“Hold your horses!” Maggie yelled back. “I don’t think you had as many attachments to your costume. This has got to be a first, you being ready before me.”
“Just hurry up. We’ll be waiting.”
Kevin tapped on the door one last time before leaving the bedroom. He knew how it annoyed her to be rushed and was enjoying it. He stepped into the living room of the suite and was greeted with cat calls and whistles. He smiled, then turned around, modeling his outfit.
“Jealous?” He asked, grinning at his friends.
“Jealous? Uh, I don’t think so,” AJ said, giving him a leering once over.
“I can’t believe you are actually going to wear that,” Brian told him, casting a dubious glance his cousin’s way.
“Words can’t even begin to describe it,” Howie said, rubbing his face in amazement.
“Words can surely describe that,” Nick commented as Maggie entered the room.
All eyes turned to see her in her ‘Juliet’ costume. The gold peasant dress, cinched tight around her waist, pushed her breasts up and out, nearly out of the dress. She had the long scarf attached to her tall hat, draping the ends of it around her shoulders.
“Very nice,” Brian told her.
Maggie blushed deeply at the appreciative glances over her. She had never been one to show so much skin. She moved awkwardly, trying to cover her chest.
“You look incredible,” Kevin said, taking her hand.
“My bosom feels as if it is about to tumble out,” she said, almost to herself, casting a wary eye downward.
The comment brought a round of laughter from the five men in the room. She looked up, confused.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Howie apologized. “It’s just that I didn’t think anyone actually said ‘bosom’ anymore. That’s so quaint!”
“So, why did you want to go as ‘Romeo and Juliet?’” Nick asked, sitting down carefully.
“Yeah, why did we, Kevin?”
“When she was teaching,” he explained to the others, “she had this poster of Shakespeare and his Globe theatre in her room. You’ve been a little melancholy lately. I thought you might be missing a little culture in your life.”
“Melancholy?” AJ asked, raising an eyebrow. “Damn, Kev, that’s a big word from you. Maggie, I’ve got to say, you’ve done wonders for his vocabulary.”
Kevin tossed a pillow at AJ. He looked down into Maggie’s eyes. She looked up, smiling. Stepping back, she surveyed his costume. The tights fit quite well over his sculpted legs, behind, and elsewhere. His little black boots added to his already towering height. The burgundy velvet shirt was complemented by the black belt around his waist.
“I guess it’s true,” she told him.
“What’s that?”
“White hose will make your legs look fat.”
“Oh, you are so funny,” he laughed, hugging her.
Maggie hugged him back, then pulled away. She motioned for the others to stand up. She walked around them, carefully scrutinizing their costumes. Howie in a black leather “Zorro” outfit, AJ in funky ‘70’s pimp clothes, Nick in a white suit straight out of “Saturday Night Fever” and Brian in a “Lone Ranger” costume. She shook her head, grinning.
“What a sight we’ll be. Do you think they’ll let us into that hospital?”
“Probably only after they get the papers signed to keep us in the psych ward,” Kevin told her, pulling the door shut behind him.
***
The children’s hospital was buzzing with noise as they walked in. The nurses’ station was decorated with friendly looking skeletons and bats. All of the doors to the rooms were covered in child-colored pumpkins. The children that could get out were trick-or-treating to each other’s rooms. The nurses were laughing and escorting them, somewhat harried looks on their faces as they scurried to keep up.
Following the signs to the cafeteria, Maggie and the guys soon found themselves in a sea of children in various costumes, reigning terror over the adults. Splitting up, they went to different areas, deciding it would be safer that way.
Maggie was talking with some children at a table sporting a giant spider as a centerpiece.
“Gee, lady, you got some big boobs,” a boy told her, reaching a hand out. “Are they real?”
Eyes widening in surprise at such language from a ten-year-old, she quickly stood up straight before his finger found its destination. She heard Nick laughing and shot him a withering look. Deciding the best thing to do was to ignore his comment, she quickly changed the subject. After a few minutes more with the pre-pubescent perverts, she excused herself to visit elsewhere. The little ballerina toe shoes with the costume did nothing to protect her feet from the onslaught of stomps from the stream of children in the room. Finding a somewhat empty spot near the door, she tried to disappear into the woodwork. This, she thought to herself, is why I got a degree to teach high school. At least she wasn’t surprised to hear such comments from them. She could handle them, knowing exactly how to fire one back at them to settle the score. But the younger ones, they were something totally different.
Maggie saw Kevin sitting down, holding a little girl in his lap. She had an oxygen tank with her, the tubing wrapped around her head. It was a very touching sight, all of it. She wondered how many would get a chance to see Halloween next year. Suddenly, it dawned on her that some of them might not even get to see Christmas in a couple of months. Taking a deep breath, she fought back the tears that were unexpectedly burning her eyes.
“Maggie? Maggie May Martin? Is that you?”
Wiping her eyes carefully to avoid smearing her makeup, she looked to her right. She looked at the man standing there. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t put a name with him.
“It is you!” He said, grabbing her in a hug and hoisting her off the floor.
She stiffened and he put her down. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?”
“I’m sorry. I probably should know your name, but I can’t remember it.”
The man stood tall beside her, straightening his Air Force uniform. Maggie glanced at his nametag. Drake. Her eyes widened in recognition.
“Oh! Kevin Drake! How are you?” She exclaimed, hugging him.
“I’m fine. What are you doing here?”
“She’s with us,” Brian said, suddenly at her side.
He looked at them with confusion. Shrugging, he crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe.
“The question is, what are you doing here?” Maggie asked him.
“We’re here for my youngest daughter’s treatment. She had to have some new tests run and this is where the government sent us,” he explained.
“Hey, what’s going on here, Juliet?” Kevin asked as he joined her and his cousin, sliding an arm possessively around her waist.
“You aren’t going to believe this. This is Kevin Drake. He’s the one I told you about when we first met, remember? We went to school together. Kindergarten to graduation. And to run into him this far from home,” Maggie explained.
“Yeah, we’ve known each other a long time. Maggie, I swear, you get uglier every time I see you,” he teased. “Abby should be through here tomorrow. Why don’t you join Becky and me for breakfast tomorrow morning? We can catch up on a lot of things. She will be so surprised to see you. Last we heard, you were teaching at the old school. What happened?”
“Let’s just say she had a better offer,” Kevin told him, tightening his hold on her. Hearing the tone in his voice, Maggie took his hand and tried to extract herself from his grip.
“Becky?” She asked, realizing he wasn’t going to let go.
“Yeah. Becky Sue Spinner. We got married. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“No. When was this?”
“Nearly a year after Anna died. It was rough on me with the three girls. Becky had three boys of her own and now we have a boy together. It’s incredible.”
“Breakfast, huh? I think we’re leaving early in the morning, aren’t we?” She asked, turning her face up to her Kevin.
“Yes. Very early. Like 4:30, I believe. Well, it’s been nice meeting you, but Maggie and I really have to catch up with the others. They’re our rides home, you know.”
Maggie said goodbye and walked away with Kevin, her hand enveloped protectively in his. They joined the other four and stayed for nearly another hour. During the ride home, Brian asked what the whole incident had been about.
“He’s very full of himself,” he commented, taking off his mask.
“You don’t know the half of it. I didn’t want to say anything, but I remembered about him getting remarried. I can’t believe he didn’t even wait that long before he did. I mean, Anna died so their baby could live.”
“What are you talking about?” Kevin asked, trying to sit so the pants wouldn’t bunch on him.
“Oh, Abby, their youngest daughter, was born with something wrong with her liver. She would have died without a transplant. There wasn’t one available, so Anna had the doctors take a piece of her liver and transplant it into the baby. Some kind of infection developed and Anna died from it a few days later. He should know about hardships. Leah’s brother saw him in a bar in Montgomery not even three months after she died. And he was with Becky then. That just makes me so mad.”
“Did you know Anna well?” Nick asked.
“Not really. But that’s not the point of it. He just should have waited, I think,” Maggie spat.
“Hey, it’s all right,” Kevin soothed, rubbing her shoulder. “I tell you what. We’ve still got quite a few hours before we have to leave. I’m not tired. Why don’t you guys come back to our room and we’ll have our own little Halloween party?”
It was agreed upon and soon, they were sitting around, talking and laughing while the popcorn was in the microwave.
“There aren’t any movies on tonight,” Nick groused, flipping through the channels. “How can you get scared without ‘Jason’ or ‘Psycho’ or ‘Freddy’?”
“You tell ghost stories,” Kevin said spookily, turning off the lights.
“What the hell, man? Turn those back on,” AJ told him.
“No. You can’t get the full effect with a lot of light,” Kevin informed him, turning on the gas logs in the fireplace.
“How corny,” AJ said, leaning back and rolling his eyes.
“Are you just scared and trying to play it off by being bored?” Maggie teased, handing him a bowl of popcorn.
“No.”
“He really is,” Howie laughed, taking his bowl. “Come on, be a sport.”
“Who’s going to tell the first story?” Nick asked, taking a big handful of popcorn from Brian’s bowl.
“You. Get you own,” Brian said, slapping at his hand.
“Maggie, you’re the teacher. Surely you know some ghost stories,” Kevin told her, sitting in the floor and leaning against her legs.
"Hmm. I could tell you the one I’ve known since first grade. But I don’t think AJ could handle ‘Black Coffin Gotcha.’ Then, there’s the ‘If we fall off, we’ll drown.’ But I don’t really like it. I know. How about a true story?”
“How can you have a true ghost story when there aren’t any true ghosts?” Brian inquired.
“Haven’t you ever heard of Kathryn Tucker Wyndham? Anyway, I’ve got one that I have a particular connection too. I’m going to tell you about the last legal hanging execution in my home county.”
AJ snorted. “You mean you’re going to try to scare us with a story about a man being hung?”
“First off,” Maggie informed him, “he was hanged. A man cannot be hung.”
“Wanna bet?” Nick said. Suddenly realizing what he said, he winced. “I’m sorry, Maggie. It just slipped out. Don’t make me write for you again.”
“Just be quiet,” Howie told him. “Go on.”
“Anyway, there was this young woman who lived in a house down the road from where I grew up. This story always scared the snot out of me,” she shivered. “The song to the story says ‘It was in February of 1923 and little Maybelle we never would see.’ Maybelle walked with her brother to the end of their driveway that morning as he left for school. No one knows why she didn’t go with him that day. The only person to see her alive after that was the mailman as he made his rounds. He remembered seeing her on her mule. Night came and Maybelle never returned home. The whole community came out to search for her and they found her late that night. Her naked and bloodied body was thrown into an old tree stump in the woods.”
As Maggie spoke, she leaned forward, lowering her voice for dramatic effect. The others leaned forward unconsciously to hear her better. The light from the gas logs cast a warm glow on her face and breasts as they strained against her dress.
“The mailman remembered seeing her talk to this man named Jasper as he went on with his route. The sheriff went to Jasper’s house and found Maybelle’s bloody clothes, as well as his own, in a trunk in his attic. They took him to town and put him on trial for her murder. Everyday during his trial, his wife would sit in the courtroom, holding their babe in her arms, showing support for Jasper. Of course, he proclaimed his innocence in Maybelle’s death. He was found guilty and on the morning of his execution, nearly the entire county showed up for it. As he was waiting in his room in the jail, he waved a red handkerchief out the window at the crowd. When the preacher came to talk with him, Jasper asked him to kneel and pray for the true guilty one. When they led him up on the scaffold and placed the noose around his neck, the sheriff asked if he had anything to say. Jasper merely told everyone they were about to kill the wrong man. His father and wife were there as the bottom was dropped from beneath him and he was hanged. The story is that at that very moment, the sky, which had been a brilliant blue and cloudless, suddenly became black without warning and a hard rain fell. The water in the county’s wells was unfit to drink for nearly a month afterwards.”
“Did they ever find who really killed her?” AJ whispered.
Maggie cast a sideways glance at him. “Yes. A few days after the hanging, Jasper’s father took ill. Nearly a year to the day to the exact moment of Jasper’s death, his father admitting to killing the girl to keep her from telling anyone about Jasper attacking her. He kept saying he did it for his son because he had a young family and couldn’t go to prison for rape. They say that on some nights, you can still hear Maybelle screaming as she is being hacked to pieces with an axe.”
“You made that up,” Kevin told her, his arms covered in gooseflesh.
“Did I? You can check the papers from back during that time. All I know is that my cousins and I would never go to the mailboxes while it was dark. Where my parents’ is now is where she was actually murdered. We wouldn’t even wait for the bus down there until the sun was up.”
“Well, I hope you and Kevin didn’t have any romantic plans for tonight,” Nick said, hugging a pillow close to his chest.
“Why is that?” She inquired.
“Because we sure as hell ain’t leaving here after that story. Early departure or not, we’re here for the night.”
“What a bunch of ‘fraidy cats,” she laughed.
“And damn proud of it,” they answered in unison.
“Hmm,” Brian said, turning on the television. “How about some cartoons now to lighten the mood? Maggie, you are just wicked.”
“And damn proud of it,” she told him, laughing as she sat back to watch the Powerpuff Girls with them