Halloween!

#75

If you’re creepy and you know it, clap your hands!

Vol. 75: It’s Halloween! I had an opener listing all the great things about Halloween, but I decided to just get down to creeping you out. Sound good?

Halloween Check List:

1. Carved the pumpkin yesterday. Put candle inside.

2. Carved husband yesterday. Put candle inside. He’s big, maybe two.

3. Empty bags of candy into the trick ‘r’ treat bowl.

4. Empty bags of eyeballs into the garbage disposal. Really should remember to write dates on those freezer bags.

5. Decorate front porch with spiders, webbing, old cadavers and purple lights.

6. Be the weird adult who sits on the porch stone-faced and daring the kids to come up the steps for candy.

7. Pass out treats. One for me, one for you.

Drinkiepoo!- The Walker

This is from The Walking Dead Official Cookbook

1½ oz bourbon

1½ oz honey mead

1 oz fresh apple cider

2 dashes Angostura bitters

fresh nutmeg

Add the bourbon, mead, cider and bitters to an ice-filled shaker. Cover and shake well for about 20 seconds.

Strain into a chilled rocks or coupe glass and grate nutmeg on top.

Creepy Books to Buy

New Releases:

-Sparrow in a Tin Can by C. K. Turner

-Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang

-The Elementals by Michael McDowell. This is a new illustrated edition from Valancourt Books

Coming Soon:

-Edith Holler by Edward Carey, Oct. 31.

-Nestlings by Nat Cassidy, Oct. 31.

-Mothtown by Carolina Hardaker, Nov. 14.

-The Kingdom of Sweets: A Novel of the Nutcracker by Erika Johansen, Nov. 28. This is a good choice for the lover of dark stories on your Christmas list.

-Four Gathered on Christmas Eve, a collection of Winter horror by four comic artists. Dec. 19.

What’s Halloween without a scary story? This tied for 4th/5th place in the Substack competition.

Gnaw

Dan should have been back hours ago. I think I’m going crazy, but I can’t let her see that I’m afraid. Please let him be hiding somewhere they can’t smell him, waiting them out until he can run back to us.

It started with a few. The first ghoul I ever saw was on my way to work, driving down Oakwood, a somewhat rural road that took me to the main streets of town. It was a Wednesday morning and I saw a pile of something in the lane up ahead, then realized the pile was moving. I slowed and looked at it as I passed, seeing it for what it was, a young man covered in browning blood, hunched over and holding the remains of a dead animal. He was tearing it open with his teeth as he ate. I believe it was a cat. I saw the scene clearly for maybe one second before stomping on the gas. Once on Randall Boulevard I pulled into a parking spot and called the police to report it, my voice shaking so hard I could barely control it. He’d been covered in blood, more than a cat or whatever it was would produce.

When I got the story out, the 911 operator said, “Another?” No, I told her, I’d never reported a man ripping an animal apart before, and she replied, “I mean this isn’t the only sighting like this. We’ve gotten a few calls this morning about people eating roadkill and stuff. Must be the druggies got something exotic to get high on and here’s our new problem. We’ll send a car.”

It turned out she was half right, this was the beginning of our new problem. I went to work and texted Dan about what I’d seen, but the day was so eventful that I had texted him at least five times the first hour. Two coworkers, on-again-off-again best friends, had been sent home for biting each other. They both had red eyes, so everyone knew they had spent the night drinking together and brought their argument to work with them. But their faces...both of them looked so incredibly dry, like their skin had shrunk and was stretched across their skulls. Then, one of the security guards had run off into the woods chasing a rabbit. At two I went to my manager’s office to get an okay but his door was shut, an unusual thing. I knocked. I could hear panting inside and panicked about what I might be interrupting, but the panting turned to coughing, then Roger saying, “Don’t come in. I’m not well.” It’s Beth, I called, do you need help? Don’t come in, he repeated. I slipped the paper I needed him to look over under his door. I texted Dan I can’t wait for this day to end.

When I went out to my car I watched as three of my coworkers chased each other around the cars at the far end of the parking lot. Some people never grow up. On my way down Oakwood I saw the dark stain on the road where the druggie had been that morning. The mess was almost gone, just bits of fur left.

That night, after putting Stephanie to bed, Dan and I compared our days. He’s unable to take calls at work because he’s on the move in a noisy factory, but he’d read my texts with growing concern. Dan had watched a maintenance guy throw a wrench at the floor supervisor, then chase the sup through the line in an attempt to tackle him. Most of the employees on the line had been laughing, the sup was hated, but when the maintenance guy actually caught him and bit into the sup’s face, everyone had jumped in to end it. Except for Graciela, one of the oldest line employees. Dan said that she’d been yelling no, no like everyone else as they pulled the two men apart, but when the sup’s face was revealed, with the big flap of meaty skin hanging down from the bite, suddenly Graciela had wrapped her arms around the sup’s head and tried to pull his face down to her gnashing teeth. Dan had grabbed Graciela’s hands and yanked her off. Every supervisor and lead had flooded the area and between them all, the three had been dragged away and Dan got the production back on schedule. Their eyes had become red, he said, all their skin suddenly dry and wrinkling like paper. It was beyond dehydration. They looked like they hadn’t had a drink of water in a year.

We both stared at each other, wondering what celestial stroke had happened today. I turned to the news and Dan checked his phone. There were reports from across the country of people attacking, chasing strangers through the streets. Children were missing. A man in Cincinnati had been at the zoo with his family when he jumped into a hippopotamus enclosure and charged, growling and snapping his jaws. The animals had stomped him. There was video from San Diego of a furious man breaking down a side door of a wood framed house and entering. There were screams from inside that suddenly stopped and the man came back out the broken door, face smeared in blood and dragging the body of an elderly man behind him like a coat. Before each of the phone videos were played, the newscaster warned that the footage we were about to see was graphic, and though they stopped each right before the deaths I could see the shriveled faces of the people running after their prey. It was a brief news interview with a middle-aged man in the street that made it fall into place. The man was dressed in running gear and looked like he’d been stopped during a marathon. Actually, he’d been chased. The reporter asked him what he thought was going on. Drugs, the man said, all the street people are freaking out. I’ve been chased by a couple of them just now. I’ve seen them trying to grab birds out of the air. They’re like ghouls trying to eat anything they can catch. It’s scary. The reporter asked if the man would continue to run his usual route. Nah, I need to switch my route if this is what’s happening downtown.

We shoved the couch in front of the front door and the breakfast table in front of the back door. I laid next to Stephanie while she slept. Dan sat in the easy chair with his Colt next to him, watching the news all night.

In the morning he came into our bedroom. I was brushing my teeth but stopped when I saw his face.

We don’t need to call in, he said. I don’t think anyone is expecting us. We’re going to the cabin. I spit, wiped my mouth and hurried to get my phone. I heard Dan telling Stephanie to pack her sleepover bag with her favorite jeans and shirts. We’re going to the cabin!, he told her, like it was a treat. Now?, she asked.

I called my parents over and over, getting the automated recording that said to try again later. They lived on the second floor of a condo in a retirement community. It was the floor for the more active residents. Please stay inside for once, I thought.

Getting to the cabin was terrifying. Red eyed people ran back and forth across Crandall Road, chasing and feeding. I told Stephanie to lay down in the back seat so she wouldn’t see. We passed an open Jeep in the road that was swarmed by ghouls, bloody and chewing, so many that, thankfully, I couldn’t see what they were eating. Dan swerved the wheel back and forth, dodging abandoned cars and ghouls roaming the road with their hands clawing at our SUV. Once we were out of the town proper the road was mostly clear, though we did pass cars at the side of the road with people watching us. One family had the hood up and tried to wave us down. Normally we would have stopped, but one of them was pretty bloody so Dan hit the gas.

Our cabin is isolated. My great-grandfather built it in the center of twenty-three acres of land. It’s the family cabin now, one that my parents, siblings, and cousins take turns with, so I expected to find someone else here first. I hoped my parents had come.

We’ve been here three weeks. My parents haven’t come, nor anyone else we’d hoped for. One minute I’m mourning what I know to be true, the next I’m filled with gratitude for having Dan and Stephanie.

We had enough food to last a few weeks before even thinking of rationing. That’s low now, and we didn’t have enough of anything else to begin with. Medicine, soap, toothpaste. We told each other that everything would be normal soon.

We dare not have a fire in the fireplace, so the cabin is freezing cold, but we have a small generator and enough blankets and coats that have been left here over the years. Dan and I have gone outside one at a time to pick apples and blackberries, the other waiting in the doorway and watching. Stephanie knows what’s happening now. We had to tell her something to make her be quiet. She knows that people are scary now.

Dan is driving to the Kirwin’s cabin this morning to see if they’re hiding there. He should be back within the hour. If they are, they might want to share resources. We have coats and fruit. We have a gun. They might want to crowd together for protection, and they could bring all their food and aspirin. If they aren’t there, he’ll break in and take their stuff. He has the gun in case a ghoul appears. I’m watching the time. Stephanie wants to play outside so I put her coat and boots on her, and put two kitchen knives in the pockets of my own coat. I peeked out through the tear in the blanket we’d nailed over the window and listen closely, and when I haven’t seen anything, we quietly go outside. Stephanie plays in the grass with the little plastic cars her cousin Cody left behind. She knows to whisper. I watch everything.

Dan hasn’t returned. I’ve given Stephanie her lunch but didn’t eat myself. He’s been gone two and a half hours.

He hasn’t returned. It’s been five hours. I’ve called his cell sixty-two times. I tell Stephanie that Daddy said he was going to check on lots of neighbors today. That isn’t what he said, but now that I’ve told her the lie I’m hoping it’s true.

It’s been eight hours. I know something has happened. I give Stephanie spoonfuls of peanut butter and a candy bar for dinner. I shouldn’t even think it but I’m considering sneaking out after Stephanie goes to sleep. I have to look for him.

It’s 7:30. I put Stephanie to bed half an hour ago and have spent that time putting my boots on and taking them off, and my coat too. I can’t stand waiting but I can’t leave her alone. I had pulled my boots off for the third time when I heard something brush against the side of the house. We’ve always left the lights off, using camp lanterns on low at night, so the cabin looks empty from outside. I heard it again, something on the front porch. I crawled up to the window and slowly pulled a tiny bit of blanket back. There, on the dark porch, was Dan. His back was facing me, but I heard his key fumbling into the lock, saw him bent down a little to squint in near blackness. I heard him breathe open up against the door. I jumped, throwing the deadbolt back and flung the door open. Dan came out of the black night and crossed the threshold, entered the sparing glow of the cabin, and I saw his torn face and red eyes, the bloody drool that hung from his shriveled mouth and the stench of decay that came off him. He lunged, grabbing my face, opening wide and attaching his mouth to mine like a kiss, my scream muffled by his face pressing down, his teeth biting through my tongue and pulling away. The excruciating pain. The horror of feeling the final release from my body. My mouth filled with blood that I coughed out as I watched Dan chew.

When he let go my hand scrabbled across the counter for a kitchen knife, the one Mom used on the turkeys, and found it. He stood there, chewing and watching as I brought the knife up. I stabbed Dan in the chest. I had to do it for our daughter. A little blood dribbled down the handle but he pulled it out and dropped it on the floor without any indication of pain. My own pain was lessening, becomes a dull ache in my mouth. I backed around the kitchen island, scanning for more weapons. I pulled open the freezer and grabbed the mallet we kept there, but as soon as I had it in my hand, Dan lunged again. He yanked it from my shaking hand and dropped it, then pulled my arm into his mouth, biting down with all his might and tearing out a chunk, which he greedily chewed as blood spurted into his face. A sound that would have been a scream came from my throat and my body began to spasm. I fell to the floor but Dan was still holding and chewing my arm. Through the blood that dripped into my eyes, I watched my husband eating my arm, but the pain began to ease, and soon I didn’t feel it at all.

Then Dan lost his balance, slipping in the enormous pool of blood on the kitchen floor. He caught himself by grabbing the stovetop, knocking a big cast iron skillet to the floor with a thump that made the cabinets shake.

“Mommy!”

Dan looked down at me. He took my hand again, but this time he pulled me to my feet. Together we went to the bedroom door and I turned the knob. A small and squirming bit of food was looking at us silhouetted in the doorway.

“Daddy!” it squealed. “You’re back!”

We moved closer. I reached out my arms.

Well, how’d I do? Any frights? Make a little tinkle in your costume?

Oh. Just a general sense that I’m not someone you want to know. Okay.

The horrors don’t end after tonight. No, no, no, no. I’m creepy every Tuesday, and I’ll be back next week with a look at the worst kids around. I think I’ll drop in a horrifying murder too.

Take a sec and hit the ‘like’ button. It’s like candy to me.

Happy Halloween, Creeps!