Gabriel tried to get some light onto the second floor, but every time someone lit a match or flicked a lighter, the flame would just die as if the oxygen were being sucked out of the room. Damian stood apart from everyone to keep an eye on the street below. Thus far, he had counted twenty-seven children ranging in age from a few years old to twelve or maybe thirteen. Their black eyes never left the second floor of Newberry’s.
The statement Harvey and Casper had made earlier about their sudden remembrance of the strange trick-or-treaters that night in 1962 played heavily on all their minds. For Damian, this was a far worse scenario than even Summer Place had been. At least there, it was confined to a house; here, it spanned not only time but had conquered an entire town. He wiped away some condensation from the window and peered into the night, trying to see if the agents that had been trapped inside the telephone exchange had made any progress in escaping. He saw the same frightened faces as they too watched the strange crowd of children.
The lights inside Moreno were restricted to the buildings in the downtown area now. No longer were the lights shining inside the old tract homes that circled Moreno. The old and fallen marquee of the Grenada Theater that lay in a heap near the sidewalk was flashing her brightly colored neon as if the old girl was showing her best films from a bygone era.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Startled, Damian took a deep breath. He shook his head as Gabriel stepped up to the window. The dark eyes of the children adjusted to him.
“My thought processes abandoned me right around the time we lost George,” he said as he again faced the window.
“I mean the theater. Did you notice anything in the past hour?”
Damian turned his head and tried his best to peer down the street toward the Grenada. Thus far it had only been the flashing of her neon that could be discerned. The rain and lightning didn’t help him any.
“I only noticed because the only thing of the Grenada we could see from this floor was the remains of part of the marquee that lay on the sidewalk. Remember when we toured this town we had to step over the debris to move down the street? Now that debris is gone.”
“What are you saying?” the former state police detective asked.
“Don’t try to see the theater from here; just look across the street at the building there. I think it’s the old TG&Y Dollar store. The reflection, see it?”
Damian adjusted his view and then froze. What the fuck? he thought. The marquee was fully functional and back in its original place atop the theater entrance. Damian could even see the AIR-CONDITIONED FOR YOUR COMFORT banner flapping in the storm. The box office, at least from their poor vantage point, looked new and open for business. Harvey Leach joined them at the window to report that all attempts to get light had failed. Damian pointed out what they had discovered. Harvey’s face went slack. The bright plastic magnetic lettering was plain to see and read even through the thick rainfall.
“Goddamn Vincent Price,” he said as he quickly stepped away from the window.
Gabriel saw the terror in his eyes and reached out to steady the old man. “Hey, take it easy,” he said as he became worried about a possible heart attack.
“My pa let me out of work early. I waited in line to see them movies, but I went more for the same reasons we all did back then. The girls would be there. I wish I had worked that night.” He left the two men standing there as he walked away and sat heavily into a chair next to John Lonetree. Jennifer was there and took pity on the old guy and handed him a bottle of whiskey. Casper came to offer him a glass. Harvey waved away the glass, taking a long pull from the bottle.
Gabriel turned to face Damian. “That theater is a key part in all of this. The heaviest death toll outside of the factory explosion was right there, at least a full mile from the plant. The same goes for the Bottom Dollar. Exploding mercury covered most of the town, but only the theater and the bar were directly destroyed by it. There has to be a reason for it.”
“What are you suggesting?” Damian asked worriedly.
Gabriel smiled. “I’m suggesting we go and see what in the hell is so important about those locations.”
“What’s this we stuff, Bwana?” said Jackson only half jokingly. “In case you haven’t noticed, it looks like we have the cast of Children of the Corn out there.”
“Yeah, but they haven’t moved since they killed those two agents. If we wait too long, the rest of the rescue team may come back and walk right into this nightmare with no warning.”
“You know they are just feds, right?”
Gabriel smiled as he realized Damian agreed that they had to go. He always joked when he was scared.
Outside, the lightning flashed, and Gabriel noticed that half the children had vanished while they had been talking. He decided to keep his observation to himself for the sake of Damian’s piece of mind.
In the darkness of the room, they heard John’s voice for the first time since he went under with the powerful dose of the Demerol kicker. The single word did nothing for anyone’s confidence as his deep voice cried out. The whiskey bottle slipped from Harvey’s hand and crashed to the floor.
“Run!”
The single word echoed in the nearly empty space of the second floor.
* * *
As they hit the steel doorway, Dean froze when the handle refused to turn, and then he let out a girlish yelp when the handle was suddenly pulled from his hands. Gloria clung to Dean as they came face-to-face with the two security men who had come to investigate the horrific sounds coming from a supposedly soundproof basement. The roar of something not of this world sounded behind them. This spurred Dean forward, crashing into the first guard and knocking him into the second. Both men went down.
“Come on!” Dean said as he pulled a stunned and frightened Gloria forward on and over the two downed men. Still, Gloria shouted for Alley Oop to stop behaving like it was. Dean tried to set her straight as they made the staircase. “I don’t think your friend in there is what you think it is.”
As they went up the steep stairs, they heard the security men gaining their feet. One was in pursuit, and the other was left to face Alley Oop all on his own. The security men were told many years ago that the thing they had been guarding was long since gone from this ancient wreck of a mission and its adjoining winery.
“Hey, you two!” the first security man shouted as Gloria and Dean gained the upper level of the staircase.
The second security man was almost to his feet when a sudden stench blasted into his nostrils. It was if he had entered an old and filthy slaughterhouse. The entity consisting of swirling dust and moisture from the damp and filthy basement stood before him, coalescing into an almost solid form and then breaking apart as if the strength to hold the vision together was too much to maintain. The blackness shed a shiny material from its form, and then the image reconstituted itself once more, gaining strength every time the mercury was dispersed.
The security guard’s eyes widened in shock as the breathing came unbidden into his ears. His heart was beating so fast that he was surprised he could hear any external noise at all. He had been through the invasion of Saipan as a younger man, so he very much knew what fear was, but this thing standing over him was something altogether different. It wasn’t of this world. The man tried to scramble back on his haunches, but he immediately saw and then felt the enormous foot come down on his lower half. His eyes widened, and his pain sensors shut down as he watched everything from his hips to his ankles condense as the weight of three elephants came down to stay his retreat. The man couldn’t even scream as the swirling blackness momentarily took full form. The security guard’s heart exploded in his chest as the entity casually stepped over his thrashing form and took the steps, bending and grinding them as it moved upward toward freedom.
The beast was free for the first time in more than twelve years, and Gloria’s childhood friend, comically nicknamed Alley Oop, was about to descend upon the small and unsuspecting town of Moreno, California.
The quest for vengeance from an artificially created entity was just beginning.
* * *
Frank saw the man again in his quest to find Gloria. This time, it was a fleeting glimpse. He saw the shadowlike form duck in between buildings, and he was sure that it was Fromm. Frank slammed on his brakes, and his Dodge pickup fishtailed and then came to a stop. He jumped from the truck and began the chase. The old man was swift. It was as if something from hell was on his tail. Perry lost him somewhere near Rackley’s hardware store. He knew that Rackley’s was the only store not open that night for the benefit of the trick-or-treaters. The old man who owned the store was the bah-humbug type who never participated in town functions and hated children as much as a commie hated Yankees.
Frank grew mindless with anger at Robert and himself for what was happening. He searched the alleyways and the rear of the store but finally gave up in frustration. He needed to find Gloria; he knew she was in trouble. As long as she was with Dean, he feared for her safety, because he wasn’t exactly sure what the colonel was capable of to keep his little secrets. He ran back to his truck.
Dr. Fromm watched from behind a Dumpster as Perry roared off. With a tentative look around, he moved to the back of the hardware store. Using his elbow, he smashed the rear window and then braced himself for a ringing alarm to sound. He didn’t know it, but old man Rackley was as cheap as he was hateful of all children. There was no alarm.
“I will make sure the world knows of what I have done. You won’t be using its weakness to stop it.”
As he unlocked the door by reaching in through the broken glass, Fromm found what he was looking for almost immediately. His smile grew as he saw the metal locker lining the far wall. The cabinet was well marked by bright red lettering. The lock that secured it was old and easily broken.
It warned that the metal cabinet contained construction explosives.
Fromm snarled in German, “You won’t be able to hide or harm my children now, you bastards!”
* * *
Dean and Gloria had eased over the alley fence behind the Mighty-Fine Donut Shop and eased toward the street after their flight from the winery.
“What now?” Gloria asked.
“Whatever that Nazi creep invented is out here somewhere. You’re friends with Alley Oop; you tell me.”
“I didn’t know what was inside there. It never once gave me pause not to be its friend. Until today, it had never done anything to scare me. It was always kind and gentle.”
“Hey, take it easy.” Dean looked around the dark alley and saw that thus far all the Halloween activity was still centered on Main Street. “Maybe if I had paid attention in life, you wouldn’t have had to go seek monsters for friends.”
Gloria laughed and grabbed her stomach.
“You know, now’s not the time to go all Anthony Perkins on me.”
Gloria finally got herself under control as she placed her small hand on Dean’s chest to steady her shaking legs. “I’m sorry, but this is so damn Twilight Zone that I expect Rod Serling to step out of the darkness and look into a camera and say, ‘Submitted for your approval, the small town of Moreno, California, one quaint and full of charm, now the epitome of hell itself.’” She laughed again.
“The Twilight Zone? I knew you were strange,” Dean said as he pulled off his leather-armed Chino letterman’s jacket and then tugged at the remains of Gloria’s sweater. “Here, try this on; people might get the wrong idea of me if they see you only half-dressed.” He watched her as she tore away the last of the knitted green sweater. She eased her small arms into the jacket and pulled both sides together for Dean’s warmth that still lingered in the jacket. She raised her head and then half smiled. It faltered and then she looked down at her muddy saddle shoes.
“Does this mean I’m your girl now, Rebel without a Cause?”
Dean smiled when he saw the embarrassment come to her face from the weakened light coming from the street. He knew the tradition in high school of giving your girlfriend your letterman’s jacket and class ring, the latter of which would inevitably be wrapped in yarn, or maybe angora, if the love was that serious. He could see that Gloria had never expected to get either a jacket or a ring maybe in her entire life. The thought of her isolation and of basically being ignored by him and everyone else made him sad. He slowly reached out and took her into his arms, and she in turn buried her face into his white shirt, sobbing. He decided not to comment on it since she would only step back and try to punch his headlights out. He just held her and was happy for the respite of being chased by monsters and madmen. It was normal, and right now Dean and Gloria needed a lot of normal.
Finally, he parted and held her at arm’s length. “Yes, you are my girl, at least until you murder me for being stupid or something. And by the way, Perry, I am now a Rebel with a Cause.” They started for the street and as many people as they could get around. The noise of the Halloween festivities was a welcome one.
* * *
A quarter mile away, looking down from its high vantage point over Moreno, the darkness gathered its form. The image looked like a blur of deeper, sparkling blackness highlighted against a dark sky. With the lights of the town to guide it, the entity moved toward the activity below. Many small voices, jabbering excitedly, were barely audible as they moved down from the hills.
As John Lonetree watched, he felt his hold on the dreamwalk slipping. He was losing his ability to see into multiple memories from differing subjects. He tried to concentrate as he watched Dean and Gloria move toward Main Street. His attention was drawn to the speeding pickup he recognized from his walk that morning. It was Frank Perry, and his Dodge truck sped recklessly down Main Street, barely missing several onlookers and bystanders. He saw the pickup truck speed past the very alley that Dean and Gloria slowly stepped from, and the chief of police was right behind him. John closed his eyes and thought deeply about Frank. The next thing he knew, part of his mind came back to the two kids and the other half sped after Frank.
He had a feeling that everything he searched for was about to be uncovered.
* * *
Gloria’s father knew after he had discovered the two dead guards that Dean and Gloria had been where they shouldn’t have. He saw the mangled men—one at the bottom of the stairs inside the old winery, the other torn to pieces on the gravel drive—but the footprints in the soft mud concerned him even more than the bodies. He found two sets of prints with a flashlight toward the back of the fencing that surrounded the winery and mission, and then a moment later, the one set of larger prints next to them. He knew without a doubt that Jürgen Fromm was definitely here in Moreno, and he knew about his daughter. He had a gut feeling that he knew where Fromm was going.
He had sent his pickup halfway onto the sidewalk and ran into the police station next to the courthouse and public buildings. He could only shake his head in anger when he found Chief Thomas sitting on an unmade bunk in the cell area. He released him and ordered the chief to go with him.
The truck once more slid into the parking area of Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company, screaming past the startled guard at the shack, even crashing through the yellow barrier gate that had never been raised. The police car was soon to follow, making the guard jump clear as its rear tires barely missed him.
Frank saw Robert’s slim form stop and stare at him and the police chief as he walked toward his parked Cadillac. Perry slammed on his brakes, and the truck almost slid right into the black Caddy, making Hadley drop the case he was carrying and jump back, falling onto his expensively covered backside. Frank was out before the colonel picked himself up from the wet asphalt.
“I told you that son of a bitch was here!” Perry said as he took Hadley by the lapels and shook him. The colonel angrily tore Frank’s hands away and looked from him to the chief of police.
“Did you see him, Chief?” Hadley asked Thomas as he came up to them, out of breath.
“No … I … uh—”
“No, he was too busy sitting in one of his own jail cells.”
“Yeah, and I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for your two brats. Your son drew a gun on me!” he said, pointing a finger at his former commanding officer in the army.
“What are you talking about? You phoned me and said you had him in custody. Now you’re saying Dean is out there somewhere?” Hadley said, fearful for his son and looking from the chief to Perry. He knew the captain was telling the truth. Fromm was here; his gut told him so. Now all he could think of was his son running into that crazed doctor. “Come on,” he said to both men. “If that bastard’s out for revenge against us—or me—there’s only one place he can exact it, and that’s right here. He could poison half the hills in the valley if he wanted to.”
“I knew when we shut down Operation Necromancer we should have had all that mercury trucked out of here, but you were too cheap! You wanted to keep it on hand!” Thomas said in anger. “We’ve been following your orders for so long we have become blinded by your bullshit! We should never have—”
The slap across the chief’s face stopped him cold. “If you had done that, you wouldn’t be sitting pretty on that little nest egg I gave you. Now shut the hell up and earn your bloated paycheck for a change!” Hadley said, spittle flying from his mouth. He turned and started for the double doors of the plant.
Frank grabbed him, stopping him cold in his tracks. “Don’t you want the rest of the good news, you son of a bitch?”
“What are you talking about?” Robert said, shaking Perry’s hand off his arm.
“It seems the crazed little butcher wasn’t lying; those things inside that cursed vault are still viable!”
“You’re insane!” Hadley stepped back from an insane-looking Frank Perry, the man who had been against their grandiose plan since they first discovered Fromm in 1945. “The last activity recorded from the vault was in April of 1947. Those things are long dead, or deader, however you want to look at it.”
“You think this is a joke?” Perry said, taking a menacing step toward his former commander.
“Then the two dead security men inside the winery, they just were torn apart by Fromm. And I mean torn apart!” Frank tried to regain some calm. He placed his hands on his hips and looked at Hadley. “That thing is after our kids!”
This seemed to have the desired effect on Robert. He froze as he tried to see the lie in Perry’s statement. It wasn’t a lie—just cold truth.
“You’d better hope that thing hasn’t grown immune to mercury, because if I estimate its size correctly, it could take all forty-five hundred gallons we have on hand to stop it.” Hadley swiped angrily at the blood coursing from his nose, he was grabbed again by Frank and turned him so he could see down the hill. He gestured to the bright lights beyond. “That nightmare you brought here has only one place to go, and that’s right down there!”
This time, Hadley did move. He started running for the plant’s front doors and the monster-killing mercury stored there.
* * *
In the darkness and without being able to warn anyone, John Lonetree saw the dark form of a man enter the back through the loading dock area.
* * *
Gloria clung tightly to Dean’s arm as they stayed on the opposite side of the street from the Grenada Theater. They paused by the brightly illuminated window of the doughnut shop as kids came out in full costume with freshly baked goodies. Dean pulled Gloria close to him, and they tried to look as normal as they could. Still, they garnered enough stares that they knew they must look a sight. Gloria never felt more helpless in her life, not knowing what was happening around her. She had always been hesitant to depend on anyone outside of her father. Now she relied on Dean, a boy who had never paid her any mind, for protection.
“Music is everywhere,” she said as she brought a hand up to her ear and pressed.
“Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads is right across the street, broadcasting live. Everyone has their radios on. It just seems loud.” He held her tighter. “Come on; the line at the Grenada is gone,” he said as he watched the area across the street closely, making sure Chief Thomas wasn’t lurking nearby. “I’d feel safer over there and farther from what’s behind us. Maybe it will stay away from this many people.”
Dean saw a break in traffic and then eased Gloria into the crosswalk with about thirteen children and their escorting parents. A little girl of about ten looked up at the disheveled teens. She wore a Sleeping Beauty costume, one of those cheaply made sets that came complete with a plastic mask that had the creepiest eyeholes Dean had ever seen. As they moved slowly across the street, another child came up from behind and took Dean by his free hand. He stopped when the smell hit him. Gloria stopped with him and tilted her head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, not liking the fact that she felt the traffic all around her.
The small child who grabbed Dean’s hand smiled up at him. He quickly shook his hand free and grabbed Gloria and stared at the kid. It was dressed in a ragged bag of a smelly dress, and her head was shaved. It was cut to the extreme so much so that he could see the scars from where she had been nicked by whatever it had been to cut her hair. It was the eyes. They were blank and dark. He couldn’t see any pupils, only blackness. The child had no shoes, and her skin was whitish in color. Her teeth were broken, and her nails were gone. She smiled up at him again right there in the middle of the crosswalk as drivers honked horns at the slow-moving teens and the children now gathering around them.
Dean didn’t answer as he pulled Gloria away without saying anything. What good would it have done? He looked back and then slowed as he saw that the child was not there any longer. The crosswalk was clear.
A horn blared, and Dean looked up to see man leaning out of the window of his 1952 Chevy. “Get the hell out of the road, you little punk!” The car screeched and swerved but made it around the startled couple, who made it to the relative safety of the sidewalk. They tried their best to blend into the many trick-or-treaters on Main Street. He pulled Gloria into a small alcove in the jewelry store next to the theater. He took a deep breath and tried to get his heart rate under control.
“Are you going to tell me just what in the hell has you so scared, outside of something from Forbidden Planet chasing us?” Gloria asked.
“Nothing. I guess all these Halloween costumes are getting to me.” He watched the kids as they walked by in front of them, searching for any more of the realistic ghoul makeup he had seen a moment earlier.
“One thing you should learn, Mr. Hadley—I can smell a lie a mile away.”
“I’m just trying to think,” he said to buy time.
“From the hills overlooking Moreno to the dairy cows in Chino, this is Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads coming to you live from Spooksville, USA.”
The sounds were coming from radios the business owners had placed near their doorways so all who were partying that night could hear the live remote they had paid K-Rave for. Dean and Gloria stood motionless, tucked away in the alcove on that side of the street. The speakers on top of the K-Rave remote van pumped out the sounds of rock and roll for the men, women, and children strolling the streets looking for treats. Dean saw Freekin’ Rowdy look once more their way.
“Now here’s one dedicated to Dean and Gloria, who have had the day of days in Moreno. This is for you, my haggard friends—Paul Anka from 1959, ‘Puppy Love.’”
The song began, and Dean had the distinct feeling that everyone out that night was aware of what Dean and Gloria had been doing. He held her close as the song played and Freekin’ Rowdy smiled at them.
“He plays the best music, but that man can be so irritating,” Gloria said as she embraced Dean even tighter just as the second refrain from the Paul Anka hit began.
And they called it puppy love … Just because we’re seventeen … tell them all, oh please tell them … it isn’t fair to take away my only dream …
Freekin’ Rowdy smiled even wider as Roberta handed him a cup of whiskey-spiked coffee. The smile remained even as Dean shot him the bird.
“We have to get off the street,” Dean said even as his eyes remained fixed on Freekin’ Rowdy.
“Where are we going? We can’t even get the journal until they close up the box office. Without that, no one will believe us.” Gloria swiped at a tear and turned away angrily. She was feeling far more helpless than she ever had just being blind. She was scared.
Dean held her and felt horrible seeing her only vulnerable moment. It brought out something inside him he hadn’t even known existed. He felt empathy for Gloria … and also love.
“Let’s hang out inside the Grenada. There, at least, we can dodge someone who’s looking for us, and we can get you cleaned up some. Right now, you look like something that washed up on the beach in a Frankie and Annette movie.”
“Thanks a lot!” Gloria said, only half-angry as she realized she must look terrible.
Dean looked around and saw that there were still too many people nearby to move without being further noticed. He saw the same emaciated little girl he had a moment before. She stood across the street just in front of the doughnut shop, and she was looking right at them. He wanted to jump when he saw she was joined by more of the ragamuffin-looking children. They stood in a group, and he saw that he wasn’t the only person seeing them. Parents with their children in hand walked past them with looks of bewilderment. Some of the mothers instinctively drew their kids closer to them as they tried to avoid the look and smell of the strange-looking children. He quickly counted six of them and then he saw twelve more coming down the same alley they had used earlier.
“Oh, shit,” Dean said only loud enough that he thought wouldn’t be heard, but of course Gloria had.
“What?” she asked, far louder than she had intended.
“Either someone brought in a busload of kids with the best costumes I’ve ever seen, or we have company fit for that nutcase Rod Serling you admire so much.”
“Children?” she asked.
“Yeah, and I don’t think they look that damn friendly.”
His heart skipped for just about the nine hundredth time that day as he saw another group of the children enter Main Street from the side of the Pacific Bell telephone exchange.
“I think now is a good time to see how the Monster Mash is going.”
“The spook show?” she asked as he pulled her along. “Oh, yes, that will settle our nerves.”
The children of the dead flowed onto Main Street and moved into the crowds and the neighborhoods surrounding Moreno.
All Hallows’ Eve was up and running at full power as the entity spread its wings.