A Halloween Miracle
John Brhel
"Trick
or treat!" yelled a witch, an axe murderer, Batman, and a
pint-sized Katniss Everdeen as Pam Cleary opened the front door to
her home, a five-bedroom Victorian on a cul-de-sac in the enviable
neighborhood of Shady Terrace.
"Oh, what nice
costumes you have," said Pam as she dropped a full-size Snickers
bar into each child's bag.
She was dressed as a
doll, with porcelain-white skin, rosy red cheeks, and a puffy, blue
dress. Coincidentally, her home resembled a dollhouse. It was a
massive white structure with black shutters, imposing rooflines, and
big bay windows. Like the Addams Family's place, only slightly more
inviting.
She flashed a
well-rehearsed smile at the children's parents -- a doctor, a
preacher, an assemblyman, and the president of the Matheson Central
PTA. These were good people. The very best people.
Everyone
thanked her and walked next door to the Kelly’s, who had just
returned from a weeklong vacation in Barbados.
Pam closed the door
and went to the kitchen to get more candy. It was a room worthy of a
magazine spread: vaulted ceilings; imported marble countertops;
stainless-steel, smart appliances; and a center island that would
make a realtor squeal with glee. For Pam, who had spent her childhood
in a run-down shoebox in the have-not side of town, it was like a
dream.
Her husband, Martin,
sat on a stool next to the island, nursing a glass of scotch. He was
a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard and honest brown eyes.
"How's it
going?" Martin asked. "Having fun yet?" A copy of
Washington Irving's The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow
lay open on the counter, next to his glass. He took a swig of scotch
and belched.
"Well, that
bitch Patty Holden just stopped by with that brat kid of hers,"
said Pam. She picked up a carton of candy from the counter and dumped
its contents into a large, glass bowl. "If I could, I'd tell her
to go..."
Martin cut her off.
"I don't want to hear any complaining tonight, alright? It's
Halloween, for Christ's sake. Could you lighten up for once, Pamela?"
The doorbell rang.
"Could you shut
your trap for once, Martin?" said Pam. She sneered at him and
rushed down the hallway.
When she got to the
front door and looked out the peephole at the pack of
trick-or-treaters waiting outside, she didn't recognize a single one.
Shady Terrace was home to 50 upstanding, well-bred families -- and
she knew them all by name. Not this motley crew.
"Trick or
treat!" yelled the costumed strangers as Pam opened the front
door. She looked with disgust at the riffraff congregating on her
front steps. A clown in an oversized pair of thrift-store pants. A
princess with a tinfoil crown. A bedsheet ghost with two uneven
eye-holes. And a skeleton in a threadbare Lycra outfit and one of
those cheap, plastic masks with the rubber band in the back. The
group smelled like a mix of body odor and Kool-Aid.
She looked out on
the street, past the group of unwelcome misfits, and saw a rusted
green minivan parked in front of the Wilson’s colonial home. She'd
never seen it before, and it didn't belong to anyone in Shady
Terrace, that was for sure.
Must be from the
other side of Jefferson!
thought Pam.
The nerve of these people. I pay more than my fair share in taxes to
feed and school these miscreants. Now I have to give them free candy,
too?
The kids giggled and
held out their bags in anticipation (half of the bags were dirty
pillowcases). But Pam kept the candy out of their reach.
"You should be
ashamed of yourselves," she said to their parents -- a zombie, a
giant M&M, a pirate, a hobo, a black cat, and Elvis. "Halloween
isn't a charity or a social service. This candy is for Shady Terrace
kids. Why don't you go back to your 'hood' and trick-or-treat at your
own damn houses!"
Before anyone could
object, Pam stepped back in her house and slammed the door in her
visitors' faces.
She set the candy
bowl on top of her blue, mid-century bookshelf and peeped out the
window. Outside, the children were pouting and stomping their feet on
her walkway. Their parents were doing their best to console them, to
no avail.
One of the parents
(probably
somebody's "baby daddy,"
thought Pam), the gruff-looking guy in the pirate outfit, turned
toward the house and shook his fist in the air.
"You
can go to hell, lady!" yelled the man, a fierce scowl set across
his stubbly face. "You think you live in some little bubble up
here, like your shit don't stink. But you'll get yours! Just you
wait!"
Pam ducked behind
her handmade peu de soie drapes in fear.
The black cat,
presumably the pirate's wife, tugged his arm and motioned toward the
kids. He shook his head and followed the group next door to the
Kelly's, but not before flipping the bird back at Pam's house.
Scumbags! I hope
Barb tells them to buzz off!
Pam watched as Barb
Kelly opened her front door and handed out candy to the very same
group with a big, stinking smile on her face.
Are
you kidding me? Damned bleeding heart.
She walked back to
the kitchen to complain to Martin about what she'd just endured, but
he beat her to the punch.
"I heard the
whole thing," said Martin, shaking his head. "I can't
believe you. Denying little kids candy on Halloween. And kids from
the projects, on top of it? C'mon."
"Those 'little
kids' and their parents are deceitful," said Pam, fists clenched
tight at her side. "It's so damn obvious that they live in the
ghetto and only came here cause we give out real candy. It's
bullshit, and I'm not going to stand for it."
Martin stepped up
from the stool, nearly falling over in the process (he liked his
scotch strong). "We make probably 30 times more than these kids'
parents and you're going to give them a hard time about a two-dollar
bar of chocolate?"
"It's not my
job or obligation to feed or entertain someone else's kids,"
said Pam, pointing her thumb back at herself like a big to-do. "And
I won't stand for threats from their trashy parents either."
Martin paused and
tilted his head to the side as if something long-forgotten had just
popped into his head. "Well, you better start being nicer to
those kids," he said, smirking. "Or the Dearg Dulce is
going to get you."
"The what?!"
said Pam. Martin, a tenured anthropology professor, was prone to
using weird, archaic words that she didn't understand.
"The Dearg
Dulce. It's an ancient Celtic demon associated with the feast of
Samhein; that's where we get Halloween. The Dearg Dulce haunted the
homes of those who refused to partake in harvest festivities, which
included giving out treats to village children."
This is what I
get for marrying an academic. And a drunk.
Pam groaned. "You've
got a colorful imagination, Martin. Why don't you have another drink
and let me handle the trick-or-treaters?"
Martin chuckled.
"It's ancient mythology, but whatever, Pam. I hope you'll curb
your snobbery just this once and let some poor kids have some fun."
Pam picked up the
bowl of candy and walked out of the kitchen, her nose pointed firmly
toward the ceiling.
"Don't say I
didn't warn you!" yelled Martin. He picked up his drink and
walked out to the back porch to finish his story.
The rest of Pam's
evening went by without incident. Groups of decent families rang her
doorbell, and she doled out candy to each child with delight. When
the neighborhood's power couple, Mark and Evelyn Jones, swung by, she
made sure to give their son, Cody, an extra candy bar.
When more kids from
the “other side of Jefferson” showed up, however (and it was
quite obvious to Pam when they did), she simply shut off her porch
light and refused to answer the door. Nobody home.
At 8:30 p.m. she
waved goodbye to the last group of legitimate trick-or-treaters and
closed the front door. Exhausted from a long day of Pilates and
reality TV, she poured a glass of wine and lied down on her leather
sofa. She was out cold not twenty minutes later.
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang
and Pam jolted awake. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at the clock
on her $5,000 entertainment center. It was 11:59 p.m. Way too late
for any trick-or-treaters.
Who
the hell would be ringing the doorbell at this hour? Did Devon forget
his key again? Teenagers!
She walked to the
front door and looked out the peephole, but her son wasn't standing
outside. Neither were Rita Sullivan, Ted Donahue, or any of her other
nosy neighbors. Instead, there stood the kid in the skeleton costume
from before, one of the "less fortunate" kids, still
clutching his filthy pillowcase.
Scumbags
letting their spawn roam the streets at this hour! I'm going to call
security and make sure they never show their faces in this
neighborhood again!
She opened the door
and scolded him before he had a chance to yell "trick or treat."
"Young man, I
told you this candy is for the children of Shady Terrace," said
Pam, kneeling down to talk to him at eye level. "It's wrong of
you to come into our neighborhood and ask for candy, ya hear? Now go
on home, and tell your parents not to come around here anymore."
The skeleton didn't
move or utter a word. He held out his pillowcase with one stiff hand
and waited.
Pam stood up, a
nasty sneer beginning to form on her face. "Where are your
parents? I want to give them a piece of my mind!"
She waited for the
skeleton to respond, but he stood there, silent and still. Outside
the wind picked up and Pam could hear the sound of crisp red and
orange leaves rustling on the ground.
"Are you deaf,
kid? I'm talking to you!" she said, her Botoxed lip curled up
into a sneer.
Dead silence.
"That's it!
Let's see who's hiding under that mask! And after that I'm calling
the cops!"
She stepped forward
and lifted the skeleton's mask off with her free hand in one swift
motion.
When she saw what
was underneath, she screamed, so loud and so violently that she woke
up the Baumgartners, who lived five houses over.
Looking back at her,
like the Devil himself had dropped it off at her doorstep, was a
shriveled, rotting face. Its cheeks were pea-soup green and sunken
in, and it was caked with dust, like some horribly preserved mummy,
unearthed after a millennia. It had no eyeballs, but looked out at
her through two empty sockets, through which she could see the same
green minivan from before, the grungy pirate sitting in the driver's
seat. The creature's teeth, yellow and decayed, extended beyond its
pointed, gnarled chin. Not even the most brilliant mask maker could
have dreamed up such a horribly grotesque face.
"Trick or
treat!" howled the creature as a bright light emanated from its
body, illuminating the porch and Pam in a weird purple glow. She
stood in the doorway, unable to look away or run. Losing control of
her body, she dropped the candy bowl to the ground. Shards of glass
shattered all over her beautiful pavers as the creature's howl
carried through the picture-perfect streets of Shady Terrace.
"Mom,
I'm home," said Devon Cleary as he shut the back door to his
house. He hung up his jacket, took off the Freddy Krueger hat he'd
worn to the party, and walked into the kitchen, where his mother was
sitting at the island, her back turned to him.
"Sorry I'm
late," he said. "Rog and I sort of lost track of time."
He was surprised
when his mother didn't turn around and scold him on the spot.
Seemingly home-free, he walked to the other side of the island to
grab some chips from the snack drawer. When he saw his mother's face,
he froze.
"Mom?" he
asked, his heart suddenly pounding against his chest like a hammer on
a railroad spike. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
"Mom?!
"Dad! What's
wrong with mom?!"
Pam sat on the
stool, her eyes glazed over, face twisted in shock. She kept
muttering something under her breath, but Devon couldn't make out
what the strange words were underneath all of her heavy wheezing.
Dearg Dulce.
Dearg Dulce. Dearg Dulce. Dearg...
Natasha
Ulrich, Ernest Miller, and Racquel Knowles returned to their homes on
the "other side of Jefferson" that night to find their
trick-or-treat bags stuffed full of Snickers bars. No one knew how
they ended up with all of that yummy loot, but it didn't matter.
Times were tough, and nights like these provided some much-needed
respite.
They tore open the
wrappers and munched on their well-deserved junk. And their smiles
were wider than a mile.
John Brhel is a horror writer from Binghamton, New York. He is currently co-authoring a book of short fiction about a cursed cemetery. He blogs at http://johnbrhel.tumblr.com and can be found on Twitter as @johnbrhel.
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