We waited the excruciating wait and watched the crawling clock. First it was morning, and then morning, and still morning, and when lunch time finally came to pass, we rushed to the school cafeteria with visions of the autumn night awaiting. We sat to plan, Cerrick and Gil and me, our attack on the neighborhood's prize, the All Hallow's reward for ambitious would-be goblins. Because one night a year...just one, and you can don the identity you always wanted, or at least the one your mother could afford, and they let you free. FREE, into the night, with the intoxicating smell of fallen leaves enveloping your senses, the sounds of screams and "trick or treat" and high pitched laughs serenading you under the orange glow of the Halloween moon.
So gathering to plan, as we did, seemed to be the only reasonable route. One night condenses into a mere few hours, and the later you start, the less treasure to show. The sting of summer's end is relieved by October's dawn, and the thought of pillowcases of candy wafting that combined uncommon scent through the early chilly nights is the first glimmer of a lighthouse until the frost of winter solstice brings the apparition of Father Christmas. Never, we used to say, underestimate the power of Halloween night, that one annual precious marriage of frost and fright.
We ravaged the tater tots and consumed the chocolate milk while mapping out our new system for covering the most all hallowed ground. The green beans sat untouched on the trays. I like green beans, but you can't eat green beans on Halloween. It's bad luck, said Gil, and I've a feeling he thought the same for the other 364 days. I drew a line through the makeshift neighborhood paper, and X marked the spot where we would wind up before the wind called us home, happy, fat on sugar and satisfied with our returns and still full of the macabre of an organic spooky dusk.
"What's this, boys? A map?"
Mr. Margot peered over his glasses at our sprawling paper, a small smile creasing the corner of his mouth.
"Yessir," I smiled. "We start here, on Hadley, and wind up at the corner store."
"Well, we may have to run home and dump pillowcases in between," Gil chimed in.
Mr. Margot nodded. "Why the corner store?"
"My sister works there," Cerrick nearly yelled, "And she is giving us a bottle of pop and a bag of chips when we're all done Trick or Treating."
Mr. Margot grinned from ear to ear. "Well," he said loudly, "Nice to see men with a plan. Halloween night...gotta be the best night of the year, right? Christmas...well, Christmas is the best DAY, right? But there is no other night like Halloween, is there?" He trailed off with that question, a faraway look in his eyes. I knew he didn't expect an answer; it was posed as a question but was given as fact.
"Good luck, gentleman. Hope you find your pillowcases full. Save me a candy bar or two for tomorrow, will ya?"
We all shook our heads yes, smiling and wide eyed with anticipation. He turned to walk away and we went back to marking our trail, but he stopped after a step or two.
"However," he said, a chill in the word. He turned toward us again and leaned down even more closely. "Remember this one thing. Don't look behind you tonight."
Gil laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, and Cerrick and I exchanged furrowed brows.
"Why?"
"Wait...you don't know this? Your parents have set you free on All Hallows Eve all these years, and you were never told?"
I shrugged.
"Mr. McDunn," he said directly to me, "You never look behind you on Halloween night. Because you might see someone who you ought not to see."
Chills filled me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but I didn't really want to know.
"What does that mean?" Gil asked, still trying to be aloof.
"Just what it sounds like. On Halloween, the curtain falls, boys. And yes, there is a possibility that you might turn to see a lost great great grandmother, or a poor, sad soul harvested too soon, but you could also see...well..."
He stood up, a big grin across his face. "Don't mind me, gentlemen. I'm just an old codger looking for a scare on Halloween. You'll be fine, I'm sure of it. But you know, there is one other thing.
I was scared to ask. We all were. But far too curious and young and fascinated to stop him from answering.
"Halloween doesn't really start until 6 PM today, when the sun starts to descend, and doesn't end until the sun sets again on November 1st. Interesting, right? That's when summer really rests. So smack dab in the middle, 6 AM tomorrow morning, that's when the spirits roam most freely. You boys don't dare to be out then, right?"
He had to have known full well that we would be walking to the bus stop in the near dark of 6 AM. He smiled. This time, it looked crooked, and he seemed mean, and his smile held no respite.
He turned quickly and walked off with a slow wave over his shoulder.
We started our Halloween intinerary at 5. Some kids ran out right after school, but no...many houses aren't ready then, and you miss out on the candy. If you want a full bounty, you must be patient. By 6:30, our map a distantly crumbled disposable floating down a side street, we had half full pillowcases and decided to stop for a review of our bags.
One house had given the practically priceless, on Halloween, premium of TWO full sized candy bars. Cerrick attempted to circle back twice to that house, claiming to be his own twin brother. It worked, he had yelled, but I saw the woman shaking her head with a laugh. We paused only briefly, wolfed down a piece of sugary delight, and resumed our pace.
By 8:30, our pillowcases were full. We were the only ones out and about as far as we could tell, and now the night, which had held an air of spooky but harmless ambience, turned colder, as if Halloween itself was beginning its own trek to winter hibernation. We began to walk more quickly as we left the corner store with the promised gifts, none of us in a hurry to depart from the group to their own destinations.
When we reached O'Brien Avenue, Gil gave us a wave and practically ran off toward his house, knowingly spilling a few small candies and pretending not to notice, darting indoors as quickly as we had started out.
The charms of the night's atmosphere had now turned to only the sounds of night itself, the wind alive, murmuring insincere warnings through the trees, bringing to life it's namesake chimes everywhere in the distance. We hurried, any pretense of courage for each others' sakes resigned in a flurry of chills and goose pimples.
I spoke first. "Hope I got a lot of Reese's," I said, half heartedly. Cerrick agreed. "I think you did. I saw Mr. Bittering throw a bunch into our bags, so at least those. But probably more."
We were silent again for a block or two, until the loud crunch of a stick behind us. We froze for a moment, looked each other in the eyes, and continued walking.
"Don't look," I said, in a voice barely above a whisper. It felt like a scream. Cerrick winced.
We took more steps. The crunching commenced behind us. We walked more quickly. Fighting the urge to look was now near impossible, the sight of my house just a block away being the only antidote. A sound like a low growl came up on our heels, and our fast walk turned into a sprint. We raced to my porch with as much passion as we had ever summoned on Halloween night.
Cerrick would still have to cross the street and down a few houses to get home, but as we stood on the porch and blinked and looked toward the place where our pursuant would have been, there was nothing. The safety of my porch had rendered the bite of windy moonlit nightfall to a still menacing but mostly unthreatening sensation.
"Do you want me to get my mom to walk you home?" I asked. He looked around. The bravado of youth was starting to return to his eyes. "Nah, I'll be ok, Cal. See you in the morning."
I nodded and watched as he stepped off the porch, his footing less steady as he hit the sidewalk. I went inside, then felt a moment of panic as I closed the door. I peered out the glass window and saw Cerrick almost to his house, but my blood ran sleet cold when I saw a shrouded figure behind him, stopped on the sidewalk, watching him. I wanted to open the door and call out, but didn't, fearing that the second lost would keep Cerrick from the safety inside. I decided instead to call him, but I watched with bewilderment as the swarthy personage, clouded by the darkness, evaporated into All Hallows Eve.
I shook my head, wondering if my mind had invented the whole thing.
Sleep was uneasy at best, every sound of wind and tree magnified outside my bedroom window. Each brush of branch was the hand of Cerrick's stalker, waking me to see what evil had befallen him. Every bark of the neighbor's dog was a caution of his presence.
In the morning, we met, the three of us, and walked the crisp parade to the bus stop together. Night's shadow was still being cast across the sun. Cerrick and Gil both seemed unshaken by Halloween's touch, and were unwrapping and eating candy bars from open zippers in the tops of their backpacks, already discussing things they would ask for on Christmas.
As we passed the crosswalk and out into the unusually quiet main road, there was a sudden screech from just behind us. A truck veered over the sidewalk, losing control and bearing down directly at us. Gil and I reacted quickly and dove to the cement, but Cerrick was too far ahead and the vehicle barreled toward him. He was stunned, too scared to move, his mouth and eyes equally agape.
Just before impact, I saw it.
I saw the thing.
The figure. It was no less visible than the night before, but no less real. It reached both hands out and shoved Cerrick back toward us, a full five feet away from where he stood just a second before. He landed hard, and the driver of the truck wiped his forehead, face now sheer white, looking as shocked as the rest of us. We saw it, the phantom figure, all of us. Unmoving, standing as straight as the night before on the sidewalk. A voice like I've never heard before or since vibrated in agreeable tones, a circular sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, and spoke only two words: Not today.
With purpose, I looked down at my watch. The final seconds of 6:00 A.M. were ticking down.
Cerrick's dark preserver vanished, dissolving with a wisp into soft remnants like onyx feathers before disappearing entirely.
Back.
Back into the veil.
---- Paul Counelis
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