Blue World (16 page)

“Halloween!” Jaime pointed excitedly toward the pumpkins, wriggling to be set down.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Karen licked a silver dot from her finger and walked across the kitchen to the cork bulletin board next to the telephone. She took off one of the pieces of paper stuck there by a blue plastic pin. “Mr. Hathaway called at four.” She gave him the note, and he set Jaime down. “He wants you to go over to his place for some kind of meeting.”

“Meeting?” Dan looked at the note. It said:

Roy Hathaway. His house, 6:30.

Hathaway was the real-estate agent who’d rented them this house. He lived across the highway, up where the valley curved into the hills. “On Halloween? Did he say what for?”

“Nope. He did say it was important, though. He said you were expected, and it was something that couldn’t be explained over the phone.”

Dan grunted softly. He liked Roy Hathaway, who’d bent over backwards to find them this place. Dan glanced at his new Bulova wristwatch, which he’d won by being the thousandth person to buy a pickup truck from a dealership in Birmingham. It was almost five-thirty. Time enough for a shower and a ham sandwich, and then he’d go see what was so important. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll find out what he wants.”

“Somebody’ll be a clown by the time you get back,” Karen said, glancing slyly at Jaime.

“Me! Me’ll be a clown, Daddy!”

Dan grinned at her and, his heart full, went back to take his shower.

Darkness was falling fast as Dan drove his white pickup truck along the winding country road that led to Hathaway’s place. His headlights picked out a deer as it bolted in front of the truck. Beyond the ridge of hills to the west, the setting sun tinted the sky a vivid orange.

Meeting, Dan thought uneasily. What was it that couldn’t wait? He wondered if it might have something to do with the last rent check. No, no; his days of rubber checks and irate landlords were over. There was plenty of money in the bank. In August, Dan had received a letter that said they’d won five thousand dollars in a contest at the Food Giant store in Barrimore Crossing. Karen didn’t even recall filling out an entry slip. Dan had been able to pay off the new truck and buy Karen a color television she’d been wanting. He was making more money than ever before, since his promotion in April from gravel-shoveler to unit supervisor at the cement plant. So money wasn’t the problem. What was, then?

He loved the Essex community. It was fresh air and bird songs and a low-lying morning mist that clung like lace in the autumn trees. After the smog and harshness of Birmingham, after the trauma of losing his job and being on unemployment, Essex was a gentle, soul-soothing blessing.

Dan believed in luck. In hindsight, it was even good luck that he’d lost that job at the mill, because if he hadn’t he never would have found Essex. One day in May he’d walked into the hardware and sporting-goods store in Barrimore

Crossing and admired a double-barreled Remington shotgun in a display case. The manager had come over, and they’d talked about guns and hunting for the better part of an hour. As Dan had started to leave, the manager unlocked that display case and said: Dan, I want you to try this baby out. Go ahead, take it! It’s a new model, and the Remington people want to know how folks like it. You take it home with you. Bring me back a wild turkey or two, and if you like that gun, tell other folks where they can buy one, hear?

It was amazing, Dan thought. He and Karen were living some kind of fantastic dream. The promotion at the plant had come right out of the blue. People respected him. Karen and Jaime were happier than he’d ever seen them. Just last month, a woman Karen had met at the Baptist church gave them a rich harvest of garden vegetables that would last them through the autumn. The only remotely bad thing that had happened since they’d moved to Essex, Dan recalled, was when he’d made a fool of himself in Roy Hathaway’s office. He’d sliced his finger on a sliver of plastic in the pen he was using to sign the lease and had bled all over the paper. It was a stupid thing to remember, he knew, but it had stuck in his mind because he’d hoped it wasn’t a bad omen. Now he knew nothing could be further from the truth.

He rounded a corner and saw Roy’s house ahead. The front-porch lights were on, and lights showed through most of the windows. The driveway was packed with cars, most of which Dan recognized as belonging to other Essex residents. What’s going on? he wondered. A community meeting? On Halloween?

He parked his truck next to tom Paulsen’s new Cadillac and walked up the front-porch steps to the door. As he knocked, a long keening animal cry came from the woods behind Hathaway’s house. Bobcat, he thought. The woods are full of ‘em.

Laura Hathaway, an attractive gray-haired woman in her mid-fifties, answered the door with a cheerful, “Happy Halloween, Dan!”

“Hi! Happy Halloween.” He stepped into the house, and could smell the aromatic cherry pipe tobacco Roy favored. The Hathaways had some nice oil paintings on their walls, and all their furniture looked new. “What’s going on?”

“The men are down in the rumpus room,” she explained. “They’re having their little yearly get-together.” She started to lead him to another door that would take him downstairs. She limped a bit when she walked. Several years ago, Dan understood, a lawn mower had sliced off a few of the toes on her right foot.

“Looks like everybody in Essex is here, with all those cars outside.”

She smiled, her kindly face crinkling. “Everybody is here, now. Go on down and make yourself at home.”

He descended the stairs. He heard Roy’s husky voice down there: “… Jenny’s gold earrings, the ones with the little pearls. Carl, this year it’s one of Tiger’s new kittens-- the one with the black markings on its legs, and that ax you got at the hardware store last week. Phil, he wants one of your piglets and the pickled okra Marcy put in the cupboard…”

When Dan reached the bottom of the stairs, Roy stopped talking. The rumpus room, carpeted in bright red because Roy was a Crimson Tide fan, was filled with men from the Essex community. Roy, a hefty man with white hair and friendly, deep-set blue eyes, was sitting in a chair in the midst of them, reading from some kind of list. The others sat around him, listening intently. Roy looked up at Dan, as did the other men, and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “Howdy, Dan. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and sit a spell.”

“I got your message. What kind of meeting is this?” He glanced around, saw faces he knew: Steve Mallory, Phil Kane, Carl Lansing, Andy McCutcheon, and more. A pot of coffee, cups, and a platter of sandwiches were placed on a table on one side of the room.

“Be with you in a minute,” Roy said. While Dan, puzzled at what was so important on Halloween, poured himself a cup of coffee, he listened to Roy reading from the list he held. “Okay, where were we? Phil, that’s it for you, I reckon. Next is tom. This year it’s that ship model you put together, a pair of Ann’s shoes--the gray ones she bought in Birmingham--and tom Junior’s G.I. Joe doll. Andy, he wants…”

Huh? Dan thought as he sipped at the hot black coffee. He looked at tom, who seemed to have released a breath he’d been holding for a long time. Tom’s model of

Old Ironsides had taken him months to put together, Dan knew. Dan’s gaze snagged other eyes that quickly looked away. He noted that Mitch Brantley, whose wife had just had their first child in July, looked ill; Mitch’s face was the color of wet cotton. A haze of smoke hung in the air from Roy’s pipe and several other smokers’ cigarettes. Cups rattled against saucers. Dan looked at Aaron Greene, who stared back at him through strange, glassy eyes. Aaron’s wife, Dan had heard, had died of a heart attack last year about this time. Aaron had shown him pictures of her, a robust-looking brunette in her late thirties.

“… your golf clubs, your silver cufflinks, and Tweetybird,” Roy continued.

Andy McCutcheon laughed nervously. In his pallid, fleshy face his eyes were dark and troubled. “Roy, my little girl loves that canary. I mean… she’s real attached to it.”

Roy smiled. It was a tight, false smile, and something about it started a knot of tension growing in Dan’s stomach. “You can buy her another one, Andy,” he said. “Can’t you?”

“Sure, but she loves--”

“One canary’s just like another.” He drew at his pipe, and when he lifted a hand to hold the bowl, the overhead light glinted off the large diamond ring he wore.

“Excuse me, gents.” Dan stepped forward. “I sure would like for somebody to tell me what this is all about. My wife and little girl are getting ready for Halloween.”

“So are we,” Roy replied, and blew out a plume of smoke. “So are we.” He traced his finger down the list. Dan saw that the paper was mottled and dirty; it looked as if it had been used to wipe out the inside of a garbage can. The writing on it was scrawled and spiky. “Dan,” Roy said, and tapped the paper. “This year he wants two things from you. First is a set of fingernail clippings. Your own fingernails. The second is--”

“Hold on.” Dan tried to smile, but couldn’t find one. “I don’t get this. How about starting from the beginning.”

Roy stared at him for a long, silent moment. Dan felt other eyes on him, watching him carefully. On the opposite side of the room, Walter Ferguson suddenly began quietly sobbing. “Oh,” Roy said. “Sure. It’s your first Halloween in Essex, isn’t it?”

“Right. And?”

“Sit down, Dan.” Roy motioned toward an empty chair near him. “Come on, sit down and I’ll tell you.”

Dan didn’t like the feeling in this room; there was too much tension and fear in here. Walter’s sobbing was louder. “tom,” Roy said, “take Walter out for a breath of air, won’t you?” tom muttered an assent and helped the crying man out of his chair. When they had left the rumpus room, Roy struck a kitchen match to relight his pipe and looked calmly at Dan Burgess.

“So tell me,” Dan urged as he sat down. He did smile this time, but the smile would not stick.

“It’s Halloween,” Roy explained, as if speaking to a retarded child. “We’re going over the Halloween list.”

Dan laughed involuntarily. “Is this a joke, gents? What kind of Halloween list?”

Roy’s thick white brows came together as he gathered his thoughts. Dan realized the other man was wearing the same dark red sweater he’d worn the day Dan had signed that lease and cut his finger. “Call it… a trick-or-treat list, Dan. You know, we all like you. You’re a good man. We can’t think of a better neighbor to have in Essex.” He glanced around as some of the others nodded. “Essex is a very special place to live, Dan. You must know that by now.”

“Sure. It’s great. Karen and I love it here.”

“We all do. Some of us have lived here for a long time. We appreciate the good life we have here. And in Essex, Dan, Halloween is a very special night of the year.”

Dan frowned. “I’m not following you.”

Roy produced a gold pocket watch, popped it open to look at the time, then closed it again. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes seemed darker and more powerful than Dan had ever seen them. They made him shiver to his soul. “Do you believe in the Devil?” Roy asked.

Again Dan laughed. “What are we doing, telling spooky stories?” He looked around the room. No one else was laughing.

“When you came to Essex,” Roy said softly, “you were a loser. Down on your luck. No job. Your money was almost gone. Your credit rating was zero. You had an old car that was ready for the junkyard. Now I want you to think back on all the good things that have happened to you--all the things you might have taken as a run of good luck--since you’ve been part of our community. You’ve gotten everything you’ve wanted, haven’t you? Money’s come to you like never before. You got yourself a brand-new truck. A promotion at the plant. And there’ll be more good things to come in the years ahead--if you cooperate.”

“Cooperate?” He didn’t like the sound of that word. “Cooperate how?”

“With the list. Like we all do, every Halloween. Every October thirty-first I find a list just like this one under the welcome mat at the front door. Why I’ve been chosen to handle it, I don’t know. Maybe because I help bring new people in. These items on this list are to be left in front of your door on Halloween. In the morning, they’re gone. He comes during the night, Dan, and he takes them away with him.”

“This is a Halloween joke, isn’t it!” Dan grinned. “Jesus Christ, you gents had me going! That’s a hell of an act to put on just to scare the crap out of me!”

But Roy’s face remained impassive. Smoke seeped from a corner of his wrinkled mouth. “The list,” Roy continued evenly, “has to be collected and left out before midnight, Dan. If you don’t collect the items and leave them for him, he’ll come knocking at your door. And you don’t want that, Dan. You really don’t.”

A chunk of ice seemed to have jammed itself in Dan’s throat, while the rest of his body felt feverish. The Devil in Essex? Collecting things like golf clubs and cufflinks, ship models and pet canaries? “You’re crazy!” he managed to say. “If this isn’t a damned joke, you’ve dropped both your oars into the water!”

“It’s no joke, and he ain’t crazy,” Phil Kane said, sitting behind Roy. Phil was a large, humorless man who raised pigs on a farm about a mile away. “It’s just once a year. Just on Halloween. Hell, last year alone I won one of them magazine sweepstakes. It was fifteen thousand dollars at one whack! The year before that, an uncle I didn’t even know had died and left me a hundred acres of land in California. We get free stuff in the mail all the time. It’s just once a year we have to give him what he wants.”

“Laura and I go to art auctions in Birmingham,” Roy said. “We always get what we want for the lowest bid. And the paintings are always worth five or ten times what we pay. Last Halloween he asked for a lock of Laura’s hair and one of my old shirts with blood on it where I cut myself shaving. You remember that trip to Bermuda the real-estate company gave us last summer? I’ve been given a huge expense account, and no matter what I charge, nobody asks any questions. He gives us everything we want.”

Trick-or-treat! Dan thought crazily. He envisioned some hulking, monstrous form lugging off a set of golf clubs, one of Phil’s piglets, and Tom’s