He yanked the door open, throwing on the porch light as he did so, and blinked at two miniature pirates who held open pillow sacks out to him.
He stood staring at them for a moment, and then the smaller, bolder one thrust his sack out again and demanded, 'Trick or treat, mister!'
'Just.. . a moment,' he blurted, turning to stumble into the kitchen where he rummaged in an overhead cabinet where he knew they kept the candy they had bought on sale weeks before. He saw flour and unopened cans—and then, behind them, his fingers found the bags and he pulled them out.
Two were filled with candy bars melted from the recent heat—a third contained miniature boxes of jawbreakers. He tore that bag open, took two handfuls of candy and went back to the front door.
The smaller pirate was scowling; his buccaneer friend already turning away.
'We thought you was gonna welch,' the little one said.
Peter pushed open the door, thrust a multitude of tiny boxes into the pirate's bag. He followed it with his other handful.
'For your friend,' he said.
'Thanks, Mister!' the kid shouted, turning away to consult with his compatriot. Peter looked out to see the street filled with children in groups, cars and vans moving slowly up one side of the Street and down the other, ferrying other costumed congregations.
He went back to retrieve whatever candy they had, and spent the next hour stationed at the door, pushing candy into the open mouths of trick or treat bags.
He noticed one car parked in front of his house that didn't move with the others.
A curl of cigarette smoke rose from the open window on the driver's side, and he noticed the man sitting there looking his way now and then.
It looked like Grant, but he couldn't be sure.
The night grew colder, more blustery; leaves began to dance around the few remaining children, until the groups trickled to a few older uncostumed kids, out for fun with shaving cream cans or rolls of toilet paper.
Then, abruptly, it was quiet. The vans, engorged with little riders, drove off, leaving only the single car in front of Kerlan's house, and the curl of smoke.
Some of the lights went out; pumpkin flames were snuffed by the wind, leaving the block quieter, more eerie.
He closed the front door; locked it; closed the remaining windows, found a sweater in his bedroom and went back down to his office. It was cold inside—and was filled with the sound of buzzing.
When he stepped into the room, his foot crushed something alive and wriggling on the carpet.
A hornet.
Others were moving over the rug, crawling slowly up the walls from behind the couch; one made a feeble try at flying up toward the light but fell back, exhausted, to land on the coffee table which held manuscripts in front of the sofa.
He ran to his desk, jabbed at the phone, rifled through the stacks of papers on his desk, looking for the phone number of Willims, the beekeeper.
A hornet was crawling tiredly across the front edge of the desk, and he swatted it angrily to the floor.
There were more yellow jackets, scores of them, moving toward the desk from the far end of the office, more climbing up the walls—
He found the number, punched keys, waiting impatiently.
A sleepy voice answered the phone, yawned 'Hello?'
Peter identified himself, and almost shouted into the receiver: 'They're back, dammit! All over the place! What the hell is going on?'
The bee-keeper yawned again. 'Fell asleep in front of the TV,' he explained. 'Watching 'Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.' Good flick.' He laughed. 'Don't get many trick or treaters. Kids are afraid of bees.' Another, more drawn-out yawn. 'You say they came back? Impossible. We killed that nest dead.'
A pause. 'Only thing I can think of is that there was a second nest, like I mentioned to you. Real unusual, but it does happen. Two females, probably from the same brood originally, established nests near each other. This ain't the original nest we're talking about, but a whole new one. Wow. Haven't seen this in a long time.'
'Can you get rid of it?'
'Sure. What's probably happening now is the cold is killing off the drones. You must have missed a spot in the baseboard, and they're being driven from the nest to the light and heat in your office. Why don't you look for the opening in the baseboard while I get over there—plug that up with tape and that'll take care of your office. Then we'll find the new nest and knock 'em out in no time. They're on the way out anyway.' He laughed shortly, giving a half-yawn... 'Wow. Two nests. That's somethin' ...'
'Just get over here!'
Peter slammed down the phone and stalked to the sofa. He moved the coffee table in front of it, then angled the couch out, away from the wall.
A mass of sluggish hornets were clustered on the rug in front of a gap in the baseboard.
More in anger than in fright, he grabbed a wad of papers from the coffee table, rolled them into a makeshift tube and cleared the front of the opening of hornets. They moved willingly. He ran back to his desk, retrieved a length of cellophane tape, and, with a practiced motion, wadded it as he went back to the baseboard.
Already another hornet, followed by yet another sluggish insect, was crawling through the space.
Peter thrust the wadded cellophane at the opening, pushing the two new intruders backwards as the hole was plugged.
The sound of buzzing was very loud behind the wall.
And now, being this close to the wall, he noticed another sound.
A rustling movement, a thin sound as if someone was scratching weakly against the other side of the wall.
And then a pained, tepid whisper:
'What—'
He stood up, brushing a few slow-crawling hornets from the wall and put his ear flush against it.
It came again, the thinnest of rustling breaths heard behind a thick
'My God—'
He drew back from the wall, balling his fists as if he would smash through it—then he turned, throwing open the office door and dashing through and up the stairs. He ran for the back sliding door, nearly tripping over Ginny's things in the hallway, his mind feverish.
'My God, Ginny...'
He pushed himself out into now-cold night, a full October chill hitting his face as he shouted, 'Ginny!'
The backyard was lit by the sharp circle of the moon, by a few orange and white lights still lit in houses behind his, visible through denuded oaks. A pumpkin on a back deck railing, now carved, was still lit, the candle within it flickering wildly in the chill breeze, making the features wild.
'Ginny, where are you!'
He heard a rustle to his right, against the house, in darkness.
He stumbled down the back deck steps.
'Ginny!'
Breathing heavily, he found himself standing before the garden shed, its bulk looming in front of him. The
