Halloween and Other Seasons

It had become even hotter, and then hotter still. The radio, still on, blurted out a stifled cry of static and then was silent.

In the sweaty, close, unbearably hot cave, the flashlight went on with one final smudge of sick light, illuminating Monk’s crying face.

“I’m so sorry…” he whispered.

~ * ~

 “Mabel?” George Meadows croaked. He could barely talk, his words fighting through the heat, which had intensified. His wife lay unmoving on the sofa, her desiccated arm hanging over the side, fingers brushing her dropped magazine. Her housedress was now completely part of the couch’s pattern, melded into it like an iron transfer.  The window fan had given up. The sky was very bright. Puffs of steam rose from the floor, up from the cellar, from the ground below. Somewhere in the back of his nostrils, George smelled smoke, and fire.

“Mabel?” he called again, although now he could not feel the easy chair beneath him. He felt light as a flake of ash rising from a campfire.

His eyes were so hot he could no longer see.

He took in one final, rasping, burning breath as the world turned to fire and roaring flame around him.

And, even now, he could not resist getting in the last word, letting his final breath out in a cracked whisper even though there was no one to listen: “Yep. Hottest ever.”

SLEEPOVER

By Al Sarrantonio

“Chickens were green,” he said.

“They weren’t,” she answered. “They were yellow. Frogs were green.”

“That’s the sky,” he said, grinning slyly to himself. He had a secret grin even when his lips didn’t smile. “The sky was green. Grass was blue.”

She shook her head back and forth, almost violently. “You got ‘em mixed up, Ty. It’s the other way ‘round. Grass was green, sky blue.”

“It was the way I say,” he replied, and his eyes were hard enough that he meant it.

“No, little brother, it was the way I remember.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she looked at the ground. “I think…”

~ * ~

They were on a plane of black smooth glass. Where the sky—which was maroon and devoid of clouds—met the horizon there was a faint curved thin fuzzy line, like a charcoal-drawn heat wave. The temperature never seemed to change, though sometimes Ty complained of being cold at night. Willa pressed up near him when this happened, but always reluctantly. There was a part of her that was sure he claimed cold just to get attention.

Ty was seven, as close as Willa could remember. He had been seven when they woke up one morning in this place which had, during the night, replaced the second floor bedroom of cousin Clara’s big white house with the white picket fence. Sometimes Willa had trouble remembering some things about the white house now—such as if the garage doors had needed painting or not, or if the mailbox post at the road was crooked or straight. But there were other things that Willa did remember—the sharpness of the red metal flag on the mailbox, which felt like it might cut your finger when you raised it to tell the mailman there was mail to be taken, or the tart ammonia smell of the cat litter box when it hadn’t been cleaned, or the way Aunt Erin and Uncle Bill’s smiles lit up their faces when cousin Clara said something clever. She remembered Clara’s science project, the working windmill, with it’s gold first-place ribbon hanging from it (it had been gold, hadn’t it?—Ty would now say it had been tan, or orange)—that was displayed prominently on the fireplace mantle.

But she couldn’t remember if the fireplace bricks had been red or white.

“I’m hungry again,” Ty said, and this time Willa knew he was looking for nothing but attention. They hadn’t been hungry since they had found themselves here. They hadn’t gotten dirty, or had to brush their teeth, or even had to go to the bathroom.

Which had led Willa to conclude—

“And we’re not dead!” Ty said, reaching over to jab her in the ribs. “We’re just… here!”

“And where is that?” Willa responded.

Ty began to cry, true frightened sobs, which made Willa pleased and then, instantly, sorry. She reached over to brush the hair away from his forehead. “It’s all right,” she whispered, “We’re not dead.”

But he was consumed by one of his out-of-control times, and clung to her, shivering. She could feel the wetness of his tears against the skin of her arm, soaking into the upper cuff of her nightdress.

“Ty, it’s all right—”

“No it’s not, it’s not! We’re dead, we’re dead!”

“I was only joking—”

“You were right, you were right! We’re dead dead dead!”

The arm that wrapped around Ty began to tremble, and Willa felt her own tears rising, though she kept them down.

“There’s only one other thing we could be,” she said in the faintest of voices, and only to herself.

~ * ~

A while later the light show began, as it did every night before sleep came.

First came the yellow streaks, which crossed in parallel pairs overhead, cutting the maroon sky in half. Then the maroon sky split into two parts, like an overhead dome opening, and the darkest sky Willa had ever seen met the black glass plain and they could see nothing. But this lasted only a moment, not enough to keep them in darkness: for the lights of what looked like a billion stars came on overhead, coming brighter and brighter like novas until their light merged into one overwhelming brilliance like the Sun. They were blinded by the light and closed their eyes, seeing a round retinal afterimage against the insides of their lids, and when they opened their eyes again the world was as it had been, with maroon sky and black glass underfoot and the fine line of fuzziness at the horizon.

“I’m sleepy,” Ty said, and curled up on the black glass and closed his eyes, which is what he always did after the light show. Willa fought it but also found herself tired, and then they slept, and always when they woke up they expected to find themselves back in their sleeping bags in cousin Carla’s bedroom in the white two story house that, Willa was almost sure, needed painting and had an old clock in the kitchen that had a crack in the face and was a little fast.

But always, for nine sleep periods now, they found themselves here.

~ * ~

After this, the tenth sleep period, the same thing happened.

Only—

Something was different this time.

They were not alone.

In the near distance were two shapes huddled on the ground, one of which began to wail.

Ty roused himself and looked at them wide-eyed. “The sky was blue, I’m pretty sure…” he whispered.

“Yes,” Willa said, though she wasn’t positive anymore. In her own dreams the white house had been gray, the clock in the kitchen a minute slow.

The two figures saw them and began to approach, at first tentatively, then running.

“Help us!” the one in front sobbed.

Willa held on to Ty, and the two of them stood waiting.

The two figures stopped ten feet away.

They were children: two girls, younger than Ty. One had blonde hair and the other’s hair was red, curly all over.