Virtual American Gothic - Third Season Episode Three Lonelyhearts by Roguewriter NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. ********************************************** Six breaths til midnight. A small, smoky campfire somewhere deep in the eldritch wood. A knotty pine branch sparked up and exploded, booming cinders into the night and making three of the four warty, hunchbacked trolls huddled around it yell in delighted alarm, shift on their stumps and reach nervously for holstered broadswords. The fourth troll bit his tongue, swallowed his pounding heart back into its proper place, and congratulated himself silently on his outward aplomb. "I'm getting all sweaty, Caleb," Troll #2 grumbled. Its eyes were watering from the smoke. "Shut up, Rose," Troll #1 replied. "It's midnight. Time for one more story." "I thought you were supposed to do this ON Halloween," Troll #3 said, rubbing its warty nose. "One night ain't long enough for Halloween," Troll #1 shot back. "We gotta do this three straight nights, build up our defenses 'gainst the REAL goblins that'll be out Halloween night. Come on, Benjie. It's your turn. One more story." "We shoulda camped out behind my house like we said," Troll #3 said. "We got school in the morning!" "We'll be home before anyone gets up," Troll #1 growled. "Come on, Benjie!" Troll #4 was sucking on his bitten tongue, wishing he knew some trolls his own age to hang out with. "OK," he said, glancing around at the others. "This is the story of 'The Velvet Collar.'" An owl screamed in the distance, and again three of the four trolls squealed in response. Troll #4 shook his head. Children. And then he began, telling them the story his dad had told him a couple Halloweens back. The wind swirled, drawing campfire smoke up and around them as Troll #4 spoke. Once, he told them, there was a little rich kid named Susan, who lived in a mansion at the end of town. Susan went to school with a little girl named Barbara, who was NOT rich. She lived in a little shack in Goat Town with her mom and dad, who was out of work. Barbara liked Susan very much, and wished she could be like her. "Aren't there anything but GIRLS in this story?" Troll #1 grumped. Troll #4 continued. Susan was a snotty little twit who wouldn't pee on a person if they was on fire, he told them, so she decided to invite Barbara up to the mansion for a sleepover so she could have some fun with her. Susan's parents went out to a party that night, and Susan spent the whole time lording it over Barbara, showing off all her rich-kid clothes and toys and her big room and the savings account bankbook her father let her keep in her dresser drawer ("This is my college fund," Susan told Barbara proudly, with pitying eyes. "Do YOU have a college fund yet? You'll never get into a good school without one, you know.") "This IS scary," said Troll #3, who often overheard his parents worrying over that very thing. Susan's prize possession was a beautiful robe with an expensive velvet collar. Barbara admired the robe very much, stroking the collar until Susan told her to quit before she messed it up. Bored with showing off, Susan started telling Barbara she could hear sounds downstairs. Scary sounds. Chopping sounds. "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" groaned Troll #1. Troll #4 gave him a stern look-and then told them the mansion's lights suddenly went out, plunging the two little girls into complete and total darkness. The other three trolls were suitably impressed. The girls stood in the dark a moment, then Susan laughed meanly. "You're scared," she said to Barbara, who admitted sheepishly that she was. Susan sneered and flounced downstairs to check the circuit breaker. The wind was getting very strong now, breathing its sweetly foul autumn breath through the trees and whipping the trolls' windbreakers as Troll #4 told them how Barbara sat waiting for Susan's return. "And that's when SHE heard the scary chopping sounds," he said. The other trolls gasped. "Then," whispered Troll #4, "she heard the scariest sound of all. Heavy footsteps. Too heavy to be Susan's. Coming. Up. The. Stairs... Ker-thump... ker-thump... ker-THUMP!" "What did she do?!" gasped Troll #2. "Barbara was so scared," Troll #4 told them. "But she was smart, too. She knew it was too dark to see who was coming, so she hid behind the door, figuring when they came in, she could sneak past and run down the stairs and get away. So she hid. And ker-THUMP... KER-THUMP... The door creeeeeeeaked open!" Three trolls clapped small hands to their warty faces. "SOMETHING came into the room," Troll #4 intoned. "She could see... a SHAPE. But was it Susan, or wasn't it? She was so scared she couldn't move. Then she thought, 'I'll reach out and feel for the velvet collar. If it's there, I'll know she's just teasing me. If not, I'll run out the door.' So she put out her hand..." "Run away, Barbara!" Troll #2 shrieked. "So she put out her hand..." Troll #4 repeated. "And... felt..." "What?!" shouted three trolls. "The velvet collar!" Troll #4 replied triumphantly. "Oh, I'd smack her," Troll #2 trumpeted. "She was going to," Troll #4 replied. "Barbara lifted her hand to smack her in the face... and found nothing but the bloody stump where Susan's head had been." "AAAAGGHHH!" screamed Troll #1, leaping across the fire to pummel Troll #3, who screamed and threw him off. Troll #2 sat with hands clapped to her face, unable to breathe. Troll #4 just sat back, smiling contentedly, and enjoyed what he had wrought. Troll #1 retook his seat. "That was GREAT!" he yelled, laughing in shivery delight. "That was-" There was a sound in the woods. A cracking sound. Something heavy. All of them shut up at once. The fire crackled. The wind moaned. "You did that, Caleb," Troll #2 said accusingly. "I did not." The noise came again. Definitely a crashing noise. Maybe even a chopping noise. "What is that?" Troll #3 said in a wavering, strengthless voice. Troll #4 picked up his heavy-duty flashlight, the one he'd snuck out of his dad's patrol car yesterday, and switched it on. It lit up the forest beyond the campfire. The clearing had overgrown it over the years, but the light picked out the leaning, semi-circular stone shapes that told the trolls all at once they were sitting on the edge of a forgotten graveyard. A graveyard where two of the headstones had just now fallen over. And there was something moving beyond them. A shape. Coming their way. "AAAAGGHHH!" all four trolls screamed together. Even Troll #4 forgot his matchless aplomb, and they all ripped the Halloween masks from their heads and ran like hell. Behind them, the fire guttered and popped. The wind moaned. The owl screeched. The shape, a little dead boy dressed in a dapper Sunday School suit, came closer to the fire. He squatted down and inspected one of the discarded masks, then looked up inquiringly. "Won't you play with me?" he whispered in a small, plaintive voice, which snuffed out the campfire completely before fading away on the wind. A moment later, the specter of the dead child did the same... Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997. Trinity, South Carolina. * * * Ben Healy's eyes were always the last part of him to accept the press of morning, and today was no exception. They felt weighted, as if they'd born his whole weight during his fitful slumber, and he supposed they had, in a way. He'd dreamed all night of the explosion that had killed his ex-wife, watching over and over as it destroyed the house they'd built together. When he woke, he thought he could still smell soot and ash on the air, and his eyes felt glareblind from the blasts. "She wouldn't have felt a thing," Lucas Buck kept saying in his mind, the way he'd said it at the scene when Ben got there. "You have to believe that, Ben. It was over so fast. She wouldn't have felt a thing." Ben thought about the gravestone he'd raised over her resting place, the woman who had borne him his only son, and he found himself wondering idly if HE would ever feel a thing again. He was beginning to believe the endless explosions in his dreams were burning the emotion out of him. He lay there another few moments, eyes still closed, and waited to see if tears might appear. Nothing. He DID discover he really needed a close encounter with his toothbrush. He supposed he needed to lay off the late-night coffee. When he finally found the energy to open his eyes, Ben found his son curled up at the foot of the bed opposite him, sleeping soundly in his grubby jeans and Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. Ben blinked in wonder. Hadn't the younger kids talked him into joining them for a sleepover at Boone's? Ben lifted his head further. Boone, Rose and Caleb were sprawled here and there on the carpet. All of them were grass-stained, dead to the world, sleeping the sleep of exhausted midnight wanderers. Careful not to disturb the sleepers, Ben rose and made his way to the bathroom, shaking his head. * * * Selena Coombs woke alone in her bed, almost an hour and a half later than usual. More than a week since she quit her job in a huff -- too foolishly proud to allow the school and that sonofabitch Lucas Buck to make a laughingstock of her -- and she was already oversleeping like some slugabed housefrau. Normally, she woke promptly at 6:00 every morning, without need of an alarm. It was habit, whether she called it a night early, or late or never came in at all (except to shower the smell of sex and cologne off her and find a clean outfit in which to deliver her latest lecture on "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" or the history of Romania). But it had taken only a week of unemployment to change her ways. That, and the inevitable doldrums of pregnancy. She had an appetite almost constantly, and though she never felt sick in the mornings anymore, she occasionally threw up between midnight and three a.m., threw up unmercifully, til her throat ached and tears ran down her cheeks. Not morning sickness, she supposed, but mourning sickness. Mourning the irrevocable act that had altered her life so completely. She didn't want to wallow in it -- no Coombs had ever been a wallower, her father used to say -- but with an extra 5 or 10 pounds already making itself felt in hemline and seam, with the new, strange heat of the self-stoking furnace in her lower belly, and with the slow creep of minutes and the agonizing crawl of days, Selena Coombs broke family tradition. She cried alone in her bed, tucked up into a fetal position. Her hands never strayed to the first faint curve of belly, never slid protectively over the flesh that hid the miraculous, self-replicating cells busily weaving themselves into a son or daughter. If there was some primitive, race-memory urge to stroke her stomach, it died a quick death under the fierce resentment and self-loathing in her guts. She got up to feed the cats and pour some scalding coffee into herself to burn away the tears. Wishing her house weren't so silent. Wishing her head would be still. * * * "Floyd, will you be still!" Ben barked at his deputy, who was humming something as he finished transcribing the previous night's reports into the database. Ben thought the tune was "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch," which Floyd invariably hummed around Halloween, apparently mistaking the grinning green Seuss specter for an All Saints' boogeyman. "For Pete's sake," he yelled, "You've got no business being so damned cheerful before 8 a.m., it's un-Christian!" Floyd nodded sheepishly, rose, and went into the back, moving briskly. Floyd loved Halloween. Without thinking about it, he started whistling the "Oompa-Loompa" song from WILLY WONKA before he even cleared the back door. "Hell!" Ben growled under his breath, rising and going to the main computer to review his deputy's handiwork. "Floyd, you misspelled 'traffic' again!" he bellowed a moment later. "Never any gridlock in ole Floyd's brain," Sheriff Buck said, entering the police station with a cheerful smile of his own. He was dressed all in black today, but Ben knew him too well to think that was any kind of nod to the spirit of the holiday. Lucas had never been big on the ritual celebration of the macabre. Maybe 'cause it's always Halloween for Lucas Buck, Ben thought sourly. Lucas paused, raising his hands. He had a tin can in each one, but Ben wasn't paying attention. "Where IS Trinity's Finest this morning, Ben?" "In the back. Getting on my last nerve." "Save some for later," Lucas reminded him, striding through the gate to enter the bullpen. "Going to be a long coupla days. Hey, Floyd!" "Tell me something I don't know," Ben shot back. "Well, I didn't know Floyd had a dog. Did you?" Ben looked up in surprise as Floyd popped in. Seeing what Lucas was holding, he beamed cheerfully and came forwarded, hands outstretched to take the cans. "Thanks, Lucas!" "My pleasure, Deputy. I had Pettus bill you." Ben looked at the cans, saw the word ALPO on each one, and groaned. "Floyd, dammit, what the hell's wrong with you?" Floyd stopped, trying to look innocent and failing completely. "You're feeding that mutt now, aren't you?" Ben said accusingly. Floyd hung his head. Lucas looked from deputy to deputy. "What's he talking about, Floyd?" "Last couple weeks we've had that stray running around town again," Ben said. "Big yellow mongrel dog. Floyd's been s'posed to catch him and take him up to the shelter in Ascension for a week now." "I'm trying to lull him into a false sense of security," Floyd said defensively. Lucas raised an eyebrow as he handed the cans of dogfood to the beaming deputy. "Leave the dog be, Ben -- he's apparently teaching Floyd a vocabulary." Floyd flushed and disappeared into the back again, cans in hand. As he bounded out, both Lucas and Ben realized that although Floyd was in full and proper uniform today, he was wearing screaming orange socks with black pumpkin faces on the ankles. Ben looked at Lucas with real irritation blooming on his face. "Lucas, for crying out loud, I asked him to net the damned dog and get it to the pound, and you turn around and contradict me!" Lucas's smile faded a notch. "What's crawled into your shorts this morning?" Ben sighed, a loud, disgusted, apologetic exhalation, and waved a hand. "I'm not sleeping." "You aren't trying to get back into it too soon, are you? Only been a few days since the funeral." "No, I need to keep busy." Ben looked away, unable to meet Lucas's eyes, unable to share all the things that were weighing on him, not the least of which was still this surprising, aggravating inability to grieve. "How's Benjie? That's where you need to stay focused now, Ben. Put the past behind you and move on." Ben raised his head and stared levelly at his boss. "Pretty wise words for a man whose own son spent the night on MY floor along with the rest of the kids." Ben turned on his heel. "Mind your own house, Lucas, 'fore you tell me how to mind mine." He stormed out to his rounds. Lucas stood alone in the bullpen, blinking thoughtfully. In the back, he could hear Floyd doing the "Yo-Ee-Ohs" from the last reel of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Halloween for Floyd may have included the Grinch and the frightful Oompa-Loompas... but nothing came even remotely close to the flying monkeys of Oz for sheer terror. "Goddamn Halloween," Lucas muttered, and stormed into his office, slamming the door behind him. * * * Caleb and Boone moved cautiously through the woods, schoolbooks under their arms, the dark circles under their saucered eyes the only hint of fatigue. They were both wide awake, trembling with adrenaline. "Caleb, let's get outa here!" Boone hissed. "Come on, Boone, ain't nothin' gonna jump out at us in broad daylight." "Says you." "Says me," Caleb replied. He gave his friend a grinning, quizzical look. "You chicken like Rose?" "I ain't chicken. Rose ain't either. She walked to school with Benjie 'cause she likes him." "He's three grades ahead of us!" Caleb shook his head in disgust. Lately, he'd found himself thinking about girls way too much -- about the way they always seemed to smell pretty good, even after kickball -- and he wasn't happy about it. Women were nothing but trouble. You didn't have to wear a badge to know THAT was a fact. Thoughts of gender conflict faded as he and Boone reached the clearing they'd fled last night. The campfire was stone cold, their masks still scattered here and there atop the dead leaves and brown earth. Boone bent, picked up Benjie's dad's flashlight. It had laid here switched on all night, and only the faintest hint of light issued from the drained battery now. "We can give this back to Benjie, save him from getting in trouble with his dad," Boone told Caleb. "His dad won't care anyway," Caleb replied. "He didn't even yell at us for last night, or tell your dad or Rose's mom or my-" He stopped abruptly, glancing uncomfortably at Boone. "Come on," he said. They crept forward, pushing aside creepers and pausing at the edge of the small patch of headstones. "There's only nine or ten of 'em," Caleb said, counting. "Prob'ly some family buried all their people here 'stead of in a church cemetery. I read big families used to do that." He stepped forward and lifted one of the fallen headstones that had been knocked over the night before. The earth around its base was still damp and clotted with tangled, grassy roots. It couldn't have been easy to push it over, despite the age of the stone. Caleb propped it against another crumbling headstone. "Joshua Creadle," he read aloud. "Born 1881, died 1887. Jeez, he was only six years old." "I bet that was him!" Boone said excitedly. "His spirit! Wow, he died a hundred years ago, Caleb!" "Why ya reckon he's haunting the forest?" "Maybe he's lonely?" Boone guessed. Caleb flashed briefly on the image of his lost sister, remembered rolling across the grass laughing with her that brief time she'd managed to return from beyond. Recalling how happy she'd been to be whole again. Then he frowned, banishing the thoughts. Merlyn was gone. And good riddance to her. The ugly thought made his stomach turn over, but he bit back his guilt and stood up. "Ghosts don't get lonely," he said tersely. "They're too busy messing up other people's lives." He started back the way they'd come. "Come on. Let's go." Boone was still looking at the headstone of Joshua Creadle. "If I was all alone out here, I'D get lonely." Then he realized Caleb was already ten yards away, and he turned, clutching his books and the flashlight, and hustled after him. * * * Floyd was squatting on his haunches, grinning as he watched the yellow dog wolf down the second can of Alpo. The dog watched Floyd as it ate, still not sure he was trustworthy, but its tail wagged a couple times. "Good boy," Floyd said reassuringly. "He's a good boy, he sure is." "He IS a good boy," said a quiet, female voice close at hand. Floyd didn't hear it -- couldn't hear it -- but the dog lifted its head and cocked a ragged ear at sight of the girl in the black dress, sitting cross-legged on the hood of Lucas Buck's big Crown Vic. Merlyn Temple smiled at the dog. "Does someone love you?" she asked him. The dog cocked its head further, tail wagging. "Does someone somewhere ever wonder what happened to you? Does a little boy still cry over you anymore?" The dog whined, wanting to go to her, but sensing that something was wrong, something was strange about this ghostly woman, who smiled but hid an ancient weight of sadness too big for dog or man to relieve. "What is it, boy?" Floyd asked, one hand reaching out, wanting to stroke the matted fur. He held back, afraid he'd spook the mutt. "Floyd loves you," Merlyn went on, smiling. "You aren't his, and he doesn't know a thing about you or where you've been, or what's happened to you, but he loves you anyway. Imagine that." Floyd let his gaze follow the dog's, which seemed to be riveted on Lucas's car for some reason. "I'll be shucked, pup," he said with a chuckle. "You seein' haunts? Booga-boogas?" "Floyd, what the hell are you doing out here?" Ben Healy said from behind him in a Grinchlike voice. With a yelp, Floyd leaped to his feet, making the yellow dog jump and skitter away from him, growling low in its throat. Merlyn looked from the dog to the tall man in the doorway, saw his anger, saw some of what was hiding behind it. Her face softened. "Sorry, Ben," Floyd was saying. "But he's a good old dog, really-" "He's a stray, Floyd, a flea-bitten, slat-sided, filthy stray mutt, and now ya fed him, we'll NEVER be rid of him! Hell, you've fed him TWICE today, and it isn't even noon yet!" He glanced over at the dog, which had taken a few tentative steps back toward the dish of food. Ben took three stomping strides toward it, waving his arms. "Hyaahhh!" he bellowed. The dog broke and ran, leaving Floyd and Merlyn looking after it in disappointment. "You didn't have to do that," Floyd said quietly. "He's just lonely. There's nothing wrong with him." "You want to get in there and finish those reports, officer?" Ben said curtly. Floyd went inside, leaving his boss standing there with hands on hips, shaking his head and staring down at the remains of the dogfood. Merlyn stood a couple feet away, regarding him with mixed emotions. "It's OK, Ben," she said. "You're just lonely too. You don't realize it yet, but there's nothing wrong with you, either." Ben's head came up, and he looked around in surprise. What the hell? He looked to his right, seeming to catch a hint of movement reflected in the windshield of Lucas's car, a gleam like heat-shimmer. But there was nothing there. Just the tiny reflected running shape of the dog clearing the back alley and heading off uptown for more peaceful surroundings. Ben closed his eyes, ran a hand up his forehead and through his hair. "See a ghost, Ben?" Lucas asked abruptly from behind him. Both he and Merlyn started in surprise. **I think I heard one,** Ben thought, but he didn't say that out loud. "One good jump deserves another, I guess," he said, trying to chuckle. "I'm gonna head over to the hospital, see if Rita'd like to have lunch with a grouch today. I owe her." "How could she say no?" Lucas replied, smiling. "You tell Doc Crower hello for me." Ben nodded uncertainly and went back inside. Merlyn had turned away from the exchange, watching the alley where the dog had fled. "What's the matter?" Lucas Buck asked abruptly. "Developing a thing for strays?" Merlyn whirled, eyes wide, heart in her throat. Lucas was addressing her, that was undeniable, but his eyes were turning slowly, conning the length of the alleyway. He couldn't see her. Like father, like son. "I know you're there, you bitch," Lucas muttered. "You've got no business here. No more than that mutt." Merlyn looked down at the ring on her hand, the gleaming ring, and began to back away. Lucas took a savage step forward. "Hyaaahhh!" he bellowed, and she turned and fled. Behind her, Lucas chuckled, but there was little pleasure in the sound. His heart was beating too fast. * * * Caleb Temple was keeping an eye on the librarian while Rose and Boone paged rapidly through an oversized hardbound book with a black cover. "Anything yet?" Caleb hissed. Boone shook his head. "What are we looking for again?" Rose asked. "Anything about cemetery spirits," Caleb urged. "Graveyards. Wandering souls. Something like that." "The index said to cross-reference something called 'the Ankon,'" Boone said, flipping pages. Personally, he was much more comfortable exploring the supernatural here in the safety of the school library, even if it did mean ditching fourth period to do so. A trip to Mr. Grindley's office was nothing next to being chased around the woods by a dead kid, when you thought about it. "There it is!" Rose hooted, and Caleb abandoned his post to lean over them and read the section Rose was pointing to: Ankon, the (Celtic, Norse, Germanic origins). According to legends predating Christian influence in Europe and the Northern Countries by several hundred years, the Ankon was a guardian spirit, tasked with standing watch over the bodies of its fellow dead. "Gross," Rose said. "Who'd want to do that?" The choice was determined according to the calendar, legends report. The last person buried each year (Old Calendar, October 31, All Saints' Eve) assumed the role of Ankon, standing guard until the next Ankon was chosen by fate, in a year's time. As with many Celtic beliefs, which suggested All Hallow's Eve frees the spirits of the dead to appear in the natural world, it was widely held that for several days prior to the end of the Old Year, the spirit of the Ankon could physically manifest itself, appearing to passersby to remind the living that its period of guardianship was ending, and a new Ankon would soon take its place. This period was met with great distress on the part of the citizenry, not because of the Ankon's nature, which was held to be serene and benevolent, but because it was deemed socially unacceptable for a member of one's family to serve in such a capacity. Accounts are given of funeral parties literally racing one another to the cemetery on the last day of the year to avoid subjecting a loved one to the ignominy of becoming the Ankon. "Holy cow," Caleb said. When they had finished reading, Boone closed the book. "I told you he was probably lonely. I would be too if somebody made ME stand around an ole cemetery for a whole year." Caleb nodded, thinking hard. * * * He was still thinking when he sat down at the dinner table for supper, five hours later, and he didn't hear Dr. Matt ask him about the campout. "Ca-leb..." Miz Holt admonished gently. "Huh?" Caleb asked, grabbing bread. "How goes the great Halloween experiment?" Dr. Matt asked again, squeezing Loris's hand and winking at her. "Three nights of scary stories and marshmallows and three days of snoozing through your classes?" "We didn't sleep!" Rose piped up, as her mother put a plate in front of her and began ladling fresh green beans onto it to complement her ham and mashed potatoes. "We went to the library and did research!" Caleb aimed a kick at her under the table, and when her mother questioned her about the research, Rose attacked her food and avoided answering. Her mother was never one to stop the kid from eating -- Rose was a skinny kid -- so she let the question slide. Miz Holt replaced it with another. "You kids really going to camp out again tonight?" "We have to," Caleb said. He looked at Rose's mother. "Rose says you have a Ouija board." The grownups blinked at each other, then looked at Caleb again. "Yes, I do," Rose's mother told him. "But whatever do you need THAT old thing for?" "To talk to the kid," Rose said through a mouthful of beans. "To talk to the dead?" Miz Holt asked, thinking that's what she'd heard. "KID," Rose repeated, no more clearly. "Dead, yeah," Caleb said hurriedly, overriding her. "Who knows, we might hear some good news about the boarding house, Miz Holt." Another look among the grownups. Caleb stifled a sly grin. It had been a calculated deflection, and it had worked. "Caleb, we're still waiting to hear what the bank has to say about that," Miz Holt said slowly. "What Sheriff Buck has to say about it," Caleb said in a dark tone. "That's right," Matt said levelly. "The good sheriff's granted us a stay of execution for now." He pulled Loris close, kissed her cheek. "But we'll see what happens. You never know what tomorrow will bring." Loris smiled, not meeting any of their eyes as she passed a basket of bread. "I guess you kids can dig that old board out of the attic," Rose's mother said. "No use to me anymore." "All right!" Caleb said enthusiastically. "EAT," Dr. Matt admonished him. "You can't live on S'mores and ghost stories, Caleb." Grinning, Caleb fell to it. Next to him, Rose belched, then slapped a hand over her mouth. It struck Dr. Matt funny, and soon they were all roaring with laughter. * * * The sound of it reached the sidewalk outside, where Selena Coombs was walking by, trying to ease the pain in her lower back with some exercise. She paused, listening to the cheeriness of the laughter, the closeness and warmth of it, and she looked at the "FORECLOSURE" sign on the front lawn and hated Lucas Buck with a black passion she could attribute only to gestation. She was carrying a small grocery sack containing a plastic pumpkin container and four bags of bite-sized Milky Way candy bars. Selena had never passed out candy on Halloween before. Truth be told, she'd usually been in a bar somewhere, dressed to kill in black tights and a cat mask, listening to slavering drunks encouraging the kitty-kitty to wash herself with her tongue. She was looking forward to engaging in the trick-or-treating ritual. She hadn't realized she would miss her small charges so much. "Out and about, Miz Coombs, a woman in your condition?" Of course it was Lucas, doing one of his endless magic-trick appearances right behind her and making her jump in spite of herself. She lifted her shopping bag and began walking again. "Hey, hang on! How about a lift?" "Having you out of my sight for the past week has been all the lift I need." "Oh, now I find that hard to believe!" She spun on her heels and pointed one unpainted fingernail at him. "Stay away from me, Lucas. You have nothing I want." "No?" he shot back. "Enjoying all that kind neighborliness at the parish these days? Getting plenty of stimulating conversation from the cats?" She regarded him, hating him for seeing inside her, seeing her vulnerable places so clearly, and hating herself for losing all her defenses to this damnable growing **thing** inside her. "I'm all you have left, darlin," Lucas purred. "No," she said, and pointed to her belly. "This is. But it has nothing to do with you." She turned and hurried away, leaving Lucas to fold his arms and shake his head in amused dismay as she disappeared up the street. * * * The pumpkin on the porch was still uncarved when Ben climbed the steps, undoing the top button of his uniform shirt and rubbing the red place on his forehead where his hatband always chafed. Sighing, he shook his head and went inside. Benjie was on the living room rug, playing Ultimate Fantasy VI, taking out his aggressions on legions of 32-bit Sega bad guys. He didn't even look up when his old man walked in. "Hey, boy," Ben said. "How was school?" "Hi. OK." Pow-kzaaap! Three enemy foot soldiers fell dead onscreen. "You guys find my flashlight?" Benjie pointed distractedly. It cost him a blow to his virtual jaw. "Crap! Uh, yeah, it's on the table. Sorry." Ben nodded. "You think maybe you'd like to help your old man carve that pumpkin for tomorrow?" Benjie shrugged. "I dunno. There's guts." Ben considered that. He wasn't too fond of pumpkin guts himself. Behind him, Merlyn slipped through the screen door, uncomfortable to be an intruder, unable to stay away. She regarded them curiously. "Rita said she'd come over this evening for dinner. I thought I'd make lasagna, and she's gonna rent THE EVIL DEAD." Ben had purposely suggested that one, knowing it was his son's favorite. "Sound good?" "I have something to do." Ben winced. "Goddammit, Benjie-" He flinched at his own words even as Benjie did the same, turning away from the screen to look up at his father with cautious, distrustful eyes. Beyond them both, Merlyn winced too. She started forward, lifted a hand... let it fall, useless. "You have a good time, then," Ben said haltingly. "We'll be here if you care to join us." He strode through the room toward his bedroom, angrily unbuttoning his shirt. When he got there, he closed the door and then ripped the shirt off, popping a button at his wrist and another at his waist. Standing in his undershirt, he bowed his head and began taking deep breaths. They hurt. Merlyn came through the closed door and stood behind him. She spoke quietly. "It will get easier." Ben opened his eyes, raising his head and looking around in wonder. He was alone. He turned in a slow circle, then sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing his palms flat across his knees, and wondered whether he was going crazy. He wondered how a man who couldn't feel anything COULD go crazy. * * * The sun began its long slide down toward the other side of the world, and darkness greedily replaced it. It took them less time to build their fire this night, Caleb thought, as Benjie finished piling up deadwood and began striking matches to set the pyre alight. Despite last night's scare, they were all eager to see if this Ankon thing was for real or not. Benjie wouldn't have voiced the thought aloud, but his mother was much on his mind this evening. He was thinking over what Caleb and the others had told him about their findings in the library, the information about the Ankon, and he was thinking about his mother's funeral, just days ago... The campfire caught flame and began to burn. Benjie straightened up and nodded. "Let's do it." * * * Merlyn was haunting Ben's place -- **there** was the perfect term, she thought bitterly -- when Rita showed up, beaming, her hands shaking so much the spoon clattered against the lip of the bowl of potato salad she'd brought... something Ben didn't seem to notice. Potato salad didn't exactly go with lasagna -- neither did THE EVIL DEAD, if you wanted to be honest about it -- but it seemed a fair bet from her careful makeup, hair and ensemble that Rita was shooting for points tonight, so Merlyn guessed (correctly) that Ben loved her potato salad. Rita was taking no chances. She even failed to hide a bit of relief when Ben told her Benjie wouldn't be joining them. She feigned disappointment, giggled briefly, then self-consciously checked her makeup and her Miracle Bra in the foyer mirror the moment Ben turned away to take the potato salad to the fridge. Merlyn fled. She wandered the streets of Trinity, remembering her childhood here, which had ended when Lucas Buck knocked on their door one stormy night ("Someone's at the door," she whispered to herself, and shivered). And she remembered, vaguely, the years that followed, years when she'd seen nothing of town at all, nothing but the interior of their run-to-ruin home, nothing of life except what swept in behind her loving little brother, lingering around him like the smell of ballfields, the taste of cotton candy, the sting of papercuts, the watery-eyed hum of cicadas and the boyish grotesquerie of farts lit with matches. Caleb had lived FOR her all those years. And that, too, had ended when Lucas Buck came through a door, ended in her father's drunken violence and Buck's intervention, ended in a swift, terrible CRACK- Something **whuffed** at her side, and Merlyn screamed, whirling, but it was only the yellow dog, skittering back from her now, then wagging its tail and ducking its head as if to apologize for frightening her. Looking down at the mutt, Merlyn realized she had wandered all the way out to the cemetery behind the church, and now she was standing here only yards from the place where a rough stone bore her name. "Oh, Caleb," Merlyn said miserably, and went to her knees. The big mutt came to her, unafraid of her transcorporeal state, and she put ghostly arms around him, hugging though she couldn't hug, and wept into his fur. Her tears struck nothing but the grass -- didn't even really strike that --but the dog didn't move, sensing her need, letting her get it out of herself. He whined comfortingly. He understood. * * * The mistake, Caleb realized later, was the same one he kept making, over and over again, when it came to matters such as these. He just didn't know enough. And none of the others knew a thing. They had poked and prodded amateurishly at the Ouija stylus, but their efforts had resulted in nothing but several fits of giggles from Rose, who liked having the opportunity to put her hands on Benjie's. Then Caleb had come up with the idea of trying the pointer on the dead child's gravestone itself. The three boys lugged the heavy stone back to their campfire by the abandoned cemetery, laying it across one of the heavy stumps. Rose set the pointer atop it, and even before they'd all settled their hands over it, the teardrop shape with the oblate glass stone in its center began to jump and clatter. "Oh jeez!" Boone said, snatching his fingers away. Rose did the real damage, though, pushing at the skittering stylus as she leaped backward with a scream. Caleb and Benjie both gasped as the overbalanced stump rocked -- and then tipped over, spilling headstone and Ouija pointer into the fire. Almost instantly, there was a thunderous CRACK as the headstone split in two, and then the glass eye of the pointer exploded. They all would have been peppered with tiny daggers of glass had the stone not blocked them from harm. Violent wind boiled up out of the cemetery, and suddenly the small spirit was there among them, standing in the fire, eyes burning and streaming tears, screaming in a dreadful, inhuman voice that was nothing like its own, "I ONLY WANTED YOU TO PLAY WITH ME!" The quartet of goblins-turned-necromancers bolted once more, yelling with terror, but the terrible dervish of wind and leaves and dead branches only grew more tumultuous behind them, whipping their backs as it spiraled up and up. Benjie tripped, going down hard, and Boone and Caleb skidded to a stop to help him up. Rose, pausing to glance behind them, pointed in surprise. "Look!" They did. A dark cyclone of debris was rising into the sky like a hornet swarm, lifting away and arcing over the trees, heading toward Trinity, toward the town that had forgotten its resting place for a century. Below it, the campfire was nothing but smoking cinders, and the entire clearing was littered with broken tree limbs and smashed shrubs. The tiny cemetery was fully hidden behind the dead brush now. Benjie climbed to a sitting position, breathing hard. He had a small cut on his left cheek, but he barely felt it. He joined the others in gazing at the devastation where their camp had been. "I don't think that's what serene and benevolent means," he said. "It's just a little boy," Rose protested. "Wait, I thought the gravestone said 1887," Benjie said, getting up. The others nodded. "Don't you get it? He didn't just guard it for a year. They **abandoned** this cemetery. He's been there for a hundred years, waiting for someone to come and take his place." "Geez," Caleb said, awed. "And now it's loose," Boone said. "And I think it's really mad." In the distant night, a screech owl gave throat to its frightful cry, and they all jumped. "Oh boy, are we gonna get it," Rose groaned. "Let's get out of here!" She, Boone and Caleb took off at once. "Benjie!" Caleb yelled. "Come on!" Benjie abruptly broke and ran off in a different direction. Following the child-cyclone. Caleb watched him go, then turned and followed his other two friends. Benjie was on his own. * * * Merlyn, tears drying on her cheeks, was sitting in the grass with the panting dog beside her when the howling cyclone ripped through Main Street, blowing up newspaper and leaves, and then rocketed through the cemetery and onward into the night. Merlyn looked after it, then at the dog, whose ears were laid back flat against his head. "That can't be a good thing," Merly muttered. Then she heard running footsteps. Whatever Tasmanian Devil had just blown past had a pursuer. * * * Benjie's lungs felt close to bursting by the time he arrived at the cemetery, following the path of the cyclone by the wind debris it left in its wake. He'd known it was coming here, he'd just KNOWN it! He ran eagerly through the neat rows, breath coming raggedly, failing to see the yellow dog crouching low a few rows away, and the spirit girl kneeling beside it, calming it. He stopped just short of the still-raw square of earth that contained wilted bouquets, a few stalwart new blades of grass and the headstone that bore the words BARBARA JOY FLOOD. 1960-1997. It was undisturbed. "Oh," he gasped raggedly, burning with disappointment. "Oh... no..." He had come here convinced the legend Caleb had related to him was true, that his mother, the last person buried in this place before the Old Calendar year came to an end, might take the Ankon's place. It wouldn't give her back to him, not really. But it would be better than this. Better than just her name on stone, and her picture creased and thumbworn in his pocket. "I just want to see you again, Mama," he whispered, and a single tear rolled down his sweaty cheek. Merlyn left the yellow dog panting in the grass and went over to the boy. She recognized Benjie's pain as the same sort his father was hiding, and again cursed her limbo existence. Benjie sat down on the grass, then curled up beside his mother's grave, his head on his arm. Merly sat too. If she could give no comfort, at least she could watch over him. * * * The whirling dervish streaked through Trinity, howling its way overland, downtown, through back alleys and neighborhoods. It blew out the plate glass window in the diner and set all nine cats to shrieking in Selena Coombs's great empty house (where she sat up in bed and cried out at the juggernaut tantrum of its passing, her hands at her throat). It shredded the yellow Police Barrier tape around the shattered remains of the Flood house. It set off car alarms. It punched a hole in the night and left all creatures great and small shaken and trembling in its wake. It was just a six year old boy, looking for something it had barely ever had time in life to learn it needed. But the townspeople didn't know that. Morning was a long time in coming. * * * Sunup. Friday, Oct. 31. All Hallow's Eve. Ben Healy lay alone in his bed and stared at the ceiling. Halloween. Wonderful. As usual, tonight would mean fires, vandalism, stolen gravestones and a general increase in the delinquency of Trinity's minors. Nobody was content to soap a few windows anymore. Hasn't been that many years since you raised a little Halloween hell yourself, quarterback, a voice in his head reminded him. He smiled, remembering the eggs he'd thrown, the toilet paper he'd strung. He'd even gotten busted once, with a gaggle of his cronies, trying to herd a couple of cows into the principal's office. You lost your virginity on a Halloween, he recalled suddenly, flushing a little with the surprising detail of the memory. It was 1977, junior year, the loft of the old barn out on Dump Road. Drinking Wild Turkey and Coke and listening to the Steve Miller Band on the pickup radio, wailing up the wind to where the two of you lay in the hay. You were dressed as a pirate, wearing an eyepatch and a bandana. Sneezing like crazy from the chaff and BJ giggling at you for it. BJ Henderson she'd been then. Your best girl. Sixteen years old, and most of her French maid's costume strewn around the loft, laughing at your allergy attack til you found a place where her laughter slowed, deepened, and became other sounds... Ben blinked the memory away, a little guiltily. His date with Rita last night hadn't exactly been one for the books. He enjoyed her company, but his mind was just in other places right now. Barbara Joy was still too freshly in her grave, ex-wife or not. Rita hadn't been happy about being sent on her way at 9:30 with nothing to show for the evening but dinner and a Sam Raimi movie, but he hoped she understood. He glanced at the clock on the bedtable, realized he was running late, and sat up, yawning and scratching his head. No kids on the floor. Looked like their camp-out had gone a little more smoothly last night. He was shuffling to the bathroom when the doorbell rang. It was Caleb, Boone and Rose, dressed for school in their Halloween best -- goblin, ninja and spacegirl, respectively. Still in his nightshirt and robe, Ben gave them a smile. Then he noted that the pumpkin on the porch was still uncarved, and felt the smile stiffen a little on his face. "Little early to be makin' the candy rounds yet, kids," he said amiably. "We came to see if Benjie got home OK," Rose piped up. Ben frowned. "I thought he was tenting out with you!" They hung their heads. "He was," Caleb said guiltily. "But we... we all got spooked and ran to Boone's house. Benjie ran off a different way. We figgered he came home." Ben passed a hand over his eyes. "You kids get to school," he said. "I'll find him." He shut the door on their guilty looks and stormed into the bathroom to shave, then decided the day-old growth was going to have to do this morning. He gave his reflection in the mirror a disdainful look. "You're doing a helluva job raising him without her," he growled, and stomped into the bedroom to dress. * * * Benjie Healy woke beside his mother's grave to find the big yellow dog curled up with him, keeping both of them warm despite the chill hanging in the new morning air. He stretched, scratched the old mutt's bony head and received an answering grunt of pleasure, and got up to go home. Merlyn, sitting with her back to a nearby headstone, got up to walk with them. * * * Lucas Buck, who rarely slept unless he was sharing a bed, nevertheless was not meeting the new day well. He stepped from a scalding shower and stood naked before the washbasin, fighting an urge to simply crawl back into bed. He ran icy water in the sink, splashed it on his face, felt the skin pull deliciously tight under the assault, then regarded the stark hollows under his eyes with a mixture of wounded vanity and serious unease. Whatever the hell was going on with him, it wasn't good. Outside the bathroom, something fell over with a resounding thud. Lucas whirled. He grabbed a towel, wrapped himself in it, cinched it below the hard plain of his stomach, and stalked out into the bedroom. Quiet in here. He scanned the room with icechip eyes. "Caleb?" No answer. Lucas Buck had no love for Halloween, because he knew all too well how thin the world became as the old year drew its last ragged breaths and expired on the stone altar of time. How weak and tenuous the walls between this world and others became for a few brief hours. And he knew what was out there on the other side. Watching. Hungering. Hating. For many years now, he'd simply shrugged off his own annual disquiet and spent the day like any other, but now... with Merlyn back somehow, with Caleb stubbornly defying him and beginning to test his own strength, and with Lucas's own unprecedented deafness to the undersounds of the world, he felt more than just disquieted. He felt... Another thump. Downstairs. He moved hurriedly through the bedroom and into the hall, turned the corner, rushed down the stairs. He could feel his heartbeat again, the way he'd felt it when he challenged Merlyn in the alleyway, and that enraged him more than anything else. Why couldn't he hear anymore? His mind was ever conning the town, listening to its secret life, listening to its collective heartbeat and whispered dreams, gleaning what he needed to always stay three steps ahead. Lately, though, he'd found himself only two steps ahead, listening to his town as if through a bad telephone receiver. And then just one step, barely able to sift through their needs and hopes and horrors even when he stood face to face with them. Then he'd stood outside Barbara Joy Flood's house as it turned itself into matchsticks. **And he hadn't seen that coming at all.** His face twisted with rage. "Merlyn!!" he yelled. "Is it you?" The front doors blew open, and a gale force swept into the sanctuary of his home, where no unbidden spirit had ever dared to come. Lucas roared back at it, shaking his fists at this whirling dervish of leaves and debris, as it rocketed from room to room, knocking pictures off the walls, blowing over chairs, ripping the towel from his thighs and leaving him standing naked in the center of a cyclone, oblivious to the sticks and twigs that glanced off his flesh. And then the Ankon rushed out again, as quickly as it had come, leaving his house in a shambles and his heart beating harder than ever. "DAMN YOU!" he roared, and stormed upstairs to get dressed. * * * The morning traffic was beginning to pick up as people rushed to beat the 8:00 whistle at their places of work. Benjie Healy and the scruffy yellow dog were walking down Main Street toward the police station when Benjie saw his dad's patrol car round the corner and speed toward them, braking and double-parking and Ben already halfway out of the car before the boy could so much as gather his courage to face the music for last night. "Dad, I-" "Just what goes through your mind, young man?" Ben said angrily, striding toward them. The dog took refuge behind the insubstantial form of Merlyn, who had been walking behind them. She bit her lip as Ben grabbed Benjie harshly, shaking him. "Do you know how much you scare me sometimes! Where did you spend the night?" Benjie's voice was a husky whisper. "With Mom." Ben paused, flushed, found himself at a loss for words. There was grass on Benjie's clothes, and streaks of dirt, and Ben knew at once what the boy was telling him. "You slept out there all night?" Benjie nodded. Watching them, Merlyn didn't hear the Crown Vic speeding up the street behind her. Ben felt something stiff and brittle within him give a little, and he released his visegrip on his son's upper arms. "Benjie... this is gonna get easier for you, boy, I promise." Benjie fixed him with timid eyes. "Is it gonna get easier for you?" Ben blinked, surprised, and then there was a shriek of brakes behind them. The dog flinched away. Merlyn, Ben and Benjie whirled together. Lucas Buck uncoiled from his car as if springloaded, charging the scene like a man possessed. "Lucas?" Ben asked, surprised. "Come here!" Lucas snarled, speaking not to the old mongrel but to the bitch stray he knew would be here with it. "Goddamn you, **come here!"** Ben straightened up, wondering if Lucas had lost his mind. The sheriff was dishevelled, as if he'd dressed on the run. His eyes blazing in his head, he strode up the sidewalk in his clockheel boots, meaning, it seemed, to launch himself at... the dog? Ben followed the sheriff's gaze to where the animal huddled fearfully on the sidewalk-- And saw the girl appear the same moment Buck did -- a shimmering wraith in black, a glassine shadow in the shape of Merlyn Temple, shuddering into view like a hot breath coalescing on glass. He gasped. "COME HERE!" Lucas roared, and lunged at her. Merlyn looked down at herself, realized they were seeing her, and took a stumbling step backward. The yellow dog fled into the street at a dead run. "NO!" Benjie screamed. The bakery truck's driver barely registered the shape in time to hit his brakes. There was an ugly thud of impact, a brief whimper. Benjie screamed again. Merlyn screamed with him, clapping her hands to her face and fading once more to invisibility. Lucas stopped, his fever breaking all at once, and blinked rapidly, seeing Ben follow his wailing son into the road. The truck had thrown the dog into a heap next to Ben's car. "Ben?" Lucas asked in surprise. Ben grabbed Benjie, pulling him back with gentle hands, not wanting him to see this. "No!" Benjie was shouting. "No! No! No!" Ben knelt, putting himself between the boy and the dog. He put a hand to the animal's neck. "Is he-?" Benjie asked. Ben slumped to a sitting position, feeling as if the air had been punched out of him. He nodded. Benjie whirled on Lucas. "He was just an old dog!" he shouted. "There was nothing wrong with him!" Sitting in the road, Ben blinked and looked up to see his boy facing down Trinity's most dangerous citizen. He remembered Floyd saying that same thing just yesterday. And he hadn't understood at all. He felt his vision blur, and the tightness in his chest seemed to shatter into painful, sharp-edged fragments. Lucas stood there, at a loss for words now, realizing the child thought he'd purposely chased the dog into the path of the truck. He saw the onlookers beginning to gather, saw the truck driver stepping down to regard him with embarrassed, apologetic eyes. Saw all eyes on him. All eyes on Sheriff Buck. Except Ben's. The pain in his chest still shattering, shattering, Ben Healy gathered the old dog into his arms, thinking about Halloween 1977, thinking about the hayloft. Thinking about BJ Henderson, Barbara Joy Healy, Barbara Joy Flood. He began to weep, pulling the dog close, sobbing into its motionless pelt. On the sidewalk, three figures regarded him-Lucas Buck, Merlyn Temple, his son. And it was his son who went to him, knelt with him, held him, as he sicked up the loss of his former wife. Merlyn looked over at Lucas, no longer frightened, realizing something was different now, something had changed, and whatever was driving Buck's rage, he posed no danger to her. Not today. "I can't touch him," Merlyn said levelly, her eyes bright with tears. Lucas's head snapped up at the unexpected sound of her voice. "I can't do anything to ease his pain. You could, Lucas. For better or worse, you're closer to him than any man he knows. But you don't even know what that means. You don't even know the value of that. You must the loneliest man in the world." Lucas regarded the place where she stood, still unable to see her, then whipped his head left to shout at the gawkers. "You people move along! Go on about your business! We've got this under control!" "Do you?" Merlyn asked. "I wonder." Buck heard her and recoiled. He turned away, got into his car, and drove off. Benjie Healy hugged his father. Reaching out, he put a hand on the bony head of the old dog, and thought about what his dad had said. This is gonna get easier. It might, he thought, if they helped each other. Having someone else who understood... Just having someone else... He gasped, suddenly realizing what they needed to do. * * * Selena was out walking again in the neighborhood, hands pressed to her lower back, head down as she willed herself through a bout of nausea, when she looked up and saw Matt Crower making his slow way toward her, leaning on a cane. "Hello, Selena," he said as they reached one another and stopped. "It's been awhile." "Dr. Crower," she greeted him off-handedly, once more hyperaware of her swelling belly. "It's good to see you up and about." He spread his arms, smiling, and waggled the cane. "Loris says I need the exercise. Frankly, I think she's just sick of having me underfoot." Selena smiled. "I'd say you've been in good hands up at the boarding house," she observed. Matt nodded, his smile fading a bit. "I have. No thanks to Lucas Buck." Selena's grin faded now too. "I wouldn't know anything about that foreclosure business. The sheriff and I have had... a bit of a falling out." "He doesn't seem to be winning any popularity points lately, does he? Unnatural." "Unnatural's the word," she said. Pain flared briefly in her lower back again. "Well, it's good to see you, Matt, but I'd better be off." She gave him a friendly nod and started past him. "Are you doing all right, Selena?" She paused, turned back to look at him, her fierce eyes scanning his face for any sign of mockery or deception. She saw only concern, the professional interest of a doctor asking after the health of a friend. "I'm all right," she said. "There's some nausea, nothing I can't deal with." He nodded. "I start back at the hospital next week. If there's anything you need..." An unexpected thickness blocked her throat. She cleared it, nodded and thanked him. "I'm glad for you, Matt." "Glad?" "You and Loris. It must be... nice. Getting home to find someone there, waiting for you." Matt thought a moment. "It's nice even when you can't get home," he said. "It's nice to carry someone with you everywhere you go. Like always being surprised with the taste of something sweet." He tipped her a wink. "Good luck to you, Selena. You drop by if there's anything at all, OK?" She nodded, and watched as he hobbled onward, carrying his love with him, carrying no burden at all. Even with his bad leg, he seemed to move with more grace than she would have thought possible. After a moment, she turned and went on her way. * * * Caleb Temple, his goblin mask pushed up on top of his head, languished in History class, the last of the day. He was trying gamely to stay awake for the Blitzkrieg when someone rapped harshly on the door and then entered. It was Benjie Healy. Caleb sat up in surprise. "Can I help you, young man?" the sub asked. Benjie handed him a slip of paper and pointed at Caleb. "Oh boy," Caleb whispered. "Caleb Temple," the substitute said. "You're wanted in the principal's office." All eyes were on him as he got up and followed Benjie out. Benjie didn't say anything, hurrying down the hall and simply expecting Caleb to follow. "I can't believe you pulled that off!" Caleb said with curious surprise. "What is it?" Benjie remained silent until they got around the corner. Then he turned to the younger boy. He was grubby and unkempt, stll dressed in the clothes he'd been wearing the night before, but there was a fierce light in his eyes, an excitement Caleb couldn't remember ever seeing there before. "I need your help," Benjie said. "You and Rose and Boone. We have to go to the cemetery tonight." "No way! Not again, Benjie. I'm through with Ouija boards and ghost kids-" "Listen! I know how to make it right! But I can't do it by myself." Caleb regarded him a moment. "You think you can get the Ankon to go away for good?" Benjie shook his head. "I don't know about that. But I know how we can give him what he wants." After a moment, Caleb relented. He smiled. "OK. I'll tell the others." Benjie grinned, turned, and ran down the hall, heading for his own class. * * * Sundown. Halloween. Selena Coombs sat on her porch, feeling the breeze begin to go smoky with burnt leaves and pumpkinlight as the sun gave Halloween over to the night and the goblins. They were out already -- she could hear them: distant laughter, cries of "Trick or treat!" and the hearty whoops of childish revelry. She sat with her bucket of candy, dressed in a flowing black skirt and black turtleneck that didn't cling too tightly to her swelling middle. She had Van Morrison on the stereo inside, and it drifted out here, perfect October music if ever there was such. Philander occasionally twined himself around her ankles, and the other cats were around too, skulking and preening and generally doing their best to add to the spirit of the holiday. The first flock of costumed youngsters appeared at the end of the street-gorilla and witch, Power Ranger and Hannibal Lecter -- and behind them trailed a couple of parents in windbreakers and jeans, there for safety, of course, or maybe for support, in case bands of teenaged candy thieves were on the prowl. Selena smiled, scratching Philander's sharp ears, and watched the kids bound up the sidewalk to the house next door, candy bags thumping against knees and shins. She thought a couple of them might be her students -- Hannibal Lecter definitely looked like Billy Lomax above his mouth restraint. But as the quartet swept off the Grants' porch again, chanting "Thank you!" and "Happy Halloween!" Selena heard a high whistle from one of the parents. She turned to look at them, standing in the street, now beckoning to their charges. The kids ran to them, and there was a brief discussion. The Power Ranger turned to look her way. Selena felt her face going hot. The group turned and began moving down the sidewalk-past her house. All four children stole goggling looks at her now, but the adults, a man and a woman she recognized from town, never once favored her with so much as a sneering glance. They couldn't even give her that. She sat there, her face burning, her heart thumping in her throat, as they moved on to the next house, where the children broke formation and scurried up the sidewalk. A moment later, fresh cries of "Trick or treat!" broke the still air. The parents watched as Marnie Weaverling doled out goodies to their charges, who thanked her and migrated on in search of more. Selena put her head down and breathed, breathed, tried to breathe, couldn't. There was a second clutch of youngsters coming now, and she already knew what would happen. She could see one of the grownups shepherding this group -- it was Jane Peet, from the Ladies Home Auxiliary -- nudge her companion and nod Selena's way, and she knew. She was right here, right in front of them, and she was being shunned. Selena slammed the plastic orange pumpkin down on the porch, scattering the candy bars. She rose and stormed into her house. * * * Benjie and his dad were sitting on the front porch, carving their jack o'lantern together, when the other kids arrived -- goblin, ninja and spacegirl -- all of them looking at him expectantly. "Hey, you guys," Deputy Healy said as they climbed the porch. "Happy Halloween." All three echoed it. Caleb pulled off his mask. "Are you ready, Benjie?" Benjie turned the pumpkin so his father could inspect it. A grinning face with crooksnaggle teeth and triangle eyes regarded him. "Perfect," Ben said. "I'll get a candle. You go on with your friends. And be careful, OK?" Benjie grinned. "YOU be careful. You're the one's gotta clean up the pumpkin guts." Ben made a face, then chuckled. "Go on -- and stay together tonight!" Benjie jumped up. "Thanks, Dad!" he called, bounding off the porch and leading the others around to the rear of the house. Sitting on the porch railing, legs crossed, fingers laced over her stomach, Merlyn watched them depart, then turned her eyes back to Ben, who was contemplating the innards of the newly carved jack o'lantern. He was smiling, and Merlyn knew it went all the way through him. He was on the mend. * * * "So what's your great idea, Benjie?" Rose asked curiously, as the four kids entered the back yard. "Caleb said you think we can help the ghost." Benjie walked over to a wheelbarrow, against which were propped a couple of shovels. "I was thinking about the stuff in that book, and I got an idea." They looked at the contents of the wheelbarrow. A huddled shape, wrapped in a gray tarp. They all looked up at Benjie, and understood at once. "OK," Caleb said enthusiastically. "Let's go!" * * * It was full dark out, and most of the trick-or-treaters had given up for the night, when there was a sharp knock on Jane Peet's door. She went to answer it, face pulled into a grimace not unlike that on the pumpkin on her front porch. She had a drink in her hand, her second since she'd dragged Larry and Sylvie away from the candyfest and hustled them indoors for the night. Wayne still wasn't home -- another late meeting with a client, he'd told her from his car phone. Yeah, right. It was the fourth "meeting" this month, and his "clients" always seemed to prefer Red perfume, if the scent on his collars was any indication. The brats were upstairs, still flying on sugar and Halloween adrenaline, and she was just about to give them each a swat on the butt and send them off to bed if they didn't settle- She opened the door, and Selena Coombs was standing there, beaming, looking spectacular in her black outfit and carrying a plastic pumpkin overflowing with candy. "Trick or treat!" Selena said cheerily. "Trick or... are you kidding?" Jane asked, blushing bright red. "Not at all," Selena replied. She called past Jane, "Larry! Sylvie! Trick or treat!" Behind Jane, small feet thumped down the stairs, and her son and daughter crowded up beside her. "Hi, Miss Coombs!" Sylvie crowed. "Happy Halloween! Did you come to get candy?" "I came to give you some," Selena told her, smiling at Jane, who practically wilted under it. She extended the pumpkin. "I had plenty left over tonight, and I thought I'd come pass it out to all my favorite students." "Are you coming back to school?" Larry asked, grabbing a handful of Milky Ways. "Before you know it," Selena cooed. When they'd both taken candy bars and were happily unwrapping them, preparing to add chocolate insult to caramel injury, Selena gave Jane a final glowing smile. "Take care, Jane. Make sure they brush." "Uh-huh," Jane said weakly. She watched the schoolteacher move briskly down the steps and on to the McDermotts' house next door. Glancing the other way, she saw Sherry Lomax standing on her own porch with Billy beside her, his straightjacket cast off, chowing on a Milky Way of his own. Sherry was looking back at Jane, her face as shocked and humiliated as Jane's felt. Then Larry slugged Sylvie in the shoulder, snatched her candy bar and ran like hell up the stairs, with Sylvie in hot pursuit, screaming like a banshee. Jane went in and slammed her door. They were both going to bed with hot fannies, by God. * * * Selena marched from house to house, reverse trick-or-treating. Her back ached, her feet throbbed, but all in all, she hadn't felt this damned good in weeks. * * * Merlyn crouched at the side of the clearing, watching the quartet of youngsters finish burying the old dog in the abandoned cemetery. They had first cleaned up the debris, righted a couple of the overturned headstones, straightened up the debris-littered campsite. As Caleb and Benjie tamped the dirt into place, Rose finished gathering wood for their fire. She glanced over at Boone, who had an old wooden plank across his knees and was laboriously wielding his old man's portable woodburning gun. "Is it finished?" Boone pressed the scalding hot tip to the wood one final time and grinned at her. "All done." The two of them stood up and joined the others at the grave. Boone handed the slab of wood to Caleb, who pushed it deep into the top end of the fresh mound. JOSHUA'S DOG, it read, and underneath, **He was a good boy.** "You did real good, Boone," Benjie said, smiling. Boone grinned, started to reply, when the wind suddenly picked up harshly and began to whip their hair and clothing. Merlyn lifted her head, scanning the sky. All of them backed away from the new grave. "It's coming!" Caleb shouted. A bright glow had appeared deep in the copse of trees that had grown up around the old graveyard, and then the Ankon was there, appearing out of nowhere and coming toward them, small face terrible with its anguished loneliness, small fists raised in anger. The cyclone was revving up all around it, and it opened its small mouth to deliver a banshee scream. "Wait!" Benjie cried, raising his hands. The Ankon slowed, stopped. It looked at them through the howling din of the dervish, puzzled. "Maybe it doesn't work with do-" Caleb began. And then a wriggling yellow light burst up from the grave in front of them, barking joyously as it planted ghostly front paws on the shoulders of the small boy-spirit and tumbled him to the ground. "Yeah!" Benjie yelled happily. The others whooped in delight. Joshua Creadle howled with laughter, rolling over and over as the yellow mutt yapped and slobbered kisses on him and jumped around like a pup, all the years and the neglect shed from him, replaced by glowing light that was surely the color of all good dogs' souls. The howling cyclone wind immediately began to diminish, falling away to an ordinary breeze that whispered through the autumn wood, bringing with it the smells of pumpkin pie and woodsmoke, cinnamon and the scent of Halloween. Joshua sat up, one small arm thrown around the panting dog's neck. He looked at the makeshift grave marker, then at the four watchers standing on the other side of the mound. "My dog?" he asked them. They all nodded. Hands to her mouth, Merly nodded with them. There were tears in her eyes. Joshua grinned. "Come on, dog!" he hollered, and he jumped up, dashing away through the trees with the dog bounding along at his heels, the glow of their passing creating a trail of light through the darkness. Caleb, Benjie, Boone and Rose watched until they were out of sight. Caleb turned to the older boy. "That was smart thinkin,'" he said. "You think he's still the Ankon?" Boone asked. "I don't think it matters anymore," Benjie said. "He won't be alone, and that's the main thing." He grinned, looking around at his friends. "I got marshmallows. Let's tell scary stories." The four of them trooped back to the campsite to light the fire and take up their places around it. Merlyn watched them for a time, smiling, then rose and made her way out of the forest. She had something to do. "Tell the one again about Susan and Barbara," Rose begged Benjie, and as Caleb and Boone cut sticks for roasting marshmallows, he began. "This," he said, "is the story of 'The Velvet Collar.'" They all leaned in to listen, their shadows dancing in the firelight, the deadwood popping deliciously as it awaited the marshmallows, and the wind whistling like the voice of a child through the old, homey woods. * * * Ben Healy lay in bed, eyes open. They were always the last part of him to give up the stress of the day and accept the embrace of sleep. He watched the ceiling, and considered his son. He knew Benjie was out in the night somewhere, being a boy, seeking what he needed to someday become a man. Instinctively, Ben realized something he supposed even Lucas Buck didn't yet know -- fathers can't always help their sons find those necessary things. But that was all right. It was going to be all right between them, Benjie and him. "Don't worry, Barbara Joy," he said into the dark. "I won't let you down again." He closed his eyes. There would be no dreams of explosions tonight. Merlyn Temple was sitting with one leg tucked under her on the battered old Army trunk in the corner. Her eyes were shining. "I love you," she whispered in a choked voice. "You aren't mine, and I really don't know a thing about you or where you've been, or what's happened to you, but I love you anyway, Ben Healy." Her voice caught, and she bowed her head. Ben sat up in bed, and said, in a soft, awed voice, "Imagine that." Merlyn looked up abruptly, and found him looking directly at her. And he was smiling. * * * Caleb Temple stared up at the looming shape of his father's house, where most of the lights still blazed. From time to time, he could see Lucas's shadow passing one window or another. Trinity's Sheriff was restless this evening, struggling with demons Caleb supposed he shared. He hadn't been able to sleep, even after the others talked themselves out and nodded off, so he'd gone walking, and ended up here. He thought about going up to the door and ringing the bell, trying to share those midnight dreams and worries with the man who had fathered him. He knew they could both use the company. The kinship. He wanted to tell his father about the good thing he and his friends had done tonight, the way they'd set right something so old it seemed pointless to try. But he turned away, heading back to the campfire in the woods. At least he was welcome there. He didn't notice the shape pause in one window, looking down at the small figure walking away from the house, perhaps wanting to call him in as much as Caleb wanted to be called, wanted to go to him, and neither of them knowing quite how anymore. After a few moments, the shape disappeared again. Caleb shouldered his loneliness and walked into the dark. * * * Matt Crower and Loris Holt snuggled together under the downy quilts, all thoughts of mortgages and foreclosures banished for the night -- they were unwelcome goblins on this All Saints' Eve. For now, this bed, this room -- this home -- were theirs. Tomorrow could wait til tomorrow. * * * On her porch, Selena Coombs sat alone with her thoughts, rocking in the big swing. She was nibbling at a bite-sized Milky Way as she looked up at the real one, spiraling in heavenly splendor above her. The plastic pumpkin on the seat next to her was empty, all its goodies shared out among the children of her neighbors, except the last piece, which she had saved for herself. She ate slowly, savoring the sweetness. Without even realizing it, her hand crept protectively over the small life growing in her center, stroking the warm flesh for the first time. Savoring the sweetness. * * * In the cemetery behind the church, the spirit of Joshua Creadle and his dog frolicked under the silvery stars. The dog cut left sharply and threw a neat body block into the child's calves, sending him tumbling, laughing, to the grass. "Boys!" said a voice, stern but kindly, gentle but imperative. Boy and dog snapped to at once, and turned to the speaker. "Come here a minute." They went. Looked up obediently with innocent and grubby faces. There was a sound of spit being applied to fingertips, and first boy and then dog had his dirty nose spit-washed, his hair slicked back into place. Barbara Joy Flood put her hands on her hips and surveyed her handiwork. "It'll do," she said. "You both look very smart now. Very handsome." Two grins. One wagging tail. "Off with you!" the Ankon ordered. "Go play!" They turned and ran into the night, leaving her looking around at her new surroundings, and then down at herself. "Lord's sake, Ben Healy," she said, smiling ruefully. "I hope you didn't bury me in this old thing." * * * In the cradle of night, in the dark, if you listen, you can hear the laughter of a small child at play, the answering bark of a large yellow dog, one of no particular breeding and therefore the very best kind. As the clock ticks away the last moments of Halloween, those two voices, boy and dog, merge into one harmonious sound, one that some of Trinity's lonely hearts -- the lucky ones -- understand. The sound of **together.** November 1, 1997. All Saints Day. Trinity, South Carolina. THE END DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual AG-Season Three is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions,and CBS (apparently). The characters added to support this concept, and the storylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!