Waiting back in the last wagon, which was being pulled by the Haristeens’ truck, Pewter complained as she shifted to find a comfortable spot on the hay bale. “By the time we get to the church, there won’t be any food left. We’re the caboose.”
“Sure there will be,” said Tucker, an expert on dropped treats. She confidently predicted, “Stuff falls on the floor.”
“Tucker, here’s a frightening Halloween idea: I’ll jump on the table and make everyone scream, ‘Get the cat off the table!’ Now, that’s really scary.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed. “Pewter, you jump on that table and Mom will smack you. Then you’ll be the one screaming and that will scare the children.”
“I’m going inside the truck,” said Pewter, who leapt from the wagon’s hay bale to the truck bed, also full of hay. She started smacking the sliding window. “Release me from these trolls!”
Harry moved forward in the fluffed hay to also knock on the window. In the driver’s seat, Fair turned around and slid it open.
“Honey, Pewter’s being a pill. Will you take her with you?” Then she said to Susan’s husband, Ned, sitting in the passenger seat, “Ned, she’ll be on your lap.”
“Fine with me as long as she doesn’t drive.”
Harry grunted as she picked up the fat cat, passing her through the open back window.
Fair asked, “Do you have the .38?”
“I do.”
Ned looked at Fair with alarm. “What’s going on?”
Harry nonchalantly replied, “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
Susan, sitting next to Miss Mona in the wagon bed, patted the old lady’s hand. Miss Mona’s walker was strapped to the back tailgate. A stroke had affected her mobility, which sometimes embarrassed her, but the group of old friends pretended she was the Miss Mona they knew in childhood. She was, except that she couldn’t get around like she used to.
BoomBoom tended to Colonel Friend, also very old. Colonel Friend was a bemedaled World War II vet. Bunny Biedecke, another World War II vet, leaned against a small hay bale as he sat in the sweet-smelling fluffed hay. Dear old Bunny was already asleep. BoomBoom’s partner, Alicia, sat next to him. Bunny had to have been tired, because he was the kind of fellow who would normally revel in the experience of sitting next to a beautiful woman. Come to think of it, most of the men in Crozet fit into that category.
Tazio had interspersed the trucks with the horse-drawn wagons. If a horse threw a shoe, the people could get back to a truck wagon; these held fewer people but there was also room in the truck’s bed. Most people wanted to ride in the horse-drawn wagons, but some enjoyed the truck-drawn ride, mostly because all the kids were clustered together, noisy with excitement, in the horse-drawn wagons.
Aunt Tally hotly refused getting stuck with “old people,” as she called them. She sat in the first horse-drawn wagon up with the driver, regaling him, so she thought, with stories of her youth and her own “excellent” driving abilities. Big Mim grimly sat behind, fearing Aunt Tally had hidden a small flask in her heavy cardigan sweater.
As the mercury dropped, the screams rose up. Waiting to move forward, Harry and the passengers in the last wagon could hear them as they pierced the night in sequence. The temperature fell into the mid-forties. The beautiful stillness of this velvet black Halloween meant they could even hear the bellows of fright from the graveyard, a good mile and a half distant.
Checking his texts, Ned noted when the seventh wagon had been challenged by the Headless Horseman. “Okay, Fair, roll,” he ordered. “Lolly says we’re up. Neil said wagon number seven just passed him.”
Watch in hand, Lolly was standing just outside the first schoolhouse. She had wanted to do something to honor her boss’s memory, so she had volunteered for the job of starter in Hester’s pet project. Lolly was good with details. Dressed in a skeleton costume, the young woman checked and rechecked her watch and various texts. Naturally, some wagons clattered along more slowly than others, but in the main, the evening’s planned event was running quite smoothly. All seriousness, Lolly would call out each passing wagon’s number and say, “Move out.”
In the last wagon, driving at fifteen miles an hour, the cats, dogs, and humans passed the middle schoolhouse. Eerie lights showed a large beaker bubbling froth in green light. Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster lifted his bulky head. The doctor poised over him, gigantic hypodermic needle in hand. Snap, the bonds broke, falling away as the monster reached up with his right hand, grabbing Dr. Frankenstein by the throat. The furious struggle was enhanced by the green light. The contents of the giant needle shot upward in the air as the doctor helplessly sank to his knees. The monster threw up his hands in triumph, not unlike a football player in the end zone. He whipped his head around as best he could, despite the spike in his neck, then crashed out the side door, roaring as he did, rushing at the wagon. Hearing the riders’ screams, he then turned to disappear into the cornfield. As the wagon moved forward, one could hear the cornstalks bending and rustling.
“Good scream,” Susan complimented Harry.
Pewter, on Fair’s lap, pupils wide, meowed, “I don’t like the monster’s face.”
The back window, left open so Harry and Susan could holler at their husbands, allowed Mrs. Murphy and Tucker to hear Pewter. It sounded like a tiny meow to the two men in the cab.
“Scaredy-cat,” the two animals teased.
“Piffle,” the gray cat replied. “I just don’t like Frankenstein’s face. I’m not scared.”
The truck crept forward and for a moment they heard the far-off clip-clop of the draft horses pulling the cart in front of them, so still was the night.
“Don’t you love the sound of hoofbeats?” Shawl wrapped around her shoulders, Miss Mona smiled.
“I do.” Harry held one hand while Susan held the other. “Miss Mona, your hand is cold. Let’s put on your gloves.”
As they did that, two glowing goblins and two ghosts fluttered above the cornfield, moving from side to side, then up, only to sink back down.
Ahead, they heard an explosive scream of fright.
“Must be really scary,” Miss Mona said to Colonel Friend.
“We’ll see.” His voice quavered, but as he’d fought his way through Europe, it’s doubtful too much could rattle the colonel.
As they were poised between the two trees, branches twisting into the night, out flew Jeepers Creepers. So sudden and silent was this attacking nasty bird/human, wings outstretched, strange face looking down with a snarl, that even Harry drew deeper into the hay.
“Kill! That bird wants to kill us!” Pewter screamed.
Even Tucker barked in surprise, then breathed out in relief. “It’s Coop!” The corgi had recognized Cooper’s scent.
Mrs. Murphy inhaled the crisp air. “So it is. She scared me.”
High in the tree, Cooper folded her wings and gazed over the scene. She could see a little bit around the curve, back to the schoolhouses, which stood like clapboard rectangles in the darkness. Buddy was running through the cornfield, charged by Count Dracula. This seemed to be an impromptu scare as the last wagon rolled by. Now that Harry, Fair, and the others had passed, Cooper prepared to push off hard on the zipline and swoop in the opposite direction to get back into the tree and climb down.
As Fair slowly took his passengers around the big curve, out charged the Headless Horseman with a menacing howl, cape flying behind him, hoofbeats clattering.
Through the fake neck, Paul could see pretty well. His horse, Dinny, wondered why they just kept going into the shed again and again. His job was to chase hounds who were chasing foxes. This back-and-forth stuff was boring, but being a good soul, he did as he was asked, ears twitching as people screamed. What a racket!
Next to Fair in the cab, Ned remarked, “That horse could be in a movie.”
Fair, Dinny’s physician, chuckled. “Dinny is dipped in gold.”
Sighing, Ned absentmindedly stroked Pewter’s head as she chose to grace his lap with her large presence. “I’ve been a horse husband for twenty-three years,” said Ned. “I’ll bet I’ve spent more money on horses, tack, and membership fees to hunt clubs than I did on my children’s college educations.”
“No doubt, but you have a happy wife,” said Fair. “Think of the men who don’t.”
Ned laughed. “Point well taken.”
Miss Mona, ears still keen, said to Susan, “I hear screams behind us.”
Susan nodded. “Over in the hayfield.”
The jack-o’-lantern flickered ominously, on the fence post at the end of the hayfield.
Buddy Janss, still dressed as Frankenstein’s Monster, clambered up one of the hay rolls, kicking the man dressed as Dracula as he tried to follow. Finally, the faux vampire grasped his ankle, pulling down the huge fellow. From a distance, Dracula appeared to bite the monster in the neck as Frankenstein bellowed, then fell still. Dracula opened his cape, slipping his knife into his belt. He also carried a small pistol but didn’t use it on Frankenstein. The noise would have proven too distracting. As it was, those viewing the drama thought Frankenstein had been bitten, which he was. He was stabbed, too.
Bloodcurdling screams filled the air, the perfect cover for real mayhem. This Halloween Hayride was topping all prior ones for thrills.
The big square churchyard, hand-laid stone fence surrounding it, hove into view. The obelisk shone silver. As they approached, Harry could read the name on the monument: VILLION.
From behind the obelisk, movie villain Jason appeared, chain saw in hand, white mask in place. Swinging the saw around like a hammer throw, he advanced toward them. The chain saw was not turned on, but that didn’t lessen the startling effect. As he rushed them, wailing ghost noises from the graveyard added to the drama.
From the hayfield, Count Dracula ran hard, jumping the low stone wall at the other end of the graveyard, fangs dripping blood as he headed toward Jason.
“Oh, look at the bony arm reaching out from the grave.” Miss Mona shivered a moment.
The colonel nodded, for he had seen this sort of thing in real life. He’d seen much, maybe too much.
Despite the screams, Bunny Biedecke remained asleep.
Jason turned to meet his attacker and swept the chain saw at Dracula, whose head tumbled off backward. But being undead, the Count picked it up, put it right back on. The two creatures struggled; the Count grappled with Jason, biting him in the neck. Jason fell to the ground, grabbing his neck, fake blood shooting through his fingers.
Using one hand, Dracula vaulted over the graveyard stone wall to disappear. As the wagon slowly passed, Jason rose up, returning to the graveyard.
Hearing a strangled cry, Little Mim’s husband, Blair, pulled off his Jason mask and walked to peer over the other side of the graveyard wall. On his side, trying to clear his throat and his head, was Barry Betz, the original Dracula.
“Barry! Barry!” Blair said, hopping over.
The young man couldn’t yet speak. Blair looked over the field and beheld another person dressed as Count Dracula running toward Tazio, as had been planned.
“Watch out!” Blair shouted to Tazio.
She turned, holding up her cross as the Fallen Angel, but this final time Dracula did not shrink back as scripted. Instead, he struck her hard enough to knock her sideways. Grabbing her, he pulled her up; she struggled to escape until he put a gun to her temple. He dragged her to a dip in the land where he had hidden a dirt bike.
“Get on the bike,” he ordered.
Tazio did as she was told. He sat behind her, gun still to her temple. He started the dirt bike. Given that the gas was on the right handlebar, he had to slip the gun into his belt alongside the knife. As the bike picked up speed, Tazio sat still.
From her perch, Cooper could only dimly see the unplanned drama. She didn’t have time to punch in numbers on her cellphone, and pulled out the whistle instead.
The piercing note carried across the fields, over the assembled wagons. Dabny fired up the truck, roaring out of the side farm road. He screeched to a halt beneath a tree.
“Get me outta here!” said Cooper. “Something’s wrong.”
Dabny backed the truck under the tree and stepped up into the bed. He lifted himself from the bed onto the cab and reached a limb. Swinging himself up, he climbed toward Cooper, who was on her way down.
“It’s these damned wings.”
Dabny unfastened her wings as she tore off the mask. Then they both backed down the tree and got into the truck.
“Graveyard,” was all she said.
Within minutes they reached the graveyard, where Blair was helping out an injured Barry.
From the Haristeens’ truck bed, Harry shouted to Cooper, “Some maniac’s got Taz!” Harry hopped off the truck and started running after the dirt bike, now churning away from the graveyard. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker leapt off to follow. In the cab, Pewter thought they were crazy. She stayed put, hoping Ned wouldn’t join in the ridiculous tumult.
Dabny turned the truck around and headed in the direction in which they last saw the fleeing vampire, with Cooper sitting next to him, straining to see anything.
Riding Dinny back to the schoolhouse, Paul caught a glimpse of Dracula on his bike, carrying the Fallen Angel. The abductor dipped down the other side of a swale in the hayfield.
Leaning forward on the solid horse, Paul galloped toward the spot. When he reached the cusp of the swale, he saw below him what he assumed to be a crazed idiot stop to position Tazio so he could hold her tighter. Without a second of hesitation Paul charged down the low rise and came alongside the dirt bike, which hadn’t picked up speed with its cargo. Leaning over, he tried to climb on, and grabbed Dracula’s shoulder; Dracula reached for his gun. Paul slid off Dinny like a calf roper and the horse stopped cold.
Paul wrestled the fake vampire to the ground, the bike’s wheels spinning as they went over. The young man shoved Dracula away, then grabbed Tazio. Dracula retrieved his gun and remounted his bike. He buzzed off.
Tazio’s eyes fluttered as Paul lifted her into his arms.
“It’s all right, honey. You’re safe.” Paul hoisted her onto Dinny’s saddle and Tazio slumped forward on the animal’s neck. Holding the reins, Paul walked them up the rise, across the northern end of the hayfield. Ahead, he saw Buddy Janss as Frankenstein’s Monster, sprawled on a hay bale.
Flagging down Cooper and Dabny, Paul asked for help for Buddy.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Dabny. “Which way did Dracula go?” he asked Paul, who pointed west.
Dabny drove alongside the field in the direction Paul pointed.
Now in the hayfield, Harry ran toward the fiend dressed as Dracula, who pushed the dirt bike for more speed. Evidently, he was still a bit wobbly from Paul’s blow.
After loading Barry into the truck, Fair ran, keeping pace about two hundred yards behind Harry, but she was lighter and faster.
After looking over his shoulder to see Harry in pursuit, the attacker circled in the hayfield. He steered his bike behind the hay bales, cutting his engine.
Harry flew through the hay stubble faster than she’d ever run when she was on her college track team.
The dirt-bike Dracula saw that Harry was high up and behind him, but he couldn’t see Fair even farther behind. Slowly, he pushed his bike around the hay bales, darkness shielding him.
The darkness also shielded Taz on Dinny’s back, but as the attacker pushed his bike he now saw them.
The vampire pulled out a gun and leveled it.
Harry boomed out, “Paul, move!”
Tazio’s abductor stopped for a moment as Harry barely touched the earth, heading straight at him, Tucker and Mrs. Murphy in front of her.
Firing, he missed Tazio, then turned and restarted the bike. Switching his gun to his left hand, he revved the engine. He roared straight for Harry, cape flying, mask in place, fangs showing.
As the bike hurtled at her, he fired his revolver with his left hand, wide of the mark. Harry hit the ground and rolled. Cunning, she pulled out the .38. She figured he would be ineffective firing the gun with his left hand.
Then Dracula spotted Fair running at him, but he slowed and made a one-eighty, again barreling straight for Harry, now back on her feet.
She kept her eyes on his right hand. He had to take his hand off the throttle and switch the gun to his right hand to accurately fire the weapon. That gave her a ray of hope. Bending down, she picked up a handful of dirt and hay stubble with her left hand.
Nearly upon her, he slowed and pulled out his gun.
Harry fired one shot from the .38 at his torso and sent another bullet for the front wheel, too. The tire blew; the bike lurched, then toppled over.
As the rider screamed, Mrs. Murphy leapt onto his arm. Harry threw dirt in the eyeholes of his mask. With her front claws, the cat ripped the mask. He coughed, trying to hold on to the gun. With everything she had, Harry threw herself onto him, smashing the butt of the .38 into his masked head.
In her jaws, Tucker grabbed the man’s neck. Blood was running inside his mask where the animals had torn through. Bright crimson blood now poured from the deep fang marks the corgi made, and more blood oozed from Harry’s bullet, which had hit a lung. The dog continued biting as Mrs. Murphy nipped and nipped, her sharp claws lethal on small prey and painful on large.
Fair caught up with them. Hauling the man to his feet as he started to come to, Fair hit him so hard Harry heard the man’s jaw break.
Having followed the bike’s high revs, Cooper and Dabny now arrived, driving across the hayfield, dirt churning behind the truck.
Cooper pulled out her service revolver as Dabny took the snubnose .38 from Harry.
“Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, enough!” Harry commanded.
The cat sank her claws into the mask and pulled at it before it snapped back.
Cooper leaned down and yanked it off.
Harry couldn’t believe it. “Neil Jordan!”
His jaw hung, the break obvious, teeth missing.
“You could have been killed!” Fair exclaimed to his wife. “Why would you do something like that?”
“He was going to kill Taz,” she said to her husband, Cooper, and Dabny. “And I had Dad’s .38. You told me to use it if necessary. I always do what you tell me.”
