October Nights by Kevin Lucia

Author:Kevin Lucia [Lucia, Kevin & Publishing, Crystal Lake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook, QuarkXPress
Published: 2021-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

23.

I SPENT THE rest of the 28th in the cabin, watching one horror movie after another. My experience with the 80s headbanger and yet another version of Lilly had shaken me up enough that I didn’t care if I ran out of funds and The Motor Lodge tossed me out. I’d seen something in the headbanger’s face. Something decayed and evil, and it had been harassing Lilly. Just like the kids harassing the nine-year-old Lilly the night before. Either that, or I was going crazy.

I didn’t bother keeping track of the movies I watched, because I knew that didn’t matter, either. If they impinged on my life or revealed something, they would. If they didn’t it wouldn’t matter.

For lunch I decided hell with it and called Pizza Joe’s. The line was busy, so I contented myself with whatever I could rummage from the meager supplies I had left. Some hot dogs, a bag of chips, and an apple. I sat on the futon, ate, and watched horror movie after horror movie, trying not to think of the strangeness which had taken over my life or the nightmare I’d suffered the night before—another one about Lilly.

There was a Halloween party in our basement Rec Room, which was decorated with black and orange streamers and balloons, and cardboard monster cutouts taped to the walls. Dozens of kids were present, but I couldn’t see their masks, or what they’d dressed as. They melted together into a tangled mass of flesh. A dizzying collage of leering faces, claws, fur, bulging eyes, gaping mouths and pulsing green skin.

Beth clapped her hands. The fleshy mass lurched toward a tub filled with water and floating apples. Before us stood a middle-grade Lilly, dressed as a classic witch. Pointy black hat, flowing and tattered black dress, face painted green and plastic crooked witch’s nose held on by a rubber hand.

Beth clapped a hand on Lilly’s right shoulder. I mindlessly followed suit, clamping her left shoulder. I could feel Lilly quaking in fear. I tried to make myself look at her, but I couldn’t, lest I see the accusation burning in her eyes.

Beth forced Lilly to her knees. I pushed down, also. She raised her other hand, and screeched, “Behold! The witch!”

The mass of costumed flesh groaned, “Behold the witch!”

“Behold the blasphemer, the profaner!”

The crowd echoed her in moaning symphony.

“Behold, she who gives herself over to unnatural urges, and spits in the Face of God!”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything to interrupt Beth, but I couldn’t. I squeezed Lilly’s shoulder. All I felt was cold, hard bone.

“Behold the witch! If she drowns, she’s purged of her sin, her soul cleansed forevermore! If she survives, she’s damned to hell!”

The crowd of misshapen faces and malformed bodies pulsed, shouting with glee. I opened my mouth, but it didn’t matter. Beth shoved Lilly head-first into the tub of water. I helplessly did likewise. We held her under while she thrashed, but didn’t drown, and the crowd roared even louder . .

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