He sipped his tea and thought of better days, bloody nights, the slashed and screaming faces of the children she had loved — the ones nobody else cared for, so were easy to lure here, out of the way, to the house on the street where nobody went. Not until Halloween, when all the streets of Scarbridge, and all the towns beyond, were filled with the delicious screaming of children.
There was a sound from out on the porch, a wild thrumming, as if Katy's pumpkin was vibrating, energy building inside, the blood lust rising, rising, ready to burst in a display of savagery like nothing he had ever seen before. The pumpkin was absorbing the power of this special night, drinking in the desires of small children, the thrill of proud parents, the very idea of spectres abroad in the darkness.
It was time.
He went upstairs and into the bedroom, where she lay on the bed, waiting for him to come and fetch her. He picked her up off the old, worn quilt and carried her downstairs, being careful not to damage her further as he negotiated the narrow staircase.
When he sat her down in the chair, she tipped to one side, unsupported. The polythene rustled, but it remained in place.
Baxter went and got the pumpkin, making sure that the flame did not go out. But it never would, he knew that now. The flame would burn forever, drawing into its hungry form whatever darkness stalked the night. It was like a magnet, that flame, pulling towards itself all of human evil. It might be Halloween, but there were no such things as monsters. Just people, and the things they did to each other.
He placed the pumpkin in the sink. Then, rolling up his sleeves, he set to work on her body. He had tied the polythene bag tightly around the stump of her neck, sealing off the wound. The head had gone into the ice-filled bath, along with… the other things, the things he could not yet bring himself to think about.
The smell hit him as soon as he removed the bag, a heavy meaty odour that was not at all unpleasant. Just different from what he was used to.
Discarding the carrier bag, he reclaimed the pumpkin from the sink, oh-so careful not to drop it on the concrete floor. He reached out and placed it on the stub of Katy's neck, pressing down so that the tiny nubbin of spine that still peeked above the sheared cartilage of her throat entered the body of the vegetable. Grabbing it firmly on either side, a hand on each cheek, he twisted and pressed, pressed and twisted, until the pumpkin sat neatly between Katy's shoulders, locked tightly in place by the jutting few inches of bone.
The flame burned yellow, blazing eyes that tracked his movements as he stood back to inspect his work.
Something shifted, the sound carrying across the silent room — an arm moving, a shoulder shrugging, a hand flexing. Then Katy tilted her new head from side to side, as if adjusting to the fit.
Baxter walked around the table and stood beside her, just as he always had, hands by his sides, eyes wide and aching. He watched as she shook off the webs of her long sleep and slowly began to stand.
Baxter stood his ground when she leaned forward to embrace him, fumbling her loose arms around his shoulders, that great carved head looming large in his vision, blotting out the rest of the room. She smelled sickly-sweet; her breath was tainted. Her long, thin fingers raked at his shoulder blades, seeking purchase, looking for the familiar gaps in his armour, the chinks and crevices she had so painstakingly crafted during the years they had spent together.
When at last she pulled away, taking a short shuffling step back towards the chair, her mouth was agape. The candle burned within, lighting up the orange-dark interior of her new head. She vomited an orangey pulp onto his chest, staining him. The pumpkin seeds followed — hundreds of them, rotten and oversized and surging from between her knife-cut lips to spatter on the floor in a long shiver of putrescence. And finally, there was blood. So much blood.
When the stagnant cascade came to an end, he took her by the arm and led her to the door, guiding her outside and onto the wooden decked porch, where he sat her in the ratty wicker chair she loved so much. He left her there, staring out into the silvery veil of the rain, breathing in the shadows and the things that hid within them. Was that a chuckle he heard, squeezing from her still-wet mouth?
Maybe, for a moment, but then it was drowned out by the sound of trick-or-treaters sprinting past in the drizzly lane.
He left the door ajar, so that he might keep an eye on her. Then, still shaking slightly, he opened the refrigerator door. On the middle shelf, sitting in a shallow bowl, were the other pumpkins, the smaller ones, each the size of a tennis ball. He took one in each hand, unconsciously weighing them, and headed for the hall, climbing the stairs at an even pace, his hands becoming steady once more.
In the small room at the back of the house, on a chipboard cabinet beneath the shuttered window, there sat a large plastic dish. Standing over it, eyes cast downward and unable to lift his gaze to look inside, Baxter heard the faint rustle of polythene. He straightened and listened, his eyes glazed with tears not of sorrow but of loss, of grief, and so much more than he could even begin to fathom.
Katy had died in childbirth. Now that she was back, the twins would want to join their mother, and the games they would play together promised to be spectacular.
SIMON STRANTZAS
The Other Village
"SOMETHING DIFFERENT, you want?"
The man spoke to Monica, but kept his eye on the tour guide, not wanting to be overheard. His skin was dark, the colour of slick black olives, and his yellow shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing the ring of tiny deep-brown stones that lay in relief around his neck. A few dozen similar necklaces of a lighter shade were lined up on the table before him.
"God, yes," said Jessica. "This has been the worst vacation ever. We want to see something different, don't we Monica?"
But Monica knew Jessica didn't really care what she had to say, and hadn't since they left Toronto three days earlier. Going away together proved to be a huge mistake, and Monica wished there were some way she could step back in time and correct it. She closed her eyes and prayed, but when she opened them again she was still in the hot Mediterranean bazaar, and the dark-skinned merchant was looking straight at her.
"I know place. Not like here. This place, not so many people come see. Like real place." There was a sense of pride when he said that, yet it felt as though he were selling the experience. Monica suspected this happened a lot — everyone trying to poach the members of tour groups to extract money from them. It was probably why he didn't want anyone hearing his offer. Jessica, though, didn't seem concerned.
"Listen, buddy. If you can tell us where to go where there's less people like us and more like you, I'm sold."
He smiled large and nodded quickly, like some wind-up toy, and Monica felt uneasy. She whispered into Jessica's ear. The larger woman exploded.
"Who cares if we already paid them? They aren't showing us anything we couldn't see on television. Besides, this guy says we'll be back tonight. There's plenty of time to join up again with all the old ladies tomorrow. I'm tired of walking between the ropes; let's go behind the scenes!"
Jessica was starting to sweat with excitement, her doughy skin flushed. The merchant continued to smile, and waved a young man to his side.