Halloween and Other Seasons (2 page)

Lem and Shep talked about body odor and shaving their upper lips while Monk scowled.

And always, for three days, they kept looking to the cellar windows, up high, filled with light, and closed against the summer heat.

~ * ~

That night they took Monk’s telescope to the secret pond, and Shep’s pup tent, and Lem’s dad’s battery radio.

The radio played music, and talked about the heat. The air was dry as the insides of an oven. There was a cloudless sky, and a smile of moon tilted at an amused angle, and, after a while, there were stars in the dark but they looked faraway and dim through the hot air. The telescope went unused. They swam for a while, but the water, over the last three days, had taken on the temperature and feel of warm tea. Inside the tent it was as hot as outside, and they shifted uncomfortably as they tried to sleep. When they tried to read comics by flashlight, the flashlights dimmed and then went out.

In the dark, Lem tried to talk again about Margaret O’Hearn and Amy Bernstein, and about Shep joining the track team when they all started Junior High in the fall, but Monk told them to shut up.

Later Shep said, out of the blue, “What do you think about Hell’s Cave?”

“What about it?” Monk sneered. “You think it leads down to hell?”

“That’s what they say.”

Lem was silent, and then he said, “You think that’s why the heat won’t end…?”

“I wonder,” Shep replied.

“You really think—?” Lem began.

“Go to sleep!” Monk demanded.

~ * ~

In the morning it was even hotter.

The sun came up over the trees the color of melted butter. Monk set up the griddle over two Sterno cans, but no one was hungry so he didn’t even start breakfast. They spit out the water in their canteens, which tasted like warm aluminum.

It was getting even hotter.

“Ninety-nine today,” the radio chirped, “and who knows how hot tomorrow. It only went down to eighty-nine last night, folks. Hope you’ve got those fans on high, or your head in the fridge!”

He went on to say the weather bureau had no idea why it was so hot.

“What does that mean?” Shep said. “Isn’t it their job to know?”

As if in answer the chirpy radio voice said, “Apparently, folks, this heat has little to do with the weather! According to meteorological indications, it should be in the middle eighties, with moderate humidity! Fancy that!”

“Fancy
that
!” Monk nearly spat, in mocking imitation.

The radio voice, again as if in answer, chirped just before a commercial came on: “Hey, folks! Maybe it’ll
never
be cool again!”

Shep looked at his friends, and there was a suddenly grim look on his face.

“Maybe he’s right,” he said.

~ * ~

It didn’t rain over the next ten days. Thunder heads would gather in the West, dark mushrooming promises of cool and wet, and then break apart as they came overhead, dissipating like pipe smoke into the blue high air. The grasses turned from moist green to brown; postage stamp lawns changed color overnight and died. In town, the few places with air conditioning—Ferber’s Department Store, the Five and Dime with its brand new machine perched over the front door, dripping warm condenser water from its badly installed drain onto entering customers—were packed with customers who didn’t buy anything, only wandered the isles like zombies seeking cool relief. The temperature rose into the low hundreds, dropping into the nineties at night. On the roads, automobiles like ancient reptiles sat deserted at angles against curbs, their hoods up, radiators hissing angrily. Buses, looking like brontosauruses, passenger-less, stood unmoving, their front and middle doors accordianed open, yawning lazily at empty white bus stop benches.

Birds stopped singing in trees; the morning dawned as hot as midday. Dogs panted in their doghouses. There were no mosquitoes, and houseflies hung motionless to window screens. Spiders crawled into shadows and stayed there.

Cold water came out of taps almost steaming.

It was getting even hotter.

~ * ~

Three twelve-year-old boys made one more pilgrimage to the secret pond. They were sick of Monk’s cellar, had done every experiment in the chemistry manual, had recklessly mixed chemicals on their own until one produced in a beaker a roiling cloud of orange choking gas that drove them upstairs. It had become too hot in the cellar anyway, with the windows closed or open. In Monk’s kitchen the refrigerator whirred like an unhappy robot, its doors permanently open to provide a tiny measure of coolness to the kitchen. Milk had spoiled, its odor battling with the sour stench of rotting vegetables. Dishes, unwashed, were piled in the sink. The radio was on, a background insect buzz. Monk’s parents had gone to the five and dime for the air conditioning.

“And even hotter, with record temperatures reported now not only around the United States but in Europe and Asia as well, in a widening area…” the radio said, though the announcer sounded less chirpy, almost tired. “Locally, state authorities are warning anyone prone to heat stroke…”

Monk and Shep and Lem took whatever dry food was left, found Shep’s pup tent, inexpertly rolled and abandoned in a corner, and set out for the pond.

“…forty deaths reported in…” the radio voice reported unhappily as the screen door banged behind them.

~ * ~

It was like walking through a bakery oven. The heat was not only in the ground and in the air, but all around them. They felt it through their sneakers, on their knees, their eyelids. Their hair felt hot. The air was dry as a firecracker.

Shep looked up into the sun, and his eyes hurt.

“I don’t care how hot the water is,” Monk said, “it can’t be worse than this.”

It was. When they got to the pond and stripped, there was vapor rising from the surface of the water, and fish floated dead, like flat plastic toys.

“I don’t care,” Monk said, and stepped in, and yelped.

He looked back at his friends in awe, and showed his retracted foot, which was red.

“It’s actually
hot
!” Monk said.

Lem sat on the ground and put his head in his hands.

Monk was putting his clothes back on, his hands shaking.

Shep said with certainty, “Someone stole summer, and we’re going to Hell’s Cave to get it back.”

~ * ~

 “Ungh?” a weak voice said from the kitchen table. George Meadows sat staring at his half empty coffee cup, watching the coffee in it steam. He had poured it an hour and a half ago, and it was still hot.

He lifted his hand toward it, looked at the sweat stain it left in the shape of a hand on the table and lowered it again.

“Mabel?” he called in a raspy, whispery voice. The sound of fanning had stopped and when George Meadows made the extreme effort to turn his head he saw that his wife’s housedress looked as if it was melting, with her in it, into the sofa. Her right hand, unmoving, still gripped her magazine and her eyes held a fixed, glazed look. Her chest barely moved up and down.

“Oh, Lord…” he breathed, closing his eyes, getting the last word in though she hadn’t said anything. “Gettin’ hotter still…”

~ * ~

Three twelve-year-old boys stood in front of a cave opening buttressed with rotting timbers. With them was Monk’s rusting Radio Flyer, bursting like a Conestoga wagon with their supplies: the battery radio, two new-battery-filled flashlights (one of them worked); three boxes of cereal; six comic books, no doubles; a large thermos of hot ice tea; four cans of warm creme soda; a length of clothesline pilfered from Lem’s mother’s backyard; a mousetrap, over which they had bantered incessantly (“What if we meet up with rats?” Lem debated; “Why not a gorilla?” Shep shot back; in the end Shep got tired of the argument and threw it on the pile), a B-B gun, a kitchen knife with a broken handle, a crucifix, a bible. The last two had been added by Shep, because, he said, “We’re heading down
there
,” and would listen to no argument.

They headed in.

It was dim, and, compared to outside, almost cool in the cave. But as they moved farther in it got even dimmer and hot and stuffy. Their bodies were covered with sweat, but they didn’t notice. There was a twist to the left, and then a climb that disappointed them, and then a suddenly drop which brought them real darkness and a halt.

Lem, who was pulling the wagon, rummaged through the pile and pulled out the bad flashlight, and then the good one, which he handed to Shep.

Shep switched it on and played the light over their faces.

“You look scared,” he said.

“Can we stop here for the night?” Lem asked.

Shep consulted his watch with the light beam. “It’s two in the afternoon!”

Behind them, they saw how steeply the floor had dropped; there was a circle of light leading out that looked hot and far away.

“I’m hungry,” Monk said.

“Later,” Shep answered, and turned the flashlight beam ahead of them.

There was darkness, and a steep descent, and Monk and Lem followed as the beam pointed down into it.

~ * ~

After twenty minutes that seemed like a day, the black wagon handle slipped out of Lem’s sweaty hand and the wagon clattered past him.

“Look out!” he called, and Monk and Shep jumped aside as the wagon roared down the steep incline ahead of them.

They heard it rattle off into the bowels of the earth, then they heard nothing.

“Why did you tell us to get out of the way?” Shep asked angrily. “We could have stopped it!”

“We’ll catch up to it,” Monk shot back.

“Sorry…” Lem said.

“No matter. Monk’s right.” The flashlight beam pointed ahead, and down they went.

~ * ~

Two real hours went by. Lem was thirsty, and Monk wanted to stop, but Shep kept going. If anything it was hotter than above now, and Lem finally panted timidly, “You think we’re almost…there?”

“You mean
hell
?” Shep replied, and then added, “If we are, we don’t have the crucifix anymore to protect us. It’s in the wagon.”

Monk snorted, and Shep spun angrily toward him with the flashlight, which at that exact moment went out.

“
Ohhh
,” Lem mewled.

“Be quiet,” Shep ordered, “it’s just stuck.” They heard him shaking the flashlight in the dark, but the beam didn’t come on.

“Maybe the cover’s loose—”

There was the rattle of loosened metal, a
twang
, and they heard flashlight parts hitting the floor of the cave.

“Uh oh,” Monk said.

“Help me find them—” Shep ordered, but now there was a note of desperation in his voice.

“I hear rats!” Lem cried, and they all went silent.

Something was skittering in the dark ahead of them.

“Get down and help me find the parts!” Shep said, and for a few minutes there was only the sound of frightened breathing and the pat and slide of hands on the floor of the cave.

“I’ve got the lens!” Shep cried suddenly.

“And here’s the reflector!” Monk added.

“What if there are
rats
on the
floor
!” Lem said, but Shep ignored him.

“All we need is the cover, and one of the batteries. The other one is still in the body.”

“I’ve got the battery!” Monk exulted a moment later.

“I can’t find the cover!” Shep said desperately.

“I’m telling you there are rats!” Lem whimpered.

“I can’t find the cover either!” Monk.

There was fumbling in the dark, heavy breathing.

A bolt of light blinded them, went out, blinded them.

“I don’t need the cover—I’ll hold it on,” Shep said.

He pointed the flashlight, clutched together by the pressure of his hand, at his friends, Monk on the cave floor, still probing, Lem with his back against the wall, eyes closed.

The beam shot to the floor, moved crazily this way and that, then froze on a round red piece of plastic.

“The cover!” Monk yelled, and pounced on it.

“Give it to me!” Shep said.

There was more fumbling, darkness, then bright light again.

They stood huffing and puffing at their exertion.

Their breaths quieted.

The scrabbling sound was still ahead of them.

“
Rats!
” Lem cried, and then let out a wail.

The flashlight beam swung down and ahead of them, and caught the crashed remains of the red wagon on its side, a chewed-open box of cereal, and the long fat gray-brown length of a rat as it put its whiskered, sniffing nose into the mouse trap.

There was a loud
snap!
which made the light beam shiver, and then, in the darkness behind Shep, he heard Lem laugh nervously and say, “See?”

~ * ~

They stopped two hours later for the night. By Shep’s watch it was 10 o’clock. The flashlight had gone out again, and this time it was the batteries but Shep took the batteries from the other non-working one. They were tired and hungry, thirsty and hot. The wagon was serviceable but now made a loud squeak with each turn of the front wheels. The handle had been bent, but Lem forced it back into shape. They’d found everything but one can of pop, which Monk promptly stepped on when they set out. He smelled like creme soda, and his friends didn’t let him forget it.

“We’ll need the batteries for tomorrow,” Shep said solemnly. He had found a flat wide place to stop, a kind of hitch in the slope. Ahead of them was only darkness.

It was hot and close and sticky, and they felt a vague heat drifting up at them from below.

“What happens when the batteries run out?” Lem asked.

“We’ll have to conserve them,” Shep said.

“But what happens—”

“Be quiet,” Shep said, at the same moment Monk snapped, “Shut up, Lem.”

They ate in darkness, and drank warm soda and un-iced tea, and listened, but there was nothing to hear. No rats, no nearby roasting fires, no dripping water, no sound of any kind. Just the silent sound of heat getting hotter.

“I hope we’re close,” Lem said. “I want to go home.”

“Home to what?” Shep answered. “If we don’t find something down here…”