Halloween Haunts by Jeff Strand & William Meikle & Lisa Morton & Richard Chizmar & Elizabeth Massie

Author:Jeff Strand & William Meikle & Lisa Morton & Richard Chizmar & Elizabeth Massie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Regions Press

The Witch

by Richard Chizmar

“I hate Halloween.”

“You hate everything,” I said.

“That’s not true.”

“Name three things you don’t—”

“Pizza.”

“That’s one.”

“Fishing.”

“Two.”

Frank Logan, bald head, double chin, and wrinkled suit, stared out the passenger window of our unmarked patrol car.

“Stuck at two, aren’t you?”

“Well, I was gonna say you’re the third thing I don’t hate but that was before you started with this shit.”

I laughed and swung a right onto Pulaski Highway. “So what do you have against Halloween anyway?”

He glanced over at me and I recognized the look immediately: it was his ‘Should I really waste my breath explaining this to you?’ look.

After a moment, he decided I was worth the effort and went on. “It’s become too damn commercial. I read in the paper last week that Halloween is second to only Christmas when it comes to holiday sales revenue. Christmas, for Chrissake!”

I smiled and changed lanes. Another classic Frank Logan rant coming right up.

“When I was a kid, the only thing anyone spent money on was candy. That’s it! We made the decorations for our yards and houses. We made our costumes. I was a hobo the first time I went trick or treating. A clown the next year. A baseball player the year after that. All homemade. Didn’t spend a penny.”

“I can’t see you as a clown.”

“I was five, Ben. What was your first costume?”

I hesitated. “Umm, I don’t remember.”

“Sure you do. Everyone remembers their first Halloween costume. It’s like a rule, like remembering your first piece of ass.”

“I really don’t remember.”

“Sure you do.”

I sighed. “I was Casper, Frank. Good enough?”

“Casper the friendly ghost?”

“No, Casper the angry squirrel.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Store-bought?”

I turned onto a residential street. Jack-o’-lanterns grinned their jagged, orange grins at us from front porches. Tombstones poked out of manicured lawns, piles of fallen leaves heaped in front of them in the shapes of corpses. Ghosts and goblins hung from trees. I saw a cluster of police lights in the distance. It was after ten, so the sidewalks were empty of trick-or-treaters, but I could see a good-sized crowd gathered in the middle of the road ahead.

“Store-bought?” Frank asked again. Once he got his teeth into something, he didn’t let go. It was what made him such a fine detective.

“Yes, Frank, it was store-bought. A cheap plastic mask with eyeholes cut out of it, and one of those elastic bands in the back that pinched your ears and neck. I apologize for violating the spirit of Halloween and promise to make up for it next October. Happy?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Just a question. No need to get touchy.”

I pulled to the curb and parked behind a sheriff’s cruiser, opened the driver’s door and got out.

“Westerns,” Frank said.

I looked at him over the top of our sedan. “What?”

“I don’t hate Westerns. You know, movies.”

I closed my car door and started toward the scene.

“That’s three, Ben,” from behind me. “I win.”

*

“Whatdya got, Lenny?”

Sheriff Deputy Leonard Perkins looked up from the small notebook he was scribbling in and shook his head. “It’s a weird one, fellas.

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