Hey, I need to keep up my strength to battle wrongdoing and listen to Karma channel the Great Oblivion.
So anyway, I am walking along, looking like an ordinary dude, all the while musing on life, death and the eternal verities, such as what is for supper, when something blows by that stops me in my tracks.
I stare down at a crumpled newsheet of the variety that decent men keep their families from seeing, especially when they are in Las Vegas.
Besides the odious sight of a lot of bare human of both genders--and I hope no little kits are exposed to all this abnormally furless flesh; our kind does not have much to do with anything in this state but eat it, and I always close my eyes when Miss Temple switches from day- to night-wear, as I prefer her well covered-- I spy another bare-faced horror: Mr. Crawford Buchanan, who appears to have had a face-lift by an earthmover.
Still, I can glimpse a smidgen of his all-too-mortal prose and a photograph of a many-gabled and -towered edifice, a veritable Frankenstein's monster of architecture; that is to say, a mansion of many parts hacked together.
I cannot say what comes over me, but I am suddenly shaken by a sense of doom and presentiment that would knock Karma off her high horse. I know where I must go, for it is the place I am least safe: among a flock of humans celebrating Halloween by subjecting themselves to a night of programmed fright, hideous semblances and deviltry. And then they have the nerve to beg for food. Eat, drink and be nasty.
Only the mind of man would create holidays to scare his kind, as well as those of us who have become unwilling symbols of the season because of our ancient history of mass victimization, which sometimes is all too modern. I have said it before and I will say it again: only humans will sentimentalize the things they Mil.
Unless, of course, it is another human.
Chapter 6
Habitat for Humane Haunting
Six o'clock of an October twilight was definitely not prime time for the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead.
The painted facade, lit by lukewarm spotlights and an evening sun going down in a spectacular welter of violet and orange clouds, looked like a pallid watercolor by contrast.
Temple and Matt, fresh from the innocent indulgence of a fast-food hamburger franchise, were among the first thirty customers.
A kiosk that resembled a Gothic outhouse now sat ten feet from the front door. Inside, a chainsaw-massacre victim was exchanging lime-green tickets for leafy-green money.
"Looks like later is better," Matt commented. "The spotlights will really show up, and the crowds should rev up then, too. Right now the potential hauntees outside probably outnumber the possible haunters inside."
"It doesn't look . . . lively," Temple admitted.
"That's what you get for inviting an escort who works the night shift. I could call ConTact, see if they need me there first thing," he offered.
"No. The inside lighting is the same, regardless of time." A sudden thought occurred. "You're not allergic to haunted houses, are you? They're not against your religion or something?"
"Heavens, no."
"What about The Exorcist?"
Matt took Temple's elbow and ushered her toward the people waiting for admission.
"Sounds to me like you're the one who has reservations."
"I don't have reservations, or we wouldn't have to stop at the Horror in the Ticket Kiosk. I'm paying, by the way, or, rather, the Crystal Phoenix is."
When Temple flashed a blue pass card, a huge red-smeared hand proffered a pair of slime-green tickets.
"Thanks," she told the Abomination from the Beyond, extracting the tickets without touching the loathsome rubber extremity.
"Bfkerdiouwdanuummph," the misshapen head murmured, nodding so that its dangling eyeball did a little jig against its mushy cheekbone.
"I hope the stuff inside is a little less hokey than that," Temple whispered to Matt as they queued up. "Why does everyone think that extreme gore and walking states of decay are so scary? It's what you don't see that truly terrifies."
As he bent forward to listen, the lurid spotlights highlighted his blond hair with purple and green and put his face in a sinister, up-cast light.
"Ooh, counselor, you look spooky!"
"You should see what these lights do to your red hair."
"Scary?"
"More like ... turned brown."
"Berrown, oh, no!" Temple remembered Electra's disdain for that everyday color. "Isn't there a blond light somewhere around here?"
"Too cheery. They're shuffling in ahead."
Temple bit her lip and clasped her arms.
"Did I detect a shudder?"
"It's cold," she complained in self-defense.
But, in fact, she was happy to have company. Much as she was not about to be impressed by this homegrown effort, Temple knew that special effects were state-of-the-art nowadays, and could be more realistic than she might want.
"Hang on," Matt warned as she handed their tickets to the ghoul at the door.
He took her elbow again, just in time, because an instant later the four teenagers in front of them vanished into sudden darkness.
"How bad can it get?" Temple asked the darkness. "We're just walking a programmed maze.
I've been here by daylight."
Still, shrieks erupted ahead and behind, whether from happily scared paying customers or tape-recorded actors imported to raise the fear factor, Temple couldn't tell.
"Hey!" Matt laughed as a figure whooshed toward them from the dark into sudden light, a giant bloated spider spewing creepy-crawly mini-spiders.
Temple couldn't keep from squeaking as a few of the spider spawn tumbled into her hair.
She batted them away like autumn leaves. Bats. That's another featured creature she should expect to see and hear tonight. Ick.
Because she was slightly ahead of Matt, she was the first to step off the sudden step-down.
This time she screamed, because now it was so dark, and because the spider spawn kept falling off with feathery parting gestures that gloved her forearms in goosebumps.
"You better grab my hand," Matt's calm voice counseled from the darkness above her head.
Boy, if she ever needed a helpline, it would be great to dial up a voice like that.
His hand felt warm, which meant hers was icy. This was ridiculous! If a spider on a guy wire and a six-inch drop were going to unnerve her, what would happen when the real effects made an appearance?
"Eerie light ahead," Matt warned, steering her around a corner as if he could see in the dark.
Eerie indeed, a soft pulsating blue ... and while she was straining to see, hands closed around her neck.
"Matt-- Don't scare me!"
Hot breath panted on her cheekbone. Warm, gooey liquid drooled down her neck. Spit? Did public health laws permit spit-ting on paying customers? Or indirectly paying customers?
A villainous voice grated in her ear. "Hello, BatgirL Time for a transfusion."
Something pricked her neck. She would have screeched again, except a strobe light flashed on to reveal waves of red-eyed bats flying right at her....
Matt jerked her out of Count Dracula's custody. The vampire himself was stepping back into the stone wall, vanishing into the solid rock, blood drooling down his chin.
Dodging a screaming surf of bats, Temple swatted at her neck. Her mopping-up operation found nothing wet except for some soft, rubbery threads that dropped to the floor.
"Why did I fall for that?" she wondered aloud. "How can they see us in the dark?"
"They're used to it, while we're being unpredictably plunged from dark to light so our eyes never adjust."