Halloween (3 page)

He entered and shut the door behind him. "I thought we'd do a little trick-or-treating of our own," he said, putting his arms around her. "First you give me some of those Hershey Kisses, then I play with your Tootsie Rolls, then we have some Good 'n' Plenty. Yummm." He buried his lips in the nape of her neck.

Judy giggled, then squirmed out of his grasp. "That's what you think. Look at you. You dress in jeans and a polo shirt and you expect a girl to strip off her clothes?"

He laughed. "What does it matter what we have on? It's what we're going to have off that counts." He lunged for her again but she ducked out of his grasp.

"Not so fast, buster. First of all, it's not even dark yet. Second of all, I'm worried that more kids are going to come around and interrupt us while we're . . . uh, discussing homework. And third of all, I don't even know if I feel like doing anything. You take a lot for granted, you know."

"Yeah, I'm a real animal," he said, pretending to smack himself on the wrist.

"Besides, my mother and father'll be home any second," she said, flouncing away into the kitchen.

He followed close on her heels. "The hell they will be. You told me they always go to the movies on Halloween because they hate the doorbell ringing. Hey, what are you doing with that knife?"

From the drawer under the sink, Judy had removed a long carving knife and now held it menacingly above her head. "I'm going to cut off your whatsamajiggy, that's what I'm going to do," she hissed like a witch.

"Hey, come on now," Danny said, backing away toward the kitchen counter, "that's not funny. You could hurt someone with that thing."

"That's the whole idea, my pretty," she said, sounding a little like the Wicked Witch of the West. She rushed at him, and he jumped out of the way as the blade plunged to the hilt into . . .

. . . a fat pumpkin

Judy laughed. "You goof. I'm just making a jack-o'-lantern."

Danny stood plastered against the far wall of the kitchen, panting. "Oh, that's funny. That's terribly funny. Some sense of humor you have. Ha ha ha. You could have
killed
someone, for crying out loud."

"Just help me cut the cap off this thing, will you? The sooner you do, the sooner we can do our homework."

Danny caught his breath, then relieved her of the treacherous eight-inch blade and began carefully sawing around the top of the pumpkin until the crown came off. He set this aside, then called for a large cooking spoon and began scooping the seeds and stringy pulp out of the shell. "Looks like he has more brains than you do."

"Shut up and finish the job," she said, curling her arms around him from behind. "I'm getting hungry, and it's not for pumpkin seeds."

Her hands slid down his chest and belly, and Danny's knees went weak. Then he took up the knife again and sliced into the side of the pumpkin. "Baby, I'm going to set a new speed record for pumpkin cutting." Deftly he cut out two triangular eyes and a triangular nose, then a long, wide mouth with jagged teeth. "Got a candle?"

"What for?" Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

"For the pumpkin, stupid." He gazed unbelievingly at her, then said, "Oh, I get it." He shook his head. "I sometimes wonder if women don't have dirtier minds than men."

"Lucky for you they do," she said, producing a stubby candle from the pantry.

He cut a socket in the base of the pumpkin, lit the candle and set in inside. Then he bored a few little air holes in the cap with a smaller knife to allow the flame oxygen.

They cleaned up and Judy put the cutlery away while Danny carried the jack-o'-lantern out to the front porch of the white clapboard house. It glowed intensely in the cool autumn air, projecting its grotesque smile to the dozens of other jack-o'-lanterns that lined the placid street. Danny was not a particularly intellectual boy, but for a moment he looked out at the row of shimmering orange pumpkin-faces and wondered what dark forces these totems were once intended to repel.

The night was quiet and starry, with a slight breeze starting up from the north—good football weather, Danny reflected. From somewhere down the street came the dim echo of "Trick or treat!" shouted by a roving band of children. For the first time Danny wondered about all these traditions—jack-o'-lanterns, paper witches and cardboard skeletons, trick-or-treating, apple-dunking, ghosts and goblins. But he didn't wonder long. He was getting cold.

And horny.

Judy was just finishing sponging up the orange pumpkin juice from the kitchen counter. She dried her hands on a paper towel, then turned to find Danny.

"
Boo!
"'

Judy's heart almost pounded out of her chest. "God almighty, you scared the wits out of me!" she gasped, collapsing into Danny's arms. He'd donned a rubber fright-mask, a Frankenstein face with sunken eyes and a livid scar across the cheek.

He held her tightly, feeling her breasts heaving with fright through her sweater. He dug his fingers under the sweater and pulled her blousetail out of her skirt, then clamped his hands over the warm flesh of her back. She murmured and responded eagerly with her pelvis. He found the hook-and-eye of her bra straps and, after a brief fumble or two, managed to unfasten them and run his hands forward until they cupped her breasts. It always amazed him that she looked so modestly endowed underneath her clothing, yet when stripped she possessed a wonderful pair of breasts. She moaned as his palms and fingers enclosed them. Her nipples went from soft to hard almost instantly as his fingertips massaged and lightly pinched them.

"Kiss them," she begged.

"Are you sure?" came his hollow voice.

She took her head off his chest and burst into laughter, He still had his Frankenstein mask on, "Take that thing off."

"You take your thing off, and I'll take my thing off."

"It's a deal."

He stripped off the mask and took her by the hand to the foot of the stairs. "Are you sure about your parents?"

"They won't be back till ten at least."

"And Michael?"

"I told you, he's trick-or-treating. We have time, but not all night, so no more yakking, huh?"

"No more Yakking."

She turned her back on him and sauntered up the stairs, wiggling her behind enticingly and stripping out of her sweater and blouse before she'd reached the landing. Danny followed like a hungry puppy, tossing his own clothes off as he went along.

Stripped of all but her panties, she stood before him in the dim light of the night table lamp. Her breasts rose and fell excitedly, her red nipples poking provocatively through the blond tresses that cascaded over them.

Danny stared incredulously. He'd never seen anything so beautiful. Up to now his knowledge of his girl had been restricted to his Braille reading of her body in dark cramped automobiles, but now he feasted on her exquisite firmness, almost forgetting to take his own pants off.

At last he unbuckled his belt and pulled his jeans and shorts to his ankles simultaneously. He was already erect.

"Oh," Judy murmured, eyes widening.

He stepped up to her and embraced her, his hands enclosing her buttocks. She lowered herself on the bed, parted her thighs wide, and admitted him. Slowly, joyously, he entered her. "Oh," she murmured again. She put her hands on his buttocks and pulled him into her with feline ferocity, exulting in the powerful muscles that filled her body and soul with ecstasy.

"So this is what it's like to do it in a bed," she whispered.

"This is what it's like to do it in a bed."

He stood in the shadow of the tall hedgerow, looking and listening. He had seen them necking in the kitchen, then Danny had come out on the porch for a minute to set the jack-o'-lantern down. When Danny returned, they had gone upstairs. A few minutes later, the light in Judy's bedroom had gone off. Now, above the rustle of the wind in the crisp leaves of the huge oaks on the front lawn, he could hear their sighs, moans, and giggles.

And they filled him with murderous hatred.

The voice in his head had become subdued for the moment as he listened to Judy and Danny, not really understanding the significance of their utterances except that it had to do with love. He had heard similar sounds coming from his mother and father's room. But he had felt warmly toward them. They were making each other happy, his father and mother, and that made him happy too.

Then why did he feel such poisonous rage against his sister and her boyfriend?

It was the voice. The voice stirred up the hatred. It had done so in his dreams, and now it was doing so in real life. It had begun with the strange pictures in his head at night, pictures of people he had never seen—oh, maybe in comic books or on television, but never in real life. People in strange costumes, animal skins, armor, leather, drinking and dancing wildly around a fire. One couple in particular. They looked like Judy and Danny, madly in love with each other, dancing in a circle around the huge bonfire, while he, Michael, stood in the crowd hating them, burning up with jealousy.

Then a voice had come into his head while he dreamt, a voice telling him to stop the dancing lovers. The voice had become louder, clearer, and more demanding lately, and its dictates more compelling, he had begun to believe that if he listened to the voice, did what it told him to do, maybe the voice would go away and leave him alone. It was no longer a dream voice. It spoke to him during the waking time too. It had spoken loudly to him tonight, even as he went from house to house begging candy, even as he played games at the party. It had directed him to return home at once.

Looking around to make certain he wasn't being observed, he slipped across the lawn past the front porch, ducking stealthily to avoid the orange glare of the jack-o'-lantern. He sidled along the shingles on the side of the house and tiptoed up the stairs of the side door. He turned the knob and the door opened. He wasn't surprised. People didn't lock their doors in Haddonfield; what was there to fear?

He slipped into the kitchen and crossed to the sink. Go
ahead
, the voice told him,
you know what to do
. He opened the drawer and reached in. His fingers enclosed the thing he was looking for, and he withdrew it from the drawer.

It was the butcher knife.

He touched the tip with the meat of his index finger. It pricked him. He ran his thumb along the edge of the eight-inch blade. It left a thin neat trail of blood.

He glided out of the kitchen and into the parlor, where he paused, listening. He heard them talking while they dressed and straightened up. He pressed himself against the wall as footsteps creaked down the stairs.

First he saw Danny, in jeans and blue-striped polo shirt. His hair was mussed and his cheeks were flushed as if he'd been kissed with hard passion. Then Judy, a sheet wrapped around her, which she held with her thumb against the base of her spine. The intruder gazed at her bare, dimpled buttocks and slender legs, then he fingered the blade of his knife, trembling.

They were kissing, and at last she let go of the sheet, so that all that held it up was the pressure of his body against hers. "Do you have to go?"

He held his watch up behind her head. "I gotta. Your folks'll be home any second."

She ran her hand up his thigh. "How about a quick one?"

"Here? Now? Are you crazy?"

"You are such a chicken."

"I'd be roast chicken if your parents discovered us doing it in the hall as they walked in the door." He pushed her away and the sheet fell to the floor. His eyes bulged as he took her body in one last time. "Jeez, it's tempting . . . No. No, I gotta go." He picked the sheet up and wrapped it around her once again. "See, chivalry is not dead."

"Too bad. Will you call me tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Promise?"

"I'd have to be crazy not to, wouldn't I?"

They kissed one last time and parted like Romeo leaving Juliet. Judy shut the door behind him, leaned against it for a moment, and moaned in remembrance of recent ecstasies. Then she trotted back up the stairs.

He stepped out of the shadows of the parlor and furtively made his way up the stairs, pausing at the landing to look and listen. Her clothes were still strewn in a trail from the top of the stairs to her bed. He followed them like a hunter tracking the spoor of his prey. He stopped outside her open door, peering inside. She sat in her red valentine bikini panties, brushing her hair before the mirror on her dresser. She hummed a tune in her pretty voice.

He stepped into the room and was halfway across when she saw him. Her eyes clouded and her eyebrows knit with puzzlement. She crossed her wrists in front of her breasts. She recognized him through his mask and called his name, bewildered. "Michael, is this a joke . . . ?"

He continued coming at her.

"Get out of here, Goddamn it. Get out of here before I . . ."

The first slash of the knife caught her on the wrist, splashing blood across her chest and legs. She looked at the wound with more surprise than pain. She couldn't believe it was happening. Then she realized.

She jumped to her feet and backed away to the wall, knocking over her chair. "What are you doing? What are you doing?" she cried. As he raised the blade again, she held her hand out to protect herself. He slashed the hand viciously, and it dropped limply to her side. Now she was shrieking insanely as she grasped what was happening. He plunged the knife into her right breast, and a great gout of scarlet blood spurted out of the wound and soaked his hand and wrist. He thrust the blade into her belly. At what point she died, he didn't know, for now that she was defenseless he stuck the knife into her again and again, jamming it into her breasts, belly, groin, arms, legs, and throat. He stabbed her fifty times if he stabbed her once, exultation sweeping over him like no joy he had ever known.

The paroxysms began to die down and he stood over her, spent. It was almost impossible to recognize this piece of hacked flesh. Blood was everywhere, and the sour odor of it rose up from his hands, intoxicating him.