegiate-looking outfit. Although both she and Danny knew where they were going to end up tonight, she decided she should at least
look
a little hard to get, otherwise Danny would think she was fast, and that would get around school.

She caught her breath, then descended the stairs in stately steps. She opened the door calmly, as if she'd almost forgotten they had a date."Oh, Danny, it's you."

The tall, muscular boy cocked his head. "Of course it's me. Who'd you expect, Seth Dooley?" Dooley was the class goof and the last person Judy would ever date.

"No, I thought it was some more kids trick-or-treating. Come in."