Chris's Ghost stories

[Blahman]

This is not a Halloween story but it might has well be.My aunt used to live in this part of Michigan that was kind of out in the country. Well, next to her house is an old cemetery.Also, about half a mile from her house is an old house, and my brother and cousins and I are convinced it's haunted.

It's made of a reddish brick, and has shutters that are all closed up, and those black,pointy, fence looking things on the top. There were never any lights on or people around.One day, my brother, my cousins, and I decided to go check it out. We figured we'd walk around the back yard for a few minutes and then leave. That's what we did at first. As it turns out, there was a huge, old barn
next to it, and a field. There was an outhouse,too and even one of those things that opens up to a cellar! Well, the door of the shed was open, and it was kind of swaying in the wind. We couldn't resist. My brother went first, and we followed him into the shed.There was another door,and we saw that this door went INTO THE HOUSE!

We tried opening it, but it was jammed. Then my cousin saw that it was open about an inch.We pushed on it together and it flew open. I don't know why but we all started screaming and ran out into the yard. I couldn't believe we actually did that. We were just going to go home,but then we thought that we would be wondering forever what would have happened if we hadn't gone in there, so we went back. We were soooo scared. The first room looked like a kitchen, and it had one of those really old stoves, the kind that sits on the ground with a black pipe going through the ceiling. That was my first indication that this house could have been, like, a hundred years old.The floor was starting to creak, which made me say out loud that what if it gave out and we fell down into the cellar??? That made my cousin almost start to cry but we calmed him down. We walked cautiously through the house.

There were a lot of small rooms. We didn't dare go down to the cellar. The front door was locked, and bolted and nailed down with boards, as were all of the windows. Did I mention that during this whole thing, we were all REALLY REALLY scared?? Well, we were just about to head back, when my brother saw...a staircase. An old, brown, winding one. OH MY GOD. We discussed whether or not to go up (my brother was the only one who would, but I didn't want him up there alone with the ghosts!) He said he would only go up a few steps to see if he could see anything up there, so we let him.

And that's as far as he got. He was on about the 5th step, when we heard a horrible crashing sound from the kitchen. We all started screaming, and ran out of there fast. We didn't bother to shut the door - which was probably our first mistake. We ran back to my aunt's house, past the cemetery. At the time, the only person we told about this, was my aunt. She's cool, and we knew she wouldn't tell anyone what we did.

Well, my brother and I eventually had to go home, but this is where it gets weird!! The next day, my mom took us back to my aunt's (my other cousin was going back home to Chicago the next day, and we wanted to see her again before she left). As we drove past the cemetery, I saw something really creepy. There were some men working there, and it looked like they were DIGGING A GRAVE. Now, I don't know if they still used that cemetery, I always thought it was too old to be burying new people there, but we were wondering - were they burying something - or digging something up?

We told my aunt about it right away, and she said that there had been a FIRE in the cemetery the night before. Now this was too weird. All of this stuff happened the day after we went there. There were now "no trespassing" signs all over the yard, which meant - someone saw us in there. We don't know who, but all I kept thinking was, what would have happened if my brother had gone
upstairs? I guess we owe our lives to that thing that fell in the kitchen!

[Blahman]

One day when I was home alone a parcel was left at the door I opened it and there was a box. Inside there were puzzle pieces. I didn't think much of it and left it at that. Later that night when I was in bed and I heard noises outside my window. Scared, I decided to solve that strange puzzle to keep my
mind off of the spooky noises. As I was putting it together I realized that the puzzle was of my bed room scared and yet curious I continued to solve the puzzle. Until I noticed that I was in the puzzle solving a puzzle and that there was a tall dark man outside my window holding a knife!! Totally freaked
and dazed I looked slowly up at my window and there he was the man from the puzzle looking at me!! I screamed as loud as I could and ran into the lounge and tried to tell mum what had happened. She completely ignored me like I was invisible or something. That was when I realized she COULDN'T see me. Horrified I ran outside only to feel a sharp pain right in my back I turned expecting the man from the puzzle.As soon as our eyes met.........I woke up!

I know everyone hates that ending but I cant think of anything else so there! (ha ha)

[Blahman]

his is a true story. My father died in 1991, three days before Christmas. I was only 7 years old. He died in our house. After that, my mom and two brothers and I would hear strange things like in the hall way at night you could hear someone walking back and fourth. You could also hear some one humming which was what my dad use to do. The cupboards in the kitchen would open up and close. Once I had one of my friends sleep over and I didn't tell them any thing what was happening. We were in my room and my friend said that she heard a noise. I just said you're probably just hearing things. Then my door opened up and slamed really hard. We got up fast and ran to the door to see if any one did that but there was no one there. It was just strange. Then we went back over by my bed and started talking and laughing. We heard someone comming and we thought it was my mom, so we stoped talking. There was no one there again. We just heard foot steps. My friend got scared and said that she wanted to go home and she did. I also have heard violins playing but it was commiing from the basement. There was so much stuff hapening. There is alot more of things that happend. We moved from that house one year ago. Im 17 years old now. This is true, everything that I have said.



NOTE: These are not my stories. Do not blame me for these. - Blahman

[Blahman]

She lifted up her head and peered outside through the frosted window. Wrinkled eyes gazed into the bright sky, and a smile came over the old woman’s face when she saw the full moon, shining away in all it’s harvest glory, a perfect background setting for All Hallow’s Eve.

A loud purring reached her ears as a black cat leaped up on the table next to the rocking chair she was sitting in.

"Yes, my sweets. Isn’t that a pretty night we have in store for us? Old man moon looks down on us with a wink in his eye tonight."

The cat stared at her with deep green eyes, attention fixed on every word.

"You know what this night means, don’t you, Trickster?" The cat let out a soft meow, listening to his master.

"It is the passing of an age, that is what. Many long years, happy memories, but there is an ending to every story, good and bad. Ol’ Madge here has seen it all, yes I have."

The old woman pushed herself up from the chair, one gnarled hand stroking the silken fur of Trickster. There was a creaking noise as old bones cracked within the ancient body, stiff joints groaning in protest at the effort made by her to straighten up.

"Ah, this craggy old girl ain’t what she used to be. Need a dose of the ointment before I go, that’ll fix me for a little while."

Madge walked over towards a large oaken trunk that was filled with an assortment of herbs, spices, animal parts, jarred collections of insects, packaged powders, and numerous other odds and ends. They were the tools of her trade.

Rummaging through the contents, she found a sachet containing some brown colored leaves, and when she opened it a sweet odor wafted outwards.

"Hmm, this will do fine." The crone went over to a wooden cabinet which had vials of liquid scattered about the shelves. She grabbed a tube with a bubbly fluid inside with a purple tinge to it, and then poured the leaves in.

Wispy curls of vapor rose up, and the old woman drank deeply.

A look of revulsion crossed her face at the bitter taste, but she shook it off.

"Not the fountain of youth, but it bestows on me a glimmer of strength, and that is all I need." She smacked her dry lips together, and smiled with glee.

Madge hobbled over to the great stone fireplace that warmed the cottage, and a black cauldron was resting above the burning flames. A green liquid boiled away in a frenzy, fat bubbles oozing from the surface. She stirred the mixture with a metal ladle.



"Double, bubble, toil and trouble!"

"Double, bubble, toil and trouble!’

Cackling with delight, the old woman churned the foul broth with renewed vigor. The cauldron hissed in answer, and the brew began to fizzle over.

"Ha ha, that’s it. A ghastly potion for a ghostly night!"

Madge nodded to herself, and the flames danced before her, casting lurid shadows on the walls of the cottage.

The image behind the cat grew in size, reaching the proportions of a great beast which was many times the feline’s actual body shape.

Trickster growled, his dark mane bristling. The master made a gesture in the air, and the front door burst open as the black cat sprang into the night, the transformation beginning to take place. A howl echoed from the woods outside, and Madge shouted in response, the language old and archaic.

"Rejoice in the wild, my pet. The night calls. Until the sun comes up, when you must return."

A gust of wind blasted against the cottage, slamming the door shut with a loud crash. The old woman’s wizened face had a trace of sadness on it, and she let out a deep sigh.

"It is almost time, must make haste."

Madge opened the closet and reached inside, tenderly bringing out a worn garb, black as the night. A tear trickled from the corner of an eye, moistening the callused cheek beneath.

"So many years, where have they all gone? How will I be able to face the next one, knowing that my time is done?"

She pulled the raiment tightly about herself, cherishing the feel of the familiar outfit. The cloak gave her comfort and security.

"Such little time, and too many things to fill it with, ‘tis a pity."

There was an upper shelf inside the closet, and from this she brought out a rumpled black hat, pointed at the top in the shape of a narrow cone.

"Hee hee hee," she chuckled. "A pointed cone for a crooked crone." She set the hat on her head, and brushed back the strands of silver hair that lay tangled down to her shoulders. She began to feel much younger and stronger, but it was only wishful thinking. Potions could give her a teasing of both, but that was it.

Madge crossed to the other side of the room, wooden floor boards creaking underneath her musty black boots. The heels clicked softly with her passing.

A reading desk sat in the corner, and a dusty tome sprawled along the top. Strange words and symbols were etched onto the crinkled pages, the lettering written in blood. She leafed through until she found the proper incantation, then closed the book with a snap.

"Long ago, I could recite nearly every line of verse in half that script. But now....." The old woman shook her head, again being overcome with remorse.

"More’s the pity, old hag, I’ve had my turn. The wheels of time roll on without stopping, and my moment has arrived to step aside. Only fond memories, no regrets."

The old woman’s gaze wandered the trappings of the cottage, her domain for countless years. Yes, fate had treated her well, there was no denial.

"And now, my friend, who has served me so well these many years. Will you answer the summons yet again, on this night of all nights?

Madge spread her arms wide in appeal, pale yellow eyes closed in concentration. The wind picked up outside, and tree branches scratched against the window panes, bent stick arms moving in wooden animation, responding to the surge of dark power that was building within the cottage.

There was a flash of brilliance radiating from a section of stone next to the fireplace, and a secret panel was revealed. From the compartment emerged a long broom, stark in opaque blackness, levitating towards the old woman.

"Ha ha ha, come to me! It is our time again. The sisters await!"

The broom continued floating, and it came within the crone’s eager grasp as it throbbed with power, pulsating with diabolical energy.

Madge held the broom up triumphantly, and opened the front door. A strong breeze was blowing, and fallen leaves covered the mossy earth. Sinister figures crouched within the surrounding shadows, lurking among the trees.

It was Halloween night, and spirits of the nights had awakened in unholy celebration.

Madge sat astride the enchanted broom, and up she flew to meet with her fellow sisters of the coven. This was her last time as the coven leader, and a new one would be sworn in this Hallow’s Eve.

She gazed up at the awaiting sky, spotting others of her wicked brethren. It was Halloween night, and for the last time, into that magical night, rode the form of the witch, on her last moonlight ride.

The End

[Blahman]

THIS IS A LONG ONE!:

Part One

The devil on the fiery porch. He was back again that year, the same as he had been for five years running, keeping the majority of Trick or Treaters behind an imaginary line of uneasiness drawn at the edge of the curb with his Hell-red grin and burning cauldrons. It was a scene from Faust, only this was no play; this was my neighborhood.

It wasn’t just kids who lingered apprehensively in the street, but parents as well. In a place where the definition of Halloween was more like cardboard skeletons and plastic jack-o-lanterns, a guy with a penchant for fire and pitchforks could be extraordinarily scary. Really young children were hurried past the residence altogether via lawns on the opposite side of the street, hopefully distracted by candy long enough to save them from the psyche-scarring nightmares certain to result from even the smallest glimpse of him. This left only the few - the brave - to make the journey and collect one of the candy bars given out by the devil basking in the red glow of the doorway.

Trick or Treating in the 1970’s wasn’t the flirt with death that it can be today. At that time, in most suburban settings, people lived in the same house for years and made the effort to get to know their neighbors and their neighbor’s children. It was a safe haven from the malicious world beyond; a stronghold of sterile thoughts and selective ideals. That is why it was more alarming when the occasional anti-Cleaver odd balls, like the Warren family, managed to infiltrate the peaceful utopia and upset the balance of neatly trimmed lawns and Tupperware parties. Especially when at Halloween their oldest son Wayne Warren painted himself red, donned horns, and sat on a throne between two flaming cauldrons on their sunken porch.

My first encounter with him was when my father volunteered to secure one of Satan’s fat candy bars on my behalf. I watched wide-eyed at the curb while my mother yakked up the other neighborhood mothers about the sick nature of the affair. Later that night, as I spread my bounty out upon the living room floor, she snatched the King Size Snickers that the devil had given and tossed it into the trash. Only later did I understand the action, although to my knowledge no one had ever reported any ill-effects from his confectionery treats.

The greasepaint devil quickly became a milestone of bravery for the youth of our neighborhood. As we got older, our worth was measured upon whether we had Trick or Treated his house on our own. For most of the neighborhood kids, it was a confrontation with their own childhood fears; a rite of passage. But my own eventual encounter with him reckoned with more than mere cultural demonspeak. For me it was not a conquest, but a beginning; a passageway to a haunted life well beyond the October ritual. And after what it indirectly wrought upon my life and the life of my childhood friend, Dan Rutgers, I came to realize that I had more in common with Wayne Warren than anyone would ever know.

I was old enough to Trick or Treat on my own. I had been for a few years - having entered the seventh grade - but had thus far chosen to skip the devil’s house despite my Samhain freedom. And as the candy collectors stood entwined in trepidation at the end of his lawn that night, I looked on, ready to cast away silly childhood fears. In the recessed front porch of the tan-stone house, the devil sat on a black throne, pitchfork in hand and grinning like a madman. On either side of him a cauldron belched hot flames, which illuminated the entire alcove with a yellow-red glow that brought a little piece of Hell right there to our suburban street. Dark music, probably borrowed from the Omen soundtrack, boomed from somewhere on the porch like a theme for a black mass, while Sounds of the Haunted House crept out of the home’s dark windows. They were opened just enough to let in some of the autumn air, which was uncharacteristically cool for Texas even in late October. Every once in a while, the devil would bark out something to the effect of "come on up kids" or just let out a string of vein-chilling laughs that echoed off of the houses and faded into the night air like a horde of goblins. As a fan of the horror film classics, somewhere inside I had begun to admire his mastery of Halloween, but the fear of something I did not fully understand still outweighed this association. The man behind the red face was something real, and that’s what made him scary to me, even if some people simply wrote him off as a self-aggrandizing jerk.

"Are we going up there?" Dan asked me as I stood at the curb siphoning the last bits of courage from my body.

Dan was a few years older and several inches taller, but we were two boys made from the same mold. We had been best friends for six years now, both possessing a fever for Hot Wheels, Big Jims, and superheroes. I could see his own reservation just under the green skin of his Incredible Hulk face. His mother was an inferno preaching Baptist and though I could not understand at the time, he grappled with issues far deeper than my own regarding the fiendish display.

"Yeah," I answered, although I had yet to top off my courage tank.

Our mutual friend, Bob, spoke from behind his Planet of the Apes mask. "Ya’ll can go if ya want, but I ain’t. My brother says that guy’s a goon and he don’t wanna have ta kick his butt when he finds a razor blade in my candy bar."

"I ain’t gonna eat the candy," I replied, stating what I thought was obvious.

The music boomed forth with a new strain and I looked hard at the real fire, the past prime teenager in the red makeup, and the iron gates which stood open at the porch’s arc.

"Well, he ain’t gonna kill us or anything. He’s been doing this ever since I can remember and lots of kids have gone up there." I nudged my head toward two older kids who had just been up to Satan. "They just went. And if they did then I’m going. Dan, you coming?"

Getting a yes from Dan, I put my foot onto the devil’s brown lawn and began the approach. I tried to imagine what I saw across the street the other three-hundred sixty-four days out of the year. A stony looking house with a dark porch and some skinny druggie guy coming and going in his beat up Camero. Sometimes kissing or beating his girlfriend a little, but always giving me a chin-up nod as if to say I was cool. It was just Wayne Warren…not the devil.

Telling myself this made it a little better, but on Halloween this guy was just plain different. Just plain scary. And as I neared I tried the customary cool nod, but Wayne didn’t nod back. Instead he grinned like a mental patient and let out a laugh that resonated in the sunken porch as if it sunk all the way down to Hell.

Dan, in an attempt at proper All Hallows etiquette, moved up beside me, held out his bag, and muttered "trick or treat" which sounded ridiculous under the circumstances.

"Heh, heh, heh," Wayne cackled and threw a Chunky bar into his bag.

Then he focused on me and my spirit-gummed wolfman face. "Something special for you my friend!" he said, reaching down beside his seat. He pulled out something, gazed at it a moment and then threw it into the sack I held open in front me as if it were my empty soul waiting for him to fill. I didn’t get a good look at it, but I didn’t care. I’d have a better look as soon as Dan and I got out of the yard.

Without any more explanation, Wayne stoked one of the cauldron fires, spit, and turned his attention to a group of approaching teenagers. Dan and I hurried back to the curb where Bob waited.

"Let’s go next door and check out whatever it was he gave me," I said.

Squatting down under a street lamp, Dan and I pulled out our devil’s booty.

"Just a regular candy bar, but maybe there’s a razor blade in it?" he said ripping into the package and breaking the Chunky into several pieces finding nothing but chocolate inside.

Bob removed his Cornelius mask. "What’d you get?"

I pulled out the weird item Wayne had thrown into my bag and held it up in the bath of white street light. "It looks like a tooth or maybe a horn," I said, not having seen anything like it before.

The thing was about three inches in length, jagged at one end and tapering into a curved point at the other. But instead of bone or enamel, it was made from a semi-transparent material with what looked like microscopic electronic components inside.

"Let me check it out," Dan said grabbing it from me. "That stuff in there looks like this computer board that my dad showed me."

I took it back and looked again beyond its translucent surface. "Computers are a lot bigger than this," I said authoritatively.

Bob squinted at it. "That’s weird. I bet my brother knows what it is."

"Maybe we should ask him?" I suggested.

Bob’s brother Ronnie rolled the horn-thing between his fingers as he looked at it under the desk lamp.

"Looks like it came from a robot or something. Ya’ll are a bunch of goons." He tossed it back at me. "Maybe it come from that alien that crashed over in Motor Valley," he added making a spooky whoooo sound.

"Huh?" all three of us replied.

Ronnie laughed. "I guess ya’ll were still in diapers. A few years ago, the cops and everybody went out there when something crashed in the woods between Motor Valley Road and Screaming Bridge. Supposedly, they found a blown up flying saucer, but never found any aliens. When that idiot Wayne Warren was still going to school, I heard a rumor about how he and a friend of his were out there drinking one night and found some flying saucer parts. I think that was about the time he started dressing up like Satan on Halloween. Maybe he’s givin’ out those UFO parts instead of candy; cheap ass. I think it’s all bullfudge."

With that Ronnie left Bob’s room.

We all looked again at the thing.

"Pretty cool story, man. We oughta go out there and check it out. Maybe this did come from a space ship," I suggested.

Dan nodded. "I ain’t never seen anything like it."

"Ya’ll are crazy," Bob said, looking suspiciously at us both.

Anything good was usually off limits. It’s the tradeoff for having parents that give a fudge about you. I wasn’t allowed in the creek, not allowed to attend spin-the-bottle parties, not allowed in the yard of the kid who talked like a sailor with a belly full of gin, not allowed to ride my bike to Dairy Queen, and basically not allowed to venture beyond the small quadrant of my neighborhood. Motor Valley was definitely off my childhood map. As a result, I spent half my youth in the creek or making bike runs out of the quadrant and the other half making up plausible excuses for why I was late. So a trip to Motor Valley with my usual accomplice, Dan, was nothing too exceptional. But the possibility of dead alien creatures was, and that’s why this mission was going to happen regardless of any potential consequences. Bob, however couldn’t go. He was grounded for getting caught with a pack of his dad’s cigarettes. Looking back, I can’t blame him for finding a way out.

Motor Valley got its name from the motocross track that was built on the west end of its expanse. Except for a few ill-repaired roads that cut through it, the valley was mostly brushy Texas woods and low lying flat land which collected water to create the closest thing to a bog Central Texas could have. If something did crash in there, it was no wonder that collecting all the pieces was difficult. But since the time of the crash, which I later dated at September 30, 1972 by searching old newspapers, much of the water had been irrigated out to subsidize a local cattle feed farm making it possible to get around in the area without sinking in muck.

Dan and I biked down the road past the old junior high school and out across Highway 10 where a few industrial buildings and a bar called The Firehose stood like holdouts against the concept of renovation. These were the last few constructs of civilization before Motor Valley took over.

As we reached the end of the industrial stretch, we right turned onto Motor Valley Road, which sloped down a gradual incline until it eventually curved south and cut right through the center of the valley itself. Few cars ever came this way unless they were there to dump something or to take a short cut to Highway 10 and Dan and I pedaled down the center of the curbless macadam as if we owned it. Off to the side, either in the gullies or along the occasional dirt paths that spidered away from the road, we saw discarded relics of prosperity littering the land like pock marks. Old washing machines, tread-bare tires, skeletal couches, and limbless dolls, in their abandoned afterlife, serving as shelters for the dark crawling creatures which hid underneath.

We stopped pedaling to coast the hill.

"Did you remember the horn thing?" Dan huffed.

"Yeah."

"You’re gonna be grounded forever if your mom finds out about this."

I nodded dramatically. "What did you tell your mom we were doing?"

"Going to Dairy Queen and the arcade."

"I hope your mom and my mom don’t talk for some reason before we get back. You know how my mom is always calling to find out where I am. I told her I was just going to the arcade. She doesn’t want me going over to the Dairy Queen. She heard a story on the news where this guy went into a Dairy Queen in Lubbock and whipped out his pecker and got thrown in jail!"

Dan laughed. "Sounds like what Jimmy’s cousin did at his birthday party."

"Didn’t some girl kick him in the nads when he did?"

"Yeah. He had to stay in bed for two weeks."

"Excellent!"

We made the curve and headed onto the long stretch of Motor Valley Road. After more than a half mile, we made it to the narrow side road which led down to Screaming Bridge. I’m sure that wasn’t its original name, but that was the name it went by. One of those tragic lover suicide stories went along with it. We had heard plenty about it, but had yet to make the trip out. I guess it took potential dead aliens to make it worthwhile.

Turning left, we pedaled up the side road whose name was a mystery since it had no street sign. As we crunched along its crumbling blacktop, the trees began to grow thicker, leaning over the road to form a canopy. They cast a shadow across the road like a dark tunnel. Bony branches were beginning to emerge from the clusters of leaves, which were falling away with each cool gust of autumn wind. For a moment I thought of the forest in Oz, but such a pleasant thought quickly faded. I was positive that any beasts lurking in these thorn-ridden groves would not be singing or dancing. In fact, they were not even chirping or growling. It was oddly silent, which was even more disturbing.

As we neared Screaming Bridge, the asphalt turned to sandy loam making it difficult for our bicycles despite the fact that they were the rugged Huffy models with plastic gas tanks screwed to the crossbar to emulate motorcycles. We decided to park them out of sight and go the rest of the way on foot.

The bridge was nothing, really. A dirt road that ended in a huge drop filled with sun-faded beer cans and other less identifiable trash. After taking a piss off of its edge, we headed south in the direction Ronnie had told us the UFO had supposedly crashed. I checked my pocket for the lockblade knife I had bought with my allowance prior to my last hunting trip with my father. I was no stranger to the country, having been brought along on numerous deer hunts since I was old enough to walk. But in spite of my self-proclaimed exploration expertise and my determination to expose the mystery locked away in Motor Valley, my heart beat hard against my ribs. There was something about the place that seemed deceptive, maybe even evil, which I had not encountered in any of my previous rural expeditions.

Crisscrossing the area, we began to look for any signs of…well, whatever signs there might be of a flying saucer crash. But the undergrowth was thick and I soon realized that there would be little hope of finding anything without knowledge of the exact impact location. We wandered on though, scanning for burnt trees or any other peculiar markings.

After about thirty minutes, Dan signaled me over to a dense clump of trees where he had spotted something.

"Check this out," he said, directing my vision past the branches to a dilapidated shack standing in a clearing twenty-five yards away. It wasn’t a UFO, but at least it was something other than trees and rocks. Dan looked openly disturbed by the possibility of who - or what - might be making it a home.

"I wonder if anyone lives there? I don’t see any cars," I remarked.

"I thought I saw something move by that window," Dan said solemnly.

I looked at the filmy window. "I don’t know how you could have, look how dirty it is."

"Yeah, maybe I was seeing things. I think we better get out of here. Search back over closer to the bridge."

"Let’s not worry about it," I retorted, trying to look at the situation logically. "If anybody does live there, they’ll probably be real old and we could always outrun ‘em."

Dan nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t wholeheartedly backing me on the decision.

"Let’s go this…" I began as I heard the sound of a stick crack behind us. I spun around.

Just feet from us stood a man. He looked old, but his unkempt appearance made an accurate guess at his age impossible. His hair was a brownish gray and poked out from his head like wild grass, framing a dirty unshaven face. A demented smile revealed several missing teeth from the brown rotted mess inside his mouth. He was scratching himself through a convenient hole in his ratty overalls with a handful of long, curling nails as he leered at us.

We started to bolt.

"Hold on youngins! You boys caint just come pokin round out here without talkin to ol Licky."

The man made a scrunching gesture with his face, which looked like the epileptic wink of a madman. We halted our retreat.

I fished for something good to say. "My dad’s looking for some firewood right back there," I said, pointing in no particular direction. "We were just looking around."

"You caint fool ol Licky. I knows yer out here by yerselves. If yer dad was around ya wooden look sa scared," he said, this time fully protruding his tongue and circling it around his lips in a nervous motion.

"Really, sir…" Dan began.

But the old man cut him off. "My feelins might get hurt if ya keep lyin boy."

"We’re sorry, but we have to get back home soon," I added as if I were quoting from the repertoire of Wally Cleaver.

"Not bafore ya come on in and have a drink with Licky. I wanna show ya somethin."

He began to walk towards us.

Now to this day I can’t tell you why we went into that weirdo’s shack, but I guess we feared more what would happen if we didn’t follow his wishes than what would happen if we did. Maybe I had more faith in my knife than I should have. Regardless, I kept my eyes on the old man as he led us into the leaning gray shanty.

"You boys like co-colas?" he asked as we followed him inside.

"Uh, yeah," I said, knowing full well that Dan was a strict 7-Up drinker, but under the circumstances figuring it wouldn’t matter.

The first thing that struck us sour about the inside of the shack was the smell. Worse than the smell of Licky himself, it was like the musty smell of an old house exponentially worsened until it reached near organic putrefaction. A snail of nausea slinked across my gut as the first thick waft of stench rolled into my lungs.

The cramped single room of the shanty was as rotted on the inside as it was on the outside. The exposed boards of the ceiling were completely gray and covered with cobwebs. An old rickety cot was shoved into one corner, a brownish stain covering its sagging middle. Over at the opposite end was a broken-down stove, resembling a leper with its rust-eaten porcelain finish. A tattered beige couch sat rotting against the long wall, almost hidden by countless piles of old water-stained magazines. They looked mostly like Playboys and Hustlers as far as I could tell. To our right sat a dusty old wooden crate. It looked to me like a coffin used back in the 1800’s. A fat rat sniffed around its base.

But the most shocking aspect of the shack was the wallpaper. Old pin-up style nudie pictures had been cut from countless magazines and stuck to every visible inch of wall. Superimposed on top of this layer were random pictures of goats and other wild beasts, taken from magazines I was not familiar with. They were all faded by the damp and rotting conditions. I had seen plenty of naked pictures in my grandfather’s garage so I wasn’t too shocked. But Dan’s religious background didn’t seem to be mixing well with the mass of nude women and goats.

"You boys wouldn’t be lookin fer a UFO would ya?" Licky asked as he began digging in a dirty box near the stove.

I peeled my eyes from a cherry-nippled blonde. "Why would you think that?" I asked.

"I’ve caught plenty a curious peoples diggin round here like moles. They think they’s gonna find some kinda alien body."

"Why would they think that?" I asked dumbly.

"A smart boy like you sure ta know about the UFO crash over here." Licky said pulling out two dusty bottles from the box. "Why else ya be out here nosin round?"

"Well, we’ve heard about it I guess, but I didn’t know about alien bodies."

"These are good co-colas," he said popping the caps off the dirty Coke bottles with his teeth and handing one each to Dan and I as he made another 360 around his chops with his tongue.

I discreetly knocked a dirt dauber’s nest off the side of my bottle and took a drink. Actually, I let the liquid touch my lips making it appear that I had taken a drink, not letting any of it slip into my mouth. Dan did the same.

"Howdoya like ol Licky’s place? You boys got names?"

"Uh, Jim," I said making one up.

Dan delivered one too. "And Horace."

[Blahman]

Part Two


Under any other circumstance, I would have busted out laughing. But the unsettling atmosphere suppressed any such reactions.

"I used ta have a granddaddy name Horace. Loved him to death that ol bugger. Silly as a whistle though. Cut his own arm off one night thinkin it was rattler." The old man laughed loudly and moved his arm around like it was a snake.

I glanced back at the door. I felt better knowing that we stood closer to the door than Licky. I noticed Dan still staring queasily at the exotic wallpaper with a clash of curiosity and horror as if he were looking at a car wreck.

"Did you see the UFO crash?" I asked, trying to conceal my nervousness.

"Well not exactly. I come here after that."

"You’re looking for the UFO too?"

"No, them rangers hauled that off. I’s waitin for somethin. A horn."

With that my heart went flatline. The thing in my pocket was in some way connected to the old man. I began to realize that maybe what Wayne Warren had said about finding some flying saucer parts may have been true.

"You ain’t happen ta see a horn out there have ya?" he said moving to the wooden crate.

"Was it a real UFO from outer space?" Dan finally kicked in.

"Yep. From a planet so far away that them stupid scientists ain’t seen it yet."

"You never answered bout that horn," his twang suddenly growing menacing.

Our faces began to flush.

"You little clever thingyins know somethin, don’t ya?" He ran his hand across the crate like he was caressing the skin of a lover.

"What horn?"

"Fess up boy. If you got the horn, ya cain’t resist it. I knows cuz I found the other one when I worked fer the sheriff’s office and we was out here cleanin up after the crash. I found somethin else too that the rest of em never saw."

Fear finally slapped my common sense. I pulled the clear horn thing out of my pocket. "I got this trick or treating," I said as I threw it to the floor behind Licky and bolted for the door. Dan turned to follow, but a deep bark stopped us mid-way. A large dog stood growling outside. We looked back at Licky fully expecting him to move in for the kill right then.

"Colossus! Simmer down!" he yelled gruffly. "He’s just a tad grumpy if ya know what I mean? Ya don’t gotta be scared of him or ol Licky. I like you boys," he said picking up the horn.

"What do you want from us?!" I demanded.

"Now youngin don’t get all upset. You brung me this here horn that I been looking for."

"Does that have something to do with the UFO?" I asked, trying to calm down.

"Where’d ya get it?"

"From some guy dressed up like the devil on Halloween."

"Heh heh! I knew it!" he said with a lick. "I knew it’d find its way back here one way or another. Dressed like the devil…goddamn!"

He seemed excited by the fact that Wayne had been dressed like Satan. I wasn’t sure what the connection was between him and this old man, or if there even was one, but somehow we had been transporting something very important.

"Does that belong to an alien?" Dan asked.

"Some folks might call him an alien," he began, "but it really belongs to the devil. I’ve been keepin his body here since his space craft wrecked waitin for this other horn to turn up. Sometimes it takes the thingyins for things to work out. But they always do! Now I can get the rewards I deserve!"

"The devil?" I asked skeptically.

Licky patted the wooden crate. "Yes sir, he’s in here."

We were speechless.

"I bet you boys would like to see him, wouldn’t ya?"

I shook my head slowly as tears began to well in my eyes. Dan just stood frozen as if he were looking down upon Virgil’s nine rings of hell.

"Well here he is!" Licky yelled as he flung open the crate’s lid. Its old hinges screeched like dying animal.

Inside lay the body of a creature. It was a brownish red and shriveled like the corpse of a mummy. It had arms and legs and a human-shaped torso, but they were thin and wiry. Its pointed chin and bulbous forehead made it appear like a reddish version of the little gray aliens that people always claim to see. A set of pointed teeth were thrust forward from the retracted lips, opposing the huge sunken sockets in whose valleys rested closed eyes. I could smell the acrid odor of age filling the room as if the beast were centuries old, having soaked up the stench of death and decay for an eternity. We were repulsed, though neither Dan nor I could take our eyes from the entombed thing.

"Just like in the storybooks. ‘Cept he don’t come from no Hell, he’s from up there," Licky said pointing to the sky. "Been coming here longer en you and I can figure!" he exclaimed. "Don’t cha like em?!"

That’s when I noticed the horn. The creature had one horn identical to the one I had been given. A jagged hole at the other side of his head made it apparent that he had once possessed two.

"At last, I can raise him again! I’ll be made a prince of the sky when he sees what ol Licky’s done fer em!" the old man said, drooling a line of spit onto the creature’s chest as he began to fit the missing horn back in place.

The dog outside barked and we remained trapped between two rapidly off balancing evils.

Licky laughed as the component finally clicked into place. A faint whir became audible from the coffin as he pulled back.

"Look close boys, ya brung back ol Nick!"

The thing began to move, not mechanically like a robot as I would have thought, but more like an organic being that had been sleeping for a long time. It sat upright as the eyes began to open. Their dark menisci looked like black mirrors as they focused on our white faces. Its skin became more supple and its lips rolled back down over his teeth. The thing smiled a grin that was beyond pure evil, that seemed to crawl through my eyes, down my throat, and squeeze the bloody pulp of my heart like a constrictor. But I resisted and so did Dan. Breaking our gaze, we ran for the door as the beast jumped from the crate.

I had been used somehow to bring the horn back to the creature. It seemed to explain my complete lack of good judgment when we followed Licky into the shack. I had been possessed by something much the way Wayne Warren had been, dressing up like the devil, probably unknowingly waiting for some adventurous kid to take the horn from him like the wind carries a seed to its final destination, where it could root and produce seed of its own.

"Ain’t you a beaut!" Licky cried.

The devil responded with a snap of his clawed hand. Blood splattered the nude-papered wall as the old man chortled and fell to the ground, callously beheaded despite his service.

"fudge!" I screamed as Dan and I burst through the door and tripped over the dog. We both hit the ground, along with the dog, in a whirlwind of confusion and gnashing teeth. I felt a few bites hit my arms, but when the devil crashed through the door the dog yelped and darted into the trees.

The creature smiled again and looked at us. It was one of those split seconds between reactions when the mind and body are trying to get into sync, when the true perspective of time is lost. For a few endless seconds the foul beast stood above us and before we could pull ourselves up to run, he turned and headed into the woods. He spun his neck around to look at us one more time as he blended into the countryside and disappeared.

Dan and I ran in the opposite direction, back toward our bikes. We said nothing as we careened through the branches and undergrowth gouging at us with fingery thorns as if it were reluctant to let us leave. It wasn’t until we had pedaled all the way back to Motor Valley Road that I finally broke the silence and confronted the reality of what had taken place.

"Do you think it was the devil?!"

Dan, terror etched into his face, shook his head. "If it was an alien and there’s more of them…"

He began to cry.

I could feel my hands trembling on the handle grips. The reality of aliens and devils or something that was both was too much for my young mind. "We can’t tell anyone," I said.

"I don’t ever want to talk about it again."

"We won’t."

"Never," was the last clear word I heard before he fell into a repetitive mumble.

If it was the devil, alien or otherwise, and we were responsible for bringing him to life… I grappled with the thought. The thought that has slowly wrested the life from me over the years like a patient serpent subduing its prey. The same thought that was responsible for the phone call I just received.

I gently sat the telephone receiver back into the cradle. It had been Dan’s sister on the line. He was found dead in his car that morning. He had been missing for weeks. She asked me if I had any idea why he would have driven out to a remote spot in Motor Valley and put a gun to his head.

I told her I didn’t know.

[Blahman]

Children crowded the dirty street, some carrying bags or sacks of treats given by local residents, or stolen from other children in other parts of the borough. Older kids sat on the curb smoking pot or whatever their pusher sold them last. No mothers would call these kids home as the evening grew steadily darker. Screams filled the night, but that was not unusual for this neighborhood. Jack-o-lanterns that had not yet been smashed by the marauding children of the ghetto still glowed dully in the dirty night.

Reluctantly, the trick-or-treaters and drug users and pushers moved aside to let a battered old Mercury chug past them. The long brown Mercury stopped in front of the house where Dr. Daniel Stillson had set up his medical practice. A tall white man got out from the driver's side, and a huge Negro from the passenger side. The black man opened a back door and began pulling another white man from the seat. The driver came around the car to help his companion.

The man they extracted from the car was unconscious. He was well-dressed, in a tailored gray suit, though his silk tie had come untucked from under his suit coat and flapped in the gentle breeze as the other two men, supporting him between them, dragged him through the yard to the front door of Dr. Stillson's home office. A scowling jack-o-lantern watched them from inside the window.

Once on the porch, the black man knocked heavily on the front door. A curtain in the window flickered the door was pulled open and the three men admitted. The door closed quickly behind them.

"Bring him in here," Dr. Stillson said, waving for the other men to follow him.

Daniel Stillson was a medium-sized man of about forty-five, though he looked at least ten years older due to life in the city's slums. He was losing his dark hair at the crown, but his eyes still burned with unspent life. Tonight they shone even brighter than usual. Tonight he was a man on the brink of revenge.

The doctor led his guests into his examination room, the cleanest room in the house, and also the kitchen. White linoleum covered the floors, and the many cabinets on the walls were painted white, though in many places the paint was faded and stained. The sink in the corner had rust stains around the drain, and the table where the doctor sat to talk with his patients was propped up by chipped bricks because one of the legs had been broken off by a patient who had gotten angry over a price. The only other piece of furniture in the room was the steel examination table, and it was unremarkable except for the fact that tonight it was equipped with pieces of nylon rope tied to each of the four legs.

"Undress him and put him on the table," Dr. Stillson instructed. "Then tie his wrists and ankles with those ropes. Make sure you get them tight. Stretch him out so he can't move." He stood by and watched as his orders were carried out. When he was satisfied, he tossed a bottle of pills to each of the two men.

"Remember," he warned, "You don't know anything."

"Right," they both agreed.

"Good. Now go." The doctor dismissed them and the two hurried out of the house. Dr. Stillson followed, and locked the front door behind them. He heard the cough and roar as the old Mercury was started and driven away. He peeked out the window again to make sure his visitors had not attracted any unwanted attention. Just the usual scum, he decided, the little ones dressed in costumes less monstrous than their reality tonight. He let the dingy curtain drop back into place and returned to the examination room.

He stood over the unconscious body on his table for a few minutes, studying the smooth, pale flesh and the peaceful look of the handsome face. Then, smiling to himself, he turned and walked away.

From a corner he pulled a small wheeled cart with a gleaming metal tray for a top. He removed the utensils he would need from a drawer: a scalpel, a syringe, and a new needle in a plastic wrapper. He took a small, corked bottle of clear liquid from a cabinet and placed all these items neatly on the tray of his cart and pushed them to the examination table. He brought a chair from the conference table and put it beside the tray, then sat down to wait for the man to regain his senses.

The wait wasn't long. The man's head began to move, his well-groomed blond hair becoming mussed. He tried to raise an arm, and the ropes held it down. His head snapped up and he found Dr. Stillson's smiling face. The man's eyes widened in surprise.

"Hello, Jeffrey," Dr. Stillson said. "Or shall it still be Mister Davies? Like it was in the court room? No, I think here it will be just plain old Jeff. Is that all right with you?"

"What am I doing here, Stillson?" Jeff demanded. "Where the hell am I?"

"Why, Jeff," the doctor feigned surprise. "This is my new office. Don't you like it? It's the best I can do since you ruined my practice with that nasty law suit."

"You killed my wife," Jeff accused, again.

"It was an accident," the doctor said harshly. "I explained before the operation that there was the chance she wouldn't make it through. You didn't hesitate to give me the go-ahead."

"You killed her because she wouldn't have sex with you in the hospital room."

Dr. Stillson's face reddened. "She was mine. She needed me as much as I wanted her. You should have heard her begging me to f**k her that first day she came to me. She said her husband was too busy with his work at the bank to give her the thingy when he came home, if he came home. She told me she had heard rumors of homosexual activity between you and a clerk in the vault. Did you like getting corn-holed while you were bent over stacks of hundred dollar bills? Huh, Jeffy?"

"f**k you," Jeff shouted. "Why am I naked? Where are my clothes?"

"They've been taken care of," the doctor promised. "Be happy with what you have on.

"I made love to Molly," Stillson confessed. "You never got me to admit that in court, did you? No. But I did. She was a wonderful lover. Exquisite, really. She was going to leave you before we found out the lump was cancerous. I wanted her to leave you immediately then, but she didn't want to go through a divorce until after the operation. We made love in her hospital room several times. Even after her hair fell out.

"I miss her," Dr. Stillson added. "I doubt you do."

"It's none of your business," Jeff said. "Why am I here?"

"I'm going to do an operation on you tonight, Jeff. I've never performed this particular operation on a human before, but I'm sure if Molly were here she would give me the okay, just like you did for her. Besides, you're not that much different than an animal. Are you?"

"You're not going to cut on me," Jeff said. "You can't."

"Sure I can," Dr. Stillson said. He plucked the scalpel from his tray and showed it to his patient. "I'm all ready to go."

"No," Jeff said quietly. "No! Help! Somebody help me!"

"Nobody will help you because nobody cares!" Dr. Stillson shouted over the other man's voice. "We're in the slums, Jeff. The ghetto. The people out there, they've heard shouts coming from this house before. Most of my patients are thieves, gang members, and their ilk. My neighbors won't care about your shouts."

"Nooo," Jeff moaned.

"Oh, yes," the doctor said in a reassuring tone. He took the syringe and the needle from his tray and fitted them together. He picked up the small bottle and stuck the needle through the cork, pulling the plunger up until the syringe was just over half full. He put the bottle back on the tray and shot a quick stream of the clear fluid into the air.

"Got to get the air bubbles out," Stillson said. "I don't want you dying of a heart attack. I have something much better in mind."

"What is that?"

"This?" Dr. Stillson brandished the syringe. "This is a concoction that I made up. I call it SKN-3. The three is because the first two tries were unsuccessful. It's an amphetamine. Speed. Can you say trick-or-treat? I thought you could."

"Don't. . ." Jeff whined as Dr. Stillson brought the needle close to his arm. He winced as the steel penetrated his flesh. The plunger came down and the fluid was in his blood. "Now what?" Jeff asked, a tear coming from his eye.

"Now we wait," Dr. Stillson said, dropping the empty syringe onto the tray. "It should be just a few minutes before the drug takes effect."

"Then what?"

"Then, Jeff, I'm going to skin you alive. SKN-3 will keep you conscious for most of the operation. Won't it be interesting to watch as your flesh is peeled off?"

"NO!" Jeff began yelling for help again. Dr. Stillson let him shout without trying to stop him. He sat calmly and watched his patient, smiling when he saw the drug was working. Jeff's eyes bulged in their sockets, and his face turned red as if he were blushing deeply. He trembled slightly, his heart beat rapidly beneath his skin, causing the flesh of his chest to pulsate.

"My hair's crawling," Jeff said. "Are there bugs in it?'"

"No, it just feels that way," the doctor told him. "I think we're ready to begin." He stood up, pushed the chair out of his way, lifted the scalpel from the tray, and pushed the cart back beside the discarded chair. He stepped close to the trembling man on his table.

"No, please, I'll give you anything," Jeff begged, his voice hoarse with fright. "Anything you want."

"All I want from you, Jeff, is revenge," Dr. Stillson said. "And I'm about to have it."

Jeffrey Davies howled when the cold steel of the scalpel touched his super-sensitive skin. Dr. Stillson ignored the noise and concentrated on his cutting. He made an incision from a point a few inches below the Adam's apple to just above the start of the pubic hair. The cut swelled with ripe, red blood that soon spilled from its canal and ran down the man's hairless chest and stomach. Jeff continued to shriek with pain, and the doctor smiled to himself as he made his next cut along the inside of the left arm, then the right, and then the legs. He joined the slits on Jeff's limbs to the first cut on his torso, and peeled the flesh away from the carcass. Jeff's screams became louder and more shrill, reaching an octave that Dr. Stillson would have believed impossible coming from the human throat.

Jeff's ropy red muscles glistened beneath the room's naked hundred watt bulb. Within moments after his insides were exposed, Jeff passed out. Dr. Stillson looked at his watch.

"Good," he judged. "You stayed awake for the best parts, Jeffy. Thanks to my little drug."

The doctor completed his job, his face a mask of concentration. He cut from the top of his first incision below the Adam's apple around the base of the neck as far as he could reach. He untied Jeff and rolled the body over so he could complete the cuts on the wrists and ankles, then, bringing the cut from the man's neck up around the hairline and back to the forehead.

Taking hold of Jeff's blond hair, Dr. Stillson pulled slowly and steadily. The scalp lifted, and with a little help, the rest of the man's flesh came away from his back with a wet, sucking sound. Dr. Stillson lifted the skin away from the calves carefully so as not to tear the trophy, and then spread the dripping hide out on his floor, inside up.

Leaving the body on the table for a moment, the doctor went to a cabinet and took out several white rags. He knelt beside his prize skin and wiped away the blood. When the inside was clean, he flipped the hide over and wiped the streaks of crimson from the front.

The skinless body still glistened wetly on the table. Dr. Stillson stood looking at it for a long moment. He smiled. "Happy Halloween, Jeffy," he said. "I love your costume."

He brought a bone saw from a drawer and quickly and expertly cut the body into small pieces, which he put into two Hefty Cinch Sacks along with the bloody rags. He then cleaned up his examination table and the floor around it, added these rags to the plastic bags, and closed them up. He pulled them to the far corner of the room to wait until he could hire a couple of junkies to dispose of them. Happy with a job well done, the doctor looked down at the skin laid out on the floor.

"I feel better, Jeff," he said. "Thank you." He took the small bottle of SKN-3 from the tray and examined the remaining fluid. "And thank you for keeping him awake long enough to make my task thoroughly enjoyable." He tossed the glass vial into the air, holding his palm out to catch it.

The bottle went up, tumbling end over end, and began its descent. The fluid within rolled from cork to bottom and back as gravity demanded. The bottle hit Dr. Stillson's upturned palm and bounced up before he could close his fingers around it. Again the bottle sailed through the air. It hit the skin stretched on the floor and shattered on impact with the hard linoleum beneath. Glass fragments flew like sparks in all directions as the liquid spread in a small stain.

"fudge!" the doctor glaried at the mess. He stooped and picked the pieces of glass off the skin and the floor, then went for another rag to wipe up the formula. When he returned, the SKN-3 had soaked into the hide, leaving a small stain that looked like a birth mark. "Oh well," Stillson said, "I suppose I didn't need the rest of it anyway." He dropped the rag onto his table and left the room, turning out the light.

He went to his bathroom and quickly showered, then to his bedroom and lay down, wearing only his underwear. He was asleep within minutes.

In his examination room the skin began to move. At first the activity was only in the area where the fluid had stained the hide; a small rippling motion. Soon, however, the movement traveled outward until the entire hide was flowing, wave-like, from the headless scalp to the feetless legs and handless arms. The rippling became concentrated, and the skin began to inch its way across the floor toward the open doorway.

In the living room of the house it rolled itself into a turn and rippled past a worn chair, the outstretched arm brushing the leg of an end table. The jack-o-lantern in the window took no notice. The skin slithered into a short hallway and then over the threshold of Daniel Stillson's bedroom. It crossed the hardwood floor and was soon at the foot of the narrow bed. Snake-like, it raised itself up until the scalp seemed to be peeking over the edge of the bed. The top part of the skin flopped down onto the mattress and pulled the bottom of the torso and the legs up after it.

The skin quickly covered Dr. Stillson's nearly naked body, wrapping the empty husks of its arms and legs around the sleeping doctor. It began to squeeze.

Daniel Stillson woke up slowly, thinking at first that some of the neighborhood heavies had broken in and wanted drugs. He would give them something that would knock them on their asses for disturbing him. He looked through bleary eyes and saw the skin of Jeffrey Davies wrapped around him. He screamed.

The piece of flesh on the top end of the hide flopped forward. Dr. Stillson sucked Jeff's starchy hair down his throat and gagged.

As the doctor fought to free himself from the skin, the empty hide wrapped itself tighter around him, hugging out the small breaths he could draw around the hair in his throat. At last he lay still, his body limp, his gray eyes, like specks of polished glass, staring at the water-stained ceiling.

The skin continued squeezing for several hours, until all of Dr. Stillson's drug, the SKN-3, had evaporated from the flesh.

[Houdini]

wow, that was long

[Blahman]

Sure was. I was looking for a good Ghost pic as well.

[geeker]

to long for me