DeShaun shoved his way through the costumed throngs toward his father, his apologies doing nothing to prevent angry curses, threats, even shoves.
Making it worse was a strange feeling coming off the collected mass, like a fast-approaching storm. He had to ignore this and remain focused on maintaining a course to his father.
Erratic movement ahead of him. Someone stumbled, and the people around, perhaps unnerved by the odd behavior, were quick to clear a circle. DeShaun realized he could not prevent a collision with the thrashing woman, and he feared that if he fell he might not be able to get back up for several precious seconds.
He raised his arms in time to keep from being head-butted. As the woman, dressed as Slave Leia from The Empire Strikes Back, turned, DeShaun saw that is was Mrs. Nettles, his teacher from sixth grade. “Sorry, Mrs. Nettles.”
She stared not at him but through him, her eyes full of terror. What she saw was DeShaun’s false white beard and eyebrows dissolving into thick billowing smoke that formed amorphous devious faces.
She screamed in his face, flailing and falling backward into others, creating a domino effect.
“Jeez!” DeShaun tried to help her up, but she became more and more entangled with others. He realized something was very, very wrong with not only Mrs. Nettles but a growing number of parade-goers. Giving up on helping her. he worked his way toward his father.
* * * *
Rag Doll Ruth paced the sidewalk beside the spectators, praying that her scheme would work. It wasn’t long before her prayers were answered.
She spotted a preteen boy lying in a fetal position on the sidewalk scratching at his cheeks, to the dismay of his alarmed parents. Not far from this, an old man in a wheelchair gaped at his hands, violently shook them, and then shook them harder, terror blooming in his weathered features.
“Thy will be done, Lord,” she prayed. “Make them beg for thy mercy. And turn thy glorious face away from them!”
* * * *
“Dee-scrip-chee-own! Can you describe him?” Shavers, unnerved by the strength of the thin man, made a series of senseless gestures, but they weren’t needed.
“He wears calabaza!” Shavers stood immobilized. “A big-ass jack-o’-lantern!” Enrique insisted.
Enrique dragged Sergeant Shavers toward the parking lot where he had watched his beloved partner die. With growing dread, Shavers shouted once more into his radio. “Hudson Lott! Please respond! Chief Deputy Hudson Lott!”
Just a few yards away Everett cried tears of joy as the majesty of the Halloween parade unfolded before him.
The float for Home Sweet Home Appliances passed in front of him, its washer and dryer mock-ups bursting open every few seconds to reveal a zombified fifties housewife blasting a humanoid sock monster with a Super Soaker. A child sitting on the float in a witch mask waved at him and tossed a detergent sample in his direction.
He dropped his hammer and clasped his hands together. “We all trick! We all treat!” His face had an expression of pure, childlike joy.
* * * *
Outlines crowd favorite “Freakshow Radio” filled the air, enthralling old fans and making enthusiastic new ones. Few could resist moving their hips, head, or hands to the energetic punk-rockabilly sound.
DeShaun had long since tossed away the beard and now worked his way along the edge of the barricade, shouting, “Emergency!” every few feet to prevent irritated shoving. He spotted his father standing with his back to the crowd, almost in reach, if he could just…
A man in a motorcycle jacket and corpse paint flailed in the street, screaming and swatting at invisible things. He ran toward the parade display before him, sponsored by Frenkel’s Exterminator Service, where a cute eight-year-old girl with a water-filled canister spritzed bug-costumed actors as they chewed on huge furniture props.
The “bugs,” seeing the crazed biker, ceased their mock death throes and converged to protect their little executioner.
Hudson went into action, tackling the man to the ground. DeShaun’s reaching hand missed by a second. The crowd swelled against DeShaun, mashing him into the barricade, where panic and pain double-teamed him.
“Dad!” DeShaun called, but the clamor was too much.
The song ended, prompting an eruption of cheers and clapping. Then Stuart’s hands closed around DeShaun’s arm, dragging him out of the crushing ruckus. “Come on!”
Together they battled back the crowd and squeezed into the street.
The Outlines played on. Now that it was darker, the high-wattage lights blasting their eyes prevented them from seeing the disturbance on the street below.
Hudson was trying to restrain the biker-jacketed man, turning his arm behind his back and pinning him facedown, when he heard DeShaun call to him, saw him running closer. “DeShaun! Get your ass back over the barricade! This is dangerous, son!”
In this pocket of relative silence, he heard the radio squawk. “Hudson! Answer, God damn it.”
With his free hand, Hudson keyed his radio. “I’m here!” He waved DeShaun and Stuart away, as the man on the ground cried, “The invasion has begun!”
“There’s some kinda killer running around here,” Shavers said. “I’ve got a body and a witness!”
“Shit!” Hudson exclaimed.
Stuart turned to DeShaun. “It’s Candace’s brother! He’s psycho!”
Turning to check on Candace, Stuart saw her pressing herself against a shop wall far behind the barricade and the unpredictable crowd.
Mrs. Nettles had plummeted into full-blown, stark-raving paranoia, running and swinging around in a frenzy, knocking people down. In the melee, a large man in an orange prisoner jumpsuit lost balance and fell against Candace.
Stuart ran to help her, followed by DeShaun.
Hudson’s collar, foaming at the mouth, bashed his forehead on the ground, screaming, “You can’t take my brain if it’s ruined!”
Hudson turned him over and embraced him to prevent further injury, keying his radio. “Sergeant, you there?”
“Here,” came the answer. “Witness seems to be saying our perp is wearing a pumpkin on his head. Repeat, perpetrator is wearing a God damned jack-o’-lantern!”
“We need to shut this thing down,” Hudson said.
Up on the stage, Dennis, oblivious to the burgeoning fracas, addressed the crowd. “This next one is a special request.”
Dennis brushed back his sweaty hair as he talked to his fans. “It’s a cover of an epic soul freezer by our buddies in Scarlet Frost. It’s called…‘Wind of Winter’s Dawn.’”
Pedro played an extended note that was both melancholy and menacing, dissolving into Dennis’s sludgy riffs.
Jill banged a voodoo beat, and Dennis sang, closing his eyes.
“Cold the fog lay upon the bog
where rests the maiden mourned
Her heart remains ever in twain
in a cage of bones adorned
Years she watched with ache she matched
Her pregnant grief unborn…”
Kerwin, escorting Cordelia toward the parade through a breezeway, stopped cold upon hearing the uncharacteristic strains of soul-crushing, dirge-like black metal. “Shit! What are you guys doing to me?”
“This doesn’t sound like the demos you sent,” Cordelia noted.
“No.” Kerwin covered his panicked expression with a sly grin. “They, see, they’re playing a goof on their poor old manager. Yeah, that’s it! Come on. It’ll start jumping in a sec.”
He rushed her toward the street.
* * * *
DeShaun and Stuart jumped back to the crowd side of the barricade just as a furious brawl broke out. Bodies, fists, and screams filled the air as more and more people converged. The boys ran to cover Candace.
Just a few yards away, the parade accordioned on itself. A lavender limousine towing a float for Turner’s Wedding Rentals halted across from this pocket of chaos. Amid the lace, frills, and latticework of the display, the performers, costumed as ghost bride, groom, and parson, craned their heads toward the ruckus.
A teen girl in a Barbie costume ran toward the wedding scene, setting her hair on fire with a lighter as she climbed aboard, screaming, “My hair! It’s eating my mind!”
The faux phantom wedding party tried to circle and corral her, but she wallowed amid the decorations, which caught and carried the flame.
DeShaun and Stuart guarded Candace on either side. They dashed along the shop walls until they found an open alley and sprinted into it, leaping over trash and boxes.
“What’s wrong with these people?” DeShaun wondered.
“Some kinda mass hysteria,” Stuart guessed, trying to catch his breath.
Candace stopped them. “It happened to me last night!” she exclaimed. “I saw…evil things. Everywhere.”
“What about Dad?” DeShaun huffed.
“And Dennis.”
The big man in the orange jumpsuit came around the corner, his hands and chin smeared with blood. Eyes burning with malice, he ran toward them, bellowing like a hippo, his plastic ball-and-chain prop bouncing behind him.
The kids ran around the corner, much faster than their pursuer. Seeing a panel delivery truck, they dashed to the far side and huddled together, covering their mouths as the man ran past. They heard him stop a few yards away, puffing.
He spun, roaring. They knew he was onto them somehow. They dashed around the back of the truck, where DeShaun tried to raise the sliding door—but found it locked.
“Shit!” Stuart said, as they all searched around for shelter.
Pointing at something along the back walls of the shopping center, DeShaun whispered, “Over there!”