It was because of the razor blades in apples and the pins in candy bars last Halloween that the town decided to cancel trick-or-treat this year.
It wasn’t fair, Billy thought. His favorite holiday was ruined because of some crazed fool. That was until Ray Daley’s father decided to host a Halloween party in his barn for all the kids on Towle Road. That salvaged Halloween. It didn’t matter that Billy was fourteen and just started high school that fall. He liked to dress up and go door to door begging for candy. It was still fun.
He was dressed as a mummy for the party, and it took his mother almost an hour to wrap the torn strips of white sheets around his torso and limbs, pinning them in spots where it wouldn’t show.
“Not so tight,” he told his mother. He would need to move, especially if Jessica was there. She said she was coming, along with her ditzy friend Kate. He had a crush on Jessica since junior high, but didn’t really know what to do about it. But if there was any dancing, he had to be able to move. Not that he knew how to dance. Maybe the costume would make a good excuse for his lack of rhythm.
He walked sluggishly up the dark road, as if he had just crawled from an Egyptian tomb, and stopped at Phil’s house where he was greeted by the teen in a werewolf mask and a corduroy jacket and jeans.
“Is that what all the monsters are wearing this year?” Billy asked.
“Shut up, I just want to be comfortable. I probably won’t keep this mask on long, I’m sweating like a pig in here already.”
Billy laughed and they headed up the dark street past houses that would normally be lit up and ready for trick-or-treaters to knock at their doors. But not tonight. Tonight was different.
Towle Road was an old country lane that a hundred years ago had been mostly farmland, but now a lot of the fields had been developed and modern houses sprung up amongst the farmhouses. The Daleys lived in an 18th century Colonial with a large attached barn in the back.
“I can’t believe Ray’s mother is allowing this party for the neighborhood,” Phil said, his voice muffled behind the rubber mask.
“Well, I’m sure it’s Mr. Daley’s doing, not hers.”
“Yeah,” Phil said. “She’s such a nutjob.”
Mrs. Daley didn’t believe in Halloween. She thought kids shouldn’t celebrate something that represented evil. Ray was embarrassed by his mother. Every year he’d beg her to let him go trick-or-treating and she’d refuse. His dad would always somehow talk her into letting Ray go. Ray said his dad would just make her take her pills and a sedative and put her to bed. It was like that every Halloween.
When they got to the Daleys, the house was dark except for one lit window on the second floor: Ray’s bedroom. Maybe he was still getting dressed, Billy thought. Music drifted out into the night from the open door of the barn out back. They followed the sound and walked into the bright light that spilled out. The barn smelled of hay and old timber. Orange streamers and black balloons hung from the rafters.
The place was packed with kids of all ages and a handful of parents. There were boys dressed as cowboys, pirates, hobos and all types of hideous creatures in rubber masks. There were girls made up as princesses, witches, cats and ugly dead things. The younger kids chased each other around the middle of the barn floor, cackling with laughter. The middle-school aged kids formed a perimeter around them, watching them as if remembering what is was like to be that young. The high school kids seemed to be congregating in the back corner of the barn, trying to separate themselves from the younger ones.
“I don’t see Ray,” Billy said, scanning the crowd. He had said he was going to dress up as a vampire, with slicked-back hair, a black cape, fangs and pale white face. But there were no vampires in the barn.
A table set up along one wall held platters of cookies, brownies, cupcakes and a big silver bowl of candy. In the middle of the barn was a big barrel filled with water and a small table of apples beside it. Billy didn’t think his costume would allow him to open his mouth wide enough to bob for apples.
Music blared from a stereo in another corner.
“Who’s that?” Phil said, pointing to a tall figure in a craggy Neanderthal-looking rubber mask with thick ridges over the eyes, squashed nose, protruding teeth and coarse black hair. Beneath the mask was a long charcoal trench coat that nearly dragged on the ground. In the figure’s hands was a tray of cookies gripped by two black leather gloves with long thin fingers.
“That’s gotta be Ray’s dad,” Billy answered. Ray had said his father was going to dress up tonight. At least he got into the spirit of things. “Let’s see where Ray is.”
They met the figure as it crossed the room.
“Hey Mr. Daley, it’s me, Billy. Where’s Ray?”
The figure stopped and stared down at the two boys silently. It shook its head and brushed past them toward the dessert table and placed the cookies on it. Then the figure turned and walked back across the room and exited through the door to the house.
“That was weird,” Billy said.
“Oh, he’s just trying to be creepy. He’s such a joker.”
Billy looked over to the back corner and caught his breath. There she was.
He saw the white wedding gown smeared in blood, the pale death-like face with the black eyes and small trail of blood coming out of the corner of her mouth. A veil hung over her short red hair.
“Come on,” he said to Phil, grabbing him by the arms.
Once in the corner, she met his eyes through the slits of white cloth strips. Did she recognize him? He hoped.
“Who’s that?” she said, smiling, trying to see through the costume.
“Great costume, Jess,” he said, trying not to show disappointment.
“Billy? Is that you?” She giggled and he joined her.
“Yeah.”
“How on earth did you get in that?”
“A little help from mom.”
Phil jabbed him with an elbow.
Just then, Kate, dressed in a black nurse’s outfit with a short tight skirt, came bouncing over.
“Hey guys!” she said, laughing uncontrollably. “Ain’t this fun!”
“Cool,” said Phil. “Can you take my temperature? I’m boiling in here.”
Kate burst into laughter again.
“Been here long?” Billy asked Jessica.
“About a half hour. I’ve already had two chocolate chip cookies and a cupcake and it made me really thirsty, but they haven’t brought out any drinks yet.”
“Oh,” Billy said, followed by a moment of awkward silence that seemed to go on forever. Phil was chatting with Kate, who couldn’t stop laughing. Why did girls laugh so much, even when no one was saying anything funny?
“Have you seen Ray” Billy finally asked.
“No,” Jessica said. “But I’m sure he won’t miss his own party.”
Billy nodded, then looked around the room, trying to think of something else to say.
“I think they’ve got a bunch of games planned for the little kids,” Jessica said.
“Oh yeah?” Duh, he thought. Say something intelligent.
“Hopefully the little brats will go home early,” Phil butted in.
“And then we can dance,” Kate squealed.
“Hope you can move in all that,” Jessica said to Billy.
He just smiled.
The door to the house opened again and the dark masked figure came out pushing a wheeled serving cart topped with two large glass punch bowls and plastic cups. One punch bowl contained a reddish fruit punch-looking drink, the other a greenish lime-colored punch.
“Finally,” Jessica said, “I’m dying of thirst.”
Phil pulled his mask up to the top of his head. “I’m just dying.” His face was a mask of sweat.
“Let’s get something to drink,” Kate said and grabbed Jessica’s arm, pulling her toward the cart.
“Come on,” Phil said.
Billy watched the dark figure set the cart by the dessert table and return to the house through the connecting door.
“I’m gonna ask Mr. Daley where Ray is,” Billy said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Well don’t take too long. Someone might elope with your dead bride.”
Billy crossed the room stiffly, nearly getting knocked over by some little goblins he could barely see through the slits in his eyes. He reached the door to the house and walked through it into a little foyer that led to the kitchen.
“Hello,” he called out, not wanting to startle Mr. Daley. He spoke softly, remembering Ray said his father would probably put Mrs. Daley to bed early to avoid any confrontation. A couple pills and she’ll be down for the night, Ray had said. He felt sorry for him. How could his father be so normal, having fun dressing up and hosting this party for the whole neighborhood, yet Mrs. Daley was such a fanatic?
In the kitchen he saw the mess of the party preparations. The sink was full of dirty cookie sheets and cupcake tins stacked on top of each other. The counters were covered in flour, empty baking boxes and splotches of melted chocolate and drops of batter hardening on the countertop. Empty punch cans lay discarded by the sink along with a pair of bottles that Billy paid little attention to but seemed out of place.
The hall beyond the kitchen that led to the living room was dark.
“Mr. Daley? Ray?”
Billy ventured further into the house, down the hall and into the living room
The room was dark except for the light of the television. It was on without any volume. He guessed it was on the religious channel, because there was a nun and a priest sitting in chairs, mouths moving in some silent preaching.
Billy thought he saw an outline in the light and crept around the big easy chair. The glow from the television shined down on a body lying on the floor in a white t-shirt and jeans.
Billy stopped, startled. Was this some Halloween trick?
“Mr. Daley?” Billy said to the figure, half expecting it to jump up at any moment to scare him. He noticed the splayed arms and the fingers contorted into a twisted grip. The face was frozen in a grimace of pain, the eyes and mouth open, and a pink substance ran out of the corner of the mouth and onto the carpet. The t-shirt was slightly pulled up from the waist, revealing a hairy pot belly. On his left side was a small round hole with black edges, like a yawning mouth from which bits of veined chunks of a rubbery looking substance and pink foaming goo had poured out onto the floor and was now dried onto the carpet. Nearby was an overturned plastic cup.
Billy raised a hand to his gaping mouth, also covering the small hole beneath his nostrils that were now intruded by a pungent odor. Bile began to rise in his throat. His heart thudded beneath his tightly wrapped chest, as if the beating rhythm would break the white straps across it.
Oh my god. This was no prank. This looked real.
He wanted to scream but couldn’t find his voice. The cloth straps suddenly felt tight around his throat, choking him.
He turned away, wondering where the hell Ray was, looking at the stairway that led up to the bedrooms. The door to the top bedroom on the right, Ray’s room, was slightly ajar with a narrow wedge of light cutting into the dark landing above. He could hear a muffled sound, followed by a sharp voice that was blocked by the partially closed door so he could only make out a couple words: “… pray … sinners … never …”
Billy was frozen, not sure whether he should go up the steps.
Then the door opened and the dark figure in the trench coat that he thought was Mr. Daley stepped into the lighted stairway. The eyes behind the gruesome mask stared down at him. The eyes that he now knew belong to Ray’s mother.
Billy looked back toward Mr. Daley’s body and at the empty overturned cup beside him. Then it hit him and he tried to move his stiff legs as fast as possible, (damn his mother for wrapping him too tight) heading toward the back of the house as he recalled those empty bottles by the kitchen sink that didn’t belong there: the bottle of anti-freeze and liquid drain cleaner.
But as he staggered through the kitchen and reached for the door to the barn, he stopped.
The screams had already started, and he didn’t dare open the door.
