A Trembling With Fear Special Edition: Halloween 2024

Tapping Kate

By Deborah Tapper

 

“Put three drops of your blood in a glass of fresh milk and leave it by your gate, dear.” Emma beamed at nine-year-old Luna who’d run to open the door. “And be sure to throw the glass away in the morning.”

“Why?” Luna’s mother Alex put a hand on her shoulder.

“Because it won’t be fit for to drink from.” Emma seemed surprised she’d even ask. “Not after she’s touched it.”

“She?” Luna stared at their new neighbour with wide eyes. Emma had popped by with several homemade treats since they’d moved to this quiet rural village three weeks ago, and the rich scent of spiced baking rose from the covered basket she was holding.

A stinging wind stirred the bushes, nipping warm skin and tumbling coppery leaves across the grass. Emma passed her free hand quickly over her lips, as if brushing the words away before she spoke them. “Tapping Kate,” she said, voice dropping to a whisper. “But if you put a glass of bloodmilk by the gate and leave lighted candles in all the downstairs windows, she won’t come near the house.”

Alex squeezed Luna’s shoulder. “That reminds me…” she said, smiling at the quaint old countryside superstition. “Any special trick-or-treating rules we should know about? I always go around with Luna, but I know some people don’t like kids banging on their doors. And we don’t want to upset anybody.”

“You can’t go out after dark tonight,” Emma said. “No one does.”

“Oh.” Alex nodded. “Okay. Fine. At least we know.”

“Who’s Tapping Kate?” Luna asked, swinging on the door.

“A lonely thing made of bones and darkness,” Emma said with perfect seriousness. “She hides away from the light and only crawls out once a year, when the dead join hands with the living.”

“Spooky,” Alex said, smile slipping just a little. “But we love ghost stories – don’t we, Luna?”

“Where is she?” Luna fixed her gaze on Emma. “Where does she live? And why won’t anyone let her in? If she’s lonely, maybe she just wants a friend to play with.”

“That smells absolutely wonderful!” Alex gave Luna’s shoulder a harder squeeze, nodding to the basket. “Is that for us, Emma?”

The older woman glowed with pleasure and flipped the cloth back from the basket. “Just a little pumpkin pie,” she said. “I thought you might like it.” She covered the pie again, handing the basket to Alex. “There’re toffee apples as well, and some honeycomb for Luna. And a horseshoe, too.”

“A horseshoe…?” Alex blinked. “Whatever for?”

Emma laughed, eyes crinkling. “Your front door, of course,” she said. “I saw you’d taken the old iron knocker down yesterday.”

“It was ugly,” Alex said, wondering if she’d inadvertently broken some village taboo. “I wanted something that looked nicer.”

“No harm done,” Emma smiled. “Not if you put the shoe up before it gets dark. She can’t set foot inside a house protected by iron. I’ve tied some rowan to it for extra security. And some hawthorn; she doesn’t like that, either. Enjoy the pie.”

“We will.” Alex gripped the basket. “Thanks, Emma.”

Another gust bowed the grass, fluttering restless leaves around Emma’s ankles. “Now don’t forget: iron, bloodmilk and candles,” she said as she closed the gate. “They’ll keep you safe. But if anything unforeseen should happen and you do hear someone knocking, don’t open the door.”

Alex desperately wanted to fit in, so she put the horseshoe up straight away. It gave the door an oddly pagan look, with its sprigs of hawthorn and rowan. Emma had tied the twigs in place with a web of red thread, the overlapping threads crisscrossing into what almost looked like a pattern of some kind.

“We can’t go out,” Luna muttered under her breath. “And she can’t come in…”

She was curled on the sofa with her feet tucked up, head bent over a book. Alex felt trepidation coiling in her stomach. Six months since the breakup and Luna could still lapse into long periods of silence that lasted for days, sometimes even weeks. This move had been intended as a fresh start for them both and she’d thought Luna was settling in.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Only for tonight,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Hey, we don’t want everyone thinking we’re outsiders.”

“But we are.” Luna turned a page, keeping her head down. “We’re not like them.”

Alex walked over. Slipped gentle arms around her daughter’s shoulders, feeling the small body tighten in resentment. “I thought you liked it here,” she said carefully.

Luna shrugged.

“Is it school?” Alex waited, already knowing Luna wouldn’t answer. “You know I’m always here to listen if you want to talk about anything…”

Luna only shrugged again.

“Sorry there’s no trick-or-treating this year.” Alex tilted her head, trying to sneak a look at Luna’s face. “But we still get to carve pumpkins and decorate the house. We’ll watch scary movies and eat candy. And you can wear your new witch’s outfit all weekend if you want.”

Luna flipped several pages without reading them. “She’s waiting,” she said.

“Who is?” Alex asked, determined to keep Luna talking this time.

More pages rustled like leaves. “Tapping Kate.”

“Tapping Kate…!” Alex smiled, humouring her. “So where does Tapping Kate live?”

“In the hill.”

Alex knew she meant the old earthwork.

They’d discovered it by chance last weekend, when they’d gone for a walk across the fields. A long, grassy hump with an upright grey stone at one end that looked almost like a door. There was a tiny gap at the base, so they’d crouched and Luna poked a stick through, waggling it around in unseen emptiness.

Luna wanted to squeeze under the stone and see what was on the other side, but Alex stopped her.

She might get stuck. And they didn’t know what was in there.

When Luna insisted, Alex pushed her phone through the gap instead and took some photos. There was definitely a hollow space behind the stone, but the photos were too dark and blurry to see anything.

Even so, they made Alex feel very uneasy and she deleted them.

She asked Emma, who claimed she didn’t know anything about the strange hump. So Alex searched the internet and discovered it was actually an ancient burial mound. Archaeologists had dug there over a century ago, but found no fabulous treasures inside. Only countless human bones, all gnawed and cracked open by animals.

“Let’s decorate the house, Luna.” Alex gave her a quick hug, painfully aware of the hovering silence. “Come on – it’ll be fun.”

To her relief, Luna dropped the book. “Okay,” she said. “Why not?”

Alex was determined to make Luna happy, so she threw herself into the preparations. Trick-or-treating might be out of the question, but they could still have Halloween. She and her daughter carved scary faces into two big pumpkins. Festooned both the living room and Luna’s bedroom with cobwebs and ghosts. Hung rubber bats and spiders and filled little treat bowls with chewy eyeballs, jelly bugs and candy skulls.

Luna smiled to herself and sang something under her breath as they worked. Alex wasn’t sure what it was, but the tune sounded very old. She tried to listen without being too obvious, piecing stray phrases together until she had the whole song: “Tapping Kate, Tapping Kate, leave some bloodmilk by the gate, light the lamps or she’ll come in, break your bones and wear your skin.”

Alex wondered where she’d heard it.

Once the decorations were up, she and Luna put the pumpkins on either side of the front door. Then Alex poured the milk and took it outside. She hadn’t added any blood, but even so she still felt rather foolish walking down the drive with a glass in her hand. Perhaps there was no quaint village superstition and Emma had just been joking, playing a harmless Halloween prank on a gullible newcomer.

And she’d fallen for it.

Sunset was still half an hour away, but when she glanced at the houses along the street she noticed all her neighbours were already home. Candles burned in their windows. And she saw a glass of milk waiting at the end of every drive.

Alex left her glass by the gate and hurried back inside, locking the door.

She had some scented candles, so she lit them and put them in the windows as it got dark. The village felt eerily silent tonight. There were no excited kids in Halloween costumes, no cars pulling on or off driveways – not even a single prowling cat. Nothing stirred except the wind, which breathed leaves against the door.

Alex heated pizza for tea. Then she made mugs of hot chocolate, cut the pumpkin pie into thick wedges and settled down to watch movies with Luna. And she tried not to listen to the leaves, which went rustling and tapping along the walls.

Luna pleaded to stay up until midnight, but Alex was firm: that was far too late for a nine-year-old, even if it wasn’t a school night. She let Luna have an extra hour, then turned off the television, poured herself a glass of red wine and took it up to bed.

Alex woke sometime later, feeling muzzy and disorientated. The wine lay thick and musty on her tongue and silence pressed against her ears like invisible fingers. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the stillness here. Or the darkness. The village’s few street lights were switched off by eleven and none of her neighbours kept late hours.

It was an effort to lift her head, to squint at the clock. Almost midnight. She groaned. Burrowed down again, snuggling the covers up around her ears.

And she heard a faint, rhythmic knocking.

It sounded as if someone was outside, rapping on the doors and windows with a stick. “Luna?” She groped for the light, rubbing clumsy fingers over drowsy eyes. “Is that you?”

Tik-tik-tik. She hadn’t imagined it. Someone was definitely outside.

Tapping.

Alex stumbled out of bed. Tugged on jeans, a sweater. And she was halfway down the stairs when she thought she heard the front door opening.

She ran the rest of the way, slapping lights on. The candles she’d left in the windows had gone out, but the door was still closed. Local kids, she thought. Up to Halloween mischief after all.

Then she realised the door was unlocked.

And Luna’s coat was missing.

Alex raced back upstairs, calling her daughter’s name. But Luna wasn’t in her room – wasn’t anywhere. She searched quickly. Stomped her feet into boots, grabbed a flashlight and ran out into the night.

Someone had torn the horseshoe off the door and smashed the glass; milk pooled in a pale puddle by the gate. “Luna!” Alex screamed, sweeping the flashlight around, not caring who heard or saw her. “Where are you?”

She caught furtive movement. Aimed the light and saw two small figures hurrying down the street, holding hands in the darkness. She recognised Luna’s new coat instantly, but the fierce cold stung her eyes and she couldn’t decide what the other child was wearing. Her scrawny limbs were wrapped in long thin shreds of discoloured fabric, which shivered and snapped in the icy wind.

“Luna!” she yelled.

The two girls paused, turning to stare at her. Luna looked defiant, lips pressed together in sullen triumph.

The other child wasn’t a child at all.

Mask, Alex thought, knowing it wasn’t. Only a mask.

Then they were running, still holding hands. And Alex ran after them. “Luna!” she shouted. “Stop – come back – please!”

The two cut through an alley, down a stony track, over a style and across a field. Alex followed, guessing where they were going and desperate to stop them before they got there. “Luna…!” The breath caught in her throat, almost choking her. She ran faster, arms and legs pounding in time with her heart. “Wait for me!”

She pursued the shadowy figures across several fields. Then they were racing for the low mound and she plunged after them, knowing she couldn’t catch them.

By the time she reached the entrance to the long barrow, Luna and her terrifying new friend had vanished.

Alex swept the flashlight wildly around. “Luna!” she yelled. “Luna – where are you?” She dropped to the ground. Shone the light through the gap at the base of the stone, trying to see inside the barrow. “Luna!”

Something moved in the darkness.

“Luna!” Relief washed over her. “It’s okay – I’m coming to get you out!”

The gap was narrow, but not as quite narrow as she’d thought. Alex thrust her arms through. Then her head. Started to wriggle underneath.

And stuck.

“Luna!” She flailed – grunted – swore – dropped the flashlight, which rolled and went out. “Luna – I’m stuck!”

“Me and Kate…” Luna sang softly, giggling in the darkness. “Me and Kate – leave us bloodmilk by the gate, light the lamps or we’ll come in, break your bones and wear your skin…”

Hands that weren’t hands at all grabbed Alex.

Pulled her inside.

Countdown With Jack

By Rebecca Smith

 

Five

Jack is in pain. A lot of pain. Immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The stumps of Jack’s wrists had been bleeding non-stop for two days now, maybe three. It was hard to say in the darkness of the cell – the one they’d tossed him into after cutting off his hands. He’d lost count of the number of drips, too.

It was medieval torture, but Jack expected nothing less from his fellow immortals. They wanted him disorientated, after all. That was what they were counting on; that was how they’d break him. Time was just the first piece of reality to crack, but Jack could live with that because Jack was smart. You weren’t granted immortality without being smart about it.

There was a window in here, and windows always revealed more than their owners wanted them to. The guards had been careless about covering this one up: the cyan blue glow of morning had leaked in through the bottom left hand corner every day, like clockwork. This natural light was at its most invasive when dawn first broke. It had snuck inside the cell three times so far. Jack remembered three.

Or has it been four? Really, it might’ve been four. If it’s been four, then Jack’s doing quite well. They’ll have to come for him soon. They can’t take much longer, surely.

If Jack deluded himself, which he knew was unwise in his position, he could pretend he was underwater for those few hours, bathed in blue rather than red. Swimming.

But then there was the stench: the pungent, metallic ooze that seeped through his clothes, slickening his skin – not to mention the floor. It clung to Jack’s nostrils, blue light or not. Jack couldn’t see it, but he could smell it.

He can smell nothing else.

He knew the bleeding from his wrists wouldn’t cease even after a week, or a month, or a year of this.

Oh God, don’t let it be a year.

Jack’s wrists would go on weeping for the rest of time if it was demanded of them. There would be no clotting; no festering of infections; no final spurt before his body lay barren and white. It would all carry on indefinitely. That was immortality: haemophilia, apparently.

This is hardly the time for jokes.

It wasn’t his wrists’ fault. Jack’s wrists knew his hands were out there, outside of the cell, crying to be brought back home, and it was the wrists’ duty to keep everything fresh for when they returned. They couldn’t let Jack rot in here.

Jack won’t be much use to the cause that got him locked away in here if he rots.

During the first day, that Halloween, he’d tried feeling for them. He’d concentrated really fucking hard on touching the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, on rubbing the pale, de-oxygenated pads together to make sure he still could. The blood had spurted harder from the right stump when he’d tried this – like a wheezing ketchup bottle, his mind imagined.

He’d had his eyes squeezed shut with exertion, and the world started rumbling inside his head, but he’d heard the drip dropping of blood hitting the floor pick up in pace. He’d felt the way his right arm warmed with the sudden rush of movement. Somewhere, wherever they were storing his hands, the right thumb and forefinger brushed against one another.

But it’s not much use, is it? Especially not if they’re locked away.

Jack had decided on the second day – yesterday, today, whenever it’d been – that not moving at all was the easier way to bide his time.

Less painful, too.

That was wishful thinking on Jack’s part, if he was honest. His wrists still sung as they had the moment the blade arced down, a menacing silver, in front of him. There would be no relief from that.

He just has to wait. They’ll come for him soon.

 

Four

There are people made of blood and no flesh in the walls here. They scream at Jack sometimes. Does that sound deranged?

Days later, they still hadn’t come for Jack – his comrades, or the guards; Jack couldn’t afford to be picky in here. Sometimes, he wondered if he’d been forgotten by the world outside the cell. It was silent out there, or maybe he just couldn’t hear anything through the walls. Maybe the room was choking him.

He should be able to hear through the crack in the window. There should be birdsong with the dawn.

Jack had assumed someone would come for him. Unless people came when he slept – if he slept – he’d seen no visitors. Desperation had its claws slowly tightening around his chest, his throat, his mind. This was what they wanted. Jack had underestimated the cruelty of being ignored.

But he isn’t being ignored. He’s certain of that, logic be damned. There is something in here with him. 

A hollow aching in Jack’s stomach had nestled in recently. Nausea had put it off for so long, but too much time had passed, too many cycles of the blue light, and his insides were begging for something to play with. Very little would sicken him now.

He’s gotten used to the smell of blood – oh God – he can’t even smell it anymore.

Jack couldn’t remember when it happened, but he’d allowed himself one moment of stupidity. One moment of weakness. His stomach was howling, and the stumps were still dripping, and the wounds were fresh – fresh. Everything was fresh. Forever fresh.

When he raised his left arm to his face, somewhere, in the unreachable world beyond the cell, he felt the ghost of his hand twitching. But Jack didn’t care about that anymore; he didn’t even care when the warm tendrils of blood snaked down his forearm like bubbles from a hot spring, or when his wrist sung out a warning melody in a last appeal to his sanity.

He only cared how far his dry tongue had to probe through the darkness before it felt the damp, pulsing opening of his wrist. And then, about how hard his teeth had to bite to tear the flesh from it.

Jack’s groaning and whimpering as his chin turns crimson. Oh God oh God oh God oh–

But he couldn’t say whether it was in agony or ecstasy.

 

Three

It was inevitable, really, that Jack’s mind began to turn.

That isn’t very nice. People should be nicer to the man with no hands or feet. They should give him his hands and feet back, for a start.

Jack’s feet had been with him when they first locked him away, he knew they had. He would’ve remembered losing those too – he would’ve heard his ankles singing out in terrible chorus with his wrists for the last few days.

It’s been longer than days now. Don’t lie to Jack.

Having no feet was worse than having no hands. Before they’d stolen his feet, Jack had taken for granted that he could get up and move around the cell. He could’ve stepped over to the window, let his wrists dribble a lazy picture on the floor, stretched on his tiptoes to peer through the crack. Perhaps he’d have learnt what was really out there.

Jack doesn’t think there’s anything out there. Jack thinks they’ve got a blue lamp rigged up to shine in at him whenever it suits them. They’re messing with him. They messed with the people made of blood and no flesh, too. They told him. He knows.

Jack had no choice now: he had to stay put.

He couldn’t see through the darkness to figure out exactly how they’d taken his feet. He couldn’t tell whether they’d been severed off in one clean slice, like his hands, or whether whoever had done the job had hacked, and hacked, and hacked, leaving the stumps knobbly and uneven. But Jack shouldn’t have needed to see; this was the kind of thing he should’ve remembered. It should’ve been cut into his mind.

They’ve made him forget.

He must’ve been doing worse than he thought. After all, Jack hadn’t been in here that long – not in the grand scheme of time itself, not for an immortal – and his thoughts were already getting scrambled beyond logic and sense. Some of them were falling out of his head altogether. He made a pitiful sight, propped up against the wall of the cell.

But who’s here to see him? That’s the real question. Jack knows they’re here. They’ve been doing a very good impression of not existing, but Jack can feel them in his spine. He’s waiting for them; he’s watching for them. Some things don’t need any light to be seen.

All the gnawing at himself can’t have helped Jack’s mind either, it had to be said. Taboos were there for a reason. Jack might’ve gone too far. It was frightening, what desperation’s claws had done to him. He didn’t like to admit the stumps of his wrists had become the stumps of his elbows.

What? Jack hasn’t done this to himself! How, he’s asking, how would that even be possible? It isn’t! It was them. It was–

This was Jack’s problem, of course. He couldn’t accept the truth. Before the cell, he’d been arrogant. He’d thought he was indispensable; he’d thought he was quick-witted, too. But he was a small fry, and that was the truth.

But Jack is quite smart, actually. No, he is. He just hasn’t ever thought hard enough about what other people think hard about, has he? Clearly not. If he had, he might’ve realised sooner – oh, he’d have realised a damn sight sooner – what’s going on here. Him! With his big bloody brain! HAHAHAH what use will a big brain be when they crack open his skull and stick an electric whisk in there–

He was becoming bitter.

Jack would really fucking prefer if he was allowed to speak for himself for a moment here – speak from the heart, before they take that, too.

Jack still thought he could get through this. He still thought there was a way out. He thought he could beat them all at their game and see another dawn. 

Do they want his heart, too? Do they want to feast on it like he’s fucking Louis XIV?

Jack wasn’t smart; he was a fool. He’d spent too long listening to people who weren’t there anymore.

 

Two

The cell was black now. Angry and black. The crack in the window was gone.

Oh God, they’ve taken Jack’s eyes! They’ve taken his bloody eyes!

Jack’s nerve had failed him at some point or other. Day by day, hour by hour, drip by drop. He’d put up an amusing fight – the stoic man, staunch in his righteousness – but it was all for nothing. It was always going to be for nothing.

Oh God… the blood…

There were so many cracks in Jack now, they were beginning to take control.

It’s all over his face! His neck! It’s everywhere! For fuck’s sake – he’s going to drown in his own blood. He can’t even smell it, and he’s going to drown in it!

There must’ve been something terrible about losing his eyes. He’d kept himself quiet after losing his hands and feet, his forearms, his calves, his thighs. Had he really gotten through so much of himself so quickly? Someone was ravenous, ravenous.

It isn’t HIM!

But losing his eyes had been the last straw, hadn’t it? He’d started blubbering and wailing like a pathetic child, like the boy he hadn’t been for hundreds of years, and this was truly it. He was going to give in.

JACK IS IN PAIN. A LOT OF PAIN. WHY CAN’T HE JUST DIE?

Jack couldn’t cry with tears like he wanted to, but the blood was doing a fine imitation as it gushed from his empty sockets. It traced all the familiar nooks of his skin, dirtied every pore. Jack was bathed in red properly now, inside and out.

Please don’t mock him.

Jack’s hands wouldn’t twitch anymore, and neither would his feet. He was bleeding for pieces of himself that would never come home. The terror he was secreting mixed exquisitely with the blood, the blood that was flowing from so many places. Jack had been naïve to think he’d ever win in the cell.

The people made of blood and no flesh are warning him. They know. They’re telling him there’s a last resort!

Jack was wasting time drawing the end out. He was forgetting that no one actually cared about him in here. Not even–

YOU! HELLO. IT’S JACK. HELP ME. PLEASE HELP ME.

He was mad. He was delusional. Nothing could be done for him now.

YOU. I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.

Why would anyone pay attention to a man made of blood and no flesh?

I’M BEGGING YOU. DO SOMETHING! STOP READING. TEAR THE PAGES APART. JUST MAKE IT STOP – PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

Jack was foolish, so very foolish. A delicious fool.

 

One

Finally, there was nothing.

Jack was gone, although he never left the cell. His blood remained, soaking into the cracks and crevices, nourishing them. The door never opened; no one came for him. The blue light continued its cycle, unseen by human eyes. For now.

You have been a trusted observer in this. Thank you. This is the end of Jack’s countdown.

Forever Young

By Devin James Leonard

 

The woman sitting next to Ranheim said, “This place reminds me of a methadone clinic…not that I’ve ever been to one,” and covered her smile with her hand, presumably self-conscious about her gnarled fangs. “I’ve never done drugs in my life, but—now look at me. An addict to blood.”

When Ranheim had first arrived at the transfusion center, he sat at the far end of a row of a dozen empty seats. The clinic nurse stuck the needle in his arm, draped the blood bag above his headrest, and not long after, a slender blonde gal came in shaking off her flannel coat and plopped into the chair closest to him. They were the only two patients there tonight, and she told him he shouldn’t have to sit alone. After all, it was as much of a support group as it was a rehab center, wasn’t it? Both sat still, their right arm sleeves rolled up, inner elbows out, fresh blood swimming into their veins.

“Have you gone to one of those Undead Anonymous meetings yet?” she asked. Ranheim shook his head, and she said, “Kind of a dumb name when you think about it. Nothing anonymous about us, right? It’s pretty obvious what we once were. And the undead part? Technically, we’re alive again, so, shouldn’t it be called, like, I don’t know, resurrected or whatever?”

She seemed friendly but was a rambling talker, the chattering perhaps stemming from her insecurity with her looks. Aside from the sharp, jagged teeth, black eyeballs, and her pasty white complexion, Ranheim considered her quite the attractive dame. He was trying to be polite and listen, but his hunger was too distracting. Watching the tedious, slow drip of the blood entering his vein, he wished he could bite directly into the bag, chug it, and be done with it. A single pint of blood wouldn’t have filled him, anyway, being the towering monster he was. Standing at six-foot-five with the build of a heavyweight boxer, he would need at least five pints just to put a dent in his appetite.

“Hey, you’re bleeding,” the woman said, tapping her bottom lip.

Ranheim had been clenching his jaw, causing his fangs to pierce the inside of his mouth. He stuck out his tongue, lopped up the dribble of blood, and said, “Thanks.”

“You must be new, huh? I’m Kelly, by the way.”

“Patrick,” Ranheim said.

“How long have you been free, Patrick?”

“Couple weeks.”

“Do you know how everything works?” Kelly said. “Being human again?”

“I’m still learning.”

“Well, since you’re here, you must know the basics—all the stuff you probably read or heard about or saw in the movies is pretty much true in real life. Your master was slain, and you turned back to human—obviously?”

“Obviously.”

Kelly sighed. “It’s hard coming back to the real world. We’re not vampires anymore, but what the books and movies got wrong was you still look like one when you turn back. Sure, we have a pulse now, but our skin will never not be pale. The sunlight can’t kill us anymore, but, let me tell you, it’ll give you a heck of a sunburn. Say goodbye to beach vacations and exotic tans, right? Our teeth—God, look at my teeth! They’re hideous! And my eyes—guess what color they used to be.”

“Hazel?”

“Nope—blue. Now I’m stuck with black for the rest of my life.”

Ranheim leaned a little closer to her. “I’ve got a question.”

“Shoot.”

“People know vampires exist,” he said. “They also know there are people like us—humans who used to be vampires. Isn’t it dangerous for us to be out after dark? Why have these sessions at night?”

“Daytime would be ideal,” Kelly said, “but the UV affects everyone differently. You might catch a burn while others develop severe blisters. Until someone invents some SPF-One-Million, we kind of need to avoid the sun, you know? If you have to go out after dark, it’s best to keep your head down, so no one mistakes you for a bloodsucker. Lucky for us, it’s Halloween tonight. Safest night of the year for ex-vampires.”

“What about the thirst? Does it go away?”

“That takes the longest. I’ve been coming here for three months. You’ll be sick eating normal food for a while. The not-drinking-blood is really the hardest. Take you, for instance. You just bit yourself and couldn’t help but suck it up, because that’s what you’re used to consuming.”

“Gonna be tough not to want it when it’s right there for the taking.”

“Exactly. It’s like an addict trying to quit while they’ve got their fix right there in their pocket. The transfusion will help alleviate the urges until you’re off the blood for good. Until then, invest in a mouthguard—that’s what I did. Keeps you from gnawing on yourself.”

“That’s smart thinking.”

“I’ve got lots of pointers,” Kelly said. “Anytime you ever want to talk, hang out, whatever…” She smiled but had averted her eyes when speaking.

Ranheim sensed what she was getting at—she was hitting on him—but her approach had lacked confidence, her wavering eyes indicating nervousness. He had heard about this sort of thing before, ex-vamps linking up for a budding romance. There weren’t any laws stating you couldn’t develop a physical connection with other humans. It was the simple fact that no human desired to be intimate with someone who had once been a creature of the night. If there were people out there like that, it wasn’t a common occurrence. Nearly every living soul was repulsed by vampires, current and reformed, which left other previously undead people as the only viable suitors. Healthy human folks steered away from ex-vampires the same way they would avoid someone who carried a sexually transmitted disease.

Ranheim was already enjoying Kelly’s company, but now even more so because of her playful advances, no matter how awkward her delivery. Without moving his arm from the armrest, he leaned even closer to her, smirking, and said, “Any pointers for garlic?”

“Can’t help you there,” Kelly giggled. “I never ate it when I was a human the first time around, so I likely won’t be trying it now.”

“What about holy water? If I drink it, will it give me a hangover?”

Kelly’s eyes widened with amusement. “Why would you be drinking that?”

“It was a hypothetical,” Ranheim said. “Speaking of hangovers, will alcohol get me drunk? There’s nothing I miss more than a good buzz.”

“I’d work on weening yourself off the blood and going back to solids before hitting the bottle.”

“If you say so.” Ranheim gazed into her eyes and held them there, and even though they were as dark as his, he could see a glimmer in them. A stimulation. “What other pointers do you have for me?”

“Maybe we could go somewhere after?” she said. “Talk some more?”

“I’d like that,” Ranheim said.

###

“How old are you?” Kelly asked.

“Twenty-eight,” Ranheim said.

“Guess my age.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” he snickered. “I know all about traps, and guessing a woman’s age is the deadliest of them all.”

“I’m not setting a trap,” she giggled. “Come on, there’s a point to the answer. Fine, I’ll just tell you—I’m forty-two years old.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty-one.”

“By human standards, I’m forty-two. I was changed when I was nineteen. That’s about the only plus side of being a vampire. You never grow old.”

“Forever young,” Ranheim quipped.

“Not anymore. The clock has resumed its ticking on Father Time’s watch.”

It was half past seven, the full dark of the tail end of October. Ranheim and Kelly strolled along the street, side by side, coats on, hoods up. No pedestrians took notice of their ghoulish forms. With the elements of Halloween on their side, they merely appeared as trick-or-treaters in costume, dressed up as spooky characters like all the children and parents walking up and down the block.

“My place is just up ahead,” Kelly said.

“Good,” said Ranheim. “My blood might circulate now, but I’ll never get used to the cold.”

Kelly hooked her arm around him, pulling him closer. “I’ll keep you warm,” she said.

When they reached a brick building on the corner, Kelly fished out her keys, opened the door, and they climbed three flights of stairs and went inside her apartment. Kelly stripped her coat off and tossed it on the couch, and Ranheim got a better view of this prime nineteen-year-old body on a (technically) middle-aged woman. She was wearing a tight black turtleneck sweater with jeans that were snug at the legs but loose at her hips. Her frame was trim, but meaty in all the right places. Her breasts weren’t big, average at best, but they were quite plump compared to the rest of her curvature.

“I’d offer you a drink,” Kelly said, “but, like I said, you shouldn’t have alcohol just yet. Plus, you’re probably full from—”

“You’d be surprised,” Ranheim said, “how much it takes for me to have my fill.” He stripped his coat as he approached her, lips pinched shut, resisting the urge to bite the inside of his mouth.

Kelly stood in place, attempting to remain nonchalant, but fidgeted with the sleeve of her right arm. She rolled it up to her elbow where the nurse had applied the cotton ball and tape, her fingers anxiously plucking at the bandage. “So, uh, what do you want to do now?” she muttered.

“I think you know what I want,” Ranheim said, inching closer.

Kelly giggled. “Hope it’s not to go trick-or-treating,” she said. “You shouldn’t have candy just yet, either.”

“No,” Ranheim said. “It’s not candy I want.”

With a gentle touch, he placed his hand on her neck and caressed with his thumb.

“You should probably know,” Kelly said, her voice stammering, “I haven’t done this in a long time.”

“Done what?” Ranheim said. He leaned his face closer to hers, their noses brushing. His nostrils flared, taking in her scent. He could hear her heart thumping, could feel her breath on his lips.

Kelly whispered, “You know…”

“No, what?”

Ranheim embraced her. He rubbed his cheek against hers, then kissed her on the mouth.

“Sex,” Kelly said. “I haven’t had sex since—since before—before I was turned.”

“Well, if you’re all out of pointers,” Ranheim whispered, “I’ve got one for you.”

Kelly snickered, presuming the remark was a playful innuendo.

“Would you like my pointer?” he said.

“Yes,” Kelly moaned.

“You really should have stuck to daylight hours,” he said. “You could run into imposters at night.”

He struck at her neck with his sharp, ravenous fangs, piercing through the jugular vein, the carotid artery, and her throat. Gnawing with voracious enthusiasm, he bit into the flesh as if it were as soft as ice cream. Tender—she was oh-so tender. If Ranheim’s heart could hold a beat, it’d have been thumping with excitement.

With a mouthful of tendon and flesh, he tore his teeth away, chewed once, twice, and swallowed. Kelly’s mouth was agape with a surprised, gasping expression, but other than the gargling sounds of her choking on her blood, she made no sound. Her legs gave out, falling as if swooning with love. Ranheim held her as he gently set her to the floor, then he kissed her deliciously bloody lips, and resumed his feast.

After he’d had his fill of what little meat she had on her bones and he drank every last drop of her blood, he washed his face and hands at the kitchen sink, put on his coat and hood, and left her there, once again forever young.

Reivers

By Jeff Durbin

 

October 31, 1599

The English reivers rode into town to the thunder of hooves and the crash of musket balls. A dozen mounted men, howling like devils, shattered the peace of the cluster of stone and sod buildings. An old man was crushed beneath the hooves of a chestnut charger. A woman with a bundle of marsh reeds in her hands collapsed as a lead ball tore a red path through her chest.

As the tumult died down, the leader of the raiders dismounted. He drew his sword as he landed on the muddy ground. He motioned for some of his men to guard the single road cutting through the middle of the town. The rest followed his lead, getting off the horses and drawing their swords.

The leader spoke. His voice was harsh and commanding. “I am Roger Llewellyn. Your village will provide us with food, drink and shelter for the night. You will also give us anything of value you have.” He walked up to the trampled old man and poked the broken body with the tip of his sword. “Don’t make us look for ourselves. You won’t like the outcome.”

He was a little surprised by the reaction of the villagers. In his years of raiding Scottish lands along the coast of the North Sea, the appearance of him and his men caused a variety of responses. 

Useless resistance. Pleading for mercy. Appeals to God. Crying. Screaming. Cursing.

Not silence. Never silence.

But that was what he was presented with. The villagers stood mute, watching the men and horses. He counted thirty of them and noted there were no children.

“What do you make of this?” Liam, Roger’s lieutenant, said. He tugged at the end of his bushy black beard, a nervous tic that Roger only saw before a battle.

Roger didn’t respond. Instead, he walked up to the nearest man and said, “What’s the name of this place?”

The man looked into his eyes, but said nothing. His gaze was even and dull, displaying no emotion.

“This place is Geata Òir.”

The speaker was a young woman. She was standing in the doorway of one of the huts. She brushed curly copper-colored hair from her face, but made no other move. 

Roger pushed the silent man away and walked up to the woman. She looked at him with the same even stare of the other villagers, her green eyes meeting his brown ones without emotion.

“You speak for these people?”

She nodded. “I can. What do you want?”

Roger laughed. “I told you what I want. All you need to do is give it to me.” He took a step closer, hoping that his bulky body would intimidate her. He was disappointed when it seemed to have the opposite effect.

She smiled.

He noted her teeth were even and white. 

“Of course. Why not be our guests, not our attackers? Tonight is Samhain.”

“Pagan idolatry?”

The woman’s smile didn’t waver. “A remembrance of the dead past. Your God trampled the old ones into the mud long ago.”

“Our God,” Roger said.

The woman smiled broader. “Of course that’s what I meant. Our God.”

Roger drew closer. He held the tip of his sword underneath the woman’s chin. “If this is some kind of trick, I’ll kill every one of you.”

The woman didn’t move, her expression didn’t change. “No tricks.”

Roger took a step back. He felt uneasy, but chalked it up to the strangeness of these people. He sheathed his sword. “Then I guess we are guests. What do I call you?”

“Brigit.”

###

Roger and his men retired to the largest building. It was barely large enough for the dozen reivers to fit in, but the roaring fireplace kept out the biting marsh wind. Brigit said it was the “headman’s house” although she didn’t identify who that was. In fact, although the villagers brought the men whatever they demanded, she was the only one who spoke.

She was seated next to Roger on a wooden plank bench. The other men were drinking and eating, thinking of the plunder they would bring home, the long winter ahead and how the former would help their families through the latter. But Roger was curious.

“You’re an odd girl.”

Brigit looked at him. For a moment, he thought her eyes were glowing with an inner light, but decided it was a reflection of the fire. “Am I?”

“Yes.” He nodded to his men. “We ride into town, kill two of your neighbors and promise to leave you with nothing for the coming winter and you do nothing. You say nothing. Your people don’t rage or beg or weep for the dead.” He looked at her. “And you are the only one who speaks.”

Brigit smiled. “I’m the only one who speaks, because I’m the only one who understands you. My people speak an older tongue. And we don’t weep for the dead, because we know they have gone to another world. One more certain than this.”

She stood up suddenly. Roger’s hand went to the pommel of his sword.

She noticed this and shook her head. “Peace, sir. You are safe here. But we need to build the Samhain pyre and prepare for tonight’s ritual.” She bowed her head. “With your approval.”

Roger relaxed. “Send one of your mutes. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

She cocked her head to one side. The motion caused the light in her hair to look like fire. “What can I do to hurt you?”

Roger slapped the bench. “Nothing. And I’m not going to give you the chance to change that.”

“As you wish.” Without taking her eyes off of him, she said, “Mary, tell our neighbors to build the pyre.”

One of the women waiting along the wall to serve the men silently shuffled past them and out the door.

“Liam,” Roger said, “take one of the lads and watch them.”

“Why do I have to go out in the cold?” Liam said.

“Because I ordered you to,” Roger slapped the bench again. He smiled without mirth at Brigit. “You can have your pick of these marsh pigs later.”

Brigit sat down. “Is that what this evening holds for us, sir?”

“Not you.”

Brigit’s face remained impassive, like a pale marble carving. 

“You’re not afraid, are you?”

“No,” she said, voice even.

Roger felt a mixture of admiration and frustration. He liked the strength the young woman showed. However, he also liked seeing fear on the faces of the Scots when he was raiding. It made him feel strong, powerful. The passive indifference these people showed him ruined that.

So he slapped her, the back of his hand snapping her head to one side. He expected something. Crying, screaming, even quiet defiance. Instead – nothing. His men stopped their raucous talking. The women looked on without emotion. 

And Brigit’s expression didn’t change. She brushed hair out of her face and said, “Did that make you feel better?”

Roger seethed. “Get out,” he snarled between clenched teeth, “before I slit you from navel to throat.”

Brigit rose. “Of course, sir.”

She left the home without sparing him or his men a glance. Roper grabbed a mug of ale, gulped it down. “Fortify yourselves, lads. When we’re done, these pigs will wish they’d never been born a Scot.”

###

Roger was finishing off his fifth mug of ale. The weak beer was starting to have an effect, false warmth seeping along his limbs, his anger and frustration taking shape. He resolved to put every one of the silent villagers to the sword. And Brigit – she would fare worst of all. He’d seen a man drawn and quartered once. He planned the same for her.

That’s when he heard the crackle of wood igniting. And screams. Terrible screams tore from the depth of a man’s chest. He recognized one of the screaming voices as that of Liam. The other men in the hut, drunk though they were, felt the cold wash of fear and adrenaline pull them back to sobriety.

Roger was first out the door, sword in one hand, pistol in the other. What he saw caused him to stop in terror.

Liam was on the ground, spread eagle. He was naked and covered in blood. The silent, emotionless villagers were on him, slicing flesh and muscle from his writhing body and throwing the pieces into the raging fire. Something convulsed in the fire. Roger realized it was the man he sent with Liam, bound with chains and burning. 

As the rest of the reivers spilled out of the hut, the villagers looked at them as one.

The eyes were no longer placid – they were gone. In their place, each villager had two black sockets, in which danced yellow-green flames. Their skin was white, like sun-bleached bones. When they moved, the flesh cracked and peeled, oozing a thick black ichor. Their mouths dropped open and a keening sound slithered out. 

One of the men fired his pistol into the face of a villager. The lead ball hit the right cheek bone, fragmented, tore a great chunk of flesh away from the skull. But the keening didn’t stop, the villager didn’t fall.

“Mother of God,” one man whispered.

There was a scream behind Roger. He turned about to see one of the silent women who had been waiting on them, transformed like the other. She was on the back of one of the men, legs wrapped around his chest, fingers digging into his throat. He managed a gurgling scream, before being dragged inside the hut.

“Every man for himself. Devil take the hindmost,” Roger shouted, running for the surrounding marshes. His last glimpse of Liam propelled him, crashing through the stiff grass and soft muck – the old man who had been trampled earlier was crawling onto Liam’s bucking, twisting body. His bones were still shattered, his body still crushed. But he was intact enough to bite off Liam’s nose, as he slithered over the man like a hideous worm.

As Roger fought his way through the marsh, the screams of his men grew louder and shriller. He felt his sanity beginning to crack as he imagined what was happening to them, what torture could cause a man to shriek like a dying animal. Abruptly, the screams stopped. The only sound was the whispering of wind through the grass, the sucking mud, and his own heavy breathing. He stopped for a moment to get his bearings.

The coast is near, he thought. I need to find it and then it’s home to England. God, if you watch over me, I will never come back to this devil-infested land again. 

He thought he heard the crash of distant waves to his right. Sword in hand, he forced his way forward. 

“Roger.”

It was Brigit’s voice. The faintest whisper. It might have been a mile away or right next to his ear. He hacked and slashed at the air, succeeding only in scything grass and further exhausting himself. He pushed on, the mud and water reaching up to his waist. His limbs burned. His chest ached. He was an engine of survival, focused on a single goal – getting out of the marsh.

Out of the darkness emerged a tiny mound of dry land. Roger pulled himself out of the water and lay on his back. The Moon – fat and silver in the black sky – stared down at him. Panting, he realized that he could be going in circles, that he was hopelessly lost. 

“Roger.”

He sat up, yanked his pistol from his belt, aimed into the darkness and pulled the trigger. It clicked, but didn’t fire, the black-powder charge soaked and useless. He dropped it to the ground and wearily struggled to his feet.

“Where are you?” He looked about, seeing nothing but ranks of marsh grass surrounding his tiny island.

“Roger.” She was behind him.

The voice was different. It was no longer the even, passive tone that had frustrated him. It was a deep, rich growl. It made him think of a wolf, snarling with terrible hunger, ready to pounce. He turned.

She was taller. The limbs were sinewy, muscles starkly defined by the pale white skin. The lean body was wrapped in strips of leather, bound with iron rings. Her hair glowed red like the setting sun and her eyes were silver-white, the color of moonlight. 

“What are you?”

She smiled. “Finally, a good question.” She took a step forward. He backed away, until he came to the edge of the islet. “I am old, Roger. Older than this place. Older than your race. I have names that are secret, names that are not for your tongue.” 

She took another step forward. Roger swung his sword. She caught the blade, tore it from his hand and threw it into the muck. He saw that her fingers ended in black claws.

“Those who came before you worshiped me as Brigantia.” Another step forward. He backed into the water, feeling the ice cold wrap around his legs. “Once a year, when the walls between your world and mine are the thinnest, I come here with my thralls to hunt.” She smiled. Her teeth were black with blood. “On Samhain, we are reivers of souls.”

She threw herself at him, a blur of claws and teeth.

Roger’s screams echoed across the marsh. They reached the nearby shore where they merged with the crashing waves. Soon, the screams were gone and all that remained was the sound of the ocean.

And the soft laughter of a satiated goddess.

The Whisper Crosswalk

By Scotty Sarafian

 

Among the many legends that have sprung from Aura, a city where unexplained phenomena seem to outnumber tourists, the crosswalk on Bartlett Street reigns as the most deceptive. The most common version can be told in one sentence: head across at sunrise, and you’ll hear a whisper. Hardly exciting—on the surface, at least. And yet, the lore contains more pieces. Backstory, conditions, and consequences, lost to time and retellings. 

Penelope Revels, aged fourteen, first heard the story on October 30th, her fourth day staying with her aunt and uncle in Aura. Despite its ties to the paranormal and the inexplicable, the city where Penelope went to high school failed to restore her missing Halloween spirit. Too old to trick-or-treat now—freshman year, the unofficial cut-off—she lacked ways to celebrate. The unchaperoned parties teenagers often graduated to wouldn’t have interested her, even if she’d been invited.

If only she could’ve stayed home alone, in her neighborhood, among the purple string lights and synthetic cobwebs that decked the homes, bushes, and trees. She could’ve given out candy, admired the costumes, gotten her Halloween kicks that way. But her aunt and uncle’s building was white-walled and trendy, like a modern art museum. And, according to her cousin, no one trick-or-treated in the halls; it was for that very reason Celine used to spend Halloween with her in the suburbs.

Penelope had hoped some plan would materialize organically. Still without one on the eve of Halloween, however, she realized she’d need to make the suggestion herself—a daunting task, given that Celine had abandoned their trick-or-treating tradition after seventh grade.

“We should do something tomorrow,” Penelope mumbled into her Lucky Charms that morning. “Something Halloweeny—before the city gets sketchy.” 

“I’m fine with that,” said Celine, halving a grapefruit at the counter. Like all her friends, she had her school skirt rolled at the waist, brushing her knees enough to appease the nuns. “We’d just have to be home before dark.” She sat across from her, and the bitter citrus scent invaded the air.

Penelope prodded her cereal as though it might answer for her. “I’m not sure.” She’d never spent Halloween indoors. The year it rained, she and Celine still went out, shielding their costumes with umbrellas—trick-or-treating in the rain had been surprisingly enjoyable. What could they do this year? Food crafts? Pumpkin carving? Too babyish. A Ouija board? Absolutely not. Celine would think she was nuts. Aunt Julie and Uncle Byron knew she saw a counselor. Chances were, they’d told Celine.

Had Penelope shared one idea, Halloween would’ve gone unscarred. Too certain she’d be rejected, however—or worse, pitied—she abruptly emptied her bowl into the sink, and then slumped off to the guest room. 

She stuffed her books in her backpack, averting her gaze from the pin on the front. The enamel sheet ghost, with its u-shaped smile and shiny coal eyes, a year-round reminder of Halloween—usually an instant serotonin boost—now twisted her stomach. But she couldn’t bring herself to remove it. She wasn’t ready to give up on her favorite holiday. Not just yet.

###

Corporate types in wool coats schooled past, their mingled scent of shampoo and designer fragrances hanging in the cold air. 

“Where are your parents docked today?” Celine asked. A bus hissed by on the left. “Didn’t hear you, Pen.” 

“Nassau?”

“So jealous! I’d kill to go on a cruise.” She’d kill to go anywhere sunnier than Aura. Its fog-eclipsed skyline an eerie sight she thought Penelope would appreciate (if she ever looked up).

“No big deal,” said Penelope. 

Watching her drift ahead, Celine recalled a manatee she’d seen in a Florida aquarium—a sad-looking, ship-scarred creature floating alone. She wanted to help. This she knew. But where did she begin? 

Halloweeny, Celine remembered, the tiny ghost pinned to Penelope’s bag having caught her eye. Memories flickered: sleepovers, her heart racing at the scary stories Penelope would invent once the lights were out. She quickened her pace as an idea formed. “Tell me you’ve heard about the crosswalk on Bartlett.”

“No?”

“There’s this legend,” one older than she even knew—a story passed down through generations of Aura children. She proceeded to recount a version far removed from its basis: “They say you hear this weird whispering if you go across at sunrise.” 

Penelope gave her a deadpan stare. “You’re hilarious.”

“No, no—swear to God! It’s like local folklore—we should give it a try before school tomorrow.”

Penelope glanced down contemplatively, then lifted her head. “What does it say?” 

“The whisper?” She’s actually interested?

“It doesn’t say you have a week to live? Something like that?”

“Oh, part of the mystery is nobody really knows.” Or do different people hear different things? She couldn’t remember. It’d been years since she’d last heard the legend—and everyone told it a little differently. “Anyway, Halloween’s a good day for it.”

Penelope, facing forward now, appeared to be taking in the fog. “It’s kind of the perfect day.”

###

The plan had stayed on her mind since the walk to school, ensuring she was wide awake when her alarm went off at five the next morning. Seated in the living room, dressed and ready to go, she waited for Celine, thinking back on their past Halloweens together. The anticipation whirling pleasantly in her belly, exploding the moment Aunt Julie’s minivan pulled into the driveway.

She felt the same sensation as they followed the street lamps along foggy, barren roads to Bartlett, where wind rattled the dark boutique windows—an ominous sound that made Penelope’s pulse flutter. 

The crosswalk looked just like its pictures—faded white stripes mashed into the tar, with an old lady hair salon looming behind them. Comments on the forum she’d found online labeled the story a dud. She doubted anyone had tried on Halloween, however, let alone when the street was this empty.

As luck would have it, within minutes, sunlight bloomed, burnt-orange, on the horizon. 

Penelope went first, her wrists sparking like they used to back when she and Celine were kids, setting out in costume. 

She listened over the gusts, but heard nothing but their howl.

 “Anything?” Celine called out.

She shook her head. What did you expect? She dawdled before she gained the sidewalk. 

Halloween was over before it even started. Her throat tightened, and she wished she’d never come to Bartlett. She turned. 

Celine flashed a thumbs-up and stepped off the curb. The streetlight behind her suddenly flickered.

Penelope froze, noticing a person beneath the failing light. A young man, his brown suit matching his briefcase. He was staring straight ahead, hard cheekbones cut by the glow, hair slicked back like an old Hollywood star. Were offices open this early? Maybe he was in costume.

He stepped off the curb and was gone. Penelope’s gut dropped. The air gained weight, becoming too dense to swallow. Had she imagined him? Her thoughts floundered as a shape materialized before Celine. The same man, now prostrated and crumpled.

Papers scattered from the briefcase—splayed open, several meters from his contorted body. Some landed in the blood pooling beneath him; flies in molasses. She tried to scream, but her voice caught as Celine stepped through him; he remained intact, like a hologram. 

He twitched. No, she thought, shutting her eyes. This isn’t happening. He was still there when she opened them, and the ground seemed to tilt underfoot.

“Was worth a shot,” said Celine. As she mounted the curb, his head whipped in her direction, revealing a face gnarled and shredded from the asphalt.

“You alright, Pen?”

She could only point, and her finger dropped when the specter started to rise. 

He vanished an instant before Celine looked back; the faint mist he left behind dissipated with a hiss—a loud, lengthy sound . . . like a wordless whisper.

Penelope steadied herself against a post box, felt paint flakes beneath her nails.

Celine glanced over her shoulder. “What is it?”

“You—you didn’t see him?” 

“Him?” Her eyebrows furrowed, then relaxed, and she leaned back with a smile. “Stop trying to freak me out.” 

Penelope swallowed the heartbeat in her throat. No, Celine wouldn’t believe her. She’d think she was crazy. She’d give her the same looks the kids at school did—as if she were some leper with contagious sadness. “Stray cat,” said Penelope, squeezing her backpack straps to mask her hands’ shivers. “Could—can we just go?”

“Sure.” Celine glacially checked her phone. “Café Onyx should be open when we get there.”

“Back to the apartment, I mean.” Her mouth was salty, and she envisioned white froth in the corners of her lips. “I need another hour of sleep.” She needed to think, to call her parents—someone to talk to. Maybe they would come home early.

She turned down Bartlett, desperate to close her eyes and forget all that had transpired. Unbeknownst to her, an impossibility. The legend had lasted for a reason. The whisper, echoing in her head, was hard to forget once heard.

###

Celine suspected something was wrong. Silence was one thing, but Penelope had been detached on the walk home. The claim she was tired—too tired to stop for breakfast—didn’t add up. She’d walked too fast for someone so exhausted. When Penelope withdrew to the guest room, Celine couldn’t shake what her parents had said about her. Something about her having ‘issues’—this was obvious.

Dad had told her to try her best to connect. She’d been doing just that since they’d started at the same high school. Their hallway interactions, just as awkward as those in the apartment.

She was eating her oatmeal when the idea Penelope had experienced something strange on Bartlett—had actually heard the whisper—crossed her mind. She immediately felt stupid for entertaining the notion. Maybe she’s mad nothing happened.

After breakfast, Celine pressed her ear to the guest-room door. The floorboards cracked and creaked as Penelope whispered. Her words, indistinguishable but fast-paced. Clearly, she was leaving her parents a voicemail. Did cell phones work on cruise ships? 

Celine retreated to the kitchen, heart frantic like a service dog alerting its owner to take a pill. Was Penelope homesick, disappointed by the lack of plans? Perhaps she was just like this sometimes—emotionally unpredictable. Whatever the cause, if anything could pull Penelope out of her funk, it was Halloween. 

She didn’t bother to roll up her skirt before they left for school—it was too cold, anyway. Aura was awake now, its roads congested with cars and buses, its sidewalks teeming with bundled-up pedestrians. Celine, for once unfazed by the silence between them, pondered potential activities for that evening—things that might restore the Penelope she remembered from childhood.

They were twenty feet from St. Isidore’s when Celine revealed her idea: “We should carve pumpkins tonight.” She glanced over at Penelope, who had her hand draped across her forehead like a Southern belle with the vapors. “Pen? Are you . . . feeling alright?” Should I call Mom?

She nodded with an audible swallow. “Yeah, can we just move on from it?”

“What?” Celine gave a confused half-chuckle. “You don’t mean Halloween? But it’s your favorite.” 

Penelope looked up glumly, then lowered her gaze. “Was.”

“Pen, this makes no sense. Can you just talk to me? Obviously, something’s wrong. I mean, you’ve been acting off since we left Bartlett.” We were close once, she thought, and though they’d found their own friend groups, they were still cousins.

“I told you I’m fine,” Penelope said firmly, cheeks flushing. “Can you just—please? Just stop asking me, okay? Just stop asking.”

Celine heard her name; she quickly waved back at Samantha Lowndes, who was across the street, mimed ‘one second,’ and then spun around and saw Penelope walking away from her. Speechless, Celine stood there, heart hammering, unsure what else to do but let her go. Squinting, she noticed something missing from Penelope’s bag: the pin was gone. She scanned the pavement between them, even though she doubted it had fallen off. She recalled Penelope’s behavior on Bartlett, how her face was as pale as if she’d seen a ghost. 

“Hey,” said Samantha, breathless at her side. “What was that about?”

“Honestly?” Celine sighed. “I have no clue.” She wanted to help, to understand why her cousin felt the need to strip Halloween from her thoughts and backpack. She’d tried. She’d really tried. But now she was tired. Too tired to think, too defeated to do anything other than watch Penelope fade into the fog.

Grave Revenge

By Nicole Niswonger

 

They had planned this before, but last Halloween changed everything. Now they were just two, the loss of their friend still fresh in their minds. Jake hadn’t spoken his name since the funeral. Grief lingered like a shadow. Tonight they would confront that shadow whether they were ready or not.

The final rays of sunlight disappeared as they walked between rows of headstones. Ava shone her flashlight, looking for the perfect spot. She chose a large white headstone with a cross, its ancient inscription weathered away. She lay down on the cold grave, feeling the crunch of autumn leaves beneath her.

Jake stood holding a tarnished mirror, their gateway to another world. She inhaled a shaky breath and closed her eyes. They recited the ritual together, “Mirror, mirror of the night, show our future dark or bright.”

Ava forced her eyes open and gazed into the mirror. She searched every inch of its surface, seeing nothing but her own face staring back. Just as she was about to give up, Jake’s face came into focus, pale and smeared with dirt, his eyes dark and sunken.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a breath to clear her mind. When she looked again, it was gone. She checked to see if Jake noticed. Do I tell him? She was torn with indecision.

“I see…nothing,” she said, his pale face still in her mind. 

“We must be doing it wrong…” Jake mumbled, distracted. He thought he heard a voice cry for help–not just any voice, but the voice of their late friend.

It can’t be.

He wandered off to investigate. The voice led him to a rotting shed. Its walls were covered in vines and its door hung from a rusty hinge. Jake yanked, pulling it free, and stepped inside.

Dust churned with each step. He looked around, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. He found old rusty tools and broken headstones. He squinted into a darker corner and discovered a pine box–a pauper’s coffin. Its lid lay ajar, beckoning to him.

Ava watched as he dragged the box out into the cemetery. “Over here,” Jake called as he headed toward a freshly dug grave.

They stood over the hole, peering inside. Ava shivered. “It’s deep enough to bury us both,” she said.

Jake pried the lid off, revealing its lonely interior, and gave it a shove. It cracked as it clattered off the walls and crashed to the bottom.

“You sure you want to do this?” Ava asked.

Jake nodded, his jaw clenched. He climbed down into the grave and lay in the casket, arms across his chest and eyes closed.

Ava held up the mirror as they recited the incantation, “Mirror, mirror of the night, show our future dark or…”

Jake’s eyes shot open and he stared into the mirror. At first, he saw only himself, but then his face transformed into another–one he remembered well.

The face of their lost friend stared back. Jake smiled, but when the scene came into focus his heart sank. It was the old abandoned bridge from last Halloween–where they had dared him to walk the rail. Jake’s eyes filled with tears as he remembered that dreadful night.

Reality faded, and the scene played out with brutal clarity. He had walked the rail theatrically like a tightrope walker. Jake called out a warning, knowing he wouldn’t be heard over their laughter. I should have stopped him. I should have yelled louder. Their eyes met just as he lost his balance.

“How could you let this happen?” the ghost accused.

The scene continued. He slipped, his panicked eyes locked with Jake’s. His hands grasped the air as he fell to the rocky creek bed below.

“How could you?”

Jake’s chest hitched as he choked back tears. He tried to speak but only a sob escaped. Two pale hands reached from the mirror as if to pull Jake into that other world to change what couldn’t be changed.

“Snap out of it!” Ava screamed, tossing the mirror aside and reaching down toward him. The mirror shattered, releasing Jake from its spell. He blinked, reorienting himself. The grave trembled and its bottom opened. Those pale phantom hands reached up, clawing through the eroding soil. They grasped the coffin, dragging it down. It splintered and folded as it sank deeper into the ground.

Dirt cascaded down the grave, packing in around him. Jake clawed at the dirt walls. Ava dropped to the ground and stretched further. She was just inches away but the phantom hands were quicker, latching onto his legs.

The falling soil smothered Jake’s cries. He gasped for breath as the hands dragged him deeper. His face was caked with dirt and only his terrified eyes and grasping hands were left.

Ava stretched in one last desperate attempt to reach him, their fingers just brushing as the phantom yanked him down. The grave closed over, sealing his fate. Ava dug into the soil but knew it was too late.

She stumbled to her feet, staring in disbelief. The grave was topped with a perfect mound of fresh soil like a proper burial had taken place.

I could have prevented this.

She knelt and laid a trembling hand on Jake’s grave, her tears falling on shards of mirror.

Why didn’t I tell him what I saw?

A darkness flowed into the cemetery followed by a cold breeze. The breeze howled and whined, calling out in Jake’s voice.

“How could you?”

Ava staggered back, realizing the real horror had just begun. She turned and ran, her heart pounding as fear took hold. The darkness was growing closer with each step. It was coming for her—there would be no escape.

Down Beekman

By John Kuyat

 

“Wah if ee uzzin um?” Carl Broane’s wrinkled lips were sore, trying to enunciate the words. He rubbed them together and felt sorry the words didn’t come out right. They were more like pigeons smacking a window. Stupid. Silly. His wormy, white fingers twisted around themselves, as he leaned on the paint-chipped porch railing, the color of old hair, and looked out onto the street. It was an ugly street with its ashy, deadwood homes. But theirs was the worst. And it was all his fault.

“Carl, you must know I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying.” Mabel said from the porch’s cragged steps, where she sat, her back ramrod straight. “But, if this works, then I do have a little present for you. You’ve been quite the helper this year. Not like last time.” She didn’t turn to look at him. She didn’t want to. Her eyes, too, were trained on the street. The God-awful dirty street. That was Carl’s fault, which, in turn, was her own fault. Jack-o’-lanterns rotted on the porch opposite hers. A monstrous horsefly droned its way in and out of a triangle-cut eye, while a black cat dragged a chunk of melty pumpkin under the porch by its stringy, yellow guts.

“Bah wah if ee uzzin um?” Carl repeated with more insistence.

“Oh for God’s sake, Carl. Here!” Mabel shrieked. Her hands flew into her black leather handbag. “I didn’t want to give it to you until after, but I just can’t listen to this. You’re driving me mad.” She rummaged through her clutch and withdrew a plastic teal case shaped like an apple. She stomped up the busted hardwood steps and shoved the piece into Carl’s sweaty hands. He gawked at it.

“Good Lord, Carl! They’re dentures. Put them in. Please.” She begged.

Carl hovered the tiny treasures over his gums, then snapped each set of pearls into place. The top line, then the bottom.

“What if he doesn’t come, Mabel?” Carl said, more eloquently, however, dentures in, his was still a slow way of talking, his tongue slopping through a high concentrate of vowels.

“How could you even think that, Carl? You were with me, weren’t you? You saw the spell being cast, so then you know, very well, that he will come.” Mabel said. “And you better not screw it up when he does.” Carl could sound so ridiculous, so dumb, and he looked so old, Mabel thought, in that too-big beige suit. There were tears in the elbows, tears in the shoulder pads. He tugged at his beige oxford shirt underneath, where there were rips in the material, too. And wrinkles. Wrinkles on the clothes, and deep ones in his face. And that disformity. That big bulge over his right eyebrow. Awful.

Carl didn’t protest, though his mind raced. What if the boy didn’t come? What if, like last year, the boy got away? He watched the black cat dash from the porch and slink behind the bloodless house. What if…

***

Small orange and brown leaves fluttered near the asphalt like a flock of pygmy bats, windswept beside Augie’s legs. They brushed against his true-blue jeans and spoke in low swishes. This. Way. This. Way. He wanted them to speak to him, to guide him on their cool October wind, while he meandered through wide and empty suburbia. The morning was just as it ought to be on Halloween. Overcast and quiet. Phantasmic gray clouds barred any possibility of blue sky.

This was tradition, walking Beekman Avenue before trick-or-treating, anticipating tonight’s candy trove. It was a self-imposed tradition that Augie felt very proud and very adult for having imposed. He didn’t know other ten-year-olds who could appreciate the intricacy of autumn’s magic, who opted for a walk on Halloween morning to live inside the day as if it were its own costume, to drink it down like sweet and malty hot chocolate.

“Magic.” He whispered with the leaves under him. This. Way.

Peaceful split-style homes with vinyl white siding on red brick flanked his walk On oak branches, paper ghosts swung. On shallow concrete steps, jack-o’-lanterns loitered madly. Then, after a while, the familiar houses began to fall away, replaced by more substantial ones. Opulent, rust-colored gingerbread homes with black trimming. The lawns became more festive, the trees more…autumnal? Yes, that’s how it was. Each new house more autumnal than its predecessor. The air, too, was drunk with the season. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. The breeze crispened; the leaves doubled. A black cat crossed Beekman, and its paws breathed wonderfully of bad luck. Then…

Crack! A bright object slapped the pavement in front of Augie with the splintery kick of gunfire. Augie knelt to examine it. A purple Tootsie Pop. Crack! Another lollipop, this one orange, smacked the street and shattered into broken glass. A woman in a witchy black dress, a hundred feet away, pulled the candy from her purse and whirled it at the ground. Crack! She flung another piece. Her dress sleeves and the silver-blonde curls of her hair billowed in the wake of her throws. Augie sprinted to her, dodging a lollipop that skid just below his sneaker.

“Stop! Why are you doing that?” He yelled. What a horrid thing, wasting candy on Halloween.

“No one ever trick-or-treats here. No one!” The woman shrieked, plunging her hand back into her bag.

“Stop. Please. I trick-or-treat here. This is my street.”

“Your street?” The woman paused, her hand mid-rummage inside the leather clutch.

“Yes. I live…” Augie turned to point back in the direction he’d come, then froze. Where the beautiful orange-and-black gingerbreads should be, there was an unsettling stretch of worn-out, eerie gray houses. “This isn’t…”

“Your street.” The woman finished. She grabbed his arm. “This isn’t your street.”

“No. I don’t know where I am. Please let me go.”

“You’re on my street. And you’re not going anywhere.” She cackled. “I need you here. You. Keep. Me. Young.” She said, hissing the words through gritted teeth, then pulling the boy closer and tightening her grip.

“Let me go!” Augie grunted. He shook his arm hard, prying it from her grasp. He turned to run but collided immediately and solidly with a soft beige wall.

“Grab him, Carl!”

Augie heard this, then blacked out.

***

Cold earth. Augie felt it on his cheek, as a restless sleep began to slip and his eyes flitted open. 

And he saw the grisly face before him. The wrinkled, disfigured face from his nightmare, floating there upside down, examining Augie. How long had this man been watching him? Augie scurried backward like a coward dog in clothes that weren’t his but was an oversized beige suit. Where were his true-blue jeans?

“Don’t be scared.” The man said slowly, his teeth clacked in his maw. He backed away, hands raised in a no-harm gesture, and fell on his ass into a folding chair.

“Where am I?” Augie whimpered.

“The house. The basement. You’re the next one.”

“The next what?”

This question seemed to frustrate the man. His lips worked overtime writhing against each other, as he struggled for the answer. 

“You’re the next me. The next Carl.” A gentle smile spread across his livery lips. “We’re important! We keep the witches and the neighborhood young. Alive!” Then Carl stood from his chair and crept toward Augie. “I think it’s already starting, too.” Carl tapped a finger under his right eye. Augie touched under his own and felt a sharp crease there.

“No!” He shouted, clambering to his feet. “I can’t be old. I’m a kid. I can’t stay here. I have a mom. I love her very much. I’m all she has. Please. You have to let me go.” 

“But…” Carl grinded his lips. “But Mabel’s all I have. And now we have you.” His gentle smile returned.

“Carl. That’s your name?” Augie asked. Carl nodded. “And you were a kid when Mabel found you?” 

“Mmm. Yeah.” He said, squeezing the cleft of his chin between his index finger and thumb, rubbing it with grave intention.

“So then you have to know this isn’t right. You know I need to go home.”

“I…” Carl began to ideate. His brow furrowed; he scratched at the firm globe of protruded skin above his right eye. He opened his mouth again, but Augie didn’t allow him to complete the thought. The boy was already brushing past him, mounting the basement steps.

“Hey!” Carl shouted after him. He grabbed hold of the rickety bannister and propelled himself up the stairwell.

But when Augie reached the top step his heart sank. A padlock hung, looped through a steel hasp that winked an evil gleam, bolted to the dull wooden door. Augie pounded it, then jumped, as Carl’s hand dropped onto his shoulder.

“Don’t be sad, Augie. Please don’t.” Carl said, his voice soft and solemn.

“I have to get home. I have to get home.” Augie repeated over and over, his fist banging the door, until eventually the phrase quieted to a teary-thick whisper pitted in his sore throat. He fell to his knees at the base of the door. “Have to get…have to get…”

Soon tears wet Carl’s face, too. They ran the bumps of his skin like streams over country hills; they flooded the wrinkles like rivers and dripped from his chin. His chest hitched with muffled sobs. Then his weighty hand left the boy’s shoulder, and that’s when Augie heard them. Faint clippings. The sound of something good, free, and wonderful. Carl shuffled the padlock’s combinations into place. He tugged the latch loose with a glorious click and unlooped it. He let it hit the cellar stair with a bang, then pushed the door open. It creaked ajar with a groan and a sigh.

“You should go home, Augie. You were right.” Carl said, then his fingers bound Augie’s forearm tightly and a bit painfully. “But you have to run.”

Augie glanced up, met the sallow man’s eyes, and nodded. He started for the hallway but paused still in the threshold of the cellar door. He jutted his right hand into Carl’s thick and sweaty one. “Come on. We’ll go together.”

The two rushed the front door. Carl jiggled the greasy brass knob and shoved it forward. 

Mabel stood just beyond the door, arms crossed on the porch, her face a wicked scowl.

“Again, Carl?” She howled. “You’re going to screw it again? You know the consequences.”

Carl didn’t hesitate. He took charge, brushing past Mabel, checking her with his shoulder. She fell backward, breaking through the porch railing and landing in a clump of starved rhododendrons. By the time she was back on her feet, Carl and Augie were running wildly, hand-in-hand, down Beekman toward familiar houses.

“No!” Mabel shouted, pursuing them. From her handbag, she pulled more lollipops and fired them at the runaways. Some of the arsenal hit the fugitives’ heels and exploded into vivid colors of green, purple, and red. The acrid scent of burnt rubber perfused the street until…

***

“Augie! Where’ve you been man?” It was Jake, Augie’s closest friend. Augie had run straight into him, and now Jake’s hands were around Augie’s arms, halting his momentum.

Augie tried to speak but could only stammer.

“Don’t worry, man. I covered for you. I told your mom we were hanging.” 

Augie gaped, unable to hide his shock, the whiplash. He looked back over his shoulder, but all the houses were normal again. Where was Carl?

“Come on! We’re going to miss the good stuff. The Gradys have Snickers!” Jake shouted. “Killer costume by the way. You look like my grandpa.” He laughed, then jogged up the steps to the Grady’s house.

Augie took one final look down Beekman, and, for a second, thought he saw the shape, a man outlined in brown and orange leaves. They swirled in a tall whirlpool, then drifted beside the ankles of his new beige suit pants, whispering which way to go.

Gored

By Autumn Hooper

 

I would no longer be bound,

not to this earthly womb.

Time to sever the cord, I signaled,

garish orange at the end of my stem.

The glint of his axe declared compliance

as the farmer hacked at my limb.

‘The children are coming,’ he told me,

‘Your salvation now lies with them.’

 

The boy saw the depravity,

envisioned my features as he peered at my skin.

He did not notice me slink through his mind,

did not know it was I who picked him.

 

His knife plunged into my core,

Broke the seal to my twisted, dark soul.

Wet entrails slipped through his fingers

as he set them aside in a bowl.

Then he carved out the face that I’d shown him,

contours of wickedness and malice set free.

He giggled with joy at my unleashing,

naive to the cost—the curse that was me.