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Signs and Portents
A "Halloween Contest" Honorable Mention
by
JMM Holloway
Driving across the Bay Bridge into the setting sun, Richard imagined the fun about to start in the Castro District. Or better yet at the Exotic Erotic Ball. After all it was Halloween. Thanks to his wife he'd miss everything. But next year Diane would be dead.
As Richard smiled in anticipation of that happy event, the sun blinded him and the cargo van he'd been tailgating disappeared into yellow-gold fog. He slammed on the brakes but too late. Already he'd crashed into the vehicle ahead. Only now it wasn't a van but a hearse.
A door opened and small bodies spilled out. Kids, he thought before he realized the faces wore goatees and their miniature bodies, in form-fitting devil costumes, bulged with muscles. One hoisted a pitchfork before scrambling over the locked bumpers. A band of tiny Satans followed the leader to the bridge railing where they jumped over like gymnastic lemmings.
Richard watched with fascination until the screech of metal refocused his attention. As the hearse drove away, he punched radio buttons. One newscaster warned listeners to hurry home before the dead walked. Richard chuckled at the Halloween humor as far as his exit.
He turned into his neighborhood of Victorian cottages and noticed a new sign on a neighbor's lawn. Another homeowner trying to cash out of the overpriced market. Then the words penetrated. The sign read, "Haunted House."
Ha-ha. Another holiday joke.
After he parked, he manhandled his backpack inside and followed the drone of the television to his wife. She was engrossed in a cooking show. Cooking was her hobby though no one would guess from the results. "Hey, I'm home," he said.
Diane didn't answer, a good thing since whenever she talked, she bossed him. No sooner had they married than she ordered him to get a job although her parents left her rich. Murder was the only answer.
Richard retreated to the library where true crime books lined the shelves. Each was full of hints on how to kill a spouse. Unfortunately all the murderers in them had been caught. For advice on getting away with it, he had old issues of ****Alfred Hitchcock**** and yellowed pulps. He reached for a book by Dean Koontz, but Diane's voice stopped his hand.
"Take Patti Tzu for her walk, sweetheart. Now!"
Knowing Diane would nag until he went, he grabbed the dog's leash. "Don't think you can treat me like your mistress does, you toothless old bitch," he said as he yanked the aged Shih Tsu toward the front door. When he looked back to see if Diane overheard, the television showed a poof-hatted chef hacking at a bloody body parts.
He pulled the dog down the street until they reached a two-story house with a mansard roof. Patti Tzu chose to squat in front of the structure. Richard could only hope the shutters that covered every window would stop anyone inside from viewing her offense.
While he stood guard, a man with a neck thicker than his head walked up. He gestured at the steaming pile. "Clean that up before the Draculs wake or you'll be sorry."
"Draculs? As in Dracula?" Richard asked, but the man kept walking.
In the deepening twilight, Richard examined the shuttered house again. He'd never heard of any Draculs in the neighborhood. Suddenly, he remembered the haunted house sign. He towed Patti Tzu around the corner and down the street until they stood before it. Could the place really be haunted?
He charged up the walk, dragging the Shih Tzu behind. A crone with streaming white hair and translucent skin answered the doorbell. Just then pain shot up his leg. He looked down to see Patti Tzu with blood on her bared canines, his blood. After a kick sent her yelping home Richard remembered the dog had no teeth.
He turned to ask the old lady for a bandage only she'd disappeared. He stuck his head inside the doorway. Cobwebs draped the walls and shrouds covered the furniture. He shivered with delight.
Strange things were happening. First the midgets on the bridge, then the shuttered house, now an apparition. Somewhere a wild animal howled—in the middle of town! And it all started with the golden mist. When he'd hit the hearse, the world changed for the better and stranger. By his lights, stranger was much, much better.
In spite of his throbbing leg, Richard limped home a happy man. He hurried through his front door and pulled out paperbacks. Somewhere he'd read a story about a man who slipped into a new reality, one with different rules. In seconds, Ramsey Campbell lay on the floor next to Clive Barker. Steven King piled atop them both.
"Richard, are you ready?"
He looked up to see a glamorous figure in veils. The volume in his hand fell to the floor. "Diane?"
Maybe he wouldn't have to kill her after all.
A family with hungry smiles wafted through the door. Richard bowed. "The Draculs, I presume." Five pale faces nodded back as other shapes emerged from the shadows including a Shih Tzu with fangs like a weredog.
"All of you have turned into mythic monsters, but what about me? What transformation am I to undergo?" he asked.
When no one answered, he stared down at his feet hoping for cloven hoofs only to watch Patti Tzu crap on his shoe. He moved to the mirror to see if he could catch his reflection. Unhappily, his ordinary face stared back.
"What's left for me? What role will I play?" he demanded.
A filmy haze materialized into the old crone from down the block. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"R-r-ready for what?"
A leather-clad executioner spun him around. In spite of a hood, the wide neck identified his neighbor. As the man raised his axe, Richard heard Dianne say, "I'll tell you what you'll be, sweetheart. You'll be dinner."
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© Holloway, 2006