Halloween night murder, p.12
Halloween Night Murder, page 12
And then Bella burst into raucous laughter. She could not stop howling, doubling over, grabbing her sides, trying desperately to catch her breath.
Hayley and Liddy both stopped screaming and looked at each other. “What’s happening? What’s going on here?”
Bella collected herself, taking deep gasps, finally able to speak without giggling. “My dears, there is nothing to be frightened about. That’s just Gregory in his Halloween costume.”
Liddy eyed Gregory suspiciously. “Halloween costume?”
Hayley and Liddy exchanged another wary look before returning their attention to the zombie standing still in front of them, not moving, which was kind of strange in and of itself.
Bella pressed forward, insinuating herself in between her menacing-looking son and her two alarmed guests in order to restore some calm. “Gregory has always loved Halloween ever since he was a little boy around five years old. He looks forward to coming up with a brand-new scary costume every year. I remember that very first Halloween when he was in kindergarten, he wanted to go trick-or-treating as the Grim Reaper. Isn’t that adorable?”
“Your five-year-old son wanted to dress up as the personification of death?” Hayley could not help blurting out.
Just the mere fact a kid that age was even aware of the Grim Reaper made Hayley concerned.
“After that, it became a challenge coming up with a new idea every year, although lately, the past six years or so, it’s always a zombie. Never the same zombie, but always a zombie. Gregory’s favorite show of all time is The Walking Dead.”
“Of course it is,” Liddy cracked.
“Ever since he saw the first episode, he’s been obsessed. He goes to the conventions, writes his own fan fiction, it’s just the cutest thing!”
Not for a thirty-something year old man, Hayley thought to herself.
“Well, hats off to you, Gregory, you do look pretty scary!” Liddy noted, trying not to make eye contact. “It’s just that . . .” Her voice trailed off as if she had decided not to finish her sentence.
Bella picked up on it immediately. “It’s just that what, dear?”
Liddy hemmed and hawed. “Oh, nothing, really, I was only thinking . . . that perhaps . . .” She glanced at Hayley, who subtly tried shaking her head to discourage Liddy from continuing. But Liddy could never keep something in her brain for too long. Eventually every thought had to come spilling out. “I just think it’s weird a man of Gregory’s age is still dressing up to go trick-or-treating on Halloween!”
There.
She said it.
It was out there and there was no taking it back.
Bella did not seem the least bit bothered by Liddy’s frankness. “Oh, I agree. He’s way too old to go house to house trick-or-treating. No, he dresses up so he can jump out and surprise the trick-or-treaters who show up at our front door looking for sweets. It’s all part of the fun, right, Gregory?”
He grunted an unintelligible reply followed by a low moan, apparently choosing to stay in character.
“I’m amazed you would get any kids to come all the way out here in the woods,” Hayley remarked.
“Oh, you’d be surprised. There are a few diehards in town who will go miles and miles in order to fill their little buckets with candy,” Bella explained with a serene smile. “I’m surprised none have shown up yet. It’s well past six o’clock. But we’ve had a few come as late as ten thirty at night. For some, we’re the last stop on their way back to town.”
“I’m sure the storm will keep a lot of people home tonight,” Hayley said.
“We shall see,” Bella said.
The door to Mona’s room slowly creaked open and she poked her head out. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes watery. She did not look good at all. “Did I hear screaming or was I just having a nightmare?” Her eyes wandered from Hayley and Liddy to the repellent zombie with its tatters and oozing pus, and she was able to put two and two together. “Nope, guess it wasn’t in my dreams.”
“Mona, you don’t look well,” Hayley said with a worried lilt.
Mona shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep.”
She closed the door.
Hayley spun around toward Liddy. “I’m afraid there might be something seriously wrong with her, like maybe a concussion.”
Liddy nodded in agreement. “What do you think we should do? We can’t call an ambulance and we have no way to drive her to the nearest hospital. And a long hike to the main road with all the heavy rain and thunder and lightning would just be too dangerous for Mona in her condition.”
Bella listened with keen interest.
“You’re right, Liddy. Which is why I’m going to go it alone,” Hayley announced.
“What?” Liddy gasped.
“I have to. We don’t have a choice. Somebody needs to set out for help. If we wait here too long and Mona’s condition worsens, then we’re stuck. We can’t risk it.”
Bella stepped forward. “Oh, no, dear, it’s not safe for you to be wandering around in the woods on a night like this. I’m sure the worst of the storm will be over by morning. Then you can go.”
Hayley waved her off. She had made her decision. “Liddy, you stay here and keep an eye on Mona. I’ll find my way to the main road and try to flag down a passing car, hopefully one with a working cell phone, or at the very least, they can give me a lift to town so I can get some help out here.”
“Dear, if you insist on braving the elements, then take Gregory with you. He knows the woods like the back of his hand. He can show you the way.”
Hayley stole a glance at Gregory, standing still, not moving, not reacting, except for a slow, steady, barely audible moan emitting from his lips.
No way was Hayley going to team up with this guy.
She looked back at Bella and forced a smile. “Honestly, that’s not necessary. I can make it on my own, but I would appreciate it if Gregory lent me his rain slicker so I can keep a little dry.”
“Of course,” Bella said. “But I just wish you would reconsider your plan. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you while you were out there.”
Hayley stopped and stared at Bella.
Although she had said the right words of concern, there was a slight edge in her tone that sounded like a veiled threat. As if she was suggesting something bad would happen to her if she tried leaving the house.
Hayley knew she had to sweep her concerns aside and plow ahead.
She was too worried about Mona.
Hayley looked away from Bella’s strained face and grabbed Liddy’s hands. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Liddy obviously was not comfortable being left behind.
But she knew Hayley was right.
Someone had to look after Mona.
Before Bella could muster up another protest, Hayley scurried down the staircase to the kitchen where she grabbed Gregory’s yellow rain slicker from the rack and threw it on. It was way too big for her, she was practically swimming in it, but it would serve its purpose and keep her head and most of her body dry from the whipping rain.
She burst out the back door suddenly into the chaos of the storm, her heart pounding with a mixture of fear and determination. As she pressed forward, she glanced back to see the house looming like a specter against the night sky, its windows dark and foreboding.
She prayed Liddy and Mona would be all right when she returned.
She swung back around, forging a path ahead, pushing through the unabating wind. With each step through the garden toward the ominous woods in front of her, she had to wipe her eyes as the rain poured down in torrents, obscuring her vision.
As she passed through the overgrown garden, her foot caught on something solid, and she stumbled, her hands reaching out to break her fall. But instead of the damp earth, her fingers met with cold, lifeless flesh.
Hayley’s breath hitched in her throat as she recoiled, her heart pounding in her chest like a drumbeat of dread. The rain continued beating down relentlessly, washing away the dirt and grime that stained the dead man’s face.
She recoiled, shooting to her feet, able to make out the outline of his body, sprawled amidst the tangled vines and weeds, his eyes staring blankly into the abyss.
Frozen in terror, Hayley found herself drawn to those dead eyes, their gaze haunting her like a ghost from beyond the grave.
It was a bone-chilling Halloween nightmare.
Except that she was wide awake.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
It was 1989, one week before Halloween, and a war was raging in the Jordan household. My mother and I had been at it for days, ever since she had vetoed my sexy bride costume for Halloween. I wasn’t buying her excuse that I was way too young to be a sexy bride. I was almost thirteen, for Pete’s sake!
We wouldn’t even be having this argument if she would just agree to let me go out shaving creaming and toilet papering houses like all my other friends.
No, I had to take my little brother, Randy, trick-or-treating because my mother was going to a Halloween party that very same night, and she insisted that I dress up to make it fun for him since she couldn’t take him.
To make matters worse, word around town was that the police were going to be cracking down on the Halloween mischief this year because last year every phone booth (all two) and soda machine placed around town had been pushed over by a marauding gang of overzealous high school kids.
“This is not something that you need or want to be around!” my mother had insisted.
But I did want to be around it!
However, I was smart enough to know not to voice that opinion. So instead, I would be spending All Hallows’ Eve dragging my obnoxious brother around the neighborhood so she could attend some fancy adult costume party where no kids were invited.
Life can be so unfair!
And now in addition to forcing me to babysit, she was vetoing my choice of Halloween costume!
The nerve!
Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, she stomped over to the hall closet and yanked the door open. She reached up to the top shelf, grabbed a package, and marched back over to me, thrusting it in front of me.
I sighed and grabbed it out of her hands.
Looking down at the package, I stared at it in horror. It was a hideous witch costume with the plastic witch mask, warts and all. With as much sass as I could muster, I asked my mother what she wanted me to do with this lame costume, knowing full well I was treading on very thin ice already.
Apparently, my mother had had enough, and with her hands on her hips, she said coolly, “Either you wear that costume and take Randy trick-or-treating, or else!”
I bit my tongue trying desperately not to challenge her with an “Or what?” Because frankly I didn’t want to know.
I just spun around and stomped out of the kitchen with a defiant huff to plan my escape from this horrible life the moment I turned eighteen. I glared daggers at Randy, who was trying to sink farther back in the recliner in the den so I wouldn’t notice him. I sailed past him and ran up the stairs to my bedroom, slamming the door loudly for good measure.
Monday I was miserable at school. My best friends, Liddy and Mona, tried to console me as they attempted to contain their excitement about going out shaving creaming with a group of our friends by downplaying how much fun it was going to be, how they really didn’t want to go, and how they wished they could get out of it. But I knew they were just trying to make me feel better.
When I got home from school, I was so angry I was ready to take it out on my little brother, but as I entered through the back door, I saw him sitting at the kitchen table, looking so sad I felt my icy heart melt a bit. I sat down at the table with a heavy sigh and asked him what was wrong.
He confided to me that he really didn’t want to go trick-or-treating because his favorite TV show, Baywatch, was on that same night and he’d rather stay home than go out knocking on doors in the cold. But our mother had bought him a Freddy Krueger costume that he had begged her to buy him for months, so now he was stuck. She had spent nearly twenty-five dollars on it, so there was no way he could skip out and not go.
We were both sitting at the table wallowing in our misery when suddenly I had a bright idea. Randy was all ears if it would allow him to stay home and watch Baywatch. I explained that Mom was leaving early to go out to dinner with her friends Celeste and Jane before heading to the party. We could do a superfast run around the neighborhood, load up on candy as proof we were out, then make it back in time for the show.
“What’s in it for you?” Randy asked suspiciously.
“Can’t a sister do a nice thing for her little brother without her motives being questioned?” I sniffed.
Of course he was right. I could then slip out and join my friends, armed with a backpack full of rolls of toilet paper and cans of shaving cream, and be home long before Mom returned from her party.
We both grinned and shook hands.
It was a deal.
Halloween night came, and Mom insisted on taking photos of us dressed in our Halloween costumes. We enthusiastically smiled and waved and shouted “Cheese!” Mercifully, after snapping about a dozen ridiculous photos, Mom left for dinner.
Her car had barely made it around the block before we were grabbing our empty plastic pumpkins and racing out the door. We hit every house in a quarter-mile radius in less than an hour, and were back home before six thirty with pumpkins brimming with candy and treats.
Randy settled himself in the recliner in the den with his bag of candy on his lap and turned on the TV to see Miss USA Shawn Weatherly racing up the beach in a red swimsuit, while I ditched my costume and candy bag, grabbed my backpack, and scurried out the door to join up with my friends at our prearranged meeting place—the town ballfield.
Mona brought extra cans of shaving cream since her father had loads of it due to his disconcertingly fast-growing facial hair and Liddy had purchased cans of Silly String at the West End drugstore on Main Street.
This was going to be a night to remember.
We were having a ball running around spraying each other with shaving cream, acting like big shots, and hiding behind trees and buildings when we spotted a police cruiser heading our way.
Honestly, we were more interested in spraying each other with shaving cream and Silly String than doing any real damage. We were just having fun! That is, until our little gang, around ten of us, ended up in the middle of town on Roberts Avenue where we started to complain about being cold and tired, and how we were ready to go home.
I checked my watch that my mother always made me wear and saw that it was nearly nine o’clock. I didn’t want to risk arriving home after my mother, and I still needed some extra time to shower and change. I was about to say goodbye to the other kids when one of the boys in our group yelled, “Hide! It’s the high schoolers!”
Sure enough, a larger pack of older kids were descending upon us, reaching in their bags and pulling out fresh cans of shaving cream. They had evil smiles on their faces!
Now, you might think, “How menacing can a group of high school freshmen look to our twelve-year-old selves?” Well, let me assure you, these fifteen-year-old kids were huge and intimidating and could do serious damage to us. Some of our gang ran away, but a few of us stood motionless, frozen in place, gripped with fear.
But we knew we had to defend ourselves.
They stopped about twenty feet away from us and were whispering amongst themselves.
Finally, Mona whispered, “Get ready!”
We all quietly armed ourselves with shaving cream and rolls of toilet paper from our backpacks, ready to go to war, but in reality I just wanted to scream and run.
It was eerily quiet on the street except for some loud music and people’s voices emanating from a house a few doors down from where we stood.
Suddenly a tall high school kid with dark hair that I recognized as our bag boy, Jon Green from the Shop and Save, let out a guttural battle cry. “Get’em!”
It was a tangle of arms, legs, and bodies colliding just like in one of those old war movies Mona’s father always watched on cable. Everyone was whooping and hollering. I could feel shaving cream being rubbed on my hair and in my face and up my nose.
Somehow I lost the grip on my roll of toilet paper, and the next thing I knew, some of the bigger kids were running around with it until it was wrapped around parked cars, nearby trees, and just plain stuck all over everyone.
Suddenly there was a burst of loud sirens from two police cars roaring up the street. Some of the older kids darted away between houses and down the street to avoid getting caught.
Unfortunately, the younger kids (namely me, Liddy, and Mona) had never faced a brush with the law before so we immediately threw our hands up in surrender, terrified. We watched nervously as the police marched toward those of us left, checking out all of the parked cars covered in shaving cream and toilet paper.
I closed my eyes, wishing I was home with Randy watching David Hasselhoff’s over-the-top acting.
Things just went downhill from there. Above the chattering of the police radio and kids begging the officers not to call their parents, I heard my name being yelled (no bullhorn needed): “Hayley Jordan, you get over here right now!”
I don’t have to tell you who it was.
My mother, along with Mona’s and Liddy’s mothers, and a whole group of partygoers had come outside to investigate why there were so many flashing police lights on the street. The police informed them that rival gangs of hoodlums were brawling with each other and vandalizing property in the neighborhood. Personally, I thought the officers were being a little over-dramatic but I was in no position to argue.
I thought I would never be allowed to leave the house again, but in the end, Mom just grounded me for two weeks. Apparently, I found out later that she was flying high from the party, where a local lawyer dressed as Dracula asked her out on a dinner date (he was attracted to her Morticia Addams costume).
Anyway, I was given some unexpected leniency.
