moving
officially not using this blog any more. but i won't delete it. it will simply languish in obscurity. i'll be moving a few entries over to the new home of Raven in the Shadows but all will stay here. live journal has ONE major advantage over this blog. i like the way it looks. i was never pleased with any lay out or color scheme i had here. so long, trusty angelfire blog! you were good while you lasted, but you just didn't last.
i'll be changing the link on my website momentarily and moving my babies. :)

i'm going to make this blog jealous
i signed up for a live journal account because i know a couple of people who have blogs there and i wanted to be able to make comments. now i have two blogs.
the lj one can be found here: http://livejournal.com/user/ravensghost
am considering shutting this one down and moving all these posts over there ... don't know yet.

my babies!
I adopted a cute lil' halloweeny fetus from Fetusmart! Hooray fetus! I adopted a cute lil' death fetus from Fetusmart! Hooray fetus!

When Muses Attack
Meet my muse. He doesn't have a name. He resembles a character from the web comic Mega Tokyo, spiky red hair, something that may be a smirk on his mouth and a beer in one hand. My muse, however, is not into video games nor does he feel the need to do things in the buff. I would have to fire him if he did.

Before November of 2002, my muse had been somewhat reticent. He lurked in corners, gurgling beer and slanting his eyes in an attempt to look sinister. I usually just growled at him, and he would back off, leaving me to churn out things I ended up throwing away soon after completing them. If they ever got finished. I had characters with strong voices, but very few of them were making in onto paper in any useful manner. A majority of them were role-playing characters, trapped in worlds dependant upon the imagination of other writers. Not wholly unsatisfying, as some of them were able to show me some interesting things either in the stories I told with them or in the stories that were being played out on the gaming floor.

But then, I received an e-mail, forwarded to me by a friend from one of his friends who had decided to attempt this ?contest? called National Novel Writing Month, the goal of which is to write 50,000 words in one month, that being the month of November. I wasn?t going to do it. I was going to have to be out of town on November first. I didn?t think I would have time after that. I found myself writing that novel in my head as we drove to Lynchburg that morning. When we got back that night, I started writing. My muse was slobbering drunk, wide-eyed and howling like a mad man. Everything just came so easily. The characters were so alive. The plot (um, what plot?) was moving right along. I finished the story at just over 50,000 words roughly nine days before November 30th. There was just one problem. My muse decided that there was more.

Two more lengthy stories and one short story later, I was done with Talon Konstantine, his ship and his crew. Sort of. I knew I?d revisit some of that in later stories, like 2003?s NaNoWriMo effort. Of course, it didn?t matter to my muse. There were plenty of other characters to torture, plots to unravel and twists to turn. So we got to work.

All was well until late October. I had finished a detective story and had notes for at least five more. I was in the middle of the second in that series when National Novel Writing Month rolled around. Okay. No problem. I was sort of stuck on a part anyway. I figured I would get back to it when November was over. There was just one problem with that. My muse had other ideas.

By the end of November, I had written a novella of over 55,000 words, several journal entries which were mostly a hashing out of ideas for fiction, a four page story about a boy named Jack and a fifteen page story involving Jack and my detective character. And I had also done a good amount of research on Halloween and trickster figures to help with those two stories and that later gave rise to another story that has yet to be written. Good, I thought. Now that that?s over with, I can get on with what I?ve got sitting in these folders. There was just one problem with that. My muse had too many other ideas.

I watched December flit by in a whirl of Christmas lights and wine and heaps of receipts for all the overboard holiday shopping that went on. What little I managed to write, I never finished. My mind, prodded by my muse, would not stay still. I was constantly scribbling. Either on my PDA or in a notebook or on whatever scraps of paper I could find at work. I went back to old ideas I had abandoned way back in the ancient history of September. I started thinking again of something that had been floating around for four years. I poured over ten pages of notes I had written in mid October regarding a tale of revenge called ?Seven Breaths.? I had a sudden burst of fresh ideas for something I was handed at Dragon*Con back in August. I listened to Johnny Cash and had ideas for something completely different and started slogging down those words, doing research and feeling nothing but pity for the story I had been working on before November. All I had done to it was go back and delete the scene that didn?t work and did a little research on hypnosis.

January. The promise of a fresh start. A time to sit down and list all the goals for the coming year and to make the gut check required to stick to that plan. I had narrowed my list to three. I was going to finish ?The Church? if it killed me and everyone in it. It may still. I haven?t yet touched it except to highlight a few problems and scrawl out part of a reworked scene. ?Texas,? speaking too loudly to be ignored, would no longer be ignored. ?Raven?s Dream? (working title) would also get a little love. There was just one problem with that. I won?t bother mentioning what.

The following is a dramatization of events that occurred at some point in January.

?Night Driving,? my muse slurred.

?What?s that?? I asked.

?His cell phone is ringing. He knows it?s Mom. He doesn?t answer. He goes out onto the streets of Calgary where he?s spent the last four months recovering from a gunshot wound to the head and six weeks in a coma. His hands are tattooed with flames.?

?Would you shut the fuck up? I?m at work. ?Night Walking.? You said he went for a walk, not a drive.?

?Night whatever.?

?Go away.?

Slurp. A few moments passed in silence.

?Give my love to Rose,? my muse warbled.

?No.?

?Oh come on! What happens after he sees the woman? Maybe he like steals the money and rapes the wife and ? ?

?Muse??

?Yes, writer san??

?SHUT UP!?

??Kay.?

Silence, blissful silence followed for the rest of my workday. I struggled to get any writing done. I wrote bits and pieces of ?Texas,? slowly inching Jake into a treachery that would almost literally eat him alive. I did more research on Raven, discovering beautiful tales about how he stole the sun and the stars and the moon and how he made the tides roll in and out. I kept telling myself to read Revelations. Still haven?t done that.

Waiting for my car on a Monday morning. Last time I was here, I wrote about the guy wearing the squeaky dock shoes without socks and enumerated a few problems I was having with a certain character in my NaNoWriMo story. I thought I might do something similar. I opened my notebook and uncapped my pen. I dated the page and looked around the waiting room.

?Jack?s going to Disney World!? my muse squealed.

I began to write. ?Florida had always given Jack the creeps. Orlando especially, but he had never been sure why until he paused near Disney World and noticed a large dome of black magic surrounding the park. Curiosity being one of his better traits, Jack stashed his Honda near the Orange Bowl and headed into the Magic Kingdom.?

My muse clapped and laughed with the delight of a small child getting ice cream and cake at his birthday party.

That wasn?t supposed to be any more than a few pages of boredom. Nine days later, I?m still going. Jack, Bacchus and two trusty friends have fallen into Loki?s evil clutches. What will Jack do next? What is Loki?s master plan? I don?t know. I don?t wanna know.

?But I do!? my muse cried, like a spoiled child who doesn?t get the cake and ice cream the day after his party.

?All right, but ? ?

?Bones.?

?That?s my cat?s name.?

?He?s in a cave in Alabama with a sky disk. Jack, I mean.?

?Would you stop it? How the hell do you expect any of this to get written if you keep beating me upside the head with these things??

?I don?t.? My muse grins maliciously. He reeks of beer. And of ideas. ?All I expect you to do is lissen to me. You lissen, I feed your pen, your words feed me like mead, you lissen still and lissen lissen lissen! Man, I got so much shit in here in hurts!?

?Then go to the bathroom and leave me alone.?

?You are my depository of stuff, the vessel that holds all this spew that spews forth from my tongue.?

?That?s puke. You drink too much.?

?Come on. Here look. Picture of Cinderella?s castle. Picture of a cucumber. Speak a little Photoshop spell and ? tada!?

?I like the castle. I?m not happy with the cucumber.?

?We?ll fix it later. Come on. We gotta go over here now. Look, look, look!?

?I thought I had to lissen.?

?Yeah, that too.?

I got up from my chair, slowly. My knees ached from sitting with them bent up underneath me. Dusk was falling on an icy, workless day. I was finished with my Jack session for the day. It was time to finish reading my National Geographic, eat dinner, take a shower, watch hockey, maybe read Revelations like I had been meaning to. But first, there was one other thing I had to take care of.

My muse was beckoning me, waving his arms, splashing his beer everywhere, jumping up and down. I went to my toolbox and flipped it open. I pulled out the hammer. Nah, too messy. I pulled out a screwdriver. Nah, too pointy. I pulled out a vice grip. Hmm, now that has possibilities. I pulled out the roll of electrical tape and turned back to my muse.

?Hey, whatcha doing with those? That doesn?t look like a pen and notebook. Lookit! Loki?s crying!? my muse said. But his stupid, sloppy grin slowly faded. He could tell by the look on my face and the objects in my hands that I wasn?t playing around.

?I know what Loki?s doing,? I said. I grabbed my muse?s lips, stretching them an inch or two from his face. I clamped the grip down on his lips. He tried to scream, but all I heard was a muffled umph, like a hunk of snow falling off a tree or sliding down the slope of a roof. ?I know very well what Loki is doing, and I know just what Jack is going to do about it. The parade will happen. There will be consummation. I just need you to shut the fuck up and let me work, okay? Okay.?

My muse nodded as if he thought that meant I would remove the clamp and let him go. Oh no. No, not at all. I sat him down in a chair. I taped up his wrists and ankles. He umphed at me, but I just shook my head. ?You sit. You stay. You shut up. No beer for you.?

I knew it wouldn?t take him long to break free and send me spiraling across a landscape of idea rubble, drilling into dead, red rocks for signs of ancient water that might mean life and snapping pictures of alien dust fields where perhaps some kind of duel is taking place and the land is red from the blood being spilled. I knew I?d listen, too. But a writer who does nothing more than have ideas, make notes and do research is not a writer. I would have to write at some point.

Indian Summer Halloween (end)
5. Carlin

The graveyard was silent, but it was far from empty. The decorations marched in a straight line around the whole perimeter before passing through the gate. Once inside, they headed towards the center of the graveyard, and as they marched, they shrank, finally disappearing into a six-inch wide hole in the ground over which two girls were playing paddy cake.

Hayden and Conrad stood a few yards away from the gate, watching the silent parade. Crash and Hurricane sat down at Conrad's heels and whined. Several of the things they saw didn't look like decorations come to life. They were spirits of all kinds, and they radiated soft white light. The graveyard was as bright as day in that glow.

"Now what?" Conrad asked.

Hayden didn't answer. He was staring at the two girls. They looked enough alike that they could have been sisters, but one of them didn't look like she had ever been anything but a spirit. The other girl was Meghann.

Hayden looked around the graveyard. He saw Sky perched like a cat on top of a crypt, watching the proceedings with amused disinterest. Taren was standing not far from Meghann, staring down at his feet as his father lectured him. There were others whom he recognized; cops killed in the line of duty, victims in homicide cases he had worked, friends and acquaintances who had died of diseases, car accidents, suicides or drug overdoses. He hadn't realized there were so many, and he thought there probably weren't. It was because of Tisiphone.

He looked at Conrad. Conrad finally seemed to be realizing what he was seeing, and the look on his face was somewhere between paralyzing terror and overwhelming grief. He had an excuse to look away when Hurricane laid his ears back and growled. Conrad put his hand on Hurricane's head as he looked where the bullmastiff was looking. "Hush," he said gently.

Jack was pushing his Honda up the street. Bacchus was still nestled inside Jack's jacket, and he had his paws on one handlebar as if he were pushing, too. Behind them was a white shimmer that left the impression that it was in the shape of the motorcycle. There was a serenely grinning face in the headlight, if a grinning skull could be said to be serene.

Hurricane uttered one more deep, disapproving grunt as Jack and Bacchus approached, and then he shoved his head into Conrad's hand until Conrad scratched behind his ears.

"I think we found Carlin," Hayden said as Jack lowered the bike to the ground.

Jack's eyes blushed, first a pale pink, and then they rushed through shades of red until they reached a deep purplish red. He looked at the two girls. He put his hands over his mouth. Bacchus copied him. "Thank you, Mr. Detective. And you too, Mr. Journalist," Jack said after a while.

"You knew she'd be here," Conrad said. "Why didn't you just come here in the first place?"

"She'll run from me. She won't run from you. Well, she might run from the dogs. Where did you get them? They're ... weird."

Crash barked. Bacchus drew back against Jack's chest and hissed.

"Stop," Conrad said. Crash sneered but said no more.

"You should have told me she'd be here from the start, Jack," Hayden said. "You might have made things easier on yourself."

Jack shook his head. Bacchus did the same. "You don't understand," Jack said.

"You wanna explain it?"

"No, I just ... I can't. I just wanna take her back where she belongs. It'll stop the crazy decorations and all the other things."

"Other things?" Conrad asked. "What other things?"

"Um ... "

"You better start talking before I decide to have roasted cucumber for dinner and your cat turns into dog food."

"I see why they call you the angry one."

"Start talking."

"Conrad, forget it," Hayden said. "Let's just get this over with. I'm tired."

Conrad shrugged. "Whatever."

"Come on, Jack."

Jack hesitated. "You better stay here, Bacchus," he said. He extracted the cat from his jacket and set him down on the motorcycle. Bacchus blinked his lazy wine-colored eyes and meowed. "It's okay. I'll be fine." Bacchus flicked his tail. Jack walked towards the gate.

"Stay with the cat," Conrad told Crash and Hurricane. "Make sure he doesn't run away."

The dogs looked at Bacchus. Bacchus blinked back at them. Conrad followed Jack to the gate as the line of spirits and decorations halted to let Jack through. Hayden put his hand on his chest and took a deep breath. It wasn't his stomach that was in knots that time. He watched Conrad pass through the gate. His knees were starting to shake. Jack turned to him and shouted, "Come on, Mr. Detective!" Hayden took another deep breath and walked to the gate.

As he walked past the spirits and through the gate, he could feel that they were in awe of him, as if they saw something more than a man, and he wondered what he looked like to them. They might have been seeing Tisiphone, marble pale and cold, snakes in her hair and tears of blood rolling down her cheeks, but he didn't think that would inspire anything but fear, even among spirits. Whatever it was, it allowed him and Conrad safe passage. The spirits' attitude towards Jack, however, was a little different. Hayden heard nasty names whispered as Jack went by. It seemed Jack's reputation as a trickster preceded him, and his fellow spirits weren't too fond of him. Hayden understood why Jack was worried. Carlin had no reason to trust Jack, and to get her to go wherever it was she was supposed to go, he was probably going to have to trick her, thus adding to his unfavorable reputation and losing whatever love Carlin might have had for him.

Carlin had stopped the game of paddy cake and was staring at the hole in the ground over which she and Meghann were playing. "It stopped," she said. "Why did it stop?"

Meghann put her hand over her nose. "Ew, it smells like vegetables," she said. She looked around for the source of the offensive odor. Her eyes got wide when she saw Hayden. She jumped up and ran to him.

Hayden didn't let himself stop to think about anything, not the fact that she was a spirit or that she was growing up in the afterlife. Just to have her run to him like that was all he needed to smooth out the knots in his heart.

"Jack O'Lantern, you little bastard!" Carlin shrieked. She stood up and put her fists on her hips. She looked sixteen instead of eight.

"Carlin," Jack said. He approached her timidly, and his eyes were a muddy tan with dark swirls.

"What are you doing here? Can't you see I'm busy?"

Jack went down on his knees and clutched his hands together. "Please, Carlin, you're making people scared. You have to stop. You have to come home, please."

"It's Halloween. This is what I'm supposed to do."

"But Carlin - "

"Go away, Jack."

Jack took off his gloves and showed her the ring with the face in it. "They've been watching me since you ran away. They told me that if I didn't find you in a hundred years they'd turn me into a human and make me die so I have to end up like my dad."

Carlin studied Jack carefully. She scrunched her eyes. "This is some kind of trick."

Jack shook his head. "This is the last night I have."

"One hour," the face said.

Carlin's expression softened. "Oh, Jack." She fell on her knees and threw her arms around him. "Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry. I had no idea they'd do that to you. Oh, those terrible, terrible bitches. But I can't go back. I can't."

"Why? Why did you run away?"

"Because people are trying to kill me. They think Halloween is evil, and they want to get rid of me. They don't understand, and I can't make them understand."

"Screw them."

"If they make people stop trick or treating, I'll go away. I'll die."

"I don't want you to die."

"But I can't let the crones kill you like that. If you want me to come back, I will. I'm sorry, Jack. I should have told you why I left. I should have asked you to come with me. I do love you, Jack."

"I love you, too, but - "

She kissed him on the mouth. His eyes flashed yellow and then fell shut.

"That's gross," Meghann said. "He's got vegetable cooties."

"Girls have cooties, too, you know," Hayden said.

"Nuh-uh."

"They do. I've had them. They're pretty gross."

The face in Jack's ring started to fuss. Jack broke the kiss and stuffed his hands back into the gloves. "Take your spirits and get out of here," he said. "The crones will show up before too long, and it's best if you're long gone. Maybe I can convince them I couldn't find you."

"Jack ... "

"No. I want you to go. Nothing they do to me is as bad as what could happen to you. Even if I die, I'll end up just like I am now. You won't. Get out of here."

Carlin smiled. She stood up and was suddenly dressed as a drill sergeant. She blew hard into a whistle. "All right, you lazy bastards! Double time!" she shouted. The spirits began to move again, pouring into the little hole in the ground. Jack watched them with a sunset in his eyes. When they were gone, Carlin waved to Meghann and kissed Jack again before she disappeared.

Conrad scratched at the bandage on his chin. "I don't think that was what I was expecting," he said.

"What did you expect?" Hayden asked.

"I don't know. I just know it wasn't that. Are we done now?"

Jack looked around the graveyard. The spirits that belonged there were still there, but there were no decorations and no other spirits. "Yeah," he said. "Until the crones come for me. And I'd rather not wait here for them, if it's all the same to you."

Before anyone had a chance to answer, they heard Bacchus yowling. Crash and Hurricane started barking. A lone witch on a broomstick with a sickle in one hand was speeding towards Jack. Bacchus, Crash and Hurricane were chasing the witch. She swung the sickle at Jack, digging a deep furrow across his chest. She started a turn to come back and strike him again. Sky jumped down from the top of the crypt, tackling the witch off her broom and knocking the sickle from her hand. Bacchus reached her first and began to scratch at her face. The dogs soon caught up, and before too long, there were only little bits and pieces of cardboard.

The cut in Jack's chest turned black and hard as stone. His eyes went white, and he collapsed.

"Is he dead?" Meghann asked.

"I don't think so," Hayden said.

"How can you tell?" Conrad asked.

Robert stopped fussing at his son and went to Jack. He bent over the green skinned spirit, his ear close to Jack's mouth. "He's all right," Robert said. He stood up and brushed dirt off his knees. "But you might want to take him somewhere safe."

"We'll take him to my place," Hayden said.

Robert smiled. "I'm proud of you, Hayden." And then he was gone.

Hayden looked at Taren. He thought of a thousand things to say but couldn't voice any of them.

Taren grinned. "No need to say anything," he said. "I know. And I don't think you failed any of us."

Hayden looked down at his feet. He felt Taren disappear. Meghann kissed his cheek. "Bye, Dad," she whispered. And then she was gone too.

Sky squirmed away from Crash and Hurricane who were cheerfully licking his face. "It could be worse," he said.

"Thanks for being so optimistic," Conrad said.

Sky shrugged as he disappeared.

"Well, he's right," Hayden said. "It could always be worse." He bent down and scooped Jack into his arms. Jack moaned at the movement but didn't wake up.

"You need any help?" Conrad asked.

"No. He's pretty light. Get his motorcycle."

"But it's dead. Isn't it?"

"It'll be fine in the morning."

"Okay. Whatever. I don't think I'm ever gonna tell anyone about this Halloween."

"Why not? No one would believe you anyway."

"That's just the problem. This is too weird, even for me."

6. Treat

Bacchus sat on the back of the couch above Jack's head, occasionally opening one eye and lifting his chin off his paws to look at Jack and Hayden as they waited for the crones to come. He always had a look on his face like he was satisfied but still concerned. Jack was alive, if that was what a spirit could be, and Hayden hadn't left him alone for a second. Being a cat, there wasn't much Bacchus could do for Jack, but as a loyal familiar, he could and did make sure that Jack was being taken care of.

As they waited, it began to storm. The tricks that the flashes of lightning played on Hayden's eyes seemed only that - tricks. He dismissed them without going though the painful, wracking guilt that usually sent him running into the kitchen in search of cigarettes and bourbon that weren't there. Bacchus lifted his head and looked at Hayden.

Hayden shrugged. "My own demons," he said. "What can I say?"

Bacchus shrugged back at him and put his chin back on his paws. He didn't close his eyes. His ears twitched, and his fur began to bristle. The crones were coming.

Thunder crashed with a burst of bright white that made Hayden's eyes ache. It sounded like a tree right outside had been struck. There was the brief sound of rending wood then silence but for the rain pounding on the roof. For some reason, Hayden thought of being below the deck of a ship during a storm in the middle of the icy grey Atlantic. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the screams of the crew above as the mast toppled over and buried them under the heavy wet sail. The boat was going down.

Jack sat up suddenly, his eyes flashing sick green waves, much like the sea that Hayden felt rushing in on him. "Oh fuck I'm gonna die," Jack said.

Bacchus stood up and jumped down into Jack's arms, rubbing his gums on Jack's chin.

"That's overreacting a bit," Hayden said.

"Overreacting? They're gonna make me flesh and blood! They're gonna make me die! I didn't do what I was supposed to do!"

"Sometimes what you're supposed to do isn't the right thing do to."

Jack put his arms around Bacchus and buried his face in the cat's neck, making a mournful sound that might have been something like the sound his mother made when she came for the dead.

Hayden shuddered.

A chill seeped into the room. Jack cowered into the corner of the couch, clutching Bacchus like a lifeline. The cat yowled. A milky fog wavered over the living room. Hayden rubbed his eyes, thinking it might go away, but the mist remained. It took its time shaping itself into three old women with long white hair and eyes as black as coal and as shiny as the chrome details on Jack's Honda.

Why do you bitches always come in threes? Hayden thought wearily. He tried to ignore the tremor that crept through his bones at the sight of them. He desperately wanted a cigarette or anything he could clamp his teeth down on to keep from screaming.

The crone on the left, closest to Hayden, pointed a crooked yellowing index finger at him. "Think not thoughts ill of us, blood avenger, or we'll have your snakes twisting down that nasty throat of yours," she said. Her voice, though ancient beyond all reason, was clear and strong.

Hayden shrank back in his chair. "Da, Frau Oma," he muttered, fearing for a moment that she wouldn't like being addressed in German or being called Mrs. Grandma, but she smiled and gave him a little "that's better" nod.

The crones turned their attention to Jack, who was still trying to dig himself a hiding place in the cushions.

"Jack O'Lantern!" the one in the middle said.

Jack froze. He knew he couldn't hide, but maybe if he stayed very, very still, they wouldn't notice him. Bacchus growled.

"Silence, Bacchus," the crone on the right said. She waved her hand, and Bacchus's mouth vanished.

The cat's eyes bulged, and he put his paws up to where his mouth had been.

"Now, Jack," the middle one said. "We had charged you with a simple task and gave you more than ample time to complete it. We are at the end of that time, and yet, we find you empty-handed. What say ye, Jack O'Lantern?"

Jack raised his hand and pointed at Hayden. "Advocate," he said.

"Christ, Jack," Hayden said. "What the hell do you think having me as an advocate will get you?"

"Tell them what happened. They'll believe you more than they will me."

The crone on the left nodded towards Hayden. "Speak, advocate," she said. "What tale have you?"

"Well, I - "

"No. Start from the beginning."

"That was the beginning."

"Of Jack's part. We would hear your tale."

"Oh. Okay."

Hayden took a deep breath and told them everything that had happened that day, starting with his dream of giving Meghann bullets. He couldn't tell if they believed him, but they certainly seemed to be enjoying it. Tiny smiles lifted the wrinkles at the corners of their mouths, and their eyes glinted with glee. When he got to Carlin, they frowned, and their eyes saddened. When he told them how Jack had decided to let Carlin go, big salty tears raced down the fleshy canyons of their faces.

"Oh how sweet," the middle one said. "That is truly love! Oh, poor Carlin! Poor Jack! We had no idea."

Jack pulled himself out of the couch a little. "So does that mean - "

"Silence. Let us confer."

Jack slapped his hands over his mouth to keep the crones from making it disappear, but they turned into milky fog again. Jack dropped his hands to his lap. Bacchus shook himself and got his mouth back. "I think I'm screwed," Jack said.

"I'm sorry. I tried," Hayden said.

"No. It's my fault. I wasted their time."

"Does time matter to them?"

"You'd be surprised how much time matters to them."

"How's your chest?"

Jack looked down at the jet-black furrow that marred his fresh green skin. He touched the edges of the wound. "It doesn't hurt," he said. "It probably will when they make me real."

"I'm not so sure that's what they're gonna do."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"They didn't know why Carlin left."

"I didn't know why she left."

"Exactly. They have to take that into consideration."

"I guess."

Hayden watched the fog. He was pretty sure that he would try to do something stupid if they were too hard on Jack. He just wasn't sure what that would be. Trying anything was probably stupid, but Jack wasn't to blame for Carlin running away in the first place. Letting her go was the best thing for her. Maybe Jack didn't handle his responsibilities well, but that was hardly something to be condemned to die for.

The fog began to swirl and bubble and turned a shade closer to egg nog than milk. The crones reappeared. Their tears had dried, and their faces showed no sign of emotion. The one in the middle raised her right hand and leveled her index finger at Jack. Jack and Bacchus trembled and pressed back into the corner of the couch.

"Jack O'Lantern," the crone said. "You have disobeyed us and wasted one hundred years, though we find your reason for letting Carlin go rather touching. So the sentence we pass on you is this: you will never enter the world of spirits again. You will remain here, wandering the world of flesh until the days end. If Carlin returns of her own free will, with no tricks from you, we may reconsider, as the only thing that could possibly cause her to come back is her love for you. We will continue to monitor you through your advocate. We demand that you return here once a year, on Halloween, and that during that day, you remain indoors and take no part in festivities of any kind. Bacchus may remain with you." She turned to Hayden. "Do you find that fair?"

Hayden nodded, glad to be spared the trouble of trying to save Jack's life. "What happens when I die?" he asked. "Who's gonna look after him then?"

All three of the crones smiled soft motherly smiles. "Your line will always be responsible for him," the one on the right said.

"But I don't have kids."

Their smiles deepened and actually touched their eyes. "The sentence is passed. It begins now. Fair thee well, Jack O'Lantern." They melted into creamy fog, and the fog dissipated. Outside, the storm had stopped, and Hayden could feel that the temperature had plunged well below freezing. It would begin to snow before too long.

Jack looked down at the ring on his middle finger. The face had solidified and no longer seemed interested in talking to him. The edges of the band had turned dark bronze as the ring tightened on his finger. Bacchus uttered an inquiring meow. Jack dropped his hand and looked despondently at Hayden.

"You aren't gonna die, Jack," Hayden said.

"I guess I deserve what I got," Jack said.

"I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. You can stay here as long as you want."

"Thanks, Mr. Detective. And I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize."

By the time Hayden woke up at eight, there were six inches of snow on the ground, and it fell from the sky in steady, thick blankets. He didn't bother to turn on the TV to check the weather reports. It would snow all day and stop by midnight. The meteorologists would never figure out why because it wasn't nature that had been controlling the weather the last two days. But Hayden didn't think it was his responsibility to tell anyone what it really was. He sat in the living room, watching the snow and the sleeping green spirit on the couch.

Jack woke up around noon and left an hour later, zinging through the snow with Bacchus tucked into the front of his jacket. Hayden worried for a little while, but he was pretty sure Jack would be just fine, if not even better off than he had been before. He didn't have the crones breathing down his neck, and if he could find Carlin again, they could be together with nothing to worry about. Hayden looked forward to seeing Jack again and hearing about all the trouble Jack would find himself in during the year.

Later in the afternoon, when the snow wasn't falling as heavily, Hayden went out. In the sale aisle at the drug store, he found a pink plastic pumpkin with round black eyes and a dog toothed grin. He bought a bag of candy, filled the pumpkin and went to the graveyard.

Indian Summer Halloween (cont.)
3. Jack

Hayden had been sitting in front of Julian's computer for at least an hour, aimlessly surfing the Internet for more information on Halloween and for reports of similar incidents, but he kept coming up empty. It seemed every page he wanted to look at had been taken down or was otherwise unavailable. The sites he did find were mostly online costume shops or instructions on carving pumpkins. He wondered if he was having no luck on purpose, if maybe whatever was causing the decorations to come alive was playing some massive trick on him. He wished Julian hadn't gone out of town to visit her grandparents. She was better at surfing than he was, and if she couldn't find it on the Internet, it wasn't there to be found. He wished he could ask Sky because Sky would almost certainly be able to rattle off some obscure tale he had found in some book no one had ever heard of. Hayden tried to make himself stop thinking things like that, but he couldn't help it. It was going to take him a long time to forget the way it felt to have Sky die in his arms.

The front door opened and closed. Hayden looked up from the screen. The boy who stood in the doorway looking lost and timid couldn't have been more than sixteen, but Hayden got the feeling that the boy wasn't quite ... a boy. There were several things that were abnormal about the kid, and the first of these that Hayden noticed was the distinct smell of cucumbers that wafted off him. The second was that the boy's skin was a pale, pearlescent green. Of course, the color of his skin could have been a very good make-up job, and cucumber, for some reason, seemed to be a very popular scent at those places with all the lotions and bubble baths. But the color was too natural, and those bubble baths didn't smell quite that ... well, fresh.

"Can I help you?" Hayden asked.

The kid turned towards Hayden. His eyes flashed blue. Hayden felt little knots bunch up in his stomach. "I can't find my sister," the kid said.

Hayden studied the boy's eyes. The blue flash had settled into green then shifted through red, orange and yellow before washing out to a dead white. Hayden could read nothing in those eyes. "Have you checked the mall?" he asked.

"I ... um ... no. She's not ... she doesn't go to malls. She's ... um ... different?"

The kid should have been sweating bullets. He was nervous as hell, and he was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket that it was way too warm for. But his green skin was dry. The more Hayden looked at the boy, the more he was convinced that the green was natural. It was too consistent, even under his fingernails and on the inner rims of his weird chameleon eyes. Hayden wondered if the kid and his missing sister had anything to do with the night of the living decorations, as Conrad had called it.

"All right," Hayden said. "Let's see if we can work this out." He pulled a yellow legal pad from the desk drawer and plucked a pencil from the cup next to the monitor. He wrote the date on top of the page. "What's your name?"

"Jack O ... Lan ... tern ... " the kid said. He had started out easily enough but trailed off when he realized that what he said sounded ridiculous. He looked at Hayden, his eyes quivering through muted autumn colors.

"Excuse me?"

"Jack ... Orlando?"

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, Mr. Detective, it's not a joke. My sister's been missing for a ... for a long time, and if I don't find her tonight, I might not ever find her."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I - "

"Please, Mr. Detective. You're the only one who can help me. This is the only night of the year that either of us is tangible, and even then, no one really sees us. But you can see us."

"Tangible?"

"We're spirits. My sister is the spirit of Halloween. Well, she's not really my sister. She kinda adopted me after I tricked my dad into getting into the cucumber. My mother didn't want anything to do with me. She's a banshee."

The story was at once believable and utterly inconceivable. Jack was nervous and upset and seemed sincere, but Hayden knew better than to trust what he saw on the surface, especially from a green-skinned spirit who smelled like a fresh salad. There were a lot of questions Hayden wanted to ask Jack, but he could tell by the set of the boy's mouth that he would get lies and half-truths. "What's your sister's name?" he asked.

"Carlin," Jack said.

"What does she look like?"

Jack hesitated. "I don't ... know? I haven't seen her in a hundred years. She could've changed."

"What did she look like last time you saw her?"

"A little girl with long blonde hair."

"Any distinctive features?"

"She's a spirit. You'll know her if you see her."

"Okay, look. I've got some other things I need to deal with first. I don't know if you've noticed, but things are getting a little weird around here. I need to figure out what's going on and stop it before I waste time looking for missing spirits. But I'll keep my eyes open."

"But, Mr. Detective - "

"Sorry, Jack. I don't do missing spirits."

Jack frowned. His eyes went from violet to deep grey to black, and then the black bled into the whites like a broken egg yolk. "If I don't find her, the weird things might not be the end of it," he said. He turned around and stalked out the door.

Hayden leaned back in the chair and chewed on the pencil. His cell phone rang. That time, he remembered which button to press. "Yeah," he said.

"I made it out of my office," Conrad said. Hayden could hear Crash and Hurricane barking in the background.

"Good. What did you do?"

"I burned it. It just turned to ashes. And guess what? Not bones. Just paper ashes."

"You're at home now?"

"Yeah. My dumb ass dogs have a pumpkin cornered in the kitchen. A guy down the street got wrapped up in the fake spider web he put on his front porch. I've seen ghosts in the windows next door. This is just not good. And I can't find anything."

"Me either. What about your psychic?"

"Does the name Jack mean anything to you?"

"It might."

"How 'bout the missing spirit of Halloween named Carlin?"

"So the kid wasn't bullshitting me."

"No."

"Shit."

"You thought it was a joke, didn't you? You told him to go away."

"Like I'm supposed to know anything about the spirit of Halloween."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know. He can't be too hard to find."

"She said something about cucumbers, too, but I ... "

"Please don't finish that thought."

"You got it."

"The kid smelled like cucumbers. He said something about tricking his father into getting inside a cucumber."

"Well, I think we gotta be damage control right now. This'll probably go away in the morning."

"I agree, but we should look for the kid, too. I have a bad feeling about this."

"I don't like it when you get bad feelings." In the background, there was a sound like several balloons popping at once. The dogs barked louder. "Shit, now they're just making a mess. I gotta go."

4. More Tricks

As night settled over San Desperado, the tricks began to take on a far more sinister bent. While the decorations hadn't outright killed anyone, hospital emergency rooms and urgent care clinics were glutted with patients suffering from panic induced asthma attacks, broken bones, serious lacerations and even a few heart attacks. At least one of the heart attack victims died, and Hayden was sure that wouldn't be the only one unless he was able to do something. The cops had their hands full, and he tried to help them. They didn't believe him when he told them about how the decorations were coming to life. They all seemed to believe that someone was playing a horrible prank. More than one of the officers looked at him with a mix of pity and fear. Another, whom he had known for several years, said bluntly, "I heard you'd been a little loony since Squire died, but you didn't have to take the whole city with you."

Armed with a Louisville Slugger borrowed from a sporting goods store that had been overrun by several black cats and ghosts, Hayden roamed the city looking for Jack. Conrad, Crash and Hurricane did the same. The last time Hayden had talked to Conrad, the dogs had gotten away from him, chasing after a black cat. Conrad had stopped into a drug store to get bandages for the deep scrapes in his chin and the cuts in his wrists from the leashes. He and the pharmacist had fought off a cardboard Frankenstein's monster with water guns. Armed with a Super Soaker that had two tanks worn on the back, Conrad had gone looking for his dogs.

The subdivision of Arbor Mills was relatively quiet. Most of the decorations seemed to be heading somewhere, but Hayden was too concerned with helping the residents along the way to follow them. A whole family, including the dog, had been wrapped up in the fake spider web they had placed in the trees in their front yard. After beating off the giant rubber spider that came with the web, Hayden cut the family out of the web. In another front yard, a Styrofoam headstone marked a real grave up from which a zombie was clambering, and as Hayden beat it back, he thought about the cemetery. From what Jack had said, he gathered that Halloween was a night when the veil between the world of flesh and the world of spirit was thin.

With the zombie down, Hayden ran towards the cemetery. He was only vaguely aware of the sound of a motorcycle behind him, but when the bike sped past him and he smelled cucumbers, he stopped and shouted, "Jack!"

The bike, a sleek black and silver Honda CBR600, skidded to a halt, and Jack shut off the engine. He got off the bike and took a few steps towards Hayden before he stopped. He took the helmet off and tossed it high into the air, catching it deftly on the tips of his fingers as he bent over to straighten the tongue of one of his boots. In his mouth was some kind of noisemaker, and Hayden realized that the sound he had heard was not the sound of the motorcycle. Jack tucked the noisemaker into his back pocket and grinned. It wasn't an unpleasant expression, but it made Hayden think of green living things buried deep in black, loamy soil.

"Happy Halloween, Mr. Detective," Jack said.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say," Hayden said.

"I still can't find Carlin."

"I'm a little bit more worried about other things right now."

A flock of witches turned a corner at top speed and flew straight at them, cackling. Hayden barely had time to duck as they buzzed by. Then they turned and faced Jack, hovering in the air. Jack's eyes were rainbows.

"Get 'im, girls," the witch at the head of the formation said.

They hunched over their brooms and aimed down at Jack.

"Bring it on, ladies!" Jack said.

As the witches bore down on him, Jack wound up with his helmet like it was a bowling ball. When they were close enough, he flung the helmet at them. He hit the leader square on her crooked nose, and she was hurtled back into the rest of the formation, scattering it like bowling pins. Cardboard witches floated to the street. The helmet struck the pavement several yards behind Hayden and rolled.

"Strike!" Jack said. He pulled a glove off his hand with his teeth and marked down his score in the air. The scorecard, full of perfect frames, shimmered in the air for a second as Jack admired his score. "Damn, I'm good," he said. He tugged at the corner of the card, and it vanished.

Hayden got to his feet. "Are you responsible for this?" he asked.

Jack shook his head. "I'm trying to stop it," he said. "I've been trying to stop it for a hundred years. Carlin's doing it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. She ran away. She didn't say goodbye. She didn't tell me why. And the crones told me I had to find her or ... or they'd make me flesh and blood so I have to get old and die, and then the same thing that happened to my dad will happen to me."

"Okay. So what happened to your dad?"

"He tricked the devil so when he died, he couldn't go to hell or heaven. I tricked my dad, so there's no way I can get out of having to wander around with my soul in a turnip. Or a cucumber."

"But you're a spirit. Aren't you outside that loop?"

"You'd think. But they bound me to it. And they keep tabs on me with this." He pulled off his other glove and shot Hayden the bird.

Hayden just stared at Jack.

"This!" Jack pointed at the shimmering ring around his middle finger. As Hayden watched, a face formed in the ring.

"Find her!" the face said.

"Fuck you," Jack said, shoving the glove back on his hand. "I hate that little bastard."

"I guess you can't take it off," Hayden said.

"No."

"Okay. All right." Hayden ran his hand over his face. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

Jack shrugged. "I got 'til midnight."

"What about the graveyard?"

"Wouldn't go there if I was you. But I'm not."

"What's going on there?"

"Well, the dead ... the dead can walk tonight. And you got ... just don't go there, Mr. Detective."

"Are the decorations going anywhere in particular?"

"Yeah, after me."

Hayden heard dogs barking behind him and the click of their claws on the asphalt. "Incoming!" Conrad shouted as he chased after Crash and Hurricane who were bounding after a black cat.

The cat dart past Hayden and ran up the sleeve of Jack's jacket, squirming up his arm and down into the body of the jacket. It struggled for a while, and then Jack pulled the zipper down. The cat popped its head out and blinked at the dogs with eyes like candlelight behind a glass of red wine.

"Look out for the - " Hayden started to say, and Conrad tripped over Jack's helmet. "Helmet."

Conrad picked himself up and rubbed fresh blood from a scrape on his cheek. There was gauze taped around both his wrists and across his chin. "This is not a good night," he said.

"You all right?" Hayden asked.

"Yeah, fine."

Crash and Hurricane stood in front of Jack, growling at him and the cat. Jack hugged himself and the cat and backed away in slow, uncertain steps. The cat hissed. "Shut up, Bacchus," Jack said. "They're not normal dogs. They might hurt us."

"Get over here, you assholes," Conrad said.

Crash and Hurricane stopped growling and padded over to Conrad.

"They won't hurt you unless I tell them to," Conrad said. "And I'm really thinking I wanna tell them to."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Journalist. I'm trying to stop this. I really am. I gotta find Carlin before midnight or the crones'll turn me into a real boy."

Conrad looked at Hayden. "What is this, Pinocchio?" he asked.

"It sounds a little more like a punishment than a reward," Hayden said. "If he doesn't find Carlin by midnight, these crones will turn him into a human so he has to get old and die and then become a wandering spirit."

"Isn't he already a wandering spirit?"

Hayden shrugged.

"Whatever."

"Have you noticed the decorations heading in any particular direction?"

"Yeah. They all seem to be headed to the ... oh fuck."

"Graveyard?"

Conrad nodded.

Crash and Hurricane took off running towards the graveyard with Conrad and Hayden close behind. Jack walked down the street and picked up his helmet. He got on the bike. "Come on, Bacchus. We gotta help 'em," he said. He put the noisemaker in his mouth then put the helmet on. Bacchus nodded and put his own helmet on.

Indian Summer Halloween
1. Trick

?Trick or treat!? a little girl?s voice said.

In his dream, Hayden Knight turned around and looked down at his daughter. Meghann grinned up at him from behind a sparkling rainbow colored mask shaped like a butterfly. She wore a bright blue leotard with matching tights. She held out a pink plastic pumpkin with round black eyes and a dog toothed grin.

?Trick or treat!? she said again.

Hayden put his hands in his pockets. He pulled a handful of bullets from the left and nothing from the right. He dropped the bullets into the pumpkin.

?Thank you!? Meghann said.

She skipped a few steps away and held the pumpkin out to Taren Chase who was dressed as the Punisher. Several bandoliers full of bullets and grenades crisscrossed his chest, obscuring the big skull on his shirt. He had even tried to grow a little stubble on his cheeks to complete the tough, ragged look, but it wasn?t quite right. He had a Dixie cup in one hand, and he dumped its contents into the pink pumpkin. It was blood with fragments of bone in it.

?Thank you!? Meghann said.

?You?re welcome, butterfly,? Taren said.

Meghann skipped a few more steps and stopped in front of Skylar Dvorak. She thrust the pink pumpkin towards him. The bullets rolled around, making a sticky clunking sound. ?Trick or treat!? she said.

Sky was in his usual loose white pants and tunic, but he was wearing Meghann?s little silver wings and her flimsy rhinestone tiara. ?Trick!? he said. He snatched the pumpkin from her hands, and she chased him around in circles, giggling.

Hayden felt something brush by on his left side. He sighed. ?Why does he do this to me?? he asked.

Taren laughed.

?Give it back, you meanie!? Meghann said, jumping up at the pumpkin that Sky was holding up out of her reach.

?Okay, here. Treat,? Sky said. He dropped Hayden?s watch into the pumpkin and handed it to her.

?Thank you!? she said when the pumpkin was back in her hands. She skipped over to the sand box and sat down to admire her treats.

?I just gave my daughter bullets for Halloween,? Hayden said.

?You?re dreaming,? Taren said. ?Don?t worry about it.?

?I know I?m dreaming, but I still gave her bullets.?

?I think it?s appropriate,? Sky said. ?You know she?d be just like you if she?d grown up.?

?If I let her.?

?She?d be just like you. You couldn?t stop her.?

?That doesn?t mean I?d like it. Ever. She?s my little girl. I never got to take her trick or treating.?

?Hayden, we?re all dead. Why are you here?? Taren asked.

Hayden didn?t answer. Meghann plucked a bullet from the pink pumpkin and tried to unwrap it like a piece of candy.

?You keep coming back to this place. It?s not that you?re not letting us go. This is where we?re supposed to be. That?s not the problem. You?re looking for something from us that isn?t here.?

?The dead are all I have,? Hayden said.

?Bullshit.?

?I can?t have the living ones because they?ll end up here. I can?t love them because their lives are too precious to be wasted that way. As soon as I try, I?ll lose them.?

?It?s too late,? Sky said. ?You love them. They love you. You can?t keep hiding behind that fear thing you do. It?s lame.?

?I?m dead inside. I?m dead inside, and I gave my daughter bullets for Halloween.?

2. A Little Off

Hayden felt off kilter all morning, and he couldn?t quite figure out what was throwing him off. Maybe it was the dream, but whatever it was, three cups of coffee hadn?t been able to fix it. Nor had taking a good long sniff of the bourbon he still couldn?t make himself get rid of.

Maybe it was the weather. By noon, it was almost eighty degrees. That might not have seemed so unusual except for the fact that it was October 31st. The meteorologists on the television liked to call it an Indian summer, but Hayden had seen plenty of those. This was something else.

Having nothing better to do, Hayden decided to take a walk. Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of Halloween. Black cats with their backs arched impossibly high; witches with warty green noses; pumpkins with all kinds of faces carved into their hollowed out orange heads. Store windows and houses were decorated with skeletons, bats, spiders and ghosts. Bags of candy sold like milk, bread and bottled water during a bad storm. Children and adults raced around in silly and scary costumes, and there were posters everywhere announcing parties of every sort in every imaginable venue. But it all felt wrong.

Hayden stopped by the coffee shop again. The manager was standing outside, desperately trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands. She looked far too pale to have just experienced some harmless Halloween trick. Hayden lit the cigarette for her. ?Are you okay, Jennifer?? he asked.

Jennifer somehow managed to get the cigarette to her mouth and take a drag, but she still shook like it was ten degrees below zero. ?Thanks for the light,? she said. ?No, I?m not okay.?

?What happened??

?Spiders.?

?Spiders??

?Yeah, the ? we had ? okay, you?ll think I?m smoking something other than tobacco.?

?Acid isn?t smoked.?

?All right, smart ass.? She grinned, and some of the color came back to her face. She took a deep breath. ?We had spider decorations in the window. The ones you saw this morning??

?Yeah. They were pretty creepy. Did they turn into real spiders or something??

?Yeah.?

?Um ?? But somehow, Hayden wasn?t surprised. His stomach started to twist itself into several hard knots.

?I?m serious! We had to beat them to death with brooms. I already don?t like spiders. Now I fucking hate them. The corpses are still on the floor if you wanna take a look at the murder scene.?

?I think I will.?

?So you believe me??

?I?ve known you for a while now, Jen. You wouldn?t make that kind of shit up. And I?ve lived in this city long enough, too.?

?So, what, you think San Desperado?s a hell mouth or something??

He knew that was supposed to be a reference to something hip, but he didn?t quite get it. ?Or something,? he said. He went inside.

Chad had jumped up on the bar and was clutching the spray nozzle from the sink like a gun. ?Get the fuck away from me, you fucking cat!? he screeched. He squeezed the trigger. A cat yowled then ran for the back door, pausing briefly to look over its shoulder at Hayden. A knot in the pit of Hayden?s stomach wrenched a little tighter. The cat winked at him and was gone.

?You can get down now, Chad,? Hayden said.

Instead, Chad turned around, his reflexes still taut with fear, and he squeezed the trigger of the spray nozzle. Hayden was out of range and only got a light mist from the spray. ?Oh shit,? Chad said. He looked as if he wanted to let go of the nozzle, but he didn?t move.

Hayden stepped around the puddle on the floor and gently pulled the nozzle from Chad?s hands. ?The cat?s gone. You can get down,? he said.

Shaking, Chad accepted Hayden?s help and climbed down off the bar. He sat on a stool, slumped forward like he wanted to cry. He looked up at Hayden. ?What the fuck is going on?? he asked.

?I?m not sure yet,? Hayden said. He was sure that something was going on and that it wasn?t good. He knew that if he took the time to ask the right questions in the right places, there would be more incidents of Halloween decorations coming to life. He worried about what would happen once it got dark.

Jennifer came back inside. Her face had gone pale again. ?Okay, that?s it. I?m closing this place, and I?m going the fuck home. I?m locking all the doors and windows, and I am not coming out until Saturday morning,? she said.

?What happened?? Hayden asked.

?That gadget place across the street ? they put little rubber bats in their window display. The bats just turned real. I swear to God, they did.?

Hayden glanced over her shoulder at the gadget shop. It was quiet, but he saw a black cat scoot out the front door. He couldn?t be sure it was the same cat that had been inside the coffee shop, but the twisting knots in his stomach told him it was.

?Where are the spiders?? he asked.

Jennifer pointed to a corner. She sat down on the stool next to Chad and lit a cigarette.

?Gimme one of those,? Chad said.

?You don?t smoke,? she said.

?I do now.?

Hayden walked over to the corner Jennifer had pointed to. He expected to see greenish yellow spider guts and deflated black bodies. Instead, he saw bits of black plastic, orange and black felt and the wires that had been the legs of the fake spiders. He poked the debris with his toe. It shifted, but there was nothing sticky or visceral about the parts he was looking at. He bent down and picked up a busted torso. Nothing but plastic and cloth. He looked at the broom that had been used to smash the spiders. There were bits and pieces of the plastic and the cloth among the straws of the broom but no evidence that the broom had been used to kill a living thing. He stood up and went back to the bar. Chad and Jennifer both looked at him, pleading with him to tell them something that made sense.

?Go home,? Hayden said. ?Stay inside. If you?ve got any kind of Halloween decorations up, take them down and throw them out.?

?Even my pumpkin?? Chad asked.

?Even that.?

?What the fuck is going on?? Jennifer asked. ?Are people gonna start turning into their costumes??

That was another reference that was too hip for Hayden to get, but it didn?t seem like too far-fetched an idea. God, I hope not, he thought. ?I don?t know,? he said. ?But this is gonna get worse before it gets better. It?s not even dark yet.?

?I don?t think I wanna be in my apartment alone,? Chad said.

Hayden wandered around the city after that, looking for more incidents of decorations coming alive. At the library, a cardboard witch taped to a window had peeled herself down and zoomed though the library on her broom, cackling and turning books into frogs. Pumpkins had spontaneously exploded or laughed and floated away. But it wasn?t everywhere. It seemed to be spreading out slowly from the center of town, but Hayden found nothing there.

His cell phone rang as he was heading back to his office. He only stared at it for a second, trying to remember how to answer the damn thing. He recognized the number on the caller i.d. display as Conrad Satan?s cell phone. He hit a button that he hoped was the right one. ?Hey,? he said.

?Hey. Are you having as much fun as I am?? Conrad asked.

?That depends on your definition of fun, and I?m not so sure we define fun the same way.?

?It?s the night of the living decorations.?

?Something just isn?t right about this.?

?I?ll say.?

?Any ideas??

?No. It?s just random strangeness right now. Every newspaper and TV reporter in the city is trying to figure this shit out, and there?s just nothing.?

?Is this happening anywhere else??

?Just here. I?ve got some other ? sources I wanna check with.?

?You mean psychics.?

?It?s worth a shot. Nothing else is working.?

?What do we know about Halloween??

?It?s a good old fashioned pagan holiday that the Church couldn?t get rid of.?

?That?s not helpful.?

?Sorry. That?s not my area. But I?ll look into it.?

?Don?t go to the library.?

?Okay.? Conrad paused, and when Hayden didn?t explain, he said, ?Why not??

?All the books were turned into frogs.?

Conrad said nothing.

?Are you at home or at your office?? Hayden asked.

?I?m at my office, amazingly enough. I?m not sure I?ll be able to leave my office.?

?Why??

?There was a skeleton taped to my door.?

?Just be careful. I don?t know if these things are hurting people or not.?

?I don?t think they are, but I sure as hell don?t like the way that thing is staring at me.?

?Call me back when you get something.?

?Right.?

Hayden pressed a button, again hoping it was the right one. He still wasn?t quite used to the phone, despite the hour Julian had spent trying to teach him how to use it. He shoved it into his pocket and walked quickly back to his office.

updates!
just kidding.

"i have a dream ...
... that one day my four small children will be judged not for the color of their skin but by the content of their character." mlk jr.
i had no intentions of posting anything regarding the supposed holiday that today is, but i was hearing snippets of the speech all morning. that line in particular caught my interest. i apologize if i've misquoted. i'm doing this from a memory which is not functioning with the proper caffeine levels.
anyway. what got me about this is how far society has come in terms of this and how far away we are from the heart of those words. we are much slower to judge by skin color these days, although it does still happen and seems to be connected also with attitude and style of dress. it's unreliable. to look at me, you'd think i'm just a regular white girl. well, not really. i'm not all white, thank you, so don't lump me into that group. of course, when i say that i am filipino, that gets me a whole different reaction. none of this causes me much trouble. it's not worth it to me to deal with people who want to judge others in this manner. but the truth is, appearence is all we have to go by. not a soul wears the content of his character on his breast or pinned to the lapel of his suit or hanging like a diamond encrusted dollar sign around his neck. it takes time to learn the content of one's character, thus you can't make the kind of quick judgements we're prone to making. we are a society of "five minutes." we want it all faster and better. we don't have time to get to know people in order to be fair about what kind of person they are. we don't make the time. we don't want to. if it can't be done in a short amount of time, we move on.
i'm going to tattoo the content of my character across my forehead. "poor impulse control."
(some of you get that. if you don't, you need to read neal stephenson's "snow crash." don't argue with me. read it now. or my poor impulse control might do something you'll regret ... )

Cucumber

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack who tricked the devil into climbing a tree. When Jack carved a cross into the trunk of the tree, the devil could not get down. So Jack made a deal. He would let the devil down if the devil promised not to let Jack into hell when he died.

So Jack continued to live his life as he always had, and as all things do, Jack died. He had not been a good man, not even remotely, so his soul went straight down to hell. The devil kept his end of the deal and would not let Jack in. The gates of heaven did not open for him either, so Jack was doomed to wander the earth carrying his soul in a hollowed out turnip.

His soul inside the turnip made a nice light by which to travel his dark path, and soon he noticed that many people used turnips as lanterns and that they carved strange and scary faces upon the turnips at a certain time of the year. He learned also that he had been seen wandering in the dark nights and was called Jack O?Lantern. On the night when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at its thinnest, the people imitated Jack?s turnip lantern, hoping that it would keep other spirits at bay.

On one of those nights, as the people reveled, Jack was confronted by a screaming banshee. She was very upset with him, and she tried to take the turnip from him.

?Pray tell me what the matter is, sweet banshee,? Jack said to her as he looked for some place to hide. ?Do I not deserve to know why you wish to steal my very soul??

The pale banshee considered this a moment. ?Nay, Jack O?Lantern. Ye need know nothing. Ye knew nothing before,? she said.

?I have wandered many years now. Knowing is not something a wandering spirit needs to do.?

The banshee hissed at him and resumed trying to snatch the turnip from his hands.

?Tell me your name at least, or I shall have to call you nothing but screaming bitch.?

?My name is Blinne, and if ye dare to call me anything at all, I?ll suck the eyes right out o? yer head.?

Jack spotted a well up on the crest of a hill and trotted to it with Blinne close at his heels, still snatching at the turnip. He leaped over the well. Blinne stopped and blinked at him. He held the turnip out over the mouth of the well. ?Now Blinne, kindly tell why you want this or I?ll drop it down this well so that neither of us will have it,? he said.

The banshee wailed. Jack couldn?t help but cringe. Over her shoulder, he could see the lights from the windows and the shadowed faces of the wary villagers.

?Come now, sweet banshee Blinne,? Jack said. He tossed the turnip into the air and caught it at the very last moment before it plunged into the unreachable darkness below. ?Whoa, there. That was close.?

?The last of yer descendants has passed, Jack O?Lantern,? Blinne said. Her desperation was clear in her voice as it verged on its warbling death cry. ?I called for her, and when she came to me, she asked me to bring her the soul of the rotten bastard who cursed her family.?

?Curse?? This genuinely perplexed Jack. He had heard of no such curse upon those who bore his name, and yet it seemed just that such a curse should be placed upon them.

?Yes, curse. Each of them has suffered the same fate ye brought upon yerself no matter how good or how bad they may?ve been in life. They wander not so aimlessly but searching for the bringer of the curse so that they might break it and go to whichever of heaven or hell has been set for them.?

Jack contemplated this for a very long time, and after a few seconds, he said, ?If you will do one thing for me, I will give you the turnip,? he said. He had no intention of giving up the turnip, but if he could trick the devil, he could trick a banshee.

Blinne cocked one eyebrow. She didn?t believe that he felt any sympathy at all for his descendants. She would have expected him to mock them for not being clever enough to get out of the curse. ?What is it ye want, Jack O?Lantern?? she asked.

?You must agree first.?

?I?ll agree to nothing until ye tell me what it is.?

?I would hate to tell you and then have you not agree to my terms. It is a simple thing. I promise you it will not hurt a bit. You want the turnip, do you not??

?Aye.?

?Then you must agree.?

?Aye, I must.?

?So you agree??

Blinne sighed. ?Aye.?

Jack smiled. He walked around the side of the well to Blinne and took her pale, slender hand in his. ?It has been a long time since I?ve known a woman,? he said. His voice was as sweet as honey and as soft as rose petals. ?And you are very beautiful. We did not come to meet this way for no reason.?

?Bastard.?

He laughed and put his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She opened her mouth to wail, and he kissed her. He took her down to the ground and removed her dress. He kissed her breasts and ran his fingers through the soft curly hairs between her legs. Soon his kisses and caresses had her panting for more, but he stopped. Dawn was drawing near. ?Meet me back here at dark, and I will have you,? he whispered.

Seduced by his charm and his touch, Blinne agreed and spent the daylight hours aching to be with Jack.

The next night, there was more of the same. He kissed her and stroked her until she trembled with pleasure, and as the sky began to grow light, he promised he would have her the next night. For seven nights, he pleasured her, always promising he would have her the next night and always leaving her at sunrise, wanting him so badly that she could only lay in that spot and pleasure herself until he came to her.

On that seventh night, Jack went to the well and found Blinne lying on the ground naked, writhing under her own touch, and he was only too happy to watch for a while. When she saw him watching, she said, ?Now, Jack. Take me now. I?ll not wait another night for it.?

And so Jack lay with the banshee Blinne, knowing that she had completely forgotten his promise to give her the turnip if she slept him with. He left her there by the well and continued his wandering.

~

Summer came in a flash of color and a rush of heat that Jack had not seen in many years, and he spent his evenings lounging in the cool gardens brought to life by the skilled hands of villagers and the kindness of the weather that year. Then one night in the month of July as he was lolling about in a patch of fresh cucumbers that were just ready to be picked, he heard the shrill voice of a banshee calling out his name. He recognized Blinne?s cry right away and looked for a place to hide. None was to be found and he was soon face to face with an oddly distended Blinne. He looked at her swollen belly with wonder. ?Dearest, you?ve ? grown a tad,? he said lightly.

?This foul thing in my belly is yer spawn, worthless trickster, and it?s to be born tonight,? Blinne said. The spite in her tone was unmistakable. ?I shall expel it into yer hands and be done with both ye and it.?

?But I ? I ? ?

Blinne howled in pain as the child within her let it be known that he was ready to come into the world. She clutched Jack?s shirt in her fists. ?I pray it?s a mite smarter than its sire, that I do,? she snarled. ?Else I might slit its throat even on the cord.?

?You?ll do no such thing, you spiteful whore!? Jack cried. He was surprised to hear his own concern. He may not have been a good father to the children his wife bore him in his life, but he had loved them.

?Then take yer bastard from me and never cross my path again!?

Blinne lay down on the ground, lifting her dress up over her stomach. She spread her legs open and began to push. Jack knelt between her legs and took off his shirt so that he might catch his babe with it when Blinne?s pushing and grunting yielded a new life. The hours wore on until the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, and finally, a tiny being jumped feet first from Blinne?s womb. It landed squarely in Jack?s arms, urinated all over him and began to wail. Blinne pushed herself up on her elbows to look at the child, and for just a moment, she felt a touch of motherly love for the howling thing in Jack?s arms. But then she recalled how Jack had tricked her. She drew a knife, cut the umbilical cord and got to her feet.

?A pox on both ye rotten bastards!? she spat, and then she was gone.

Jack looked down at the child he held. It was a boy, and his skin was a pale pearlescent green. His eyes, when he finally stopped crying and opened them, shifted through colors so quickly that Jack couldn?t tell which they started on and which they stopped on. He had a patch of thick black hair upon his head and was as lovely a newborn as Jack had ever seen. The baby smiled up at his father, reached his arms up and cried, ?Papa!?

Jack laughed, delighted. ?That screaming bitch doesn?t know what she?s missing,? he said to his new son. ?I shall name you after me, then. Jack. Come, little Jack. The sun is almost up.?

Big Jack and little Jack slept away the day hidden in the garden, and when big Jack awoke, he had an idea. Little Jack was already crawling his way around the garden, playing with the bugs and the worms and gnawing on the leaves to see what they were.

?Jack, come to your papa,? big Jack said. ?There?s something I need you to do for me.?

?But Papa, the worms want to play,? little Jack said.

?The worms will wait. Come here, son.?

But little Jack could tell that his father?s intentions were not quite good, and he crawled into the cucumber patch. ?Play hide and seek with me, Papa!? he called out.

?Oh, all right.? Big Jack wandered the garden, searching for his son. He was becoming terribly frustrated at not being able to find the boy when he entered the cucumber patch and saw little Jack sitting in the middle of the path with a cucumber in his left hand and a big grin on his face. ?Jack, you naughty boy. You had me worried there for a second.?

?Trick!? little Jack said, laughing.

?Yes, indeed, a trick. Now, your game is done. Come.?

Little Jack crawled over to his father who bent down beside him and showed him the hollowed out turnip he carried.

?Do you see this, son?? Jack asked.

The boy nodded, his eyes shifting from white to green to blue and back to white. His father?s tone was very serious. The turnip was terribly important, and little Jack listened closely.

?When I was a boy, not as young as you, I tricked the devil and got myself banned from hell and heaven so that when my time had passed, I was doomed to wander this land carrying my soul in this turnip.?

?It?s awfully small for a soul.?

?Yes. It?s cramped and damned uncomfortable. I would love to be able to take my soul out of this turnip and stretch it. If you could take my place in the turnip just for a little while, I could do that. Come on, son, into the turnip with you.?

?No. I don?t think so.?

?What??

?It looks dark and scary inside the turnip.?

?It isn?t, I promise. Do as Papa says.?

?But I?m afraid, Papa.?

?Now, Jack. It?s not so bad. Be a brave little man.?

?I?d feel better if you got into this cucumber and made a light for me to have with me so I could see where I was. Just in case it is dark and scary.? Little Jack held up the cucumber he had in his hand. ?See, I carved it out and made a hole so the light will shine through and show me where I am.?

Touched by his son?s ingenuity and not wanting the boy to be afraid, Jack agreed, but no sooner had he gone inside the cucumber light than he realized he had been tricked by his own child. Holding his hand over the hole in the end of the cucumber, little Jack ran down to the nearest cemetery and buried the cucumber deep in the earth, trapping his father inside the vegetable in the hallowed ground.

Little Jack ran back to the garden and grabbed the turnip, which still held his father?s soul. He cut open the turnip and watched the soul dash to the cemetery where it tried to dig up the cucumber. To this day, a small light can be seen on some nights in that graveyard, hovering above a certain spot on the ground. Later that evening, little Jack had a turnip stew for supper.