The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus by Al Sarrantonio

Author:Al Sarrantonio [Sarrantonio, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: halloween horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2015-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

For the hundredth time in the last few days, Corrie checked the telephoto lens set up in the guest room trained on the cornfield. But the scarecrow was not there. The light of a waxing moon showed an empty pole where the pumpkin-headed man had been. Corrie kept expecting John to show up — to feel the sudden crackly, feathery weight of his arm thrown around his shoulder, or to turn around and have the grinning pumpkin mouth there. But there had been no further visits. In a bizarre way Corrie was disappointed, as if an old acquaintance had suddenly vanished without leaving a forwarding address.

And John had said things would get much worse …

So far, nothing had happened that Corrie hadn’t experienced in the past. Growing up, he had become almost accustomed to the occasional odd noise, the shifting geometries in walls and ceilings, the sudden plasticity of a piece of furniture or the floor beneath his feet. The fact that others, including his mother, could at most hear a particularly loud noise but could see none of the things he saw had become normal to him.

This was his world, and welcome to it.

He swiveled the telephoto lens away from the cornfield, toward Orangefield. The town was lit up like a lantern. The beginning of Pumpkin Days, and they could keep all of it. He had gone out that afternoon for some groceries, and couldn’t find a parking spot. Finally he had parked in front of a fire hydrant, and gotten a ticket for his trouble.

He would stay away from town for the next week …

Through the lens he could see some of the decorated light poles, the flash of a strobe set up outside Ranier park, which threw a light deep into the sky, illuminating the scant clouds like a horizontal movie screen with the grinning happy face of a pumpkin …

There, on the ground next to the strobe, was a figure who resembled John …

It was gone the next moment, lost in the milling crowds.

There was a noise behind Corrie, and he turned, half expecting the pumpkin man to be there—

“John?”

There was nothing—empty hallway illuminated by a nightlight.

Another sound—from down below, on the first floor.

Corrie left the telephoto lens, walked out into the hallway, stood at the top of the stairs.

“Hello?” he said.

Silence — then that sound again: something straining, like two nailed pieces of wood being pried apart—

“Who’s down there?”

He expected John’s voice—but there was only dead silence followed by that peculiar creaking sound.

He quickly dismounted the stairs, checked the front door (closed and locked) and went into the kitchen (nothing), the dining room (nothing), the living room—

The sound came again, startlingly loud, in the direction of the sofa against the wall.

As he touched the couch, the sound came again from behind it.

Corrie switched on the table lamp next to the sofa, and inched it away from the wall.

He saw nothing. Then the creaking sound came again and his eyes instantly focused on the baseboard molding.

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