One

The gaping wound in my chest made it hard to bend over, so I did a sort of a sideways limbo instead and dragged the severed fingers away from the flames before they burned. I was just in time. They were blistered and tight, charred here and there but not quite smoking. I slid them into place between the skewered eyeballs and the cold sick, then turned carefully so’s not to bump the axe handle protruding from my chest as I navigated the doorway and made my way to where the screams were coming from.

“Hot sausages, lychee kebabs, chilled cheddar soup,” I said, “and I think we’re done.”

“Best. Halloween. Buffet. Ever,” Todd said. “I’ll just die if I don’t get your infected toenail recipe. What do you think of the soundtrack?” The soundtrack was a wonder. Screams raged and gurgled, curdling blood and raising hackles. “And what do you think of my costume?”

He had come as a character he called Pray Away, and, truth be told, it was hard to look at him. He was in beige chinos, white sports socks, and Keens, a flannel shirt open over a vee-neck t-shirt—“Target’s finest,” he’d told me, “pilled polyester”—and a phone holster. He had washed his hair with floor soap to dull it down, taken his earrings out, and let his beard grow for a week before threading it with food scraps. He’d had a MAGA cap on too, but Noleen put her foot down.

“It’s just under-baked corn chips dipped in mustard,” I said. “For the toenails. With some green food colouring marbled in.”

“And the phlegm cups?”

“Egg drop soup with a bit of raw, salty meringue for the foam.”

“Genius,” Todd said. “How did you make the hens’ feet?”

“They’re hens’ feet,” I said. “From the Asian deli. Try one.”

“Ew,” said Todd. “Heave, puke, splat, Lexy. Every time I think you’ve finally assimilated, you pull something like this and disappoint me.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but the sight of Noleen coming through the door stilled the breath in my throat. I’d thought she’d nixed the MAGA cap because it wasn’t funny. Turned out she didn’t want Todd stealing her thunder. She had dyed her hair the colour of listeria and she was wearing a terrible blue trouser suit and a long red paper-clipped tie. She’d bound her breasts and added a fake paunch. And that wasn’t all.

“Wh—What have you done to your skin?” I said. It wasn’t just orange; it was puckered and puffy in a way that made me want to pat my pockets, hoping to find a forgotten EpiPen.

“I painted on Krazy Glue and kept my mouth wide open and my eyebrows up while it dried,” Noleen said. “It was a hunch, but it worked pretty good, huh? Then I slapped on some gravy powder.”

“It’s … unbelievable,” I said. “Can you do the voice?”

“Nope,” said Noleen.

“Thank God,” said Todd. “It would be a shame to let Lexy’s buffet go to waste. Have a severed polar bear claw, Nolly. White marshmallow fingers and cherry jam. They’re yummy.”

“They’re tampons,” I said. “But thank you.”

“You are one sick puppy,” said Todd.

“I stuck to the rules,” I reminded him. “No insects.”

That was because Todd had the worst case of cleptoparasitosis I had ever encountered in all my years as a clinical psychologist in Scotland, plus my nine months as a generic therapist here in California. He was an anesthesiologist, married to a paediatrician (in other words, not short of change), and yet he was living in a room in the Last Ditch Motel because it was the only place bug-free enough for him to bear.

And the Last Ditch Motel was bug-free because Noleen’s wife, Kathi Muntz, had the worst case of germaphobia I had ever seen in all my years plus my nine months, and her cousin in Costa Rica sent her up drums of heavy-duty insecticide, hidden in gift hampers, that were totally illegal here in greener-than-green, sustainably sourced, hand-knitted, home-sprouted Californ-aye-eh. Actually, the Costa Rican insecticide was so effective it was even banned in Nevada.

In between sprayings, Kathi ran the Skweeky Kleen launderette attached to the Last Ditch while Noleen ran the motel itself, Todd ran the lives of everyone he met from the moment he met them (more of which soon), and Roger, Todd’s husband, looked after sick children, despaired of ever moving home again, and moaned to me every chance he got. Which was lots of chances, because we were neighbours.

Me? What was I doing at the Last Ditch? Funny story. I emigrated from Scotland to marry my sweetheart. Or so it said in the trailer. Only, he turned out to be heartless and sour. Then I inherited a houseboat from a client—you know, that way you do—and since the Last Ditch is named after the slough that runs along behind it and there’s nowhere else in this dusty pancake of a town with enough water to float even a candle on … here I am.

The permits were what salty Americans call “a mother.” A Queen Mother. Norman Bates’s mother. Getting permission to moor a houseboat in the Last Ditch Slough, live in it, and set up a business there was a mother to rival my mother. And my mother is the reason I went into psychology.

I couldn’t have done it without Noleen behind me. She’s not exactly a high-pressure jet of the milk of human kindness as a general rule, but boy-oh-boy does she hate the department of works in this fair city! Most recently because they put the kibosh on a firepit Noleen reckoned could be the start of happy hours and wine tastings, bringing in a better class of client. Tourist trade, she would say and get misty-eyed.

Ignoring the mist in Noleen’s eyes, the best real news the Last Ditch had had recently was when Devin, the skinny kid in Room 101, turned out not to be a meth addict or rentboy as suspected—hence his placement next to the office where Noleen could keep an eye on him—but just a community college student whose roommates had bullied him out of their shared house and who reckoned he could afford the Last Ditch rates if he filled up at the continental breakfast in the front office every morning and cooked noodles in a kettle in his room the rest of the time. Noleen had gone from threatening to kick him out for tying up a bed she could make her fortune with, to delivering tomato soup and grilled cheese when she heard him coughing through the interconnecting wall.

Anyway, since there’s no other businesses here on the wrong side of Cuento’s tracks (except a drive-through coffee stand, a self-storage facility, and the police station), the impact assessment on a tiny houseboat hidden in the bushes—with a state-of-the-art eco-toilet and a grey-water recycling system—defanged the kiboshes like another mother. Whatever kiboshes are. Blunted them, maybe. Unplugged them and powered them down.

So the back room of my beautiful little houseboat was now an oasis of cream-coloured upholstery, fluffy knee blankets, plump cushions, peach lightbulbs, and several handily placed boxes of top-of-the-range Kleenex. It was my consultation room, all set for people to curl up and weep in. Without getting snotters on the upholstery. And business was booming. (More of which soon too.)

I had locked that room up tonight, not wanting the Halloween party to spill over and leave fake bloodstains because there was a nine o’clock booking in the morning and I knew I had time to eat away my hangover or tidy up my consulting room. Not both.

Losing a room wasn’t a problem. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Creek House is so tiny that one window A/C unit at the back keeps the whole place cool as long as I leave the doors open. And thank God for that. My whole life, the challenge was to keep cosy in spite of cold: extra blankets and hot water bottles in bed at night, and my breath pluming; letting the shower run hot before I took my jammies off in a frigid bathroom where the condensation lasted round the clock; the kitchen only being warm when I was cooking. This was my first year in California and I still hadn’t really got the memo that cold is one thing and you can always put more socks on. Heat’s the bitch and there’s nothing you can do.

I tried. I put fans in strategic corners. I put screens on the windows. I hugged a cool pack like a teddy bear. It was when I found myself getting my nightie out of the freezer and going to bed with four buckets of ice in my bedroom, that’s when I caved. Two dollars a bag for ice at four bags a night would soon rack up to the price of a window unit anyway.

Jesus, it was ugly. And Mary mother of God, it was loud. But Joseph the best ever step-dad, it was cold.

Tiny as the houseboat is, most of the space-saving is in the kitchen, natty and well-organised but truly miniscule; the only bathroom, even teensier—nowhere to hang a towel to keep it dry while you’re showering; and the two bedrooms with their built-in cabin beds and hanging space for one coat and two dresses—unless shoulder pads ever come back, in which case I’ll be struggling.

This room, tonight’s party room, usually my living room, was plenty spacious for a single woman with only seven friends. Add the front porch that stretches right along the landward side and it was quite a spread. So even when all the friends had arrived, there was room to spare: Roger, dressed as a nun, needed some wimple clearance; Todd’s mother, Barbara, dressed as Dolly Parton (whom she in no way resembled), had a wide-ish turning circle, obviously; Kathi, dressed a bit more successfully as Kenny Rogers, had possibly overdone the fake paunch, which rivalled Noleen’s Trump-flump. Della and Diego, though, long-time Last Ditch residents, were dressed adorably as a teddy bear and his owner, so they took up basically no space at all. Della’s costume was just her own striped flannel PJs and slippers, and Diego, the teddy bear, was three.

“Trick or treeeeeeeeat,” he squealed at me, at a pitch that told me he was full of sugar already and needed no more.

“De hecho no!” I told him. “De ninguna manera, mi pequeño amigo.”

“Huh?” he said.

“Speak English!” said Della.

“I need to practise my Spanish,” I told her.

“That’s not Spanish,” Della and Todd said in chorus. Then Todd said, “Snap, jinx, I own you.”

“Eh?” I said. “Snap what?”

“You’re a terrible immigrant,” Della said. “You cram Scottish Halloween down our throats and you don’t learn any local customs.”

“Don’t learn … ?” I said. “What do you think that is on the step out there? I’ve carved a pumpkin, instead of a turnip—swede—rutabaga. I’ve made savoury toenails instead of treacle buns, I’ve even chilled the beer. And I’m calling it ‘beer,’ even though it’s lager. Which isn’t beer. Just because I want Diego to sing for his Reese’s instead of demanding money with menaces … ”

“Give it up,” said Della. “Do you see me insisting on Dia de los Muertos?”

Roger was sucking his teeth and shaking his head. “Children carve rutabagas?” he said. “With knives? Do any Scottish children have all their fingers?”

I waved all ten of mine at him. “Calm down, Sister,” I said. “Have you got a name, by the way? Or are you just a generic nun?”

“Sister Maria Stiletto,” he said, lifting the hem of his habit to show me a pair of six-inch spike heels and just a flash of fishnet above them.

“Did you mention cold beer?” Todd said. “And can I get a round of applause, please, for dedication to my costume? Pretending to give a damn about beer when my husband has stockings on under his nun outfit? How straight am I?”

“Todd,” said Della in a voice that could train a dog to stop chewing. “Do not corrupt my son.”

“How did I corrupt—” Todd began.

“Not all straight men love beer, papi,” Della said.

“No, mamá,” Diego said, very solemn and helpful. “Straight men love girls.”

“What makes you assume he’s—” Todd began.

“Straight men love big girls and I love little girls,” Diego said. “And some big ones.”

“And sweeties? I mean, candy?” I said.

“Trick or treeeeeeeat!” said Diego, which is where we came in.

I gave him a bag of the utterly bowfing dried toe jam known as candy corn and he seemed happy. He gave me a smacking kiss and batted his eyelashes, making me wonder if I was one of the big girls he held a torch for.

“Ahem, cold beer?” Todd said again. “Does this mean you’ve gotten yourself a decent-sized refrigerator?”

“I’ve already got a decent-sized refrigerator,” I said. “I am one person and I live in a town where the supermarkets never close. Why does everyone think they need to buy up half of Costco and pay PG&E a king’s ransom to keep it all fresh? My fridge is fine.”

In truth, my fridge was titchy, like everything else in my kitchen, but it fitted under the bunker—worktop—counter and I didn’t want to wreck the doll’s house perchinkiness of it all by cramming in a bigger one. To my American friends, of course, a fridge as short as a dishwasher and slightly slimmer was basically camping.

“So … is it one beer each and then you’ll put the kettle on?” Noleen said. “Because I’ve cleared my morning for recovery time and I planned on getting shit-fa—Sorry, Della—hammered tonight.”

“It’s not in the fridge,” I said.

“Oh!” said Kathi. “You got the Yeti Tundra?” Her germaphobia manifested itself mostly in terms of touch, not taste. She was happy to eat a burrito from the wagon on E Street so long as she picked up the hot-sauce bottle with a napkin over her hand, but the level of angst about my housekeeping in general meant that she’d tried quite hard to make me expand my refrigeration options with the purchase of an outrageously expensive add-on.

“That’s right,” I said. “I spent four hundred dollars on a plastic box. In fact, I got two. How did you guess?”

“Cadillac of coolers!” Kathi said.

“It would have to get better mileage than a Cadillac for four hundred dollars,” I told her. “One guess left,” I added. “Look around.”

All of them, except Diego who was poking candy corn niblets under his lip to make them look like teeth, cast their eyes around my porch but no one noticed the rope, tied in a loop and lashed to the railing.

“Old-school,” I said, sidling towards it carefully. I was getting mightily sick of having an axe sticking out of my chest and I hoped the trick-or-treaters would all come early so I could prise it off and put my jammies on. Della had the right idea when it came to costumes, I reckoned.

In fact, it had taken some soul-searching before I’d been able to embrace the gore of this holiday the way I knew I was supposed to. I’d seen a real dead body earlier in the year, during those few torrid days when I met all these fine people and cleaved to them for keepsies. I wasn’t a fan. Didn’t like viewing corpses, didn’t care for the morgue much, didn’t relish brushing up against murder, manslaughter, suicide, or sudden violent death of any kind, was heartily glad that the case was over and my short career as dealer with death and catcher of baddies was behind me.

“You’ve put the beer in the slough?” Kathi said as I started hauling on the rope. “You expect me to wrap my lips round the neck of a bottle that’s been stewing in slough water?”

“Chilling,” I said. “Not stewing. And of course not. Yours is in the fridge. Yours and yours alone.”

Kathi beamed at me, her Kenny Rogers beard rippling. “Thanks, Lexy.”

I would have blown her a kiss, but I needed both hands. This seventy-two pack of Blue Moon seemed much heavier coming back up than it had when I was letting it down at tea-time. My muscles were starting to judder.

“Is it a keg?” Todd said, coming and taking hold of the rope with me.

“A box of bottles,” I said.

“It weighs more than a box of bottles.” Todd pushed his flannel sleeves up and took a better grip. “Sister Mary, get in here and pull.”

Roger fitted himself in behind Todd and put his big hands on the rope in front of mine.

“The cardboard will be waterlogged,” I said between gasps. “That’s a bit of extra weight right there.”

“No way,” Todd said, straining. “It must be stuck on something.”

“I don’t think so,” said Roger, “it’s moving. It’s just. So. Heavy. Let’s rest a moment.”

“Can we help?” said Kathi.

“Not with these babies,” said Barb, patting her Dolly falsies.

“And I don’t want to break a sweat and melt my complexion,” said Noleen.

“We’ve got it,” Todd said. “Here it comes. I can see … ”

He went silent. And he stopped pulling. I leaned over to see what the problem was, buckling my axe and dislodging it from my chest wound. Under the water, floating just deep enough to be semi-visible in the murky water was … not a box of beer bottles. Not a box of anything. It wasn’t square. It wasn’t squat. It was long and rounded and waving at one end. Literally, it was waving at one end, because it was a human arm, with a human hand wafting back and forward in the water, its chunky ring glinting.

“Happy Halloween!” Noleen shouted, looking over the side at my elbow.

“Oh!” I said, all my breath leaving me in a huge rush of relief. “Good one! Did you put that down there? It’s horribly realistic.”

Todd and Roger were heaving again, working at it like a couple of old seadogs on a pirate ship, except for the chinos and the wimple.

“Not me,” said Noleen. “And not Kathi. Barb?”

“Not my style,” said Barb. “I hate pranks, to be honest.”

“Della?” I said.

“I honour the dead today,” Della told me. “I don’t make jokes.” She gave me a sheepish smile. “I am a bad immigrant too.”

“Well, whoever it was has excelled,” I said. It was more than just the arm now; the head was coming up to the surface and the mask was horrendously real looking. The hair was a bit of a let-down—bright orange fun-fur with a tartan tammy on top—but the face was perfect. It was mottled and bloated, the eyes dull and the mouth opening to show two rows of teeth, fillings and everything, and a tongue waving in the water just like the hand had.

He was on the surface now. Todd and Roger were panting but managing to keep him steady. All those hours in the gym had made them a fine pair of physical specimens. Todd leaned even further back to take more of the strain and said, “Look and see how he’s attached, Roger. Let’s see if we can let him down really gently so he doesn’t float off downstream.”

Roger nodded. “But first,” he said. “Barb? Della? Why don’t you take Diego trick-or-treating up in The Oaks? You can borrow my car.”

“You think Barb’s neighbors will welcome Diego on their front stoops?” Della said. Barb’s house was in the ritziest bit of Cuento, and some people there can be mucho mean to little kids from down near the slough.

“No way,” said Barb. “We’ve come for a party.”

“And it’s a school night,” Della added. “We’ll stick close to home.”

“Get him out of here, Mom,” Todd hissed. “This isn’t a prank. It’s a … It’s not a prank.”

“Dios mio,” Della said, under her breath, looking over the railing at the floating shape. “Diego, papi, let’s go, go, go! Ice cream! Chocolate ice cream! Extra sprinkles! Let’s roll.”

“That’s that for Halloween then,” I said, as we watched Diego scamper down the houseboat steps on his little teddy bear paws and jump onto dry land. “It’s the day of the dead after all.”