The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

THE CANDLE EATERS by K. Allen Wood

Katie Adams cut a white swath through the dark of the woods, a ghost to all but the dead.

The crisp night air was its own special vintage, and it soothed her lungs as she weaved between the shadows. A soft breeze caressed her with the smells of October: smoldering brush piles; damp, hungry soil; the breath of cold brick chimneys just waking from their summer-long slumber.

It was her favorite time of the year. The in-between, when the bushes and trees strutted their autumn wardrobes and the wind endlessly whispered the promise of winter.

She emerged from the woods and into a field on the edge of Farmington Circle. The tall grass and weeds whipped across her thighs as she ran toward the small isolated community of Bridgetown Pines.

As she reached the sidewalk, she slowed and caught her breath. She plucked a few sticky burrs from the tattered sheets that made up her ghostly costume and cast them away. Under the canopy of oaks that lined the street, Katie let the beauty of twilight calm her. Like a cleansing rain, the night descended and washed away her loneliness, the anger she harbored toward her mother, and the fear of what lay ahead now that her father was gone.

Grief and regret were such destructive things, parasitical emotions that feasted upon sorrow and pain. Katie had learned this the hard way, having played host to the vile things for the past six months, worrying over what could have been done differently, words that could have been said more often. But she had found no answers in what could have been, only in what was. So she’d fought back, fought hard, and though her battle was yet won, though she still struggled with the pain and anger and despair, she had a stranglehold on her suffering.

And she wasn’t letting go.

Her mother, on the other hand, had given up, given in to the crippling heartache that weighed down upon them both. Katie felt as though she’d shed more tears for the metaphorical loss of her mother than for the real, knife-to-the-heart passing of her father.

Tonight, though, this final October night, she would let it all go, for however brief a moment. Tonight she would once again embrace the wonders of childhood.

For some reason, however, as she continued down the street, her empty pillowcase swinging at her side, Katie had the strange feeling that something was amiss, as if the shadows held secrets best left in the dark. The neighborhood beyond was dead calm, as always; the lawns and shrubbery immaculately groomed and swaying gently in the breeze, but somehow…wrong. The knotted fingers of the trees seemed to loom a bit closer. The symphony of night sounds—insects, birds, small animals rustling in the leaves—was hushed.

Goose bumps prickled her skin. She picked up her pace.

She tried to push her unease aside, ascribe it to overactive imagination, but the feeling dogged her all the way to 18 Farmington Circle, where it vanished like morning mist.

Katie skipped up the driveway—perhaps a little faster than normal—and onto the cobblestone path leading to the side door. Twin wicker chairs sat empty on the wooden patio, a deck of cards splayed on the table between them as if ghosts were enjoying an evening game of Rummy. On the door before her hung a WELCOME sign haloed by an autumnal wreath, its faux berries like clusters of dark beady eyes. Under their scrutinizing gaze, she rang the doorbell.

She glanced over her shoulder, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and wondered what could have made her feel as though something lurked among the shadows. Knowing the truth of things, she supposed, coming to know the reality of the world, the insidious truth that childhood innocence had kept hidden from her for seventeen years, until it was swiftly revealed in the most agonizing of ways. Loved ones didn’t live forever; best friends would sometimes become enemies; and worst of all, life had razor-sharp, poison-filled fangs that could pierce the human heart—her heart. And Katie knew, looking back the way she’d come, literally and figuratively, that darkness always reigned beyond the light.

It wasn’t just something that was different. Everything was different.

The door opened and the scent of spiced apples washed over her. Katie turned, closed her eyes and breathed it in. It reminded her of home, of sweet hugs and cookies in the oven. It reminded her of better times.

“Katie! Come in, come in.” Mrs. Hapler opened the door wide. “Matthew will be right down.”

Mrs. Hapler was made of sweetness and joy, the kind of woman you loved within minutes of meeting her, as if you’d known her your whole life. Katie smiled, but before stepping inside, she held out her pillowcase…

“Trick or treat?”

Looking dismayed and out of character, Mrs. Hapler frowned. “Matthew didn’t tell you, did he? Never mind. I’m not surprised. Unfortunately, dear, we don’t have any candy.”

“Well, that’s too bad.” Katie stepped inside and Mrs. Hapler closed the door behind her. “Trick it is, then. May I borrow a roll of toilet paper?”

Mrs. Hapler laughed, warm and friendly. “Don’t you even think about!” She opened the refrigerator and removed a Diet Coke. “We don’t usually get trick-or-treaters here—you know how it is—so Harold and I are going out to dinner at Cassandra’s and then catching a late movie. If he ever gets out of the shower, that is. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“We bought candy our first year here, and no one came. Can you believe that?”

Katie nodded. Bridgetown Pines hadn’t been conceived as a retirement community, but for all intents and purposes it had become one. The average age of its residents was just shy of dead. Few children ventured this far north of the city in hopes of getting a handful of wintergreen mints from a few old curmudgeons. And getting a handful of mints was a best-case scenario. The Haplers were the oddity of the neighborhood, still young and sprightly in their forties. Matt was the only kid on the block.

“Not a single person,” Mrs. Hapler continued. She tapped the top of the soda can twice, opened it, and took a sip. “And with that big bowl of candy sitting on the table taunting us—I swear Harold and I gained ten pounds a day until it was all gone.” She laughed. “But now with his diabetes and all…well, you understand.”

Katie’s face must have reflected the sadness she’d not yet found a way to hide when she was reminded of her father’s passing, for Mrs. Hapler walked over, wrapped her in a loving embrace, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” she said, fighting back tears that threatened to ruin her face paint. “I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t fine, and she wondered if she ever would be.

Her father had been a lifelong diabetic. Six months ago he’d gone to sleep and never woke up. He just slipped away peacefully in the night. She could still remember the morning, the sun slicing through the gaps in her pink blinds, teasing her with its warmth as her mother’s wails promised nothing but cold, cold, cold.

As devastated as Katie had been, the worst part of it all was that she’d lost not only her father, but her mother as well. At least it felt that way. Her mother shut down after her father’s death, shut everyone and everything out of her life, and descended into a malignant darkness.

Just as the cold hands of despair were reaching up to pull her down into its black depths, Matt bounded into the room and brought a shining smile to her face—Mrs. Hapler’s, too. He howled and snarled behind a rubber wolf-mask, making a real show of it. He wore a red-and-black plaid shirt, sleeves cut at the shoulders, and a black hooded sweatshirt underneath. His jeans were ragged and torn, as if he’d been attacked by one of his toothy brethren. A strip of synthetic wolf-hair, from forehead to shoulder, had been dyed green and hair-sprayed into a spiky spine.

“Nice hair,” Katie said.

“It’s a wohawk,” Matt replied, pausing for dramatic effect. “You see what I did there? A punk-rock werewolf.”

He howled again.

“Whatever you say, goofball. Hey, I know! Maybe you should join Team Jacob.”

“Maybe I should eat your face,” he said, pointing a wobbly, elongated finger at her.

“Matthew,” Mrs. Hapler said. “How many times have I told you, we don’t eat our guests. Especially the nice ones.”

“But that’s what werewolves do!”

Mrs. Hapler looked at Katie, feigned a sad, contemplative face, and sighed heavily. “He has a point, you know, and since it is Halloween and all, I guess I’ll make an exception. But—” she took another sip of her drink “—if you really must eat her face, please do it outside. I just mopped.”

“Thanks, Mom! You’re the best.”

Katie laughed. They always knew how to make her laugh.

Katie and Matt gathered their things and said their good-byes.

“We’ll be home sometime after midnight,” said Mrs. Hapler. “You two behave, and be careful. And get me a Tootsie Roll.”

Then they were out the door, racing down the street and off into the night. They passed through the same field Katie had come through earlier in the evening, intoxicated by the nostalgic promise of excitement and adventure.

They didn’t see the pale-faced children creeping along the tree line.

Two hours later, with pillowcases full of sweet, sugary booty—Tootsie Pops, Smarties, Kit Kats, Snickers, Milky Ways, and so much more—Katie and Matt entered Bridgetown Pines and turned the corner at the far end of Farmington Circle.

Thick woods flanked both sides of the road, and a scant few streetlights did their futile best to hold back the shadows within. The branches overhead clacked like wind chimes constructed of bones. All around, orange and yellow and red leaves lazily floated to their deaths, soft and peaceful.

Katie shook her head, smiling. “What the hell are we going to do with all this candy?”

“Well, I intend to eat it,” Matt said, removing his mask and gloves, the transformation back to human far less dramatic than depicted in movies. His face glistened with sweat. “I’m crazy like that.”

Katie had a witty comeback lined up, something about agreeing that he was crazy, but the words were swept away in a whirlwind of chatter that exploded within her head, suddenly, painfully, as if she had become hardwired into every cellular network in the world—and everyone was shouting. Her knees buckled.

Matt dropped his pillowcase, reached out and steadied her. “Hey, you okay?”

She saw Matt, his eyes wide with concern, and then looked past him, beyond the curve of the road. What she saw both frightened and fascinated her, but reconciling those feelings amidst the bedlam in her head proved impossible. Waves of pain crashed against the inside of her skull, like the layers of her brain were being burned away.

“Katie,” Matt said. “What’s wrong?”

The cacophonous buzzing and chatter in Katie’s head dissipated, slowly, but words continued to fail her. Instead, she pointed.

Ahead, on Samantha Walker’s front lawn, stood a small cherubic figure, curiously strange but equally horrifying. It was naked and without discernable genitalia, ghost-white skin shiny, smooth, like a small mannequin. Its hands were outstretched, cradling a long red candle, a teardrop of flame flickering above it. Wax glistened and dripped like blood between the child-thing’s fingers, the contrast striking even in the dark.

The thing stared at them, eyes unblinking, black and emotionless, almost alien.

Something screamed through the quiet but still present static in Katie’s head—run run RUN! it seemed to say—but her legs refused to budge.

When Matt turned and saw the thing staring at them, he flinched and leaned back as if preparing to bolt. “What the crap is that?”

Katie cleared her throat, found her voice again. “I don’t know. What do you think it is?”

“No idea.” Matt craned his neck forward and scrunched up his face, as though he were trying to read a road sign far off in the distance. “Was it there before?”

“I don’t think so,” Katie said. She glanced down the street, and gasped. “Oh my God, Matt, look! They’re everywhere.”

There were nine houses on Farmington Circle, all clustered near its circular end. Katie had always felt close to her father here. He’d helped build every house on the street, and they stood a testament to the man he had been—quiet, strong, sheltering. She felt protected in their presence.

Now, standing before each of those homes was a perfectly still child clutching a dark red candle, and Katie no longer felt safe.

“I don’t get it.” Matt shook his head.

She didn’t get it either, but she felt a jagged blade of fear scraping its way down her spine. She loved horror—books, movies, music—but the image before her was too spooky, too real.

A darkness comes, child, a single voice said, entering her mind uninvited, as smooth and cold as an icicle.

“What?” she said.

“I said—”

“No. Not you.”

Matt cocked an eyebrow, made a fist, and spoke into it: “Crazy Katie Bananas, this is Big Daddy Matt, come again? Over. Ksssh.”

The blade of fear grew still at the small of her back, its tip piercing her skin with slow, steady persistence.

“Did you hear anything?” she asked, unable to look away from the child.

Matt’s brow crinkled like a pile of discarded wrapping paper on Christmas morning. “You okay?”

“Never mind,” she said, massaging her temples. “I don’t like this.”

“Word up on that, sista. This is either a stupid joke, or everyone on this street is in a weirdo cult. Maybe both. Sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. But Katie couldn’t shake the feeling that something beyond their understanding, something unnatural—even supernatural—was happening. A big pill to swallow, but the alternative—that she was bat-shit crazy—was much bigger, and she wasn’t quite ready to gulp that one down.

“Can we go?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Matt picked up his candy, and together they walked into the unknown.

Matt crossed the front lawn of his home, his movements bold and purposeful. His footsteps darkened the dew-covered grass with each step. As he drew closer to the figure he slowed, hesitated, and then stopped a few feet away.

You must run, flee. A darkness comes.

“Matthew,” Katie said, tugging on his arm like a toddler trying to get her mother’s attention. “Can we please go inside?”

She looked back over her shoulder, half expecting to see an army of porcelain-skinned children creeping up on them, claws and fangs bared. But still they stood, one on each front lawn, blank-faced and unmoving.

“It’s fake,” Matt declared. He was staring into the black orbs that served as the child’s eyes. “Christ, what a bizarre prank.” He chuckled like a mad professor up to no good in his la-bor-atory, though Katie knew it was a nervous kind of laughter.

“Matthew, it’s real.” She wasn’t sure why she believed this, because it made no more sense than any other tale this holiday had been built upon, but she knew it was true. She felt it, heard it loud and clear.

“What? Come on! It’s fake,” he insisted. “Probably a plastic Halloween prop—a weird one—or some wacky Japanese candleholder. They never get that shit right.”

“I’m hearing a voice, something…I don’t know, Matt, but I don’t like it. We have to go.”

“Go where?” Matt said, his confusion fueled by her own. “Isn’t this where we were going?”

Behind Matt and his incredulous stare, the child’s mouth opened impossibly wide. A panicked squeal escaped Katie’s lips. She lurched backward, stumbled over one of Mrs. Hapler’s juniper shrubs that adorned the lawn, and landed hard on her backside.

Matt spun around, screamed when he saw the gaping mouth, and defensively swung his candy-laden pillowcase. It slammed into the child’s chest. Candy exploded around them. The candle tumbled from the child’s grasp, flame flickering to nothing as it rolled across the wet lawn.

In response, the voice in Katie’s head sliced through her like a hail of razors, no words, just an agonizing howl—and she howled with it.

The child’s eyes cataracted before them. Its statuesque stance faltered, and it crumpled to the ground. A few inches away, a curl of smoke rose from the crimson candle, disappeared into the night like a spirit gone home.

Katie scrambled to her feet, her pillowcase and candy forgotten among the shrubbery.

“Did you see that?” Matt said, nearly screeching the words. “Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick! Did you see that?”

“I saw,” she said.

Matt turned around, and Kate watched the color drain from his face like a cartoon character seeing a ghost, as if he were becoming one of the mysterious children.

“Holy goddamn crap,” he whispered.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“Not you. Look.”

Katie followed his gaze and the blade of fear sliced through her spine, paralyzing her.

A soft orange glow spread across James Rothney’s front lawn. There, another child stood, surrounded by the delicate light of a fire—which emanated not from without but from within its body. Its eyes were deep pools of flickering fire, its skin the pink-orange of a midsummer sunset. The child stood at attention, hands dripping with what appeared to be blood. The candle was gone.

Up and down the street, the children stood still as soldiers, sentries burning with an inner flame, like pumpkins.

Like pumpkins…

Pumpkins…

It echoed through the halls of her mind…and then she understood.

Katie had attributed her fear to the mere presence of the children, but all at once the shades of ignorance lifted and the sunshiny rays of realization illuminated her thoughts: The children weren’t there to harm them.

Like fucking pumpkins!

“My god,” she said. “What have you done?”

Katie rushed past Matt, and fell to her knees beside the seemingly lifeless ghostchild. “Help me,” she said. “Quickly!”

The child’s hands were streaked with red as though it had been freshly crucified, its body tossed aside for scavengers to feast upon. Katie’s hand closed around the child’s fingers, now paler than before, and a cold river flooded her veins, stomped through her bones like Death marching. She gasped for air.

The voice came again, unbidden as before, with such urgency it threatened to unhinge her sanity.

Darkness! You must flee the darkness, child! They come!

The world around her flickered like an old television transmission. She clenched her eyes tight, and her mind filled with the image of her father, smiling, radiant. He held his finger to his lips, like he had done so many times before when he wanted her to stop talking and just listen. The scene within her mind faded to Bridgetown Pines, as if she were standing in the middle of Farmington Circle with a million compound eyes at her disposal, each one helping piece together fragments of a single scene…

The ghostly procession emerges from the woods, and one by one the strange beings split from the group to stand like watchmen around the homes of the Pines’ residents…

Some turn and face the street, while others disappear behind the homes…

They hold out their palms like children collecting snowflakes…

Drops of red fall from the sky, into their upturned hands, and the red rises, rises, rises, until a single flaming teardrop descends from the heavens, burning bright…

Katie and Matt appear at the far end of the street, they linger in front of Samantha’s house, and then they’re standing before the child on Matt’s front lawn…

And then…

And then…

And then the darkness moves…

Thick strips of black break away from the shadows, undulating through the air like heartworms heading for the heart of the world. Bloodcurdling whispers echo down the street as if all the damned souls of Hell were marching to war, singing songs of deliverance…

The mass of shadows turn as one…

Katie’s eyes jerked open. For a moment she thought she was emerging from a nightmare, safe and sound under a tangle of blankets while the warm sun peeked through the blinds of her bedroom window.

But there was no sun, no warmth, just an icy realization that, if anything, the nightmare had just begun.

“What the hell, Katie?” Matt knelt beside her, a look of profound fear and confusion contorting his face.

The sweet smells of myriad candies floated up Katie’s nostrils and down her throat, and she had to swallow to keep from throwing up. “What happened?”

“You tell me,” he said. “First you’re scolding me like I’m two, and then you’re grabbing onto this stupid thing, twitching and muttering like a lunatic. What the hell?”

“How long was I like that?”

“I don’t know. Ten, maybe twenty seconds.”

Katie tried to resolve that in her muddled head. How had she seen so much in such a short period of time? She looked down at the child and the vision returned, this time from her own memory. She saw the black things detach from the shadows, twisting through the trees. She saw her father…

Her mind reeled.

She looked toward Samantha’s place. Samantha, who had recently lost her daughter—her only child—at the hands of an unlicensed drunk driver. And James Rothney’s father had just passed, at the age of 101, outliving all his siblings by two decades. Katie’s mind moved from house to house. Carmen Langford…husband…lung cancer. Dead. Garret Wilson…son…overdose. Dead. Melinda and Ray Kingsbury, Ian Millhouse, Sarah Forest, Tamara Jenkins…each of them had recently lost family members.

“Unlock the door,” she said. “We need to get inside.”

“Are you listening to yourself? Jesus Christ! You’re going crazy right before my frickin’ eyes.”

“Now!”

Spurred on by her commanding tone, Matt thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled out his keys, and stepped past her, his face twisted into an aggravated sneer. He made to kick the prone child on his lawn, but seemed to think better of it, and headed toward the house.

Katie turned and watched the child holding vigil on Samantha’s lawn down the street. The fire burned strong from within, but then, ever so slightly, it dimmed as if battling a biting wind. The flame shivered and pulsed and faltered to an ember.

Then, slowly, like the awakening of dawn, the small glow within the child brightened, brightened, and brightened more, until it repelled the darkness once again.

As if warding off evil spirits…

As if the vision she saw through the eyes of the fallen child had come true.

Though she couldn’t see anything now, she knew that the flickering of light was a battle being waged and that the darkness had been repulsed by whatever force the child commanded.

Darkness comes, she thought.

It was only a matter of time before that darkness got to Matt’s house.

Katie crossed the lawn and took all three porch steps in one stride. Inside, Matt pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. He sat down heavily, grabbed a red Granny Smith apple from the centerpiece, and began rolling it back and forth between his hands.

“I need fire,” Katie said.

“You need therapy,” Matt said, not looking up.

“Shut up and help me, Matthew! We haven’t got time.”

“Time for what, exactly?” He stared at her, defiant. The red apple rolled to a stop before him like a heart that had ceased beating. “Are you in on this prank—trying to creep me out, scare me?”

“It’s not a goddamn prank,” she said, crossing the kitchen to stand before him. She softened her voice, hoping to calm his nerves. “The thing on the lawn, the child, it’s here to protect us—they’re here to protect everyone.”

“Oh, right. Of course!” He slapped the tabletop. “It all makes sense now.”

Katie ignored him. She told him of her vision, the black things, her father, everything, and when she finished she had to admit it sounded downright nutso.

“And you think it’s real,” he said.

She nodded, ignoring his derisive tone. Crazy-sounding or not, Katie didn’t think anything. She knew. Her father had come to her from a place beyond this world, free of disease, free of pain, happy. The children were some sort of avatars or manifest protectors, sent by her father and by the recently-passed family members of Matt’s neighbors. She knew it with all her heart.

As if reading her thoughts and intent on shattering them, Matt asked: “But what about the Samsons? They’re both dead now.”

Katie’s confidence deflated. He was right. Mr. Samson died two days ago after a short bout with pneumonia; his funeral was being held Tuesday afternoon. Her theory had a gaping hole from which reason bled freely. Matt hadn’t lost any family members, either.

Despite her faith, her desire to believe, skepticism of an afterlife—Heaven and Hell, and all that religious hoo-ha—slammed against her newfound hope.

But she was here, and her father had passed. There was that. She wanted to—had to—believe it was possible that her sweet, gentle father was somehow still looking out for her.

Her mind raced and her thoughts ricocheted through her head in a tangled mess of self-doubt.

Matt’s smug smile hurt.

“Molly,” she said, grasping for an answer. But it made sense. Sort of.

“Really. A dog?”

“Yeah, a dog. A dog that’s alive!” Molly was still living in the Samson’s home. Paula Bell, their neighbor, had been feeding and walking her since Mr. Samson was admitted to the hospital. It was a stretch, but could the Samsons be protecting their dog? Of course they could. Molly had been like a child to them.

Or maybe it wasn’t so simple. Goddamn! If only she could put the pieces together…

“You’re nuts.” Matt laughed, a good old guffaw. “Crazy-looking midget angels descend from Heaven to protect…wait for it—” he held up a finger “—a dog.”

And us, she wanted to shout. She had the urge to smack him right across his smirking face. She loved his sense of humor, his ability to turn even the most mundane circumstances into an adventure, but sometimes he just didn’t listen. Usually it was over something so trivial it didn’t matter.

But this mattered. Now mattered.

So she reached across the table and smacked him, the sharp crack echoing through the kitchen. Matt’s head jerked to the side and a splotch of red spread across his cheek like a five-fingered disease. He turned back toward her, jaw muscles twitching, tears twinkling in his eyes. He blinked to keep the tears from falling.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. But you have to listen to me.”

“You hit me,” he said in barely a whisper, as if in shock.

“I’m really sorry.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “But you need to listen. You saw that thing move. You saw it with your own eyes. I’m not crazy. I’m not! We’re in danger, Matthew. From what, I don’t know, but it’s not good. Trust me, please.”

He remained quiet for a long time, and it took all that Katie had not to prod him along. “Fine,” he said, his voice like a soft breeze.

“Thank you.” She pulled him to his feet. “We need a lighter, and quickly.”

Moving zombielike, he pulled a barbecue lighter from the kitchen drawer and followed Katie outside. She found the candle a few feet away from the child. It smelled of old copper. A tender kind of warmth flowed into her when she held it, and she smiled.

“Lift it,” she said, pointing to the body at Matt’s feet.

He hesitated. “For what?”

“Stop asking questions, will you? Just do it.” She was running on adrenaline and instinct.

Grabbing hold of the child, Matt inhaled sharply, groaned as if he’d been punched in the stomach. His body stiffened, twitched. The green of his eyes disappeared, his pupils stretching into sightless black orbs. Drool slithered from the corner of his mouth like a glass snake and shattered on the grass below. He lurched upright, gasping for air, flailing his arms to find his balance.

“Christ,” he said. “Holy fuckersucks!”

“What happened?” Katie said.

“Wow.”

Matt stared down the street, wide-eyed. Katie thought about slapping him a second time. “Matt, focus! What happened? What did you see?”

“Too much,” he said, turning toward her. His eyes were still wide with fear, but finally focused. “They’ve seen us.”

“Oh no.” Hands shaking, Katie flicked the lighter. The flame sputtered. She kept at it, and it caught on the third try. She held it to the candle.

There was no wick.

She placed the flame directly to the candle’s tip. Nothing happened. It wouldn’t catch.

“Here,” Matt said. “Try this.”

Kneeling, he hoisted the child to a sitting position. The child’s body hung limply, its head bowed. Grabbing its hands, Matt placed them together, palms up, as if accepting sacramental bread.

Katie stood there, staring into the sky, waiting for the blood-red raindrops to fall, like they had in her vision. But again, nothing happened.

Her heart plummeted.

“Give it the candle,” Matt said. “Hurry.”

She silently cursed herself. This wasn’t your everyday candle. She should have known better. Instantly the child reacted when she placed the candle in its palms. Its body stiffened as if air were being blown into a balloon. With Matt’s help, it stood. Eyes shifted from white to black.

Matt let go and stepped back.

Flee…now…

The voice was weaker, but the urgency still clear.

Matt grabbed Kate’s arm. “Let’s go!”

They ran the short distance to the house. Once inside, Matt slammed the door shut, locked it, and turned out the lights. Through the window they watched a single drop of fire descend from the sky like a dying firefly.

As if praying, the ghostly sentinel bowed its head.

The air around them seemed to gasp. A fiery glow pulsed within the child, growing brighter, stronger, hungrier, the air shimmering and blurring like waves of heat over a desert highway until all was bathed in a dazzling orange hue.

Matt went to the kitchen sink and splashed water on his face. “Holy crap,” he said. “Katie, come check this out.”

He had moved the curtain aside and was looking out the window that faced the back yard. There, too, stood one of the strange children, surrounded by the beautiful orange sheen. Two more stood silently on the other sides of the house, four in total, all afire from within, a protective dome encapsulating the house.

They moved to the front window again and watched the street beyond. Though they couldn’t see the wormlike shadows, nor truly fathom the danger, they knew where they were by the way the firelight dimmed as the dark things repeatedly tried to break through the near invisible walls that kept them at bay.

Matt pulled Katie close and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She embraced him, not sure what to say. The kiss, innocent as it might have been, had sent her heart aflutter. “It’s okay,” she said quietly.

“So now what do we do?”

“I don’t know.” Katie hadn’t had time to process what had already happened, let alone figure out what they should do next. Halloween had come alive in ways more real than she could ever have imagined, shattering the fictional barrier that usually separated her world from that of the dark. “We wait, I guess.”

She rested her head on Matt’s shoulder.

He hugged her a little tighter.

The minutes ticked by and they watched their little corner of the world through the unbelievable orange sphere.

Again Katie thought of her father. She’d felt lost since his death, but had tried to remain strong. Her mother had dealt with the loss in a completely different way—isolation, denial, anger—and Katie’s relationship with her had suffered greatly.

But maybe her father was still here with them. Perhaps, with Katie’s help, her mother would soon emerge from the darkness in which she had descended.

Perhaps.

Katie had always wanted to trust in what the religious folk preached, but it had always seemed so hokey. Now, however, it seemed wonderful. The possibilities warmed her heart. And even if it weren’t entirely true, could believing in some higher power, having faith in it, be so terrible?

Beyond the window, past the strange child and the enchanting sphere, there lurked a darkness more menacing than Katie could ever have imagined.

She closed her eyes, thought of her father, found hope for her mother, and dared to believe.

—

K. Allen Wood’s fiction has appeared in 52 Stitches, Vol. 2, The Zombie Feed, Vol. 1, and Epitaphs: The Journal of New England Horror Writers. He is also the editor/publisher of Shock Totem, a bi-annual horror fiction magazine. He lives and plots in Massachusetts.

For more info, visit him at http://www.kallenwood.com.