a ghost story for halloween, part 3.

tomas and imenan stood on the corner of the street, lit by the spotlight of the street lamp, and watched as people left the mall and retrieved their cars. they watched those people drive away, and they watched others enter the parking lot, leave their cars, and walk across the dark lot into the building. it was as if they could not believe they were looking at reality. it would never have occurred to them that a cemetery could disappear.

“what do we do now?” imenan gestured across the street. “it has been too long, and this is one change that is not positive.” he sighed and turned away, back the way they had come, but tomas stopped him.

“now,” the vampire said, “we might as well go inside.”

tomas squared his shoulders, stepped off the curb, and crossed the street with a determined stride. imenan hesitated only a moment, and then followed.

though it was late, the shopping center was as full with people as any saturday afternoon. they were dressed as superheroes and cartoon characters and monsters, costumed in their day dreams and their nightmares, their wishes and their fears. underneath the happy chatter, the sound system was playing suitable halloween novelties, and every store did business with small candies and free items. tomas and imenan wandered dazedly through the crowds. this was no quiet graveyard; this was not the hallow’s eve they remembered.

the human tide fetched them up against a large sign, the directory to the mall. they stood there for a long moment, watching the merriment. tomas turned this way and that, gazing in every direction at the people who earlier this month had jumped in fright each time he had slowly opened the lid to his casket with a creak. imenan found himself returning the smiles given to him, though he wasn’t sure why.

a little child, almost hidden by the cumbersome and colorful costume she wore, stumbled near imenan, tripped up by a dangling accessory. without a thought, he swiftly reached down and caught at her shoulder, steadying her. the mother beamed at him, the little girl cried out a shrill, chirping thanks, and then they were past him. he watched them go, as stunned as any visitor to the haunted house. imenan looked at tomas, to tell him what had happened, but tomas was engrossed in the map on the sign behind them. the vampire glanced up at his friend, excitement almost enlivening his face.

“imenan, look!” tomas laid his hand against the lower portion of the illuminated board. “this is where the trees still stand, and here...” tomas spread his hand, stretching his fingers out to measure a length on the map, “here is where the statue of the mourning angel would be, if it still stood.” he glanced again at imenan.

“don’t you see? here the statue and here next to it, the housden crypt.” tomas punched his finger down at each point. “from the housden crypt, to the darnell grave, and then vaughn, and hopper, and fisk!” his tone was triumphant, his finger pointing firmly to a shoe store. a smile crept onto imenan’s face as he began to understand.

“harold’s grave was just across from delbert fisk, which would mean...” the mummy looked closely at the map, tracing the path from the show store to its neighbor. “this is the store where harold’s grave used to be!”

imenan and tomas gazed at each other for a brief moment, the anticipation they felt earlier suddenly rekindled by their discovery. as one, they began to make their way through the crowd, moving as swiftly and as easily as they had slunk through the shadows of the town. as they dodged the revelers, tomas wondered if harold would still be there, but before he could ponder the question too long, they had reached their goal.

they stood in front of the coffee shop that had replaced their friend’s grave.

they were spotted before they could even take a single step across the threshold.

“tomas! imenan! what are you waiting for?! come on in, boys, make yourselves at home!” they were welcomed by a booming voice, one filled with so much cheer it was impossible to resist. they entered, and were astonished to see their friend harold behind the counter. he towered over the display of muffins and scones, beaming a broad grin at the vampire and the mummy, as big and bluff and bearded as they remembered him. “it’s been so long since you fellows have come by to chat! let me get you something, and then we’ll sit and have a nice long catch-up!” harold laughed then, amused by their expressions. “come on now! what will you have? i’ll make it for you myself!”

there was nothing for it but to make their selections. imenan remembered all too well that harold was never one to take no for an answer. the mummy peered at the menu board, reading the choices through the nearly transparent figure of their friend. tomas ordered right away, naming his favorite without hesitation. once imenan decided, harold quickly and expertly made their drinks, and grabbed a small sample-size cup of the shop’s strongest brew for himself.

the three old friends claimed the comfiest chairs for themselves, and talked and sipped at their cups (except harold, that is, who occasionally raised the tiny cup to his face, inhaling the rich fragrance without imbibing), sharing the stories of the years apart. harold told the tale of the construction of the mall, and the sloppy removal of the graves that left him and a few others behind. his great laughter transformed the tragic story into an adventure. tomas and imenan told harold about the differences they had discovered in the new halloween, and about the stresses caused by the increased interest in the haunted house. harold commiserated with them, and told them about his own job, about how much he enjoyed it and the interesting sights it brought him every day.

tomas had to admit that he liked the bustle of the shopping center. no one was staring at him, expecting him to perform like a trained bat. it was quite refreshing. he liked watching all the people, too. he had never before realized how interesting they were.

“it must be a pleasure to help people,” imenan said, somewhat wistfully. harold gave a mummy a hard look, then treated tomas to the same close inspection.

“that’s the ticket! it’s the perfect thing!” he pounded the overstuffed arm of the chair, making no sound. “you, and you,” he said, pointing at each of his friends in turn, “need to quit working at the haunted house, and come work here, with me!”

they stared at the ghost.

“yes, yes! it’s perfect! i know all the stores that are hiring! it will be a snap!” and he silently snapped his fingers, as proof. tomas and imenan exchanged a look, but, as they already knew so well, harold was never one to take no for an answer. they decided they were happy with that fact.

and so, by the time the christmas decorations had replaced the spiders and pumpkins of halloween (that is to say, in no time at all), imenan found himself helping customers at the large electronics store in the mall. he had discovered an aptitude for the systems and gadgets they sold there, and had become the one everyone came to with questions. plus, the blue shirt looked very nice against his linen wraps.

tomas had settled into a position at the movie theater, working the late shift and the midnight showings. he wasn’t very good at making popcorn yet, but excelled at being an usher. his manager commended him several times for his old-fashioned courtesy; the customers were always saying good things about him. and tomas was free to sneak into any of the movies playing. he had become addicted to watching the stories being played out on the screen.

and every night, when the front doors were closed and locked, and the last straggling credits-watcher had left the theater, the three friends would take over the comfiest chairs at the coffee shop, and talk until dawn.

at the other side of town, the last road still went up to the hill, and was still traveled heavily every autumn. it seems that an empty house is just as good a haunted house as one with a vampire and a mummy in attendance.

a ghost story for halloween, part 2.

all hallow’s eve was a grey autumn day, a day that spoke clearly of the winter waiting just outside the door. clouds covered the sky in a seamless monotone, the reds and yellows and oranges of the town’s usual autumn color showing only as umbers and ochres and rusts, and the glowing grins of the jack o’lanterns were the brightest things to be seen. though only the clock tower marked the hours this day, somehow tomas and imenan were closing the back door of the house behind them mere moments after the sun surrendered to the inevitability of night and dropped below the horizon.

the two friends were naught but shadows against shadows as they slipped down the back of the hill, away from the chain of car lights marking the arrival of the night’s visitors. they eeled their way through the barren black trunks in the abandoned orchards, and crossed the sluggish river on rotted mossy logs. they made their way soundlessly through the dark and empty streets at the very outskirts of town, but pulled up short as they neared the lights of the town center, hesitating in the safety of the last deep shadow.

tomas was just about to take to the air to scout ahead when two figures came around the corner, a woman and a child. they passed near to the two hidden in the shadows, but did not see them. the child was dressed in tattered bandages; the gauze strips hung loosely around the child’s neck like a scarf, and dangled from every limb. tomas glanced at his similarly-dressed friend as the two townspeople went on their way, and then grinned and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

“but of course, tonight is the one night we can walk freely! imenan, we will make good time now!”

and tomas was right; even though they crossed the square in plain sight of the townspeople, they awakened no fear in those that saw them; at the most, they received a few admiring glances and smiles from the revelers. they quickly left the center of town behind, and were soon walking through the tidy neighborhoods on the other side of town. the houses they passed were all decorated. the carved pumpkins were expected, but the array of other types of display left the two gazing from house to house in astonishment.

the glowing lights and elaborate scenes, the mechanical ghosts hanging from bare tree limbs, the giant inflated figures, and the abundance of exuberant halloween bric-a-brac everywhere quite honestly startled the vampire and mummy. the neighborhoods they walked through felt more like an amusement park than the dark night they knew. even the costumes were different; one young woman walked by wearing a drastically undersized white dress, a nurse’s cap perched on top of her sparkling pink wig.

“now that’s a change to hallow’s eve that i welcome!” tomas watched the girl strut by, her high heeled boots clacking on the sidewalk. imenan was not impressed. the vampire gave his companion a surprised glance, and then returned to gazing at more appealing sights. “eh, you have been dead too long, my friend. look how healthy she is! o positive, if i don’t miss my guess.”

imenan just grumbled a little in reply. they kept on, dodging small costumed children and smaller costumed dogs, until they came to a grand victorian house on a large corner lot. imenan stopped at the decorative black iron fence, looking up at the cupola. “tomas,” he said, pointing upwards with one raggedly narrow finger, “i remember that wind vane, and this house. we are getting close, aren’t we?”

tomas squinted up at the little bit of sculpture crowning the roof. “you are correct, imenan! ah, soon we shall enjoy a long visit with our friend. it will be good to see him again.” he clapped imenan on the shoulder, raising a small puff of dust, and headed off down the right-hand street. “let us go, then! only a few more blocks remain!” imenan followed, leaving the dust behind but carrying with him a happy smile of anticipation.

the neighborhood gave way to a few streets of shops, and the two pointed out familiar old storefronts to each other as they walked toward their goal. each remembered landmark reassured them that they hadn’t forgotten the way to where their friend resided, even though it had been years, or even decades, since they had been able to visit last. finally, tomas and imenan came to the last corner. they looked out across the street, but did not immediately cross. before them stood a sprawling shopping center, a boxy island in the middle of a paved parking lot sea.

“this is not...” imenan’s voice trailed off in bewilderment. “did we miss a turn somewhere? were we mistaken?”

“no, we came the right way. we are in the correct place. see? look there,” tomas gestured toward three trees growing in a small landscaped space. “those trees are the ones that grew in the corner, by the hadley twins’ gravestone. do you see?”

imenan nodded, sadly.

they stood there on the sidewalk that used to be at the furthest end of town from their hill, and looked at the shopping mall that now stood where once had been the town’s first cemetery. no sign remained of the place now, no stone markers, and no graceful trees save for those three hemmed in by concrete.

the vampire and the mummy stood there in silence, speechless.

how were they going to visit their friend harold when his grave was nowhere to be found?

a ghost story for halloween.

the last road in town ran out beyond the swept sidewalks of 1950s-era tract housing, out beyond hollow brick warehouses and the craggy limbs of feral orchards, out to the rain-swollen river, where it paced alongside the muddy twists and turns. as it went, the paving cracked and crumbled, gave way to gravel, and then at last, rutted dirt at the very base of a lonely hill.

the hill could be glimpsed from the very top of the clock tower at the heart of town, where the road had its birth in the tree-lined square that fronted the town hall, but no one ever bothered.

however, the road, which for most of the year was untraveled save by vagrants and occasional illicit lovers, was burdened and bothered each autumn. the dust and gravel were kicked up every night, the weeds tramped down every evening, as the entire town made their way, car by car, up to the hill they ignored all the rest of the year.

for two or three weeks every october, the last road in town was as well traveled as any highway, because everyone in town wanted to go to the haunted house that crowned the hill, the haunted house that was the only destination the ragged road had.

truth be told, tomas didn’t really like this time of year. he worked at the haunted house, and while it was a good job, every year it got busier and busier. he was starting to dread seeing the branches of the yard’s only tree grow silhouetted and bare against the night sky, because he knew that it meant soon he would have to perform his tricks for the gawking townspeople, night after night after night.

he complained about it to his co-worker and friend, one night as they sat having coffee at the table in the break room.

“imenan, i tell you, i am heartily sick of it! it used to be we could take a night off here and there, especially on sundays. no one ever used to come up here then, but now it is all the time, knocking on the door. i barely have time to scramble into the coffin, and i’m starting to get headaches from doing the bat transformation too many times in an evening.”

imenan stared morosely into his mug, nodding his head. “i agree with you, tomas, believe me, i do. granted, i don’t have as hard a time of it as you do, all i have to do push the lid open and step out of my sarcophagus, but it’s almost impossible for me to make my moans sound authentic anymore. i’m burned out.”

“me too, imenan, me too. and when was the last time we were able to go visit harold? this was always the best time of the year to find him available. normally, he’s so difficult to contact.”

the two friends sat there in silence for a little while, until a great knocking sound reverberated from upstairs. tomas and imenan gave each other a commiserating look, sighed, and stood up. they went out from the break room by two different doors, each to their stations in the house, to await visitors.

it was almost daybreak when the two fellows re-entered the break room. tomas unclasped his cape and let it puddle on the floor, then sat down at the table, resting his elbows on the surface. he hung his head and rubbed his temples. imenan plopped down in the other chair, looking more tattered than he had when they started their shift.

“that was the worst night yet," the old egyptian said. “all those townsfolk, and i only got a shriek out of half of them!”

“oh, yes, it was terrible,” tomas agreed. “i don’t think i can face another night like this one.” he put his head down on the table, but raised it again in a flash. his eyes gleamed. “imenan! i have an idea!” the vampire leaned toward his friend, smiling a smile that would have chilled the townspeople, indeed. the mummy, however, was not alarmed. he waited patiently for tomas to continue.

“we are taking tomorrow night off. you need a break, i need a break, and so we shall just take our break.”

“tomas! we can’t do that! tomorrow night is all hallow’s eve, it is our busiest night!”

“no, i do not care, imenan. let those who come find a dark and empty house. it has been too long since we have made a visit to our friend harold, and so tomorrow night, that is what we shall do. it is decided.”

imenan looked at his friend’s satisfied expression. he was dubious that it would all work out, but could not deny that he was looking forward to a night off. so he and tomas made their plans for tomorrow’s holiday, and then said good night and parted company, just as the light in the sky began to thin toward dawn.