Bernard wandered toward them. “What are you boys doing over here? Letting all the excitement out?”
“This storm’s more interesting. Red lightning.”
Bernard watched, silently counting between flash and thunder. “And it’s coming closer.” He stepped out under the aluminum eaves and put his hand over his glasses, as if shielding them from the sun, squinting toward the fringe tree rising from a grassy island in the middle of the parking lot.
There was a split second of total darkness in the sky. Then another angry rumble that seemed almost like the grumble of a giant.
“Did you see that blackness?” Bernard asked, too quietly under the squall for the boys to hear. But they got the gist. “That was no power outage.”
Headlights appeared at the far end of Main Street, moving toward them fast.
“I think…here we go,” said DeShaun.
“Whatever it is, whatever happens…”
Stuart did not need to finish. DeShaun was ready to defend his friend, just as Stuart had fought for him the year before.
“Watch out!” Bernard ran inside, past the boys, as the car slid into the lot at speed and careened straight toward them.
Chapter 25
Yet Not Human
Settlement era
“You must understand.” Standing outside the guest room, Bennington patted Chloris’s sturdy shoulder to reassure her. “He must be delirious from blood loss. He surely believed you were his assailant.”
“Perhaps,” Chloris said. “Yet there’s…blackness rising from him. If he’s gone mad…I don’t expect that he’ll return from it.”
Staring at the door, Bennington nodded. “I want to try something.”
Minutes later, Bennington entered Everett’s room, wearing the scarecrow hood he had taken off the mop-haired man. Behind him came Chloris, clutching the matchlock pistol in a two-handed grip as steady as the settlement’s best marksman, whom, if she wished to be indiscreet, she could decisively best in any shooting contest.
Everett stirred immediately from a stream of welcome nightmares and sat up like a corpse that had gone into rigor mortis. He regarded the man in the doorway wearing his mask, and blinked, as if he had found himself in yet another beautiful bad dream.
Slowly he formed a grin. “Trick?”
Bennington came to his side. “It’s a trick, yes.” He pulled the hood off. “It’s me. We want to help you heal.”
He handed the scarecrow mask to Everett. “We are your friends.”
Everett took the mask and quickly put it on. Bennington helped him adjust it.
“I am Wilcott. That is Chloris.”
Everett waved.
“And your name?”
Everett was confounded. He could not remember anyone ever asking him his name.
His father had tried to take Halloween away from him. Then the church men came to his room and took everything else.
He eyed Chloris, who had brought him treats, soup that tasted like pumpkins and sweet bread. She…smiled at him.
Then his gaze traveled back to the big man who had put him on his horse and brought him here to rest. But Everett felt he knew him from before that.
No. He knew his ghost.
“Eh…Everett…”
“Everett,” said his host.
“Everett,” repeated Chloris.
The two grown-ups smiled at him again. His Mamalee used to smile at him and speak kind words too, but she also let his father lock him up. She did nothing when the church men came. Mamalee did not love Halloween.
This man and this woman gave him Halloween.
Everett tried to stand, to hug his friends. The man put his hand on Everett’s shoulder and stopped him. “You’re wounded yet, dear boy.” He pointed at Everett’s stomach, where Glory Brightwell had stabbed him. “This must heal.”
Everett knew what these words meant, and he did feel some hurt there, though he didn’t mind it. But he reasoned that if the blood came out again, he might feel weak, like before.
The nice man had given him his mask back. Maybe the man and his lady friend liked Halloween too.
Everett lay on his back and closed his eyes. He would trust these people for now.
Later, when he was better, they would all probably decorate the town for Halloween together. Everett hoped so. He didn’t want to make them die.
He would surprise them by starting early.
* * * *
Modern day
“I don’t think I’d have even seen you without your rain slicker,” said Deputy Astin as Hudson plopped into the passenger seat. “Did you really see some kind of monster out here?”
“I’m not out in this storm for my health, Astin.” Hudson worked his way out of the reflective county-issue rain gear. “And I’m guessing there are more of them out here, heading into town. Did dispatch radio the National Guard?”
“Yessir. But they said they can’t send choppers in this.” The young deputy frowned up at the cruiser’s roof like he was checking the clouds. “They’re gonna be on wheels—and it’s gonna take a while.”
“Did you get ahold of all the off-duty boys and neighboring counties?”
“Well…get ready for bad news,” Astin said. “The phone lines are fubar.”
“Orange bastards must have taken ’em out…” Hudson stiffened as they passed a sign that read:
you are now entering ember hollow–
pumpkin-growing capital of the world!
“Head to the evidence building, then the station. And step on it.”
* * * *
“Class B,” whispered Yoshida, as he examined the fire extinguisher under Pedro’s kitchen sink.
“Is that the recommended type for fighting devil pumpkins?” asked Pedro.
“Do you have hair spray or anything like that?”
“I think Jill left a can when they crashed here one night after a gig.”
“Grab it.”
Seconds later, Pedro met Yoshida at the door. He didn’t see the pumpkin things moving around outside the window. Thumping and cries of terror from the other apartments told him why.
“Spray them in the eyes,” Yoshida muttered.
“Right. Think they’ll wait while I get a ladder?”
“You’re gonna have to be a little more creative than that, smart-ass.” Yoshida opened the door and dashed out into the rain with the fire extinguisher, Pedro hot on his tail.
Two of the demons scrabbled on the side of the building, poking murderous tendrils into broken windows. The third crept along the edge of the roof.
“Hey!” Pedro grabbed a handful
