Richard Dansky

I’m an October baby. My parents tell me I ran late just to make sure I landed close to Halloween, though I think it’s just a lifelong habit of moseying. Look up at the wall clock on my birthday and you’ll see that Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has just rolled into town a few hours ago, just as it does every year. Every year, I’m sitting up at midnight, hoping a kid named Nightshade will wander by and waiting for that crumpled flyer to wrap around my shoe.

Maybe it was inevitable I’d write this sort of thing. There are a lot of October babies, a lot of kids blowing out candles in the shadow of the Halloween tree. Most of them pick a road with fewer cobwebs and shadows, and I wish them joy of it. Me, I’ve got something else in mind.

All that being said, my contribution to this month’s storytelling is a new story, chosen out of equal parts sympathy for the subject matter and season and the realization that I don’t think I’ve got anything available to reprint that’s less than 7000 words long. So, instead, here’s something fun-sized.

Take a bite.

********************

They huddled in the bathroom on the second floor, a family of three, afraid.

Tap. Tap tap. Tap.

The sounds came from all over the house. Everywhere glass faced the outside, they could hear the delicate impact of small branches tap tap tapping, trying to find their way in. That was why they had chosen the bathroom to flee to. It, of all the rooms, had no windows.

Tap. Thump. Tap tap.

The Millers had bought the house two months previously, twenty percent down and the rest financed at five and a quarter percent. Their daughter, wide-eyed and fey at six years old, hadn’t liked it much, but she hadn’t liked any of the thirty-odd houses they’d seen, and this one had much to recommend it. High ceilings, a spacious kitchen, a master bath suite with a garden tub – and all for a pleasantly low price. The yard was unkempt, but the Millers figured that the previous owner simply hadn’t had time to keep it up. Mrs. Miller asked the real estate agent, who talked about the benefits of the gas fireplace in the rumpus room instead.

Thump. Tappity thump. Crash.

“I don’t like this house,” the little girl had said, and tugged on the real estate agent’s sleeve. “Is it haunted?”

He laughed, nervously. “The house? Absolutely not. I can promise you this house is not haunted.”

Mr. Miller took his daughter’s hand. “See, honey? No ghosts here.”

“No ghosts in the house,” the agent echoed.

The little girl looked at him. “Not yet,” she said, and stared until he looked away.

“Kids,” Mrs. Miller said with a laugh. “Such imaginations.”

Thump. Crash tinkle tap tappity rustle.

The move had been swift and pleasant, and the installation of the Millers – father, mother, and recalcitrant daughter, too – had gone off without a hitch. Utilities were connected, services arranged, and neighbors nodded to, all in short order.

All that remained was the lawn, which Mr. Miller found himself curiously disinterested in working on.

Thump. Thump crash rustle tap. A different tap now, wood on wood, right outside the bathroom door.

“Dear, when are you going to mow the lawn?” Mrs. Miller had asked her husband on a cloudy and grim Sunday morning. “It’s not going to take care of itself.”

“Later,” he had answered, and even meant it.

Later came. Later went. And that night, the little girl complained of branches tapping on her window.

Tap. Tap tap. Crash rustle crash thump.

Days passed. The tapping got louder, and more frequent. Mrs. Miller heard it now, too, though Mr. Miller swore he never did, or blamed it on the wind. The lawn stayed unmowed. Walking to the mailbox became a trick. Weeds stretched themselves across the sidewalk to trip the unwary. Branches seemed to swing low in the breeze to take accidental pokes at eyes.

Tap. Tap creak creak.

Neighbors tsk-tsked at the state of the property. Weeds grew up, thick and tall. Mrs. Miller stopped waving to the neighbors, and started nagging Mr. Miller about how unpleasant the house had become, even with new carpet and fresh paint in the upstairs bedrooms. Her husband pooh-poohed her. It was all coincidence, or something seasonal, or something to that effect. Of this, he was sure. The little girl listened to them debate over dinner, and shook her head.

“The house isn’t haunted,” she said thoughtfully. “The rest of the place is. That’s why the lawn is acting funny. We should leave.”

“We’re not going to leave, honey,” Mr. Miller said. “That would be silly. It’s just the lawn. I’ll mow it tomorrow. Or I’ll hire someone to do it, and it will all be fine. You’ll see.”

“You do that, dear,” Mrs. Miller said. “That would be very nice.”

That had been yesterday.

Tap. Rustle rustle. Scratch, scratch, scratch, just outside in the hall.

Then, silence.

“How strong is the lock, honey?” Mrs. Miller asked, her arms around her daughter, her voice ever so slightly strained.

“I don’t think it matters, dear,” he replied, and held her as the first tendrils of green crept underneath the door.