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A Dark Red Press Presentation

Past The Patch, edited by Brian Fatah Steele

Smashwords Edition

All stories included in this anthology are owned by their author and copyright holder.

ISBN# 0984040617

EAN-13# 978-0-9840406-1-2

Original cover design by Brian Fatah Steele

Cover art elements by http://shoofly-stock.deviantart.com/ and http://zememz.deviantart.com/

No part of this book may be altered in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Find and read more at http://www.darkredpress.com

For that terrible tapping at the twilight window, the boogeyman lurking beneath our beds, and the creatures creaking the closet door – we salute you!

01 – A Brief Introduction

02 – Halloween Candy by J.T. Warren

03 – The Jack Lantern by Jack X. McCallum

04 – A Clown Walks Into A Halloween Party by C.L. Stegall

05 – Funsize by Jack Lloyd

06 – Chaldon’s Bones by Robert S. Wilson

07 – Moon Dance by Matthew J. Leverton

08 – Eddy by H.H. Shullith

09 – Infected, Yellowing Moments by Brian Fatah Steele

10 – The Wolfman’s Wife by Sarah E. Adkins

11 – Home Invasion by John J. Smith

12 – Growing Up Gruesome by Jonathan Dukestein

13 – The Perfect Pumpkin by John Claude Smith

14 – The Witch Of Mistletoe Lane by Court Ellyn

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

This is not a collection of horror stories, but a collection of Halloween stories - there’s a difference. Now, given the nature of the holiday, you’re going to find a great deal of horror crammed within a number of these tales, but not all of them. That was never the purpose of this anthology, simply another genre collection, but an attempt for authors of various styles to all throw their talents at one theme.

I’m quite pleased with the result.

As an author and reader, I’ve consumed quite a bit of material by now in my mid-thirties. While my tastes run wild and varied, it has been the anthologies by the likes of John Joseph Adams, Al Sarrantonio and (of course) Harlan Ellison that have always stood out to me. Why? Because they know how to capture a concept as editors, they know how to see the forest for the trees. If I’ve pulled together even a fraction of that dark magic inside here, I’ll feel successful.

Dark Magic. I remember feeling it the first time I stumbled upon Borderlands 2, edited by Thomas F. Monteleone when I was still too young to fully grasp the madness in the pages. An amazing, imaginative and grotesque collection by names I didn’t recognize then, it had a definite impact. I still have the battered paperback to this day.

Now, there are many reasons why this anthology is free. I could say it’s because I didn’t want to be bothered with royalties and financial issues, and that would be partly true. Mostly, however, it’s because these are rising authors who deserve to be read and in this Wild West market, “free” works out nicely for everyone. There’s also the fact that Dark Red Press just likes folks out there to be able to read cool stuff.

So here you go, stroll on past the patch and see what you find.

Try not to get eaten. ‘Cause that would suck.

Brian Fatah Steele

October, 2011

HALLOWEEN CANDY

J.T. Warren

J.T. Warren was born on Halloween, a few months after his mother saw Jaws at the movies. His affinity for horror can be traced to an early age when he built a coffin out of cardboard and pretended to be a corpse, much to the concern of his parents. He can still be found in a coffin on Halloween when he gets into the spirit of the season. He is a public school teacher and has successfully lured thousands of students into literary waters through works of horror. He hopes his writing will further encourage young adults, and everyone older, to discover the wonder (and dread) found in the written word. J.T. Warren is the pseudonym for a much creepier guy. He is the author of Hudson House, Blood Mountain, Calamity, and Violent Glimpses: Five Dark Plays. Each is available as an ebook.

***

I was restocking the million different varieties of baby lotion when the fight erupted at the far end of the aisle. I had seen something similar to this many times in my life as a stock boy and had even once witnessed an old lady beat a man over the head with an umbrella because he had snatched the last box of turkey stuffing.

This was nothing so grand. Two young boys, maybe four or five-years-old, were running around playing some ridiculous version of tag only they understood while Mommy was standing next to her shopping cart, infant child strapped in the front seat, box of diapers in her hand. She was reading the box, turning it over, reading whatever she could find. Probably reading the bar code. I imagined she was debating whether to take the chance on this different brand of diaper with the reinforced grip tabs because little baby Willie was always ripping off his diapers at the most inopportune times, especially after making a fresh deposit. Whatever the mother’s internal debate, she was too engrossed in the fine print on the diaper box to notice that her two other little darlings had morphed from sweet playmates into vicious enemy combatants.

The little boy wearing a bright red T-shirt slapped the other little boy who was in a shirt with a smiling jack-o-lantern on it. That poor kid started crying in loud, rolling sobs. Mommy’s head twitched but her eyes did not venture off the diaper box. “Play nice,” Mommy said.

The crier stopped his outburst and leveled his gaze at his brother. The red shirt boy started laughing. I could imagine that kid years hence tripping some unsuspecting victim in a high school hallway and grinning when the kid tumbled full-sprawl, books and papers spilling everywhere.

“You’re it!” the future bully yelled.

“No!” the other boy shouted back. “No! No!”

“Boys,” Mommy said in a plain, flat tone. She was rereading the front of the diaper box. Little Willie was sucking on his fingers. His plump face reminded me of mushy balls of Play-Doh.

“It!” the red shirt boy said again. “It! It! IT!”

The boy in the pumpkin shirt growled and lunged at his laughing brother. The bully saw it coming and sidestepped, but as he did, he placed his little hands on his brother’s back and shoved him hard.

I saw what was going to happen and though I was at least watching, I was as unhelpful as the boys’ own mother, though I wouldn’t have been able to do much anyway considering the brace on my left leg. The kid with the grinning pumpkin on his shirt collided into the shelves. His face was at the perfect height to take a metal-shelf hit right in the forehead. His face smacked with a resounding metallic warble and I thought maybe that would be the end but as a stock boy I knew that was too much to hope for.

Above the boy, the dozens and dozens of baby food glass jars wobbled in their little towers and tumbled from their appointed spots. The kid even glanced up as if he sensed that the shelf hit was not to be his only embarrassment at his brother’s hand. I wanted to yell out, to tell the kid to back up, or duck and cover, but there wasn’t any time. I had a flash of a thought--this is going to be bad--and then the jars were falling.

The first casualty cracked onto the white tile floor and split open like a gourd to reveal its mushy orange insides. Several other jars hit the floor around the boy in rapid popping succession like each jar of food was a mini grenade, like the damn things were filled with so much pressure they were just waiting for the slightest extra stress to explode. The jars ruptured and spewed their multi-colored contents. Glass shards sprayed across the floor. Tiny arcs of white fluorescent light flashed off them as they scattered.

The first jar to smack the kid was filled with a dark red gunk that was supposed to be squash. If I could have taken a snapshot, it would have gotten a million hits on-line: the little kid frozen in disbelief, head tilted back, jars of baby food cascading around him, and one jar of red squash-like stuff just crashing onto the bridge of his tiny nose, the black and white face of the chubby Gerber baby grinning stupidly off the label.

Then the kid fell backwards. His ass hit first and he might have stayed that way in the classic I’ve-just-fallen little kid pose of shock and helplessness, but a trio of jars conked the top of his head--thwak, thwonk, thunk.

A full second after the onslaught ended, one last jar of brown baby food tipped off a high shelf and crashed on the floor between the little boy’s spread legs. It looked like the poor kid had crapped himself. As if to punctuate that final glass-popping explosion, the little kid with the pumpkin on his shirt unleashed an epic howl of pain.

Mommy was running over, her face twisted in an expression of shock and sympathy and guilt and anger and, after she spotted me at the opposite end with a bottle of coconut butter baby lotion in hand, embarrassment.

She scooped up her child, his arms outstretched and eager to wrap around Mommy’s neck. She tried to coo away his pain but he only sobbed louder and louder. She examined his face, rubbed something off his forehead and peered close at his skin as she had been peering at that box of diapers.

The other boy, the future bully in the red T-shirt, stood off to the side. The floor before him was a mess of baby mush and jagged glass fangs. I was up and moving toward him as best as I could, the metal brace clacking against the floor, my hand coming up to tell him not to step on the glass (I could imagine him going forward, sneakers sliding in the food, him falling forward, catching the ground with his hands where glass sliced each of his palms in brilliant crimson arcs like bloody smiles) when I stopped.

The kid was staring at me. A huge smile stretched his lean face into a gruesome mask that could have been molded into one of those flimsy plastic Halloween disguises I had recently stocked in the seasonal aisle. He giggled and then laughed outright. I tried to tell myself that the boy was just a young kid. Kids always laughed when other people got hurt because they didn’t understand. They lacked empathy. This kid’s laughter, however, came so easily and his little eyes stayed focused on me as if he knew damn well that he was laughing at his brother’s misery. In that face I saw all the people who had ever made fun of me, kids who called me “Limpy” or “Cripple” or “Retard Walker.” In that tiny laugh, I heard the cruelty of my shift manager Freling who always sent me out stocking shelves near the end of my shift when my leg was throbbing and I couldn’t conceal the pain on my face. I’ve known him since high school. At least he doesn’t call me “retard” on the sales floor.

In that moment, I could have punched that kid.

Then Mommy called for her boy and the kid ran off. He did not slip in the spilled mush, but when I got close, I saw the grooved imprint of one tiny sneaker. He had managed to avoid the glass entirely. I needed to do my best to clean this up and then get the mop and the rolling garbage can and one of those CAUTION WET FLOOR signs.

I can squat down if I have to but the pain is quite intense and the brace requires I have something to lean on otherwise I might tip right over. Instead of trying and possibly ending up coated with baby food, I bent over and started scooping the mush to one side. The smell was faintly acidic and nauseating.

Mommy and family disappeared around the corner of the aisle where the big Halloween candy display had been erected. Nothing like a little candy to soothe away the pain and humiliation. My mother had been the same way: The kids called me a freak, Mom. You’re not a freak, baby. Here, have a Snickers. Even now, I keep one in my pocket for when I need emotional comfort.

Someone was standing next to me. I thought it was Freling, figured he’d make some kind of comment about me making more of a mess or ask if I was eating the stuff and why didn’t I just go get the mop already? Yes, master. Then I’d hobble away.

But it wasn’t Freling. It was a young girl, maybe eight-years-old. She stood next to me in a black dress with a pointy black witch hat perched perfectly on her head. Long dark hair ran down her back.

“Careful,” I said. “There’s glass.”

“That boy was mean,” the little girl said.

“You saw?”

The girl’s face was pale, her eyes large and dark. “My brother was like that.”

“Some people are,” I said.

The girl watched me, noticed the brace on my leg. Kids always ask about it. They’re curious. They ask, what happened?; does it hurt?; are you deformed?; do you shower with it on? This time of year, I sometimes joke that I make one hell of a zombie, and then I do an overdone stuttering gait, hands out in classic hungry-for-flesh style. Kids laugh when I do that. Freling says I should take my act on the road, join one of those freak shows that perform in circus tents.

“Some people need to be taught,” the little girl said.

“I guess they do,” I said.

She reached toward one of the destroyed jars. It had once contained something that resembled green vomit.

“Careful, sweetie,” I said and put my hand out to stop her. “You don’t want to get cut.”

“It’s okay,” she said. Her hand moved from the busted glass jar and her fingers plucked a small shard from the muck that was already beginning to dry into a crust. Her fingers curled around the piece of glass. “Will you help me find my Mommy?”

The question was so unexpected and sincere that I was no longer sure if I had seen her pick up that fractured section of glass. She held out her other hand and I took it. Her skin was soft and cold like she’d been outside for a long time. She led me through the mess toward the end of the aisle.

“That’s a nice hat,” I said. “You’re going to be a witch for Halloween?”

The girl didn’t say anything for a moment. “It wasn’t right what he did to you,” she said. “It’s not right what he does still.”

“What do you mean?”

“He knew you’d get hurt,” she said. “He knew it and he was happy.”

We reached the end of the aisle. The huge Halloween display stretched out before us in all its cliche macabre grandeur. A giant cardboard mausoleum bedecked in fake spider webs offered entrance to bins and bins of bags of candy, each filled with individually wrapped pieces perfect for trick-or-treaters. Plastic skeletons dangled from the ceiling and a motorized witch cackled every time someone got within a foot of it. A big sign proclaimed, Have a Spook-tacular Holiday!

The woman with her infant and two boys were scrounging through the bottomless bins of candy. The boy with the pumpkin shirt was rubbing his red eyes but seemed basically okay. The kid in the bright red shirt grabbed a big bag of snack-sized chocolate bars and held it over his head.

“I want!” the boy yelled.

“Okay,” Mommy said. “You can open it and have one candy, but be sure to share with your brother.”

As the red shirt kid tore open the bag and several bars tumbled to the floor, the kid’s brother turned hesitantly toward him. The kid smiled at him the way he had smiled at me and both the little boy and I knew his brother wasn’t going to share any candy with him. He ripped open a tiny package and bit into the candy with a large, greedy bite.

“Where’s Mommy?” I asked.

The girl tugged on my hand, stared up into my face. Her eyes seemed older, like they had been transplanted from an elderly person, each eye shining beneath a dull sheen, a shape seen through curtains.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “Not too late to teach him.”

She pulled out of my grip and was through the cardboard stone entrance before I could say anything. She went right to the boy in the red shirt. They started talking. Mommy was now distracted by the sudden cries of baby Willie to see any of this.

The red shirt boy held out a candy bar to the girl in the witch hat. She shook her head and then after a moment of hesitation, the kid handed over two bars. The girl took them, turned to the kid in the pumpkin shirt and gave him one. He took it slowly, as if thinking it was a trick, and then smiled real large when the girl said something to him.

The girl opened the other piece of candy and looked over her shoulder at me. I smiled, feeling a warm sensation spread inside me. There was cruelty in the world but there was also goodness. There was always a choice.

The girl held the open bar before her and then brought her other hand to it. Light bounced off the fragment of glass before she buried it in the chocolate. She patted the bar down with her fingers and went back to the kid in the red shirt. She held it out to him and he took it eagerly, all smiles. He was still smiling as he took the first bite.

“What the hell are you doing?” I jumped in surprise and Freling laughed. He had come up behind me. He was wearing a blue dress shirt with an ugly brown tie. His manager name tag hung crookedly on his sagging breast pocket. “Careful, Chubs,” he said. “You don’t want to fall and put the other leg in a brace, too.” Chubs was his other name for me. When he wasn’t mocking my leg, he went after my gut.

“Right,” I said.

“Were you going to stand here watching kids like some perv or did you plan on cleaning up that mess back there?”

It wasn’t right what he did to you, the little girl had said. It’s not right what he does still.

Freling had been the one who said the slope was open, the one who said he had just skied it, the one who called me a pussy for hesitating. Of course, I was the one who skied down it and crashed into a snowmaking machine. I was the one lucky to not be paralyzed.

“Sure,” I said.

“You want me to hold your hand?” Freling said.

The little girl was looking at me again. She didn’t smile, she didn’t acknowledge me, but I knew what she was trying to tell me. He knew you’d get hurt. He knew it and he was happy. She was right about that. I had known that ever since freshman year when it happened.

It’s not too late. Not too late to teach him.

“I got it,” I said.

“Good,” Freling said. “Now get hobbling.” He walked away.

The girl held my gaze a moment longer and then she was running out of the Halloween display and through the store. Her long black hair trailed behind her. The witch hat never wavered.

I turned back to the aisle of exploded baby food. It looked like a monster had spewed out the contents of its enormous stomach. I walked slowly toward the mess. My brace clacked along with me. The Snickers weighed heavily in my pocket.

Glass shards gleamed before me like a million stars upon which I might wish. There is cruelty and there is goodness too. There’s always the choice. Sometimes, however, that choice is made for us.

I took the candy bar out of my pocket and was bending toward a particularly nasty-looking chunk of glass with its numerous sharp fangs when the woman at the candy display started screaming.

THE JACK LANTERN

Jack X. McCallum

A founding member of Dark Red Press, Jack McCallum lives in Northern California. His writing ranges from graphic horror to tales for younger readers. He also writes screenplays and makes inexcusably awful short films.

***

Territory Northwest of the River Ohio

October, 1800

“I’m scared, da,” Stephen said from the back of the wagon. “There might be haunts in the woods.”

“Me too,” Molly said.

“You should be asleep, young miss,” Francis said to his daughter. He lifted a flap of canvas and looked back into the covered wagon, trying not to laugh when Molly pulled a blanket over her head. “And you should be on the watch for trouble, young man.” Stephen nodded, but he was still frightened.

Molly was six. She was easily upset. Stephen was nine. He should have been hardier, but it seemed both children had inherited their mother’s belief in ghouls and ghosts and God.

“Be still, children,” Laura said, tucking the canvas flap back in place. She was sitting on the seat beside her husband as he watched the horses and what passed for a road in this uncivilized country. “You have your father’s skill and your mother’s faith to protect you.”

Francis turned away and said nothing, having been married long enough to know that his Scottish wife’s wrath was greater than that of her God. The children were living the life of leisure. When Francis was nine he was already working, and by the age of sixteen, he was at war. That will change soon enough, Francis thought. There will be plenty of work ahead for all of us.

One hundred acres of land. The thought was enough to make him swoon. One hundred acres, his land, land for his family and his descendants. Francis’ father had been a cordwainer’s assistant in Roxbury during the start of the Revolutionary War, and not a very proficient one. Francis often wondered if his father shouldn’t have lived up to the Applebaker family name and become a baker instead. His mother and father declared themselves Loyalists and British subjects. They were aghast when their son became entranced with the Patriot’s cause and enlisted in the Continental Army in January of 1776, something Francis could not have done without his parents’ consent if he had been a year younger. His father called him a damned Liberty Boy. His mother and father perished in a fire started by British soldiers while Francis had been digging trenches near the Charlestown Neck. Much older and a little wiser now, Francis realized he had been too young to grasp the greater principals involved at the time, but since he had fought for his country he had been given his reward, his bounty, a deed to one hundred virgin acres in the far western reaches of the Northwest Territory.

This land, this freedom, had cost him six years of service and one eye. It was a fair trade.

With the new century, the Applebaker family was starting a new life.

Francis gave the reins a gentle flick and urged the horses along the nearly imperceptible ruts that corresponded to the trail on his map.

On the side of the trail behind them was a dry jumble of bones. As the Conestoga wagon had rolled past the bones Lorna had gasped and asked if they were human, the remains of someone mercilessly slaughtered by the heathen Indians. Francis had laughed and told her and the children who were peeping through folds in the wagon’s canvas cover that they were looking at the bones of a deer. That was a lie. He had seen bodies split, gutted and flayed by cannon fire. The bones were human, but he didn’t want to worry his family. He put the shattered bones out of his mind.

The wagon rocked back and forth on the poor excuse for a road, the wooden frame creaking softly. The trees were close and dark, growing right to the edge of the trail.

The sun was disappearing behind a hill. The eastern sky was dark; the western sky was the color of blood and bruises. The evening air was crisp. It was nearly the middle of October. The year was growing late.

Jefferson came out from the back of the wagon. He was a young gray and white tom cat who liked to sleep among the sacks of cornflower and bundled clothing. He spent most of his waking hours peering under a flap of canvas in the rear of the wagon. Strapped to the frame were four cages holding a rooster and three hens. They kept a tether on Jefferson. They didn’t want him wandering until they reached their own plot of land. A log cabin was an open house for mice and other vermin. Jefferson would have to earn his keep.

Francis had checked his map an hour ago and thought they were quite close to their new homestead. He was to look for a clearing near the edge of the road. His acreage would be indicated by a whitewashed wooden stake bearing a number. The entire family would have to work quickly to build a shelter before the snow came, but a simple cabin was all they needed as they had supplies to see them through the first winter, and there was a stream on their new land.

It was so quiet here; there were no sounds but the calls of night birds and the croaks and chirps of frogs and crickets. The stars to the east looked like a handful of salt spilled on black velvet.

Jefferson slipped under the flap of canvas, returning to his bed.

Francis glanced at his wife, his lovely, pious wife. She and Molly had golden curls and pale green eyes. Stephen took after Francis, with eyes like gray flint and dark hair. Lorna had a smudge of dirt on her left cheek and her eyes seemed to hold the fading light of day.

The first time he had ever seen her unclothed, her pale green eyes and porcelain skin glowing in the golden light of an oil lamp on their wedding night, he had whispered, “Blessed Jesus.” Lorna had smiled at that, and after they lay together she had gotten down on her knees beside their bed and prayed the Lord forgive her husband for taking His name in vain and to forgive her the sin of pride when she took pleasure in his admiring gaze. Lorna was a Scottish Presbyterian who had been raised in an almost Puritanical faith. Francis was a godless American who had become mad with arousal when he saw her kneeling naked and asking for forgiveness. He never told her that. She probably would have chopped off his manhood instead of laying with him a second time.

“It’s you who’ve done that to the boy’s head,” Francis said. “Filling it with all that tripe about spooks and witchery.”

Lorna was uneasy, having never been this far from civilization, but she cocked a defiant eyebrow at her husband. “Don’t let pride lead you by the nose and steer you into damnation,” Her voice was sheer music with an Edinburgh lilt, even when she snapped at him. “You may have served well in the war and been granted a fine parcel of far-flung land, but there are no armies and little government in the Northwest Territory, my love, and the only one watching over us is the Lord God.”

Francis said nothing. He wouldn’t be surprised if the cat or horses spoke up next. He ground his teeth. At this rate he’d have no teeth left in his final years. Not that he had many years left. He was forty years old, after all. Forty! His life was more than half over and he was only now building a homestead. Madness.

Yet he wouldn’t let Lorna know how afraid he was, afraid of starting a life in the wilderness and leaving behind a comfortable house in Pennsylvania, and afraid of failing his family.

Family! It seemed like only yesterday he was an eager sixteen year old signing up to march with the Continental Army against the English and their King. Now he had a family, and sometimes he worried late into the night, debating every step he should take along this road they were on. If Lorna knew of his fear she would have him in on his knees asking for guidance, and the only thing he ever received from prayer was splinters.

They had to take this chance. They had to. Far from the noise and the crowds, the corruption and violence of city life . . . far from any reasons for war. Their new home would be a haven.

They passed a faded sign made from two planks, large words of warning writ in whitewash.

BE WARY AT NIGHT

TIL OCTOBER IS DONE

KEEP A FIRE AT NIGHT

JACK LIKES IT NONE

Lorna leaned close to Francis and he wondered how she could smell so sweet when he smelled of sweat and grime and tobacco. “Have you heard talk of the Horror of the Territory?” She was whispering now. “They say it is out there, roaming the woodlands. That beast, that abomination created by Satan to turn nature against us.”

Francis pointed down the rutted path and brought the horses to a stop.

In the distance was a homestead in a clearing. It was a long log cabin. firelight glowed behind the oiled paper covering the windows; no one could afford panes of glass in this wilderness. As Francis watched he saw a brighter light bobbing outside and heard the creak and rattle of wooden shutters being secured.

He urged the horses down the road, and by the time he reached the path leading to the homestead a man was standing there with a lantern at his feet and a rifle slung across one arm.

“Greetings,” Francis said. “I am—“

“Francis Applebaker, no doubt.”

“Yes,” Francis said, hopping down from the wagon and slipping on his eye patch. He was uncomfortable with anyone but his family seeing the five-pointed star of scar tissue which was all that remained of his right eye.

“Michael Fish,” the man said, extending a hand. He was a big man with a big belly, and a white fringe of whiskers along his jaw. “I am a fellow veteran. I’m to let you know that your parcel is just a few miles further down the road. It’s an enviable location. You’ve been treated well.” He laughed and said, “You must have shot balls through many a British skull.”

And they returned the favor, Francis thought, shaking his head. “No, I’ve simply been touched by fortune’s grace. We’ll be neighbors then?”

“Aye,” Fish replied. “One of the few good things to come out of the war, a plot of land away from all the hogwash in the east.” Fish looked west and watched the last of the light fade from the sky. “You’ll want to stay with me tonight. I have five children and a wife, but I’m sure we can all squeeze in together. Safer, you see.”

Francis was surprised by the offer. He was told that settlers could be hostile, preferring their isolation. “We would not want to impose. We can pitch a perfectly serviceable tent with our wagon canvas and—“

“Nonsense,” Fish said. He looked into the dark woods nearby. “You’ve not heard of the Punkin Man?”

Francis heard the wagon creak behind him and turned to help Lorna out of the carriage. He saw that the children were peeking out from behind the canvas flap.

“Lord, you’re a fine one,” Fish said.

Lorna blushed. “What were you saying about a pumpkin?”

“The Punkin Man,” Fish said again, lowering his voice. “Come every October he walks the woods in the dark of night, wandering near and far, filling his belly to sleep through the winter, some say. He’s called Big Jack, the Punkin Man. A horrible Pagan beast sired by the cold seed of Satan himself. And Jack don’t just have a taste for the white man, no, he’ll eat any savage in his grasp, from Chickasaw to Kickapoo.”

Lorna gasped and pressed one hand against her bosom. Francis hid his sudden laugh with a cough, covering his mouth with one hand like a powdered dandy.

“Sir,” Francis said, “I would ask you to not speak of such things. My children have sharp ears.”

“They should know what walks the land at this time of year,” Fish said. “I’ve seen him myself. Tall he was, with limbs as strong as the roots of an oak, and a great round punkin for a head.”

“Of course,” Francis said. He turned and took Lorna’s arm. “Thank you for the offer of creature comforts, sir, but we will manage fine with our tent.”

Lorna was horrified. “Francis Applebaker!” Of Fish she asked, “Sir, do you speak of . . . the Horror?”

Fish nodded.

Francis’ patience was waning. “I’m not going to let this fellow cause the children to suffer fits of the imagination with his fables of—“

“Fables!” Fish was instantly enraged. “I’m trying to save their lives, you buffoon! I’ve seen that creature attack, seen it with my own eyes. I saw him tear a dozen Missouri Indians to pieces! He consumed their legs and hind parts, leaving nothing but naked bone below the waist, and then he tore apart their remains like a mad dog. If the heathens had been white men I would have given them a Christian burial. I can show you their remains if you need proof. If it wasn’t for my lantern shedding light like the wisdom of God that fire-fearing thing might very well be attacking now. ”

“Enough,” Francis said. He gave Lorna a gentle push toward the wagon, but she had planted her feet like a stubborn mule. He wanted to swat her rump to get her moving. Instead he lifted her up onto the seat of the wagon.

“My friend,” Fish said, “Forgive my temper. I am only concerned for your safety. You must not be in the woods at night at this time of year. We should be inside now that night has come. Please, reconsider and stay with us.”

Francis drew a breath and thought a moment. He could be rude to this man or make him a friend. In the Territory, a good neighbor could be the difference between life and death.

He put a hand on Fish’s shoulder. “Thank you, sir, but we must go on. At first light we need to begin clearing land for a cabin which I hope will be as fine as yours. But I promise you that at the first sign of trouble we will come to you for aid.”

Fish was not pleased with this decision, but he could see that Francis’ mind was set. “Very well, but keep your horses ready, keep a watch, and keep a fire burning in the hearth. The Devil’s bastard hates fire, he does. Be safe, my friends.”

Francis climbed up onto the wagon and gave Fish a wave and then the Applebaker family continued traveling down the trail.

“He had a huge belly,” Molly said a moment later.

Stephen laughed so hard he fell over onto a sack of corn meal, that corn meal acting as a preservative for their limited supply of eggs. This caused Lorna to refresh her son’s memory on the torments of Hell suffered by inattentive and destructive little boys.

Francis was laughing as well.

“If you ever get so overstuffed I don’t know what I’ll do,” Lorna said, rubbing Francis’ firm stomach with a warm hand.

“Stop that,” he whispered, “I’ve got to keep my attention on the task at hand.”

Lorna gave him a mischievous smile, and then climbed into the back of the wagon to light a lantern. They set the lantern on a pole and soon saw the numbered sign for their tract of land.

Francis and Stephen quickly set up a small tent on level ground, using the canvas from the wagon and two of the arched ribs that held up the canvas. Molly was already asleep on a bed of folded blankets by then.

Lorna started a fire; their late meal was cornmeal mush fried in bacon grease. Thinking of Fish, Francis started a second fire thirty feet from the first. He wasn’t worried about bugbears in the woods. He was worried about Indians. Some were friendly. Some were not.

He carried his longrifle in one hand and a lantern in the other as he looked for the stream on his land. He found it beyond a heavy overgrowth of trees. The water was cold and sweet. When he returned he saw that Stephen had dug a shallow hole and hung a blanket on a branch as a screen for their privy.

Later, as Lorna, Stephen and Molly slept in the partially covered wagon, too unnerved by what Fish had said to sleep in the tent, Francis sat by the fire sipping coffee. As a boy he had never acquired a taste for the tea his mother and father drank. It was in the Continental Army that he first sipped the national drink. It was his only vice. “Better to have you drinking that than stinking of tobacco,” Lorna had once said. There was no moon, and the stars overhead were magnificent. After a while Francis dozed, sitting upright by the fire.

The next morning he awoke to the smell of oatmeal and more coffee. Stephen was off getting fresh water. Lorna was quizzing Molly. Francis admired his wife for schooling the children at every opportunity, and he knew the children detested it. “I won’t have my son cleaning stables or toting a gun to earn his keep,” she once said, “and I won’t have my daughter raised as a pampered simpleton fit only for marriage, the kitchen and the nursery.”

The thought that his children might one day write their own correspondence and read books from cover to cover filled him with pride. Francis knew his numbers, but he was nearly illiterate. Perhaps that’s why I’ve no time for the Bible, he thought. I can’t read the damnable thing.

“What document led to this former colony becoming a country?” Lorna asked Molly. “And be exact, young lady.”

“The Declaration . . .” Molly said, writing the words on her slate with a stick of chalk, “of Independence.”

Lorna checked the slate carefully, looking for any misspelled words.

The only words on that slate I know how to spell are the and of, Francis thought. If the boy doesn’t inherit Lorna’s brains I’ll have to make sure I teach him how to use his hands.

He saw Stephen then. The boy was waving to him, out of sight of his mother and sister. When Francis joined him Stephen whispered, “In the stream, da.” They moved through the overgrowth of trees together.

It was a dead Indian, caught up on rocks in a narrow part of the stream.

“He just come bobbing along like an apple as I was filling the water bucket,” the boy said.

The Indian was wearing the ragged remains of a tanned hide shirt. His face had strong lines, twisted by the horror he experienced as he died. From the waist down he was naked. The soft meat of his thighs, buttocks and privates had been stripped away, leaving naked bone.

“Unfortunate bastard,” Francis said.

Stephen reached out with a stick and poked at the dead man. “Do you think it was animals?”

Perhaps a bear could have caused the look of terror frozen on the Indian’s face, Francis thought, but animals would have eaten more. They would have ravaged the face, the eyes. Francis had seen more than his share of corpses eaten by wolves or picked at by birds during the war.

“Most likely,” he lied. “Help me get him out of the stream. We’ll find a place to bury him and ask your mother to say a prayer. And don’t say a word about his condition. If she asks, just say he was dead. No need to offend her sensibilities.”

“Bury him, da? I thought the red men were heathens?”

“I don’t know what they believe, if anything at all. But we should show our respects for a man who died, savage or not. If he’s meant to be laid in the ground, so be it. If not, at least he won’t be exposed to the elements.”

They buried the man downstream before they asked for a few words from Lorna. Stephen kept Molly occupied by their camp while Lorna said a prayer over a mound of fresh-turned earth.

A short time later Lorna, Stephen and even Molly were clearing undergrowth from the place where they would build their cabin, while Francis took his axe and began felling trees. A little cabin now, and one day, a great house, Francis thought.

Two weeks passed without incident, and Francis had almost forgotten the warning from Fish. October was almost done. It was the evening of the 31^st and Francis was relaxing on a stump that was now his nightly seat by one of the fires outside. Despite his lack of superstition he still kept two fires burning until they were all safe and secure in the cabin for the night. He liked to end his day with a sip of coffee under the stars. The air was chilly now and he could almost smell snow on the way. He glanced at the cabin, proud, and sore. There was an ache in his back that had never been there when he was young.

It was very quiet here, day and night. From time to time they heard the distant rhythmic sound of Fish chopping wood down the road, and once they heard one of his children squealing with laughter, but otherwise the only sounds were the chuckle of water in the stream and the wind in the trees.

After their first week they had visited the Fish family, Francis presenting them with four fine trout. Mrs. Fish, her name was Adeline, gave them a fine blueberry pie in return.

The cabin took most of their time, from sunrise to sunset. The family had first laid a foundation of flat rocks from the river, tamping them down with wooden mallets until they were level and then covering them with dirt that would be replaced with a rough wooden floor during the winter. Then they constructed a simple cabin of notched logs. It was twenty feet wide by twenty long, a tight space for four, but in the spring they would begin building a house. Francis had been fortunate. Most of the citizen soldiers he served with in the Continental Army were men of skill, not means, and he had learned a great deal from them.

“We need a fireplace,” Lorna had reminded him every day as the cabin took shape.

When the cabin walls and roof were complete, Lorna and Molly filled the gaps between the logs with clay from the river. The family brought some small parts of their future house with them, including hinges and a latch for the door, but for the cabin leather hinges and a sturdy crossbar would do fine. Stephen made a small chicken coop, and he was quite proud of his work. Francis made the fireplace and chimney from stones and pale clay from the river. Most of it sat outside the cabin. He made sure it was vented properly and would reflect enough heat to warm the cabin. Francis and Stephen made the sleeping loft together. It spanned the breadth and width of the cabin, leaving the floor below open for Lorna’s kitchen, a corner for the children and space for Francis to work in winter. They also brought oiled paper, which they set in window frames that could be opened or closed.

Francis belched, his belly full of Lorna’s skirlie, a hearty oatmeal, bacon and onion mash. That was the last of the bacon, the last of their meat, but there were deer and rabbits and squirrels in the woods, fish in the stream, and the hens had already started laying eggs.

There was still so much to do. They needed a proper privy. They needed shutters; Francis would set Stephen to work on them in the morning while he split and planed logs for a proper floor. They needed a porch where they could knock dirt and snow off of their boots, and a roofed workspace behind the cabin where they could butcher game. Francis wanted a big comfortable chair, but that would come after a sturdy workbench, and proper chairs to replace the stumps around their table, and—

A twig snapped in the woods, a stark sound. Usually after sundown there was only the song of night birds and frogs and the stealthy rustle of mice and other foragers. Jefferson had been curled into a ball at Francis’ feet, his own belly full of white-bellied mice. Now the cat stood up and stretched, his golden eyes reflecting the fires.

“Don’t you go wandering—“

The cat trotted away and slipped into the dark woods.

“Cats,” Francis said.

The horses were secured nearby with hobble ropes around their forelegs, so they could graze on grasses near the trail but not run off. Now they began to snort and stomp. Francis led them close to the cabin, between the fires.

The woods were illuminated by a full moon bright enough to read by, and the multicolored fall foliage took on an unearthly glow. Francis realized the frogs down by the stream had gone silent; they usually sang to each other all night.

There was a low sound, half grunt, half exclamation of surprise, not at all human.

Jefferson raced out of the trees with his ears tucked back and his tail low. Francis scooped the cat into his arms, felt claws pierce his shirt, and held the cat at arm’s length by the scruff of the neck. He could feel the cat’s heart hammering away.

There was the snapping of dry wood and a heavy thud. It could have been a dead tree falling over… But something had chased the cat out of the woods.

Francis carried Jefferson into the cabin, his flesh creeping as if he had been caught in a cold draft. He put a tether on the cat and tied it to an iron hook on one wall, and then barred the door.

“What is it, Francis?” Lorna whispered. She was sitting on a log seat by their crude table, stitching a tear in Stephen’s trousers by candlelight. Overhead, the children were asleep in their shared bed up in the loft.

“Something is out there,” he said softly. “A bear, mayhap.”

That something came out of the woods and passed beyond the two fires outside. Lorna was terrified when she heard one of the horses let out a sound like a scream, and when Francis went to one of the windows as if to peek outside she grabbed his arm and shook her head.

“If it doesn’t see you it won’t come for you,” she said.

“What won’t come for me?”

“Whatever is out there,” she said.

The children were awake now, peering down from then loft, sleepy and curious.

Francis reached for his longrifle where it was hung over the door and began loading the weapon.

The Applebaker family heard the most unsettling series of sounds, a soft thump like heavy footfalls, accompanied by the rattle of dry branches. Something pushed against the door, and Francis took a step back. The leather hinges were strained, but the cross bar held the door firmly closed. The rattle and thump sounds carried to one side of the house, paused, and then a thick branch punctured the oiled paper over one window.

Molly and Lorna screamed, and Stephen moved in front of his sister.

Fish reported only human remains, not animal, Francis thought, as he raised the long barrel of the rifle and aimed at the shape that was now just a shadow thrown by light from one of the fires behind it. And I’ve never seen any animal carcasses. What if this thing only has a taste for men?

He saw movement through the tear in the oiled paper and fired. The shot was like cannon fire inside the single large room. The ball connected and Francis heard the clatter of fragmenting wood, followed by an otherworldly moan. The shot filled the cabin with the bitter scent of burned powder.

They heard more of those odd rattling thuds as the thing moved away.

Francis guessed the thing was making for the road, and after a moment the sounds faded.

Jefferson had been standing with his back arched and his tail fluffed out. Now he relaxed, and began to wash one foot with his rough tongue.

Francis felt relieved, and immediately felt foolish and angry for feeling such relief. I am a man of the modern age, he thought, not some superstitious bumpkin! But that was no bear . . .

He opened the door, hearing Lorna gasp behind him.

The frogs were singing down by the steam again.

Francis stepped outside, and walked softly to one of the fires. Stephen followed, his mother reaching for him and failing to hold him back.

The horses were unharmed, but they were breathing fast, their hot breath white vapor in the chilly air.

There were marks in the well-packed earth around the homestead. It looked as if someone had dragged a crude wicker broom or a bundle of sticks out of the woods, in a wide arc around the fires, past the cabin and back into the woods, following a path running parallel to the road.

“Lorna,” Francis called, “Put out the fire in the fireplace. Then get Molly dressed and come out here.” To Stephen he said, “Help me hitch the horses to the wagon.”

He and Stephen put bridles on the horses. They were strapping the horses to the wagon when Lorna appeared, carrying Molly.

“A bit late in the day for a ride, is it not?”

“Get in,” he told her. “Whatever that thing was it’s making its way through the woods alongside the path to the Fish house. I have to warn them, and I’m not about to leave you and the children alone.”

By the time the horses were hitched securely and everyone was in the wagon, the night had grown colder. The moonlight was stark and brilliant. Francis gathered his weapons, paused to be sure the fires outside were banked and safe to leave unattended, and then snapped the reins and set off down the road.

The journey was a quick one. With the moonlight the horses were able to run as fast as they were able.

Fish must have heard the gunshot earlier and their approach now. By the time they pulled up at the end of the path near his home he was waiting for them as before, holding a lantern and his own rifle.

“Get away, get away!” Fish cried, waving them off.

“It’s coming,” Francis said, “And we should stand together and stop it for good. It tried to break into my cabin, and it will likely try the same here.”

Fish was shaking his head. “No, we are safe inside, safe with the fire burning! Get away!”

“It’s not enough,” Francis said, climbing down from the wagon. “This thing will come for you and your children unless we—“

A cascade of breaking branches echoed within the forest. It was followed by a low, drawn out rumble that seemed to surround them.

Every forest creature from birds to crickets went quiet.

“It’s him,” Fish said, his eyes rolling in panic. “Big Jack has heard us. Lord God Jesus Christ, save my sinning soul!” He ran back toward his cabin, the lantern swaying madly.

There was a cacophony of breaking branches as loud as gunfire in the night. Just as Fish approached the door of his home something stepped out from behind the cabin and slashed at his middle with a huge, misshapen hand. Fish let out a wretched cry.

Francis had not heard a sound like that since his time in battle, so many years before.

The lantern Fish had been carrying smashed upon the ground, spattering oil that set the front of the cabin ablaze.

Stephen and Molly peeked through the canvas flaps of the wagon, and Stephen immediately covered his sister’s eyes.

Fish’s rifle was snapped in two, and then the towering, indistinct thing broke Fish in two as well, grabbing Fish by the neck and the groin and bending the man backward until his spine snapped and his head touched his heels. His huge lacerated belly split open and spilled his guts upon the earth, where they steamed in the crisp night air.

Lorna screamed.

The monstrosity threw Fish flat on the ground and tore away the man’s breeches. It reached out and ripped a bloody, quivering chunk of meat and fat from Fish’s ample left buttock. It raised its misshapen hand, and in the light of the growing fire the flesh seemed to melt and be absorbed by the rough bark covering those crude fingers.

The oiled paper in the front window of the Fish cabin caught flame with a dramatic flaring light.

The Punkin Man backed away from the growing flames, and Francis could only stare. It seemed to be made of twisted roots and woven branches that made the shape of a man, with legs and arms and hands. Growing from the narrow stem of the neck was a huge pumpkin with two soft rotten spots that looked like eyes.

The Punkin Man began striding toward the wagon.

“Stephen,” Francis said calmly. “My rifle.” He and the boy had drilled for this, for trouble. Stephen was to always have his father’s weapons within reach when traveling and if they were requested the boy was to hand them over, the firearms loaded with powder and shot.

The horses smelled something then, their nostrils flaring. They began to dance with fear and Lorna had to fight the reins to hold them in place.

The Punkin Man was getting closer. It was a foot taller than Francis and he was a tall man, a little over six feet. The creature’s feet looked like clusters of roots ripped from the soil and there were small green buds of new growth all over its body, a body that creaked like thick branches in a strong wind with every step.

“Boy! My rifle!” Without looking back he reached out. Francis’ prized Kentucky Longrifle was set in his right hand. He swung the stock into his left palm, sighted down the long barrel and fired.

There was a sharp crack as the ball struck the Punkin Man in the chest. Splinters clattered and flew and Francis saw white pulp exposed under shredded bark. The thing let out a low rumble.

The Punkin Man was still coming.

“Pistol,” Francis said, handing the rifle back to his son without talking his eyes from the brutish thing advancing on him. He heard Stephen sniffing back fearful tears and was filled with pride when the rifle was taken and his flintlock was promptly set in his open hand.

The pistol was woefully inaccurate. Francis had cracked open more skulls using the walnut grip as a cudgel, but the Punkin Man was close enough now that the pistol could be put to use, close enough that he could see this was no perverse prank or Indian trickery. He could see through gaps in the woven chest of the thing as if looking through a thick hedge, those eye-like circles of rot in the pumpkin mesmerizing him.

He fired a single shot into one of the rotten spots that looked like malevolent eyes. Seeds and pulp blew out the back of the thing’s pumpkin head. It shuddered, moaned in a hollow, unearthly voice, and took another step forward.

Francis tossed the pistol aside and shouted, “Stephen, my sword!”

The hilt of his old French hanger kissed his palm and Francis drove the blade into the center of the Punkin Man’s head. It convulsed, and then recovered. He withdrew the blade and struck again, this time where a human heart would be seated. The steel shaft clattered against wood as strong as iron, slipping between strands braided like wicker. The Punkin Man turned sharply and Francis was nearly unmanned by the strength of the monstrosity as the sword was ripped from his grip. The Punkin Man drew the sword out of its torso and tossed it away.

Francis turned to his wife. “Go! Leave me and get the children to safety!” He had always known Lorna would make a good frontierswoman despite her prim exterior and aggravating piety and he was not proven wrong now. Praying aloud, she snapped the reins and the wagon carried the children down the road to safety.

A cry from inside the cabin caught Francis’ attention. The front of the home was now sheathed in flame. He ran past the Punkin Man and circled around to the back of the long cabin, realizing that as strong as the creature was it was not very fast. He pulled one of the shutters open and saw four children huddled together in a corner. Their mother was standing by a blanket hung on a string, a makeshift wall, holding a knife in one hand and a swaddled baby in the other. The blanket began to burn, revealing a raging fire inside the cabin that was now engulfing the roof.

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