Halloween Night, 1981
There were four of them. Scotty Masters, Amana Simms, Michelle Rhodes, and Liz Street.
They were running late, trying to get back home before sunset, as promised, but the allure of catching every passing home for another handful of candy was too much to pass up. Besides, it was only a matter of minutes at each stop. If that.
The sun crept lower and lower into the horizon and below the great dismal swamp tree line. The sky was a dark, blood red on the horizon and a dark purply-black covered the sky. They were going to be late and if they didn't step it up, they were going to be in trouble.
Scotty was the oldest. He was a big, solid, short hair-cutted twelve-year-old boy on the verge of becoming a big, solid, short hair-cutted man. Slow but sweet and easy to have around. He was dressed in rags and ace bandages and tissue paper with painted black circles around his eyes in a pretty good rendition of a Mummy.
Amana and Michelle were best friends and were the unofficial leaders of the group. They made the plans, they made the decisions they made the rules. And everyone just followed. It was their idea to push the limits of when they should be home and their idea to take some time and head over the old rail road tracks to get more candy from the homes just across the way there. They were used to getting into and out of a lot of trouble. These two were always together and they were both dressed as nearly matching green-faced and warted Witches, big, black pointy hats and all.
Liz was simply what they liked to call a
tag-along. Her and her family were newer to the area and they were all slowly becoming good friends. She was a happier child with thick, curly white-blond hair. She was also the funnier one so it seemed fitting that she was dressed as a Clown. She was holding up an LED lantern, supposedly to help guide them but not doing a great job falling behind all the time.
The train was on a pretty normal once a month schedule and it had passed through not two weeks prior to this Halloween night. Rumor was making its rounds that the railroad wouldn't be coming through any more once the new year hit. It was as good as gone to the townsfolk. So, when the four of them decided to cross over for a quick ransacking of candy at a few more houses, none of them thought twice about any danger of it as they were two weeks until the next scheduled crossing would be.
Crossed over, they did-- one after another, rushing but not quite running. They hit the first house all at once. Amana and Michelle hit the door bell together, giggling while they did so. When the door opened, the four of them playfully yelled, "TRICK OR TREAT!".
Oh My and
What do we have here was overly exaggerated from inside the doorway. The home owner spoke to each of them in turn-- with Liz last as always-- praising their costumes and then politely sending them on their way and telling them to be safe.
They heard the whistle blow from halfway down the sidewalk of the third house-- the final house-- according to Scotty. He wanted to get home and start eating his take. The four of them froze at the sound and Liz quietly asked, "Is that the train?"
"Of course it's the train!" He started to bounce, thinking through what to do. "Aw man, if we don't beat it, we'll have to wait for the whole thing to go by and then we'll totally be late! I can't get in trouble for being late again." At this last comment, he started back toward the road and the tracks, picking up his pace at every step. The others followed, now at a near run. They picked up their pace, eyes following the light of the oncoming train sliding so fast, ever so forward. They started running and were so close together, they were unconsciously holding on to one another in a line, like you'd see small children doing on a field trip in some museum. They rushed to the tracks, then seeing the oncoming train, they ran.
Liz, at the end of the line, tripped and fell hard to the ground just shy of the tracks. Scotty, at the front of the line and pulling them hard, was at the front. His foot had just crossed the first bar crossing over. Liz's fall caused a chain reaction; Amana got tripped up into Michelle and Michelle fell forward in a slump into Scotty's feet, tripping him up. He fell hard on the second bar of the track. Liz looked up just in time to see them disappear in a sickening thump. The train's brakes screamed sparks. The rush of air blasted her with a fine red mist. When she realized she was still holding Amana's hand, she screamed and couldn't stop.
The tragedy-- as it was called-- nearly destroyed the small town. It was never the same again. The fun that was once Halloween night trick or treating had turned into a harsh memory that spoiled and rotted any thought of a fun family night out.
The tracks were haunted with the memory. Gone; hidden beneath an overgrowth of grass and shifted dirt. There were stories floating around that the last house the children went to was haunted by their spirits at unrest and every year they would cross the tracks again and knock on the door for tricks or treats. No one really believed it but when the people who had lived at that house moved away, they were unable to sell the property and eventually had to take a huge loss, leaving it to the bank. For years and years, that house stood empty; slowly breaking down and becoming the vision slow death; a reminder of its last witness.
The town kept on. Every town has it's secrets and this one was no different. After quite a few years, they all but left the house and the tragedy at the tracks there. They didn't forget but they certainly tucked it away down deep.
Liz grew up. She carried the shame and guilt of her clumsiness killing her three friends that night and was never really able to fix that brokenness in her mind. She was in and out of Psychiatric hospitals and had seen a large number of shrinks, none of whom really helped her move on to forgive herself. She supposed that was because she deserved what she got. Eventually, the money ran out and she couldn't afford the hospitals or the therapy. She couldn't work and when she lost her last job-- cashier at the Wendy's in town-- she stopped trying. She walked the country roads at night and hunkered down under the bridge out of town by day, living there, homeless. Some nights she would walk by the house by the tracks and would stare at it and the tracks until the sun peeked over the horizon.
Twenty years have passed.
Halloween was only two days away and Liz found herself at the doorstep of that house once more. When the sun fell that night, she decided to break one of the side windows and crawl in. She felt drawn to it more and more over the years so she thought she would give it what it wants.
She stayed there overnight and through the next day, sitting silently in the gathered dust in the corner or sleeping soundly on the decaying carpet. She stayed there, waiting for Halloween and whatever trick or treat it might bring this year.
Halloween Night, 2001
All Halloween day she sat in the front room of the house, staring at the front door. There were a couple of times when some of the neighborhood teens would drive by and dare one of their own to run up and knock on the door. They would immediately run away, screeching their tires almost all the way across the tracks back into town. She paid them no mind and before she knew it, the quiet came on again and the sun started to fall, crest the horizon, then disappear, letting the night return.
She fell asleep.
She woke up with a start. There was a light, slow knock at the door. She heard it again and when it stopped, she heard, "
Trick... or... treat..." come from the other side, almost a whisper. She got up and walked to the door, pulling a knife out of her olive drab coat pocket. She whispered to herself, "We gotta hurry... the train is coming..." She reached out to the door and opened it slowly, it's rusted hinges creaking loudly into the night.
There stood two nearly identical witches and a big mummy behind them. They didn't move. Liz noticed their costumes were dirty and splotched with patches of dark stain. Their bodies hung at odd angles as if missing certain vital pieces. They spoke again, low, "
Trick... or... treat...?"
Liz was crying, holding up the knife between her and them. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get you hurt... I didn't mean it!"
"...
killed..." they whispered. She realized right then they were right; she had gotten them killed. She always knew it was her fault. All the psychiatry in world couldn't change that fact. "You're right, I'm sorry..." She looked at the knife and lowered it.
"
Trick... or... treat...?" they whispered again. And again. As a question. They wanted something from her. She thought she knew what that was. They wanted her dead too. They were all meant to die that night.
It's only fair, right? she thought.
"Trick or treat?" she repeated slowly, tears streaming again, focused on the knife in her hand. "How about both?" She lifted the knife to her throat and cut deep into her neck. The two little witches and the one large mummy watched her fall slowly, settling to the floor, her blood puddling slowly over and around her on the old matted carpet. They watched her as her eyes faded away and her body went limp. They watched her until she was gone.
On the front porch of the house, the one big mummy and the two little witches turned away and started toward the tracks. A faint blow of a train's whistle shot out into the night, far off. The door to the house at the tracks closed with a gentle thump, pulled by a little clown who followed them again out into the night and over the tracks. One last time, a tag-along.
The End.
