Stella, comfy in flannel pajamas, switched on the television, sank into her recliner with her sewing basket and her half-finished fortune-teller scarf, and soon settled into the comfort of WEFC’s weeklong Bela Lugosi marathon, well into the Hungarian actor’s lesser years working under Ed Wood and various off-Hollywood hacks.
Bernard was away at his weekly poker game with friends from the factory. It was as much a respite for her as a social time for her husband, who tended to be so much smarter than average folk—including her—that it was depressing and lonely for him, as he had confessed.
Thus, this time apart was a form of marriage maintenance, and Stella savored it.
Her pet cockatoo, Catfood, cooed in her blanketed cage, as autumn’s winds made flyby embraces of the quaint ranch house, soothing Stella into a contented fugue.
During a lull in the film, Catfood squawked and fluttered, bashing around in her cage like she had gone crazy.
Before Stella could rise, her scarf project wound itself taut around her arms, pinning her in the chair.
The bird continued its spasm, its human-like shrieks blasting into Stella’s brain until she thought her knitting needle had also come alive and staked itself into her ear—but then she saw the implement fall out of her lap as the scarf tightened further, a flat python.
Then the chair’s corduroy upholstery somehow became malleable, like quicksand, sucking her into depths that were as cold as well water, roiling up over her trapped hips and arms with a squelching sound.
As the alien muck closed over her face, muffling Catfood’s cries, Stella knew it was a dream—must be—and fought to wake herself.
“Wayg uhb!” she cried through near-paralyzed lips, straining to raise her head to keep from suffocating. With great effort, she forced her eyes open—and beheld Bela Lugosi, cape pulled over the lower half of his face, stalking among the Styrofoam graves of Plan 9 from Outer Space. He turned to glare at her with his hungry eyes, as he pointed at a crooked wooden cross standing tall amid the props. A chain was wound around it like the scarf had wound around her, an ancient lock holding the links taut.
He lowered the cape, and it was Bela all right, and not the chiropractor whom Wood had hired to double for him after his death, for this was the Land of the Dead, which extended into Television Land, she realized, and this was not so surprising.
Bela parted his thin black lips and mouthed a single syllable: “Why?”
He extended his finger toward the wooden cross once more, and it was shaking, making the chain jingle. His emphatic movement must have carried supernatural force, for it yanked Stella from the dream and onto the floor, inches from the television.
Bela remained. But the film was Mark of the Vampire, not Plan 9, and his black-and-white image did not acknowledge her in the least.
Stella picked herself up, finding her limbs heavy with exhaustion. She went to Catfood’s cage and found the pretty girl content and asleep, raising an eyelid before making a side shuffle toward Stella.
The unfinished scarf was splayed about the foot of the chair. Stella was not in the mood for knitting any longer, and certainly not for the scarf, nor the chair.
She went to her bookshelf in the bedroom and scanned the spines for the only book that mattered, praying that her husband had not tossed it during one of his frequent organizing rampages.
Relief washed over her as she found it—then came dread, for her next step was a drive to the cemetery.
* * * *
The weary Hudson dropped into his chair as two deputies wrestled with a man in a French maid’s costume behind him. He took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed.
Leticia and DeShaun worked at carving the last of at least a dozen jack-o’-lanterns, the finished gourds aligned along the counter like a platoon of orange lunatics, while little Wanda watched from her high chair, a mess of pumpkin pie smeared all over her face and a bib decorated with a cartoon bat captioned i drive my mom batty.
Leticia wiped her hands and answered the phone.
“Hey, there, sweet thang,” Hudson said in his best Barry White.
“Hi ya, love machine,” she replied, making DeShaun roll his eyes at Wanda. She tried it too, rolling her head instead and making herself dizzy.
“What’s up?”
Hudson practically growled. “I’m…busy.”
“Well, duh. How are those kids from the old house?”
“Doctor says they’re gonna be okay, but I can’t talk to them yet. Still one missing from their group. Some other weird shit happening too.” The scuffle behind him grew louder.
“What is all that?” Leticia asked.
“You don’t wanna know. Listen, I’m trying to track down Charlie Plemmons. Something funky is up with him and that girl Ruth from the church.”
“Ooh! That girl is trouble with a capital crazy.”
“Well, all things considered,” Hudson assessed, “it’s about usual for Devil’s Night.”
As the scuffle continued, something fell across Hudson’s head. He snatched it off—a fishnet stocking. His face screwed up in disgust. “I gotta go. Hug the kids.”
“Sure will. Rush it up, Black Dynamite.”
“Ha-ha. Love you.”
“Love you back.” She hung up and returned to the table.
“Was that Dad?” asked DeShaun.
“Yep. Running late.”
“Did he say anything about Albert and Norman?”
“He says they’re gonna be okay.”
“So weird,” DeShaun said.
“That’s why you are never allowed to set foot in that house again. Now get ready for bed.”
“But I wanna show Dad my jack-o’-lantern,” he protested, as he went to the counter and patted a pumpkin carved in a cartoonish image that could only be Hudson himself.
“He’ll see it tomorrow when we get a candle in it. That’ll be even better.” Her tone took on an edge of mock anger, an early-warning system. “Now get your pajamas on and get in bed. You’re helping me take these to the field in the morning.”
“Can’t I stay up a little longer?” DeShaun pleaded. “No way I can sleep after this crazy day.”
“No. Tomorrow’s a big day too, and a lot of people are counting on your help.”
“I could just sit up and watch the Bela Lugosi scare-a-thon for a bit.”
She turned to him with an agreeable expression. “What’s the name of that movie where Bela grounds Son of Dracula to his coffin till the next ice age?”
DeShaun lowered his head in defeat.
“Now go get in your pajamas and brush your teeth, like I asked you to an hour ago! Or you can plan on staying at the community center with Miss Barcroft and me, watching all the little ones!”
DeShaun snapped his heels together and extended a Nazi-style salute. “Sig heil, mein furious! I mean, fuhrer!”
He marched away, goose-stepping, sending Wanda into a giggle fit.
“Oh, don’t you start, little girl,” Leticia warned, wiping the baby clean.