Halloween Masks Page 4

  I slowed as I neared a street that crossed mine, because I could see a vehicle passing along it. But as the vehicle, a dark green van, cut across, I realized it was moving backwards. What a stupid, probably drunken stunt to pull. Probably teenagers. It was a good thing no kids were still on the streets trick-or-treating. As I came up on the crosswise street, I looked down its dark length and saw the headlights receding into the distance until swallowed in the thick boiling mists.

  The fog was slowing my progress. I looked at the softly glowing blue face of my digital watch and saw that it was a quarter to midnight. I hoped I’d get home in time to catch at least the end of a horror movie, preferably some older classic. I had some Jiffy Pop I could cook right over the burner of my stove like my father had made for me as a child.

  Through the rolling plumes of fog, I began to make out the body of the old Driscoll Plastics building where I’d once been a customer service rep, its bricks glistening like dragon’s scales in the street lights. Where the crosswalk cut across the black of the road, I saw the elderly crossing guard waiting patiently for the children that would be walking to the Black School after dawn had risen. He sat in a lawn chair like a king on his throne, holding his scepter of a stop sign across his knees, but he only looked at me calmly, expressionlessly, as I drove past him. I considered waving but decided that he might think I was being facetious.

  I sighed morosely as I rode on through the night, feeling like a paleontologist who had come too late to the sighting of a live dinosaur, finding only its feces instead. Much as I tried to console myself with the promise of TV and popcorn, I knew the true magic had dissipated. I was in that limbo between night and midnight, which was technically the start of day. That purgatory between Halloween and Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s, none of which meant quite as much to me. I felt cheated, even resentful. Every day was so bland, so redundant, a never-ending loop of punching in, punching out, waking up, turning in, dressing, undressing, driving to my job at the electronics company, then driving home. On the one night of the year when the walls seemed to come down, the rules melted away, when reality became skewed, I had missed it all, a prisoner chained in the dungeon of the mundane.

  At least my favorite gas station was open tonight, I noticed as I drove past, first glancing at my gauge to make sure my tank was full. The interior was lit, though I couldn’t see much of the counter man from my angle – just a bit of his shoulder and one arm. Still, it made me feel a little less alone tonight.

  On I went, bitter that I had to go to work the next day as if nothing special had ever happened, but at least grateful that my second shift hours permitted me to stay up late watching TV. It was a faint solace that I clung to, as I drove by the dark houses with their dark windows, dark pumpkins, that house with a mound of leaves and empty strewn clothing in its front yard, the guts and flayed skin of a dismantled scarecrow.

  It was a good thing that I stopped at an intersection close to the town’s center; a motorcycle roared through without even hesitating at the stop sign. It wasn’t until it had plunged into fog that swirled in its wake, however, that I had the impression that not only had there been no rider on it, but that it had been racing backwards.

  I must be tired, but I was determined not to go straight to bed when I got home, and thus admit defeat utterly. I glanced at my dashboard clock. It was twenty minutes til midnight, and I was going to milk the tail end of Halloween for all it was worth. Though I had no popcorn at home, I could still plunk myself down and nibble on chips or half stale doughnuts as I caught the last horror movies of the night.

  As I drew steadily closer to home, by habit I slowed my speed when I came up on the old brick Howland Plastics factory where I was once a machine adjuster. The crosswalk was empty, of course, the Red School many hours away from unlocking its doors. The elderly crossing guard had probably been the one to leave that lawn chair on the sidewalk (yes, I saw his paddle-like stop sign resting on it), but I was sure right now he was snuggled in his bed, or perhaps watching those late night horror flicks himself.

  Peripherally I noticed something as I rode across the twin white stripes, and I glanced up into my rearview mirror. At the opposite side of the street, as if waiting to cross, there had been a small figure in a shaggy dark costume. A child dressed as a gorilla, or a werewolf? But out so late at night? Could he be a trick-or-treater who’d become lost in the maze of the town, still trying to find his way home? The mists that billowed in my wake quickly occluded the vision, and I decided my first impression was unlikely; I must have projected my imagination onto a shrub or a fire hydrant.

  Still, I decided that maybe I should turn around to investigate. Besides, a peek at my gas gauge reminded me that I was running low. My favorite gas station was ahead, and the lights were on inside its little convenience store. I pulled up to one of the pumps, and cut my engine. Even as I lowered my window there was already a man standing so close to my door that I couldn’t see his face. I asked him to fill me up, and without a word he shuffled around to the back of my car, where I heard him fumbling open the cover, fumbling in the spout.

  Funny that it took less time to fill my tank than I would have thought. Maybe my gauge was faulty. The counter on the pump read just five dollars, so I dug it from my wallet and held it out my window like a candy bar for a trick-or-treater. I saw the attendant in his reflective orange jacket moving toward me to retrieve the bill.

  Though I couldn’t see his face from this angle, something strange hung down the front of his body. It looked like the skinned hide of a dog. I leaned forward a little and tilted my head to look up at the man as he planted himself directly outside my door again.

  The elderly man in the orange jacket had the end of that flayed hide in his mouth, as if he were sucking it in slowly. But it wasn’t a skinned animal hide, I realized as I saw it close up. It was a shaggy werewolf costume with no child inside it. Any longer.

  I handed the man his bill and rolled up my window as quickly as I could. I didn’t like the glaring, challenging look in his eyes as he sucked in another inch of the costume.

  I didn’t turn around at the gas station, after all. I pulled my car back onto the street to continue on toward home.

  It was only eleven-thirty, after all, and I might still catch the end of a horror movie on cable if I hurried.

  I refused to let go of the night’s magic. I was determined to have my share.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed milieu Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections PUNKTOWN, VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN, PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and GHOSTS OF PUNKTOWN. Novels in that setting include DEADSTOCK, BLUE WAR, MONSTROCITY, HEALTH AGENT, EVERYBODY SCREAM!, and RED CELLS. Thomas's other short story collections include HAUNTED WORLDS, THE ENDLESS FALL, WORSHIP THE NIGHT, THIRTEEN SPECIMENS, NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS, DOOMSDAYS, TERROR INCOGNITA, UNHOLY DIMENSIONS, AAAIIIEEE!!!, HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD, and ENCOUNTERS WITH ENOCH COFFIN (with W. H. Pugmire). His other novels include LETTERS FROM HADES, THE FALL OF HADES, BEAUTIFUL HELL, BONELAND, BEYOND THE DOOR, THOUGHT FORMS, SUBJECT 11, LOST IN DARKNESS, THE SEA OF FLESH AND ASH (with his brother, Scott Thomas), BLOOD SOCIETY, and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM DEALERS. Thomas lives in Massachusetts.