Happy Halloween from Lycan Valley

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Have a horrifying Halloween and see you around the valley!

LYCAN VALLEY HALLOWEEN: Unwanted Visitors by Dale W Glaser

 

When the doorbell rang, Allan Sontag’s head jerked up from the book he had been absorbed in and oriented not on the front door but the clock on the mantle.  It read 9:14 p.m. and Allan frowned at it.  He genuinely had believed that once he made it to 9 o’clock, he was more or less in the clear.  He sighed forcefully through his nose and dropped his eyes to the page once more.

Halloween was one of Allan’s least favorite nights of the year.  He did not consider himself a hermit, exactly, but certainly preferred a solitary evening of reading to socializing.  Not that a steady stream of children tromping up his front walk, banging on the doorframe or leaning on the bell, only to shriek demands for candy when Allan opened the door, counted as socializing by any reasonable definition.  He preferred instead to opt out of the event altogether, and wished only that others would respect that decision.

The doorbell rang again, and although it was the identical high-low chime as before, it somehow felt more insistent.  Allan scowled at his book and remained stubbornly seated.  The problem with opting out of Halloween, when one was already limited to interactions of minimal politeness with one’s neighbors, was conveying that decision, since everyone generally assumed he would participate, children especially.  Allan avoided any appearance of Halloween enthusiasm on his front porch, with not so much as a single uncarved pumpkin in sight.  Compared to the houses on either side, with their blinking orange and purple lights in the shrubbery, their massive inflatable spiders and their posed zombie mannequins, Allan’s house displayed proud and profound ignorance to the time of year.  He gave no outward reason for even the most dull-witted child to assume he was dispensing treats, in contrast to the easy targets bordering his property, and any child who made the pointless effort of trying deserved the disappointment of being pointedly ignored.  Allan placed a finger on the open book so that he would not lose his place again, and read on.

A third time the doorbell rang, and Allan ground his teeth.  Early in the evening, the younger set would be toddling from house to house with their parents nearby, and at least the adults had the good sense to urge their offspring to move along after two unanswered attempts at the bell.  But after dark the callers were likely to be unsupervised teenagers who found it hilarious to harass him with ringing after ringing.  Allan placed a bookmark in the book and set it down on the table beside his chair, and rose to answer the door.

Fortunately, Allan had a plan for dealing with those incapable of interpreting his undecorated, unwelcoming front yard and facade.  He would open the door and deliver a lecture about the immoral evils of Halloween, how the devil delighted in leading children astray into worshipping him, and he would suggest they pray for God’s forgiveness for their faithlessness.  This sent unwanted callers scurrying back off his porch very quickly, and helped cement his reputation around town as fervently anti-Halloween as word spread from those unlucky enough to have been on the receiving end to their friends, and their friends, and on and on.  He had deployed the lecture for the first time a few years ago, and had noticed a precipitous drop-off in trick-or-treaters the following year, and none at all last year.  He had been so close to everyone bypassing him this year, as well.

Once again it occurred to him that he might find teenagers on the other side of the door, possibly spoiling for a confrontation with Old Man Sontag the Halloween Hater, tales of which would enhance their reputations for being cool and tough.  He was prepared for this as well, as he would inform the wayward youths that his house had a doorbell camera which had captured all their faces, and that he was more than willing to call the police if they did not depart his property immediately.  The first part was plausible but a lie, while the second was deeply true.  

Steeling himself, Allan reached the front door and opened it, but found neither an intrepid little princess with a pink plastic pumpkin bucket nor a gang of surly high schoolers holding pillowcases and passing off old fright wigs as costumes.  A man stood on the bare planks of the front porch, where a welcome mat would have been positioned if Allan had not been so averse to appearing at all welcoming.  The man was tall, his face gaunt and pale, not in the manner of Halloween makeup or mask but apparently a natural pallor.  His frame was wrapped in a dark blanket held closed in front from within, covering his entire body except for his feet, which were bare.  That was disconcerting, but barely worth a glance in comparison to the look on the man’s face.  He smiled at Allan, an expression which stretched the bony features with sincere pleasure, as if he had just delightedly happened upon an old friend in an unexpected setting.  No sooner had Allan categorized the look as such when the man said, “Ah, so you are at home.  How wonderful.”

“Can … can I help you?” Allan asked, so disoriented by the man’s appearance and demeanor that he fell back on the most rote habits for dealing with strangers.

“You already have,” the man said.  He beamed at Allan, giving no indication that he wished to be invited in, or what the purpose of his visit might be.  He merely added, “It’s impressive, in a way.  It requires a certain amount of effort to shun your own community so thoroughly.”

Allan’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to determine whether or not he had just been deliberately insulted.  He paid his taxes and otherwise upheld the social contract, keeping his yard well-tended and his house maintained.  Just because he had no desire to waste an entire evening at the beck and call of every sweet tooth of the town’s underage population did not mean he considered himself a pariah.  “Now look here …” Allan began.

The man on the front porch ignored him.  “And all that malarkey about how Hallow's Eve is Satan’s birthday, and those who revel in it are bound for damnation, do you actually believe that?” he asked, cocking his head in good-natured expectation of the answer.

Allan’s mouth popped open wordlessly.  He did not belong to any particular church, let alone a fire-and-brimstone congregation; he had seen a homemade flyer delineating most of the lecture’s points in the grocery store once, clearly posted by a concerned and overzealous fellow citizen.  The entire speech was nonsense to Allan’s agnostic mind, but it had always served its purpose, until tonight.  “I …”

The man on the porch waved his response away with a skeletal hand which returned to the folds of the blanket as quickly as it had emerged.  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.  “It’s foolish claptrap, completely devoid of any semblance to reality.  If you did believe it, or if you didn’t yet were hiding behind it as a convenient blind, either way you would have rejected the rituals which give this night its true meaning and power.”

Allan blinked in disbelief.  It suddenly occurred to him that the strange figure before him was nothing more than some local busybody trying to live out an off-season rendition of A Christmas Carol, fixated on showing him the error of his ways and teaching him the true meaning of Halloween or somesuch.  His indignation rising, Allan snapped, “It seems to me that you have been brainwashed by corporate advertising into confusing spending ungodly sums of money on disposable costumes, electricity-wasting decorations, and overpackaged chocolates with some kind of cultural tradition.  If you refuse to mind your own business, then you might do well to at least consider what motivates someone to reject such mindless consumerism.”

The gaunt man chuckled.  “I can tell by your passion that you are speaking quite sincerely now,” he said, “but you still manage to miss the mark.  Your neighbors do seem to be engaging in a bit of excessive one-upmanship, I grant you.”  The man looked from side to side, taking in the houses beside Allan’s, and Allan reflexively followed suit.  To the left, he could make out the twinkling autumn-hued lights, although there also appeared to be more intervening shadows than there should have been.  To the right, the thrumming of the large fan keeping the nylon tarantula inflated mixed with the growl of the motors that moved its articulated front legs, but the noise was muted, and the spotlight trained on the display seemed dimmed by a veil.  

“But ritual is still ritual, even in excess,” the man on Allan’s porch said, drawing Allan’s attention back to him, dominating Allan’s field of vision, while the neighbor’s houses receded, impossibly far away.  “And ritual is still ritual even if humbly followed,” the man went on.  “Not all that much is required, really.  A spare gourd from the harvest, carved and lit by a single candle?  A grotesque rendered in charcoal on an old sack?  A pittance, no more.”

All of Allan’s bluster had left him, ebbing away as quickly as it had come.  “Why ...?” he managed weakly.

“So long as you make even a token effort, you become part of the larger community and are sheltered by the efforts of all,” the man went on.  He was still smiling, but there was something predatory in the way he bared his teeth.  “But deny the ritual and you are denied all its benefits.”

“Denied …?” Allan echoed.  His own voice sounded eerily harsh, almost unrecognizable.  He was unable to look away from the gaunt man’s eyes, even as the darkness beyond the edge of the front porch swirled and danced, the shadows taking on cavorting shapes that inexorably crept closer and closer to the house.  

“Tonight belongs to the creatures of fear,” the man said.  “Creatures capable of inspiring fear and yet forever reeling from it.  Long ago, long before your electricity and your corporate advertising,” he sneered, “mortals realized they could frighten away those creatures before they could do any harm, and the mortals dedicated themselves to doing so with the tools at hand, with fires and totems.  They fought fear with fear, and kept safe in the night.”

“Safe from what?” Allan whispered helplessly as he watched a worm crawl out from a small hole in the gaunt man’s tattered blanket.

“From the unliving,” the man replied, “those touched by death, suffused with death, its carriers and its thralls.  We are separated from life and light in so many ways, but in the dark depths of this one night a year, the boundaries are weak and the ways are laid open.”  As he spoke he spread his arms, parting the blanket wrapped around him, which Allan now knew was not a blanket at all but a threadbare burial shroud.  The worm that had emerged a moment ago was only one of countless crawling things that writhed along the man’s moldering, shapeless garments, centipedes and mites and rove beetles and blowflies and moths, all the scavengers which feasted upon the dead.  

“Yet even when we slip our shackles,” the man said, though Allan realized it was no merely cadaverous man but an ambling cadaver, an inhuman thing spawned from the black soil of the grave, “even then we are too often kept at bay by the mortal wards of bright flame and monstrous disguisement.  So thank you, Allan Sontag, for insisting on your obstinate gap in the defenses, your crack in the facade, your unprotected holdout.  Thank you for dissuading every last child in devilish masquerade from even setting foot on your patch of Earth and barring our procession.  Thank you for making this place, on this night, so very hospitable to us all.”

Moths’ wings fluttered and beetles’ jaws clacked, and the gloom and murk all around Allan’s house surged toward his front door.  Shadows churned like a hurricane, at once as dry as tomb dust and as moist as a fungal swamp, as cold as moonlit iron and as hot as the exhalations of a crematorium.  Allan had but a moment to wonder if he had exposed his town, his state, the entire world to an incursion of the unliving, or if the price of isolation from the rituals were truly his alone to pay.  Then life itself became a distant notion, on the far side of an impassable divide, while death claimed him for its own. 

THE END

LVP Publications · Lycan Valley Halloween: Unwanted Visitors by Dale Glaser

Dale W Glaser is a horror fan and creator of chilling tales but, you know, in a cool, fun way, not an obsessed, psycho, working through his personal demons, disturbing way. 

Production by Mjae & Desmond

Music by John Skipp

Image by Alexas_Fotos

© 2021 LVP Publications. All Rights Reserved.

LYCAN VALLEY HALLOWEEN: On the Road to the Edge of the Night by Kurt Newton

 

October is a long month, an extended groan in the middle of a dying season. Crisp leaves. Cool air. Grey stonewalls capped by rusted barbed wire. Muddy pastures littered with rotted pumpkins. Skeletal trees reaching toward a skull-faced moon.

As the season dies, things die with it.

Frankie found himself walking alone down a long dark road. He wore a denim jacket, cigarette pack a square bulge in the top front pocket. His boot heels made the only sound in the night. He would smoke if he could, but he somehow lost his lighter. He lost other things too along the way on this quiet journey. Answers to questions. Like how the hell did he get here? For now, all he could do was keep walking, pushing forward and hope something came up.

He closed his eyes.

Hey, Frankie... 

He heard a voice, then— 

Pow! 

—like a thunderclap echoing in his skull, and a memory flashed.

He saw a white house, its clapboard sides warped with age. In the backyard sat a swing. A dog house. The trees stood tall and full and green; the sun overhead, bright and warm. The back door suddenly opened, a woman leaned out. "Hey, Frankie... lunch is ready." She wore an apron. She smiled. Her smile was like candy, her face like home...

Frankie opened his eyes and the cold night returned. Memories of his mother filled his head and warmed his heart. But why that particular memory? Why his mother? And why way back when he was just a little kid? 

He looked around. There was an empty field to his left, a distant row of trees stood naked in the night. He couldn't remember ever traveling this road before. But there must be a reason why he was going in one direction and not the other. He must be either heading toward something or heading away. 

He let out an exasperated breath and it left his mouth like a ghost mist. His feet were numb but he could still feel the road as it came up to greet his boots, a reverberating thud like a heartbeat. Like the—

Hey, Frankie...

Like the—

Pow!

Like the tick of the grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the funeral home. Himself, sitting at the end of the receiving line, his father's coffin perched high upon a table. Grown-ups shuffling by, each dressed in black and offering their soft-spoken condolences. His mother sitting next to him, tears wetting her face, her smile now wax lips turned upside down, melting. "He was a good man," the voices kept saying. Tears painting so many faces, his own painted with guilt. Guilt because he wasn't crying and carrying on like everyone else. "So good that God decided to take him early." Guilt because all he could think about was how life wasn't fair. How could life be fair when there were several decrepit candidates shuffling by with their hunched backs and crepe paper skin that could have easily taken his father's place in heaven? But no, God had to poke his almighty finger into his young life and send his father tumbling off the construction site scaffolding onto the pile of bricks below. Guilt and then just plain anger because it felt like something had died inside of him and no one seemed to notice, no one seemed to care...

The night seeped back in and chilled his anger. Frankie glared at the moon. It glared back. It hovered in the night sky like a stained dinner plate. "When the sky grows dark, God sends the moon out to keep an eye on us." Something his mother had once said. But it was just a stupid moon, something far and unreachable, like every dream he ever had, every wish he ever wished for.

As he walked, he stared at the bright round disc until his eyes began to water. He remembered lying in bed at night, looking out his window and wondering if his dad was watching, wondering if his dad saw what he went through. How the kids in school just seemed to know, sensing it the way wolves smell sickness. How they circled and bit into his heart with hurtful words. "Frankie's daddy slipped and fell, now he's rotting down in Hell." Words that Frankie knew weren't true. His daddy was a good man. God took him because he was so good.

Once again Frankie felt the anger begin to well up inside of him, but it quickly drained as if someone had put a tube in his gut and siphoned it off. It was odd. He couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right, that this was some kind of dream that he would soon wake up from.

He looked down into the ditch. It was filled with water and leaves. The moon skimmed across its surface. Frankie realized it was covered by a thin layer of ice. He was going to freeze out here if he didn't get to some place warm. The road ahead would eventually lead to a town or a farmhouse. He would use a phone, call someone. There had to be a place out here. Someone had plowed and planted these fields. Someone had harvested the crop, leaving the rest to rot in the dirt.

Hey, Frankie...

The smell of decaying pumpkins invaded his nostrils.

Pow!

Another flash. He was older, no longer a kid. The first signs of a mustache on his upper lip; his look defiant, his walk tough. He could see his mom in the kitchen cutting vegetables, cooking too much food for just the two of them. She was still setting the table with an extra plate, even though it had been five years since the accident. "Ma, I'm going out with Nick and Tony, don't wait up."

"Aren't you going to eat something, Frankie?"

"Haven't got time, Ma, gotta go. It's Halloween."

"Gotta go. Always on the go. You're too old to be trick or treating. What kind of trouble are you going to get into now, huh, Frankie? I told you those boys are no good, but do you listen? They're hoodlums. You're father would roll over in his grave."

"Dad's dead, Ma. God came and got him, remember?"

"So you're a wise guy now. I'm your mother, you should respect your mother." He turned to leave then and his mother must have reached up to try and stop him from walking out the door, because her hand hit the extra dinner plate and sent it crashing to the floor. Frankie turned to see his mother bent over the plate in tears, her hands fumbling with the broken pieces. He wanted to help her, but he couldn't bring himself to touch the plate.

"Ma, I gotta go, the guys are waiting."

His mother waved a fragile hand for him to go.

"I love you, Ma." His mother didn't answer. "Sorry about the plate..."

The night and cold once again crowded in around him. He could still see the look of ruin on his mother's face. First her husband, now her only son. Frankie knew he wasn't a good kid, but he tried. He just seemed to get swept down the wrong path, like the garbage and dirt that collected at the sewer grates after a rainstorm. It seemed like it had been raining all his life, and he just went with the flow.

But he had more important things to worry about now, like how to get home. Nick and Tony must have gotten him cocked and left him out here on a prank. Whatever it was they were drinking must have wiped out half his memory. But he seemed to be sobering up now.

He stared across the empty field. The moon painted a silver sheen over everything. There were shadows between the furrows. The rotted pumpkins were misshapen, as if teetering on the edge of an abyss. Their shriveled vines appeared too thick. He knew it was just a trick of the light but he could have sworn one of the pumpkins moved, its vine (arm?) lifting up out of the mud, appearing to wave at him.

Hey, Frankie...

Frankie closed his eyes and winced.

Pow!

They began with convenience stores. "Maybe that's why they call them convenience stores. When you need a few bucks, they're right there ready to give it to you. I call that pretty convenient." Nick laughed, and when Nick laughed they laughed with him—laughter that sounded hollow because they were already half dead inside. They were ready to knock over the place when the girl looked up from her cash drawer. 

"Can I help you guys?"

Grace. Blonde hair, sleek-figured Grace. She had awakened something inside of Frankie the minute he laid eyes on her. Only Nick saw her first. And even if he hadn't, she would have been his anyway. That's the way things were. If Nick wanted something, he got it. And he didn't care how or who it hurt.

"Yeah, we'd like to buy a couple Slim Jims, a pack of Juicy Fruits and ask you out on a date."

"All three of you?"

"No, just the good looking one."

Grace was different. It was in the way her eyes seemed to light up over the smallest things, the way her mouth held her smile then let it go as if remembering that she didn't have the right. She was looking for something to make her feel alive. And Frankie knew what that felt like. He was also feeling something he'd never felt before. A lightness in his gut and a warmth on his skin. He was thinking that maybe he was in love. But she was Nick's girl and there was no getting around that...

There were more movements in the field. Several of the rotted pumpkin vines were now beckoning. A low mewling sound accompanied their movements, and the memories were coming faster, one on top of the other...

It had been raining one night. Frankie was in the backroom of the abandoned warehouse—the gang's meeting place—when Grace slipped in. She was drowned wet and in tears. Her left eye was still bruised from the week before. There was a fresh cut on her lip and a puffiness that extended down to her jaw line. Frankie's heart broke when he saw her, but it was anger that reached his lips.

"Why do you let him do that to you—and then come to see me? 'You're a good friend Frankie. You don't know how much this means to me.' Well, you don't know what you mean to me, Grace. It kills me inside to see you like this."

And Grace walked toward him, her tears making her green eyes even larger, magnifying the moment, perhaps letting her see the truth for the first time. And, suddenly, her lips were on his, the taste of her blood in his mouth, and he knew it was wrong, he knew there would be hell to pay, but he was halfway there already, what did one more misstep mean in a life full of bad moves and fucked-up opportunities? Besides, Grace was the best thing to happen to him since... he didn't know when. How could it be wrong? When he looked at her face he didn't see the cuts and the bruises or the craziness in her eyes, he saw only a way out of his stinking life. But the road to get there was just too...

Frankie stopped. He tried not to look at the things in the field. The movements were getting more active. The vines whipped back and forth now, and strange guttural voices called out to him. Fucking Nick and Tony, must have slipped him something stronger than alcohol. It was like a bad dream, only worse because this was a dream he couldn't wake himself up from.

He wanted to run, reverse the night, if possible. He was getting scared now. He turned to head back the way he had come and saw a pair of headlights in the distance coming his way.

Hey, Frankie...

And he froze, anticipating the sound.

Pow!

"Hey, Frankie, Tony and I was thinking about knocking over the Tolland Bank Halloween night. Get this—we walk in around closing wearing monster masks. I mean, it's Halloween for Christ's sakes, who's gonna notice. The cops will be out in the streets making sure all the kiddies are safe, while we're stuffing our pillow cases with hundreds and fifties. It will be beautiful, man. Like candy from a baby. You in?"

And when he looked at Nick, all he saw were the times Nick had saved his skull from getting cracked, at school and in the alleyways. He couldn't say no. But he and Grace were planning to leave. The bus tickets had already been bought. They were going to stay with Grace's sister in New Orleans for a time, then work to get a place of their own. It would be a fresh start, a new beginning. He felt sick for what he was about to do, but this was survival. This was his life.

So he said, "Sure, I'm in," and Nick grinned, happy as a dog sniffing a bitch in heat, and said, "That's my boy." He went with the flow, as usual, all the while knowing in his gut he wouldn't go through with it. In fact, in that instant, as fire burned a hole in his gut the size of a fist, Frankie saw an opportunity to end this thing once and for all...

Frankie stood in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, as the headlights drew closer. He waved his hands for the driver to stop. He had to get out of there. Anywhere but there. And this ride was his ticket out. But the vehicle bore down on him and he saw the red lights dancing on top, and through the glare he realized it was an ambulance.

Hey, Frankie...

And he didn't hear the sound that followed. He only heard himself scream.

It was Halloween night.

"You did the right thing." The sweet whisper of Grace's voice in his ear. 

She was in his arms again. They had rented a room at the Yankee Motor Inn—a haunt for hookers and heroin junkies on their way to their next john or their next fix. They had just finished making love when the door busted in. Nick was covered in sweat, his shirt soaked through with blood. But he still had the strength and presence of mind to hold a gun pointed at Frankie's chest.

"The cops, Frankie? You called the fucking cops?" Nick's eyes were nearly turned inside out with disbelief. "When you didn't show I almost called it off. But you knew I wouldn't, right Frankie? That was all part of the plan. You'll be happy to know I took two of them out before one got in a lucky shot. And still I managed to get away. But look at you two." 

Nick wavered and Frankie almost lunged for him. But Nick remained in control. "Somehow I knew you'd be here. Right, babe? Our own special hideaway?" His eyes swung toward Grace. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

By now there were sirens in the distance and Nick took a deep, gurgling breath and coughed. Blood sprayed in a mist across the back of his hand. "You know, I should kill both of you. But time is short, I think I'll just settle for one." Nick swung the .45 and aimed it at Grace. "Not what you planned, hey, Frankie?" 

And it was then that Frankie did lunge—he threw his body in front of Grace and heard the gunshot—pow! —felt the bullet punch him in the chest, heard Grace scream in his ear as he collapsed into her arms... and in the numbing fog that followed all he could hear were sirens, their high-octave wails descending like a heavenly choir... then everything faded like a distant memory...

Frankie didn't move as the headlights washed over him. The ambulance never braked, never even slowed as it passed right through him. A slight tingle rippled across his skin and it was if he had been reborn.

He turned and watched as the ambulance raced away, and through the brightly lit back windows Frankie saw two EMTs working furiously upon a patient. Beside them, sat a woman looking on, her hands clutched to her mouth, her blonde hair a ragged mess. Frankie could swear it was Grace.

You did the right thing.

The ambulance disappeared from sight.

Once again the strange voices in the field filled the empty dark. The rotted pumpkins raised their stick-like appendages and rolled their rotted bodies from side to side, and Frankie realized he wasn't afraid of them anymore. Like everything else, his fear just washed through him as if he had nothing left to hold on to it. 

He stepped off the pavement and down into the high grass. A single strand of rusted barbed wire capped the low stone wall that bordered the field. He stepped over it and walked through the furrows. 

Beneath the moon he could see faces etched into the skin of each pumpkin, at one with the rot and decay. Some of the pumpkins were split, and like toothless mouths the oozing gaps moved to try and form words. Gaseous voices seeped up from out of their seeded bellies. Vines tried to wrap themselves around his ankles, but he simply kept walking, stepping over the unharvested crop, as he moved across the field.

The moon was now hovering low in the trees, on its way toward slipping forever beneath the edge of the night. He now had a direction. There was a place.

Your father was a good man.

You did the right thing.

Frankie knew he had to get there before it was too late.

THE END

LVP Publications · Lycan Valley Halloween: On The Road To The Edge Of The Night by Kurt Newton

Kurt Newton's fiction has appeared in Weird Tales, Dark Discoveries, Not One of Us and the anthologies Revisiting the Undead, Shadows Over Deathlehem, O Unholy Night in Deathlehem and A Tree Lighting in Deathlehem. His third short story collection, Bruises, will be published by Lycan Valley Press Publications. 

Production by Mjae & Desmond

Music by John Skipp

Image by Benjamin Balaz

© 2020 LVP Publications. All Rights Reserved.

LYCAN VALLEY HALLOWEEN: Day Pass by Ken MacGregor

  

Richard Trenton Chase opened his eyes. He was out. He was back. This was the real world; he could feel it. They really did give me a day pass. I’ll be damned. He laughed aloud at the phrasing.

For almost an hour, he just lay on his back in the grass and looked at the night sky. He was naked. Of course, he thought, when’s the last time I wore clothes? Had to be thirty years at least. My, how time flies.

He sat up in long grass, brownish and rough. To his right, a very straight line of trees; to his left, a silo, a barn and a house. There was a television on downstairs. In the distance, Chase could see the lights of a good-sized city bouncing off the clouds.

He stood, brushed off the grass clinging to him as best he could and walked to the house, humming, “Old MacDonald had a Farm.” When he got there, he looked through the window first. The clock on the wall said was 1:15 am. He stepped onto the porch and tried the door. Unlocked. That’s how he knew this house needed his kind of help.

Chase walked through the first floor, leaving dirty footprints on the hardwood and occasional throw rug. IN front of the TV, still on, slept a woman who had to be at least 75 years old.

“Excuse me will you,” he whispered to the old lady. He headed into the kitchen. He pulled a large knife from the block.

When he got back to TV Lady, she was still sleeping peacefully in her chair. Chase took her chin in her hand; it was cool and dry. Her eyes fluttered open and he smiled at her.

“Shhh,” he said, and pushed the knife into her heart. She lasted a while but made no sound; she didn’t struggle. She just looked at him, eyes asking why. He had no answers for her. When she was all the way dead, Chase stepped back. So far, so good. He climbed the stairs.

First he came to a bathroom done in peach, which looked pink in the night-light’s glow. In the next was a child, six or seven. He looked like an angel. Chase kept moving down the hall. There was just one more room, a large one. In it, the farmer slept with his wife; or maybe, Chase corrected himself, the farmer is sleeping with her husband. Best not to judge before you know the facts.

Carefully, he climbed onto their bed; they both stirred, but didn’t wake.

Chase pounced, leading with the knife, using his momentum to score a deep cut on the man’s face, eliciting a scream. Chase laughed and drove his knee into the man’s groin through the sheets. Then, he stabbed again, in the side of the head. The man stopped suddenly, body rigid.

“I taste pineapples,” he said.

Chase pulled the knife out of her husband’s head and stabbed the wife. It was a bad cut, but not lethal. Not yet anyway. Chase thought he might have hit her lung. She gasped.

“Why?” she said. “What did we do? Why are you doing this?”

“You left your door unlocked.” Chase smiled reassuringly at her, then stabbed her again and again until he was sure she was gone.

When he was finished with her, Chase rested the blade against the man’s throat, which made him pause. He looked up at Chase, tried to speak. Chase nodded, gave him a small smile to say, it’s okay; you don’t have to talk. Then Chase sliced deep into the man’s throat, spraying arterial blood across the room.

“Like Jackson Fuckin’ Pollack!” Chase turned at a noise and saw the boy in the door. Kid still looked like an angel, albeit a frightened one.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Charlie.”

“This is gonna do bad things to you, Charlie. Tonight is gonna mess you up for life. But! There’s an upside, kiddo. I’m gonna let you live. What do you say?”

“Thank you?”

Chase nodded. “You’re welcome. I have to go now, Charlie. So much to do. Do not call the police. Do you understand me, Charlie?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir! God Damn, but it’s good to know people are still raising kids to be polite.”

Chase walked out of the room, patting Charlie on the head leaving the boy’s parents’ blood on his head. He set the knife down in the kitchen and left the house, pausing only to take the car keys from the hook on the wall, and drove their Ford Escort wagon down the road, carefully observing the speed limit.

***

He drove only as far as the next farm. It was now almost four am, Halloween morning. Out here in the country, folks might just be getting up soon. The gravel driveway was uncomfortable on his bare feet, but Chase didn’t mind. Pain is good for the soul. His soul could use all the good it could get.

The door was locked. Okay. No problem. Back in the car. See what’s next on the road. Chase drove away, and just like that, a family of eight got to live.

***

Just outside of town, Chase came across a nice, cozy subdivision. Well-manicured lawns, tasteful ornaments and matching garbage cans spoke of moderate wealth and conformity. He parked the car and peeled his naked, tacky body off the seat. It made a ripping noise, which made Chase laugh; he stifled it, but it kept threatening to bubble up again. He walked to the first house on the block. Door locked. Okay. The next one was locked, too. No problem. He was almost cheerful as he got the third door and found it locked as well. Maybe my work is done for the day, he thought. Maybe no one else needs my services.

The fourth door opened just as he reached for the handle. A woman stood there, holding a garbage bag. She was startled by Chase, but then looked concerned.

“My God! What happened to you?”

“Honestly,” Chase said, “I’ve been through Hell.” He managed not to laugh at his joke.

“Are you hurt? You’re covered in blood!”

“No, no. It’s okay. It’s not mine.”

She started to look worried, took a half step back.

“It’s cow blood,” Chase said. “A Halloween prank. My fraternity brothers put me up to it. I’m supposed to knock on someone’s door right at dawn, covered in blood and scare them. Only now, I feel really bad about it.”

“You poor man. You must be freezing. Come inside. You can use our shower to clean up and I’ll find something for you to wear. My husband is bigger than you, but maybe he has some sweats you can use.”

“You’re very kind.” Chase walked into her house. He noted the clean surfaces and lack of clutter: no kids. He noted the feminine print on the wallpaper, the floral couch and matching recliner, the flowers in a vase on the table: husband no longer there; he may be imaginary. She showed him the bathroom, avoiding looking at his nakedness. She pointed out the towel she kept for guests and said she was about to put on coffee and would he like some? He would.

Chase bathed in the shower. It was his first shower in decades, and he stayed in there a good long time. When he got out, he discovered she had put a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt on the toilet for him. He hadn’t heard her come in and was bothered by that. Mustn’t let my guard down, he thought. He dried and dressed; the clothes fit well enough. Chase could smell coffee now. Coffee was another thing he hadn’t had in a long, long time.

“This is really very kind of you,” he told her over the lip of his mug. “It’s nice to know there are still some decent people in the world.”

“Fewer of us all the time, I think.” She shook her head, drank some coffee. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a bit old to be pledging a fraternity.”

“I’m thirty. Yeah. I know. I dropped out of school for several years to work, but I wanted to go back and get my degree. My old man was a Delta, so it seemed like the right thing to do. Now, I’m not so sure. Hazing the old guy seems like everybody’s favorite sport.”

“I’ll just bet. People can be so cruel.”

“You have no idea.” There was silence for a moment as they sipped the hot liquid. “This is good coffee.”

“It’s fair trade.” She said it with pride.

“What’s that?”

“Why, I’m surprised you don’t know. Fair trade means the people who pick the beans are given a living wage instead of being treated like slaves. I only ever buy fair trade products; we all have a responsibility to take care of the world, don’t you think?”

“Sure, I guess. I never really thought about it.”

“Too many people don’t think about it. My goodness! How rude am I? I never even asked for your name.”

“Richard. Richard Chase. And yours?”

“Donna Logan. Pleased to meet you, Richard.” She put out her hand and he took it. She shook like a man.

“Pleased to meet you, too, Donna. I guess I couldn’t have picked a better house for this stupid prank. You’ve been so nice to me.”

“Think nothing of it. I want you to keep those clothes, too. I’ll find you some socks before you leave, though I don’t think we have any shoes that will fit you, I’m afraid. Thick, wool socks will serve for a bit. Are your frat brothers close by? Do you need a ride somewhere? I’m going to the gym in a bit anyway, so I could take you.”

“Can I ask you a question, Donna?”

“Certainly.”

“Just before I showed up at your door, and you went to take out the garbage, was your door locked?”

“Um, no. I don’t think so. I hardly ever lock it. This is a very safe neighborhood. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. It’s one of those ‘ice-breaker’ questions I like to ask. I would be thrilled if you could give me a ride into town. I’ll jump out at the gym, so you don’t have to make a special trip.”

Donna collected their empty mugs and rinsed them in the sink. She heard Chase step into the kitchen and turned to let him know it would just be a moment. He held a stool above his head. The heavy wooden stool, held by the calmly psychotic man she had allowed into her house, came down on Donna’s head with enough force to kill her instantly. It was seven am. Halloween was off to a good start.

Chase had killed seventeen people by the time the cops caught him. An alarming number of people in the subdivision did not lock their doors. They will after this, he thought. Once again, he was naked and covered in blood.

They cuffed him and threw him into the squad car much harder than necessary. They said they would hold him overnight downtown, but that he would be taken to maximum security in the morning.

“I won’t be here in the morning,” Chase told the cops. “After midnight, I’m gone. I’ll tell you, though, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun being back.” And he laughed and laughed.

They ran his prints and got an immediate hit: Richard Trenton Chase, Born May 23, 1950; died December 26, 1980. That was impossible. That guy was dead. Long dead. Killed himself in prison.

“Who are you really,” demanded the big cop, pointing his nightstick at Chase.

“Richard Chase. I’ve been in Hell. Seen things you can’t imagine. Been through tortures Dante never thought of. But they let me out on a day pass as part of a sort-of work-release program. And, let me tell you, I have been having a really, really good time.”

“Fuck you,” the cop said. And, he sat outside the cell, watching Chase, occasionally glancing at the clock. At 11:58 pm, he stood and walked to the cage.

“Alright, Chase,” he said. Let’s see your little disappearing act.”

With inhuman speed, Chase flew at the bars, catching the big cop before he could retreat. His left hand snaked through the bars, grabbed the cop’s pistol and yanked it from the holster. The cop put his own hand down on Chase’s, keeping the gun from going anywhere. Chase bit the cop’s cheek, tearing flesh away and spat it in the cop’s eye. It was enough. Chase got the gun up, thumbed off the safety and shot the cop three times center mass. His body armor absorbed it, but it hurt like hell and he doubled over. Chase stole a glance at the clock, saw he only had seconds left, and put the barrel to the cop’s head.

“And that makes eighteen,” he said, and fired.

***

The shots drew cops from all over the building. Seconds after midnight, they found the big cop’s body on the floor, his pistol inside the empty cell. The prisoner was nowhere to be found.

When they reviewed the security footage, they watched Chase kill one of their own, and then they watched him disappear, gun falling to the floor. They watched it again and again. It never changed and they never quite believed it happened.

From then on, every Halloween, the cops in that department were extra paranoid, jumping at shadows; a few innocent teenagers nearly got shot. Eventually, they forgot. Just in time for the next damned soul to get a day pass.

THE END

LVP Publications · Lycan Valley Halloween: Day Pass by Ken MacGregor

Ken MacGregor writes and edits stuff. When not doing that, he can frequently be found reading, playing with his kids, or laughing at life's bizarre little quirks. 

Production by Mjae & Desmond

Music by John Skipp

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians

© 2020 LVP Publications. All Rights Reserved.

LYCAN VALLEY HALLOWEEN: Old Cobwebs for New by Dale W Glaser

 

Janine Ferber was more than angry at Sierra Meyers.  She wallowed in a righteous, seething fury towards her co-worker, yet knew it was totally irrational.  After all, it wasn’t as if Sierra had gotten sick on purpose, Janine was well aware.  But that self-awareness did nothing to diminish the anger itself.  As Janine positioned the fingers of a severed zombie hand around the cup of pens at the check-in window, she fantasized about bending back Sierra’s fingers one by one until they snapped and Sierra screamed herself hoarse.  When she hauled the old witch’s cauldron from the storage closet down the hall and to its station beside the front door, Janine imagined how it would feel to yank a handful of Sierra’s hair and drag her along, cracking Sierra’s skull against the wooden door frames of every exam room.  And while she extricated the leering devil figurine from its aging bubble wrap and carried it to the waiting room’s magazine table, Janine visualized in lurid detail jamming its tin pitchfork directly into Sierra’s eye.  She felt the lens’s resistance before it popped, saw the shiny mixture of blood and vitreous gel running down Sierra’s cheek.  At the very least, it might wipe the permanently perky smile off Sierra’s face.

Janine set the devil figurine down on the tabletop, between fanned issues of Entertainment Weekly and People.  She looked around the reception area, taking in her handiwork.  Every available surface was decorated, cardboard vampire and mummy cutouts plastering the walls and doors, tombstone tchotchkes on the tables and counters, rubber bats hanging from the window treatments and plastic vampire fangs added to the basket of rewards children could choose from, even throw pillows on the chairs embroidered with dancing skeletons and hissing black cats.  The entire office looked like a no-expenses-spared party zone for a child whose birthday fell on October 31st.  Dr. Parelli would no doubt be very pleased.

That was the good news.  Bad news, it was past 10 p.m., Janine was mentally and physically exhausted, and she wasn’t even done yet.  Every knickknack and prop was in its designated place, but one final touch was required, the one that Janine dreaded most yet which by necessity always came last: the cobwebs.  They were Janine’s least favorite part of decorating, forever shedding little white fibers that could never be brushed away, like pine needles from Christmas trees, showing up in nooks and crannies months after the holiday had passed.  And festooning the office with them in such a way that they looked appropriately spooky, and not just like misplaced medical gauze unraveling from the ceiling, was arduous, tedious work.  Yet not for an instant did Janine think that she could skip the cobwebs this year, pleading that the evening had gotten away from her and she’d needed to cut her losses to get home and sleep before returning to work the next day.  The cobwebs were Dr. Parelli’s favorite part of the Halloween ambiance.  

No one would know, just looking at Dr. Parelli, that he was a Halloween fanatic.  Eleven months out of every year, Dominic Parelli, DDS, was straight-laced as could be.  He wore the same brown loafers every day, rotated through three pairs of khakis - light beige, medium beige and dark beige - every week, and favored Oxford dress shirts in dark colors like maroon and hunter green, though he would occasionally don stripes for variety.  He let his hygienists, like Janine, and his assistants handle most of the routine aspects of the appointments, interacting with his patients rarely and with polite decorum.

But when the calendar turned to October, Dr. Parelli would turn as well.  Early in the month, he made a point of lifting his pants cuffs so people could admire his novelty socks, covered with tiny pumpkins or tiny werewolves or reproduced stills of Plan 9 From Outer Space, seemingly a different pair for every day of the month.  As the end of October approached, he wore black slacks some days, and bright orange or electric green polo shirts.  

The biggest change, though, was Dr. Parelli’s expression of humor.  The garish Halloween attire brought out a tendency to indulge in fright gags, none more frequently deployed than his spider puppet, a full glove, covered in furry black bristles like a tarantula.  Eight clustered eyes and a disturbingly accurate agglomeration of mouthparts sat atop the middle knuckles, and Dr. Parelli had mastered the art of wiggling his fingers to perfectly mimic the crawling motions of spiders’ legs.

Every September 30th the office decorations would go up, and the ritualized pranks would begin the next day.  A patient would come in for their exam or cleaning, all of which would go by with customary professionalism and efficiency, if Janine did say so herself.  At the end of the appointment, Dr. Parelli would stop by to chat, asking if the patient had any concerns, making suggestions for future treatments which could only come from the dentist himself.  The patient would remain in the examination chair, almost fully reclined, accustomed to lying perfectly still for the better part of thirty minutes.  Dr. Parelli would enter with the spider puppet on his hand behind his back, sit near the patient’s head, just barely within the corner of the patient’s peripheral vision.  Dr. Parelli would ask, “Notice anything different around the office?”  No matter what the patient said, Dr. Parelli would continue, “Yeah, seems like we have a bit of a … I guess you’d say a spider infestation problem?  Nothing to worry about, though.”  And while the patient was chuckling at his reassurance, Dr. Parelli would slowly bring up the hand puppet and walk the hairy ersatz legs up the patient’s arm.  Some combination of screaming, crying and laughing would ensue, with the vast majority of the laughter belonging to Dr. Parelli himself.  

As far as Janine knew, the spider gag had never permanently cost them a patient.  Dr. Parelli had played the same trick on her, six years earlier, the first Halloween she had worked there.  She had been reminded of it viscerally every Halloween ever since, the memory evoked by the cheek-aching smile she forced herself to put on when Dr. Parelli got up to his usual antics, the same expression she had adopted to get through the trick the first time.  

Dr. Parelli signed her paychecks, so Dr. Parelli got the smile, while Janine doubted she would ever voluntarily smile at Sierra Meyers again, unless she happened to see Sierra simultaneously electrocute and irradiate herself in a lethal x-ray mishap.  The irony was that Sierra had been on the verge of becoming Janine’s favorite co-worker.  Sierra had just joined the team as a dental assistant in the spring, and sometime in September had been warned by Mike Holt, the other assistant, about the imminent Halloween madness.

“Oh, wow, I love Halloween, too!” Sierra had gushed.  “It’s my favorite, ever since I was little!”

Janine had then casually mentioned that if Sierra wanted to be in charge of decorating the office, she was welcome to it, and Sierra had jumped at the chance.  Even after Janine had then explained it required staying late the night of September 30th, Sierra’s enthusiasm had not diminished at all.  She had in fact paid out of her own pocket to order more decorations to put out for the overnight transformation.  Janine had noticed Dr. Parelli’s subdued approval along the way, but she was far too grateful that she would not have to sacrifice the evening herself to be resentful of Sierra becoming the dentist’s new favorite.

And of course, because it had all been too good to be true, Sierra had contracted mononucleosis in the last week of September.  And of course, in Sierra’s absence, Dr. Pirelli had automatically assumed that responsibility for decorating the haunted dentist’s office would revert to Janine, deprived of her idle expectations of spending the night ordering Ethiopian delivery for dinner and eating it on the couch in front of some Netflix stand-up specials, possibly accompanied by dessert of strawberry ice cream and Fuzzy Navels.  That alone would have been reason to wish a cruel, painful death upon Sierra Meyers, for raising her hopes and then dashing them altogether.  But adding insult to injury was the fact that September 30 had become an even more endless slog because of every new decoration that Sierra had acquired and Dr. Pirelli had begun gleefully looking forward to.

Even now, with nothing left to do but put up the signature cobwebs all around the office, Janine felt a hatred towards Sierra that could reduce the junior dental assistant to a pile of ash quicker than any malfunctioning x-ray meltdown.  Because even the cobwebs were new this year, not the same old polyester fibers which were annoying but at least familiar, but some bizarre, custom high-end product from an online company that insisted it did not sell holiday decorations but rather ‘immersive seasonal experiences’, whatever that was supposed to mean.  Nevertheless, Janine knew the only way to get home and into her bed was to finish, so she pulled the shipping carton out from underneath Aneesa Broward’s reception desk and tried to pry apart its flaps.  

Of course, the box had been wrapped in bands of reinforced shipping tape, with filaments running through it, and it hurt Janine’s hands.  Cursing, she shoved the box aside and rummaged through the reception desk for a pair of scissors.  The blades made short work of the tape, although there were so many layers that Janine’s frustration mounted.  Finally the flaps opened and Janine lifted out the contents.

There was no labeling, no tag, nothing at all to indicate the intended use of the spindle wrapped in irregular white strands.  It was unpleasantly sticky beneath Janine’s fingers, but allegedly that was what made it such an appealing upgrade: there was no need to use tape to hold the cobwebs in place, or to position it strategically with a thick bunch of fiber hooked onto a convenient outcropping.  These cobwebs were self-adhesive, and once Janine climbed onto a chair in the waiting room and pressed one corner of the cobweb material up above the window, she discovered that much at least was true.

Janine nearly lost her balance getting down, and cursed under her breath for the hundredth time.  She stepped up onto another chair to add more cobwebs to the other side of the window.  The sticky cobwebs were easier to arrange and situate, but detaching them from the spindle was tough.  The tenacious strands wanted to cling together, and there wasn’t even a handle to the spindle to grip while prying the layers apart.  Janine hopped down and took a couple of steps back to admire the sight.  In the dark silence of the empty office, she grudgingly admitted that they looked amazing.  They looked organic, shivering in the recirculated air with just the right unfurling weight, as if she had entered some long-forgotten crypt overrun by creepy-crawlies.  It was just oh so typical, the end result impressive enough for Dr. Pirelli to be childishly delighted and to give all the credit to Sierra, while no one would ever know how late Janine had toiled to set it all up.

That thought in particular was intolerable.  Janine clawed away more new cobwebs from the spindle and draped them along the front of Aneesa’s desk, scowling at the injustice.  Dr. Parelli and Mike and Aneesa would be all sympathy and sunshine with Sierra when she got back from her sick leave, falling over themselves to thank her for organizing the updated decorations.  Janine ripped apart more cobwebs, strewing them along the hallway walls, up and around the framed art prints, and fumed at the vision of Sierra eating up the adulation.  And even if - especially if! - Sierra tried in any way to spare a thought for her and said something like “well let’s not forget Janine put everything out” that actually would be worse.  Because Janine had never been able to take a compliment, never been comfortable with attention, not that much ever came her way, with her brown hair cut in a sensible bob and her glasses and her average pear-shaped body.  Nothing like Sierra, who wasn’t just younger, and bubbly and outgoing, but blonde and built like a swimsuit model.  If Sierra tried to share the spotlight, Janine would reflexively shy away from it, and everyone would just be that much more enamored of Sierra, so modest and non-self-centered on top of everything else.

Janine’s blood was boiling, her fingers clenched with rage around the spindle of sticky strands, and her fingernails pierced the remaining layers of cobwebs, digging into the hollow core.  She rolled her eyes in exasperation, but consoled herself that with so little material left, she would soon be finished.  If that wasn’t enough to decorate every exam room doorway, so be it.  Maybe Sierra wouldn’t get unlimited glory after all.

Janine felt something inside the bundle of cobwebs tickle her knuckle, and she jerked her fingers out of their poked holes.  Not a loose strand of the material, it felt more like the burrs that sometimes clung to her skin when she picked Queen Anne’s lace in her backyard, if the hooks on the burrs were capable of moving on their own.  

She stormed out of the hallway, back to the reception area, where the light switches for the entire office were located.  She needed a better look at what she was dealing with to put up the remaining cobwebs without injuring herself on whatever was rattling around inside the sticky bundle.  Before she could reach the switches, however, she felt the sharp tickling again, this time on her wrist.  Reflexively, even as an ice cold tremor ran down her spine, Janine switched the spindle of cobwebs from one hand to the other and shook her hand violently to dislodge whatever had caught there.

Then she felt the same insistent prickling on her opposite wrist, and rather than fling it away she smacked her skin hard.  Her palm encountered nothing except her own flesh, but she felt a separate flare of biting pain on the back of her hand.

Janine yelped, and dropped the cobwebs to the floor.  She was only a couple steps away from being able to reach the light switches, but on pure instinct she backed away from the bundle.  In the gloom, she could just make out small, dark shapes wriggling their way out of the holes she had poked in the cobwebs.  Some part of her brain, evolved to recognize danger, shrieked with automatic terror that the shapes were spiders, dozens, maybe hundreds, streaming out of their nest.

The same part of her brain howled at her to run for the door, but as Janine tried to turn herself around her feet tangled and she sprawled facedown on the carpet.  A heartbeat later she felt a multitude of legs picking across her bare ankles, and a sharp pain next to her Achilles tendon, another on the opposite shin.  Janine scrambled to her hands and knees, rising unsteadily to her feet while swatting at her legs.  She could barely reach the tops of her feet with her fingertips, she was too soft in the middle to bend enough, which only made her flail more desperately at the area just below her knees as spiders climbed up her legs, some outside her scrub pants, some inside.  The bites on her ankle and shin were beginning to feel like steady drips of acid eating her flesh, and the first bite on her hand was throbbing as it burned, the skin around it tight and swollen.

Janine burst into tears, wailing miserably as she spun in wobbly stomping circles, trying to dislodge and smash as many spiders as she could.  Her knee struck the side of a chair and she tumbled into it, throwing her arms wide in a failed attempt to catch herself.  Her scrub top rode up and spiders swarmed across the exposed skin of her belly.  Janine lost count of how many sharp shocks of pain she felt from the jabbing fangs all over.

She attempted to push herself to her feet, but her leg muscles were curiously numb, even as the corrosive wildfire ran rampant across her nerves.  She felt herself settling into the chair, feet resting on the floor like dead weight, arms limp and useless at her sides.  Her head lolled back against the wall and her vision went dark.  Perhaps she had closed her eyes.  Perhaps sleep would take the pain away.

***

Aneesa Broward and Mike Holt arrived at Dr. Pirelli’s office together the morning of October 1st.  They were hooking up, spending nights together, but telling everyone that Aneesa was having car trouble and Mike was helping out a co-worker in need.  Aneesa carried their coffees as Mike unlocked the front door to let them in.  Aneesa crossed the threshold after him, looked around the reception area and said, “Oh, right, it’s October.”

“Sure is,” Mike said, slipping his keys into his hoodie pocket before accepting his coffee from Aneesa.  “Man, over the top this year.”

“Yeah, especially that,” Aneesa said, pointing to a chair in the corner of the waiting room, occupied by a vaguely human shape completely enshrouded in webs.  “Hope the patients don’t complain about having to sit next to that.”

“Well, if they do, that sounds like a you-problem,” Mike teased the receptionist.  “But you know Doc’s gonna love it.”

The prediction proved to be correct, as Dr. Pirelli arrived a few minutes later and stopped in his tracks to admire the cobwebbed effigy in the corner chair.  A tiny smile quirked his lips as his fingers danced in anticipation.

THE END

LVP Publications · Lycan Valley Halloween: Old Cobwebs for New by Dale W Glaser

Dale W Glaser is a horror fan and creator of chilling tales but, you know, in a cool, fun way, not an obsessed, psycho, working through his personal demons, disturbing way. 

Production by Mjae & Desmond

Music by John Skipp

Image by StockSnap

© 2020 LVP Publications. All Rights Reserved.

LYCAN VALLEY HALLOWEEN: Christopher's Last Time Trick-or-Treating by Ken MacGregor

 

Christopher was supposed to be Godzilla, but his dad didn’t finish the costume on time. It was the latest in a long line of disappointments from Dad.

With a little help from Mom, Christopher made his own Samurai costume. Using cardboard, tinfoil and copious amounts of Scotch tape, he decorated his bike helmet. The armor was made of similar stuff and he already had a fake katana. That’s how Christopher got the idea.

Looking into the mirror before he went trick-or-treating, Christopher gave his reflection his best warrior face. Then he grinned.

Two hours of walking in cold rain turned Christopher’s Samurai into a garbage robot with a sword. Dragging his candy bag through puddles, Christopher approached the last house on the block. The light above was on, but the glass globe around it was so dirty it barely lit the porch. A cardboard cartoon skeleton hung in the open space behind the screen door. A wide, adult figure shuffled into view.

“Trick or treat,” Christopher said without enthusiasm.

“What are you supposed to be?”

Looking up at the enormous person, Christopher tried but was unable to figure out if it was a man or a woman. The grown-up popped a bubble and the smell of cherry gum filled the air.

“Samurai, but my costume got wet, and now I look like a stupid garbage robot.”

The huge belly shook with laughter and he (or she) opened the door. Held loosely in one hand, a plastic pumpkin rattled with bite-sized candies.

“Trick,” said the adult.

“Wait. What?”

Christopher blinked up the other person.

“You gave me a choice. I choose ‘trick’.”

“It’s just an expression,” Christopher said. “Everybody knows that. Can I please just have some candy?”

The grown-up shook its head. The jowls sounded like Jell-O dropping on the floor.

“Trick.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

The orange, plastic pumpkin hit the floorboard, spilling Skittles packets at Christopher’s feet. The huge person grabbed fistfuls of belly with both hands. Tendons stood out on its neck as fingers pushed through fabric and flesh. With gritted teeth, it ripped itself open. Blood poured out, covering the Skittles and splashing up on Christopher’s shoes.

Backing away, Christopher almost fell down the steps, but caught himself in time. He opened his mouth to scream, but only choking noises came out. He ran, bag of treats forgotten, clutching his plastic katana like he was heading into battle.

Behind him, the huge, genderless hulk chuckled.

“I love that trick,” it said as it stuffed its guts back where they belonged. Picking up a packet of Skittles, it tore off one corner and dumped the candy in its mouth.

THE END

LVP Publications · Lycan Valley Halloween: Christopher's Last Time Trick-or-Treating by Ken MacGregor

Ken MacGregor writes and edits stuff. When not doing that, he can frequently be found reading, playing with his kids, or laughing at life's bizarre little quirks. 

Production by Mjae & Desmond

Music by John Skipp

Image by AnnaliseArt

© 2020 LVP Publications. All Rights Reserved.