Candace had no first memory of her brother, or a family that was like everyone else’s. Everett had always been confined to the basement or the attic or more recently to some fortified shack or barn on the grounds of whatever property they were renting any given year—except for Halloween night, which always signaled a quick move to some other distant locale the very next day.
She didn’t see him that much, except from a distance and framed in a briefly open door, until a couple of years ago. At that time, her father had agreed to acclimate them to one another via short exposures, in acquiescence to Mamalee’s wishes that they have some knowledge of each other.
So Aloysius had taken her on feeding trips, allowing her to wave to the boy and say hello from a safe distance. Everett always acknowledged her, seeming curious and aware beyond his madness of some connection between them.
Then Father had allowed her to accompany Mamalee as well, for afternoon feedings or to sit outside his door and read stories to him in her high and wavering voice. He seemed to love the harmless Halloween books aimed at preschool kids, and after a few readings, Everett’s muffled mutterings indicated he had memorized the book. Mamalee would slide it under the door and Everett, apparently as clever at deduction as he was compulsive at killing, would read them to himself, having discerned by process of elimination and the timing of the turning of the pages which words went where.
His strange behavior didn’t initially frighten Candace. When they moved to Ember Hollow and the growing boy was locked into a much stronger structure, she sometimes felt safe in sneaking to visit him alone.
She would sit outside the barred windows and sing along with Everett’s records. Soon, Everett too would raspingly sing. But when she tried to speak with him, he was mostly incoherent. The cause of his madness had also destroyed his ability to communicate—unless he just didn’t want to.
When Candace went to the mall in neighboring Wilcoxville with Mamalee, she was often granted ten minutes to walk around on her own (and, perhaps, pretend she was a normal girl). She found a quaint music store that sold vinyl records and supported local acts, including The Chalk Outlines. She came across their EP Lullabies to Die By and remembered that a boy in her class, Stuart, was the brother of swoon-worthy front man Kenny Killmore, and was pretty darn cute himself. Though she had caught him staring at her, she always figured he was just thinking how weird she was, like everyone else did.
She returned from a few of these excursions with records that she secretly slid under Everett’s door, including the Outlines’s EP and some vintage Halloween records. Later, she was pleased to hear him listening to them.
At one time, her parents might not have approved of Everett listening to “aggressive” music. But these days, Papa was too deep in discontent and denial. Mamalee shared in the latter with him. They hardly paid attention to Everett’s listening habits, or Everett himself so much, now that he was almost—well, pretty much totally—grown up.
Bravo had come along four years ago, after Everett showed signs of greater strength and alarming cleverness. Aloysius wanted to keep the dog away from Everett during his developing months, to keep them from bonding, but it wasn’t necessary. As a pup, Bravo cowered and whimpered anytime Everett was near. As he grew, he growled and postured defensively when Father went to feed Everett, especially if Candace was around.
Father wanted a guard dog for his little girl, and he was perhaps disappointed that Bravo showed fear of the boy, but having the dog professionally trained would leave too much of a trail. He had to try to do it himself.
The first few times Candace took Everett his food, Father stood near—but he had to force Bravo to stay at his side by choking up on the leash.
Eventually, Bravo was consigned to a doghouse, less a guard dog and more a neglected pet. Candace was not allowed to walk him, but she did go and sit with him, just as she did Everett. She ruffled his fur and kissed him, told him he was a good boy. Sometimes, he laid his head on her lap and dozed. Sometimes, he just sat, eyes half closed, smiling, content to be in her presence.
She told him, in low tones, of her despair. They commiserated about their place in a family that centered around endless smoldering horror.
Father sometimes talked about getting rid of Bravo and buying another dog, a Doberman or German shepherd that was already trained. But Candace and Mamalee both would plead with Aloysius till he relented. Maybe this was a mistake, but for a young girl already traumatized by a crushing reality for which she could never have prepared, every love was a deep one.
There were times when Candace wished her brother was dead. He was a permanent black rainbow arcing over their home, a factor in every single decision.
There were times—when Candace was in bed, or walking home thinking about the bullies on the bus, and wanting to see them hurt even worse than they hurt her—she wondered if there wasn’t some murder madness gestating within her soul as well, waiting to bloom. Perhaps, Candace pondered, that was what adulthood would mean for her.
* * * *
Filling out a report on an old, heavy steel Royal typewriter, Hudson cursed both the antique and his own lack of typing skill as he applied correction fluid to his seventh error.
Deputy Yoshida approached, leading Reverend McGlazer. “Hud! Visitor.” Hudson looked up. “Reverend, take a seat.”
“You’re not too busy?”
“Not until the next sweet old spinster or volunteer crossing guard goes cuckoo for no discernible reason.” Hudson sipped cold coffee and grimaced. “What can I do for you?”
“Well…” McGlazer seemed to search for words. “It’s a little strange.” He set before Hudson the mercurial little candy that had tried to kill him and changed its mind, its wrapper unfurling in the open air.
“What’s this?”
“I found it on my desk.”
Hudson raised an eyebrow.
“I know, I know. I’m always eating candy. But…”
McGlazer was weighing just how much to tell him. “I just got an odd feeling about this one.”
He dared not mention the gray shape or the leaf knives, for fear Hudson would suspect him of falling off the wagon.
“About what? Halloween candy?” Hudson scoffed.
McGlazer gave an embarrassed smile, then grew serious and tapped the candy. “Is there any way you could have this analyzed?”
“Looks like it was partially consumed.” Hudson scooped it up under the wrapper and examined it. “You?”
“No.” McGlazer silently asked forgiveness for the lie.
“I could send it to a lab, but it could be as long as a week before we get any results. Low priority, you know. And I doubt the chief would okay it.” With an exasperated expression he jerked his head at a corner office with a closed door. “Pumpkin Parade always stretches the budget—and the old boy’s patience—razor thin.”
“I see.” McGlazer felt some small guilt that he was using his “earnest” expression on his friend and parishioner, the same he used at offering time.
“Well, if you wanna leave it with me,” Hudson offered, leaning back in his creaky chair, “I’ll see what I can swing.”
* * * *
Stuart stuffed a stack of comics titled Horrifear! and Haunt of the Accursed into his backpack, along with some candy bars and a heavy aluminum flashlight. He hoisted it, then went to the living room where his mother folded clothes while watching a black-and-white soap opera rerun. “See you later, Ma.”
“Wait, Stuart,” she said, her face going grim, as she sat on the edge of the couch.
Ah, crap, Stuart thought, doing a quick check of his recent activities to see why he might be in trouble. He sat beside her.
“Your history teacher called today,” Ma began.
“Mrs. Steinborn?”
“She said another student had made a comment about your father.”
“Oh,” Stuart said. “That.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, Ma. It’s not like it was some major news flash.”
She pushed his hair away from his face to see his eyes, and Stuart knew she was wondering if he needed a shrink.
“Kelly. She wasn’t really talking about Dad,” Stuart explained. “Just, she likes to talk about God.”
It was a topic Ma rarely touched on outside of singing hymns at church. Dennis had told Stuart she was probably not so sure about all that stuff anymore.
“Well.” She cleared her throat and smoothed her skirt. “I’m a little worried about you going to that cemetery without an adult. After what happened to Mister Dukes…”
“Ma, we have to get the gravestone rubbings for school.”
Ma tsked. “Such a morbid assignment. Are you still going to the movies after?”
“Hell—uh, I mean, heck yeah, Ma. It’s the Screecher Feature!”
“Well…” Before she could protest further, Stuart kissed her and slid out the door.
On the street, Dennis rolled out from under the hearse and stood, his face and neck spotted with grease. “The big night has arrived,” Dennis said, wiping his hands on a bandana.
“Devil’s Night!” Stuart exclaimed—but not too loud.
“She bought it?”
“What’s to buy?” Stuart mirrored Dennis’s “charming hood” bit right back at him. “We are getting grave rubbings. And they are for school.”
“Right. But the Screecher Feature?”
“Okay, so that one was just a little whitey,” Stuart admitted. “Are you coming by?”
“We’re blocking the parade till pretty late. But after that, we gotta collect the gear. So, just maybe, we’ll make the scene. Give you tots one good scare.”
“Yeah, you suck, if you do!”
“Don’t tear the joint down.” Dennis tossed Stuart the key. “More importantly, don’t touch our gear!”
“Horror comics and root beer. That’s it.” Stuart climbed on his bike, regarding Dennis thoughtfully.
“Ah, hell. What’s with the look?”
“Candace is meeting us.”
Dennis grinned. “You sly hound! Wait. What’s the deal? You’re making DeShaun a third wheel?”
“Scary stories and root beer, remember? That’s all. No mushy stuff. I just…wanted you to know, that’s all.”
Dennis slapped Stuart on the shoulder. “Tell DeShaun I said to eat one.”
Stuart chuckled and pedaled away.
* * * *
Deputy Shavers tended the cell door as Hudson carried a steaming cup to Mr. Dukes, adjacent to a cell that housed three other men.
Darrell “Leechy” Beecham, chronic pickpocket and frequent customer, pressed against the bars between cells. “Hey, will you please put this freako in another cell, officer?” He requested. “He’s givin’ me the jeebs.”
“Shut it” was Hudson’s response.
Dukes sat in an upright fetal position against the corner, shivering.
“Mr. Dukes, I brought you some tea,” Hudson said. “My wife’s brew. Cleansing, she says.”
“What about me?” asked Leechy.
“You get to shut your mouth,” Hudson answered.
Dukes hugged himself in fear, his eyes darting.
“What is it, Mr. Dukes? What do you see?”
“It’s…it’s full of…lobsters.”
Hudson regarded the tiny teacup. “Did you say… lobsters?”
“Big ones! Oh, God, keep it away!”
“Damn…” Hudson muttered.
Hudson set the tea on the floor behind his back. On a hunch, he drew from his pocket the candy Reverend McGlazer had brought to him, loosely rewrapped in its orange-and-black cellophane. “What about this, Mr. Dukes? Have you seen any candy like this? Maybe eaten some?”
As the wrapping bloomed away from it, new fear brimmed in Dukes’s eyes.
With no farther to go, Dukes squeezed himself against the wall. “Keep it away! God, it…it sees my last day!”
Hudson could not know that, to Dukes, the candy was a restless rolling eyeball, its orange iris shuttering around the black pupil pointed right at him.
Dukes turned sideways, pushing the side of his face into the corner. “It sees my last day!” He swatted at the candy, knocking it across the floor, where it landed at the edge of the separating partition.
Leechy eyed it.
“Don’t!” Hudson warned.
“Okay.” Leechy held up his hands like he was being arrested again. “Wha’ ’bout that tea though?”
Hudson considered. “Ah, what the hell.”
He handed the tea through the bars to Darrell. “Now you can go get a job tomorrow.”
Leechy pumped a dirty thumb into the air. “Sure thing, Officer Friendly!”
Hudson returned his attention to the trembling Dukes, as he addressed Deputy Shavers. “Seems to be less intense now.”
“Definitely. Whatever he was on, it’s wearing off.”