Hedge Apple

How much longer before we get to the motel?”  Stephanie asked. “We haven’t slept for two days!  If it weren’t for all the caffeine today we’d be arrested for Driving While Asleep!”

Jennifer laughed as she drove through the darkening evening.  “About an hour. With the big college game there weren’t any motel rooms near the city, so I got one on the way to my dad’s stomping grounds. It was a whole lot cheaper, too.”

“Cheap is good!” Stephanie said.  “I’m so tired of being broke, but I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

Passing houses, the road narrowed as they headed into a small town nestled in one of West Virginia’s many hills.

“Oh my gosh!  Look at those cuties!” Stephanie exclaimed when she saw the costumed children walking from house to house asking for candy.  She laughed. “It’s so cold the poor kids have to wear coats over their Halloween costumes! Sure is different than back home, isn’t it?”

“Everything is different,” Jennifer agreed, “I’ve never seen entire forests of reds, yellows, and orange.”

Leaving the town behind them, the car was swallowed up again into the darkness as it followed the black ribbon of asphalt. The women murmured softly in conversation, Stephanie occasionally fiddling with the radio to change stations as static overtook them.

Peering into the dark, Jennifer said uneasily, “The trees are so thick you can’t even see the stars! It’s Halloween so if we have car trouble there better be cell service, because I am NOT getting out of the car to go for help. I don’t want to end up being a campfire story.”

Fog rising from the ground dulled the headlights and made the curving road difficult to follow and both women began to lean forward, peering out the windshield, the eye-shine of unseen animals reflecting back at them.  Deer became goblins and possums were gnomes, shapes shifted, reaching down as though to block their way.

*   * *  * * *  *

Having finally checking into the motel, Jennifer threw her suitcase on the bed and herself next to it. “We’re here, we’re here! Oh glory, we’re here!  I should be ready to sleep, but I’m still wired from the drive and am up for putting on my swimsuit and checking out the Jacuzzi. How about you?”

“Oh, yeah!  I’m still knotted into a pretzel from the plane ride. Dibs on the bathroom!” Stephanie called as she zipped open her suitcase and pulled out her suit.

Exiting the bathroom she saw Jennifer in her suit, tossed her a towel, and they wrapped themselves up and headed out into the open walkway.

“Brrr!  It’s colder than I thought!” Jennifer declared, “We’ll be doing that Swedish thing of getting hot and then running out in the cold.”

Giggling and shivering, they ran, the slapping sounds of their flip flops echoed into the dark.

“Ahhhh,” Stephanie sighed as she slid into the heated bubbling water.  “This Jacuzzi is the perfect lagniappe for the start of some great memories.  Just one of those little extras that make life fun!”

Jennifer placed her towel behind her neck, resting it on the edge, her muscles relaxing in the warmth.  “If I fall asleep, don’t let me drown!”

Stephanie turned to look into the pool area. Windows enclosed the three open sides and she thought how pretty it would be to watch the snow or rain falling through them.  She turned back around to face the wall. Unfortunately, the jet was positioned where she couldn’t see outside.

The two soaked in meditative silence until Jennifer popped up out of the water and exclaimed, “If I don’t go in now I’ll be too limp to get to the room, I’m like a wet noodle!  You stay here for another ten minutes while I shower, and then you can take yours. That okay with you?” She looked down at her friend, grabbing her towel.

“Perfect,” Stephanie agreed. “I’m still working on this one kink in my back.”

“I hope I can make it to the room!” Jennifer said, staggering off.

Stephanie slid further into the water, closing her eyes.  The lights, reflecting off the pool, danced across the walls and glowed through her eyelids.

A change in the lighting perhaps or a sound she couldn’t identify caused Stephanie to open her eyes.  The clarity of the black shadow cast on the wall in front of her outlining the hat and trench coat left no doubt that a person was behind her and that it was a very large man.

Languid from the heated water, her brain muddled, she was unable to move and the scenarios of all the horror movies she had ever seen flashed before her eyes. She saw her body dragged away, raped and murdered, her family never knowing what happened to her; her best friend finding her in a Jacuzzi full of blood, her hair spread out from her head as she floated in the water; she envisioned the shadowy arm lifting up a large knife and it striking down on her again, and again, and again.

In her head she was screaming, silently screaming, but she, herself, could make no sound.  Struggling to open her mouth, the horror of not being able to scream became as terrifying as the looming shadow in front of her. Her eyes, the only part of her still able to move, widened, the pupils dilating across her green irises as she watched the shadow shift, shrinking as it moved further down the wall as footsteps echoed off water and windows.

Her heart, beating so loudly in her head her ears vibrated, she almost missed the sound of a weak, quivery voice, call out, “It’s a nice evening out tonight, isn’t it?”

Rolling her head around toward the voice, Stephanie saw a small elderly man with a very gentle face, wearing a fedora and overcoat against the fall chill, standing across the pool, the bright floodlights luminescent behind him.

“Yes,” she wheezed out the breath she had been holding, “Yes, a very nice evening.”

He smiled, nodded, and continued his evening walk.

Alison Cloonan is a 60-year-old emerging writer who has completed a college creative writing class at Hagerstown Community College.

The neighborhood was a quiet one. One of those developments, filled with large, similarly constructed houses, evenly spaced apart. A neighborhood full of cute, picture perfect families of the upper middle class, living in their beautiful houses, in serenity.

They were a young couple.  The woman, with straight, platinum hair cut into a perfect bob and her husband with slicked back black hair, both never looking out of sorts. The day they moved in to the last vacant house on the block was memorable simply because they brought nothing with them. No moving truck pulled in with their enviable black Mercedes, just the Mercedes. All the people recall is watching that car pull in, seeing the couple get out and walk straight into the house. Not a single bag. And nothing had come before hand and nothing came after and believe them they tried to get a peek inside because how strange it all seemed. Who moves into such a home and brings absolutely nothing with them? And yet every time they saw the couple they were dressed in different clothes and he often had a briefcase, she wore varying pieces of jewelry. It puzzled them, but what could they do?  Everyone just called it peculiar and moved on because they did not bother anyone.

Then Autumn set in and the leaves changed and with it the couple changed. It was if their icy exterior fell away as they got ready for Halloween. They pulled decorations from who knows where and set them up in the yard. A string of skulls in the barren tree in the yard, a frightening witch, a headstone, multiple jack-o-lanterns, and ghosts scattered about the yard. This again set everyone to talking, yet only for a minute because most everyone decorated so it was not too out of place. What really was interesting is what the children started to say. Rumor had it that the couple liked children. That they were kind to them even.  The parents dismissed this talk as the children mistaking the couple’s new-found comfort around their home for comfort with the neighborhood itself.

The bus stopped at the end of the cul-de-sac and all the children walked home together, one by one saying goodbye and going into their homes. They then would meet up to play after all the homework was done and run around the neighborhood on bikes and scooters, laughing and shouting. Now each night, unbeknownst to the parents, the couple had started to sit on the front porch. They had set up chairs, again, from where they brought them no one could know, and watch the children. It could be said that they just enjoyed the crisp fall air and each other’s company, but about two weeks after this habit had formed they moved the chairs to the edge of the driveway and began to talk to the children. And the children began to like them. They would joke and sing with them and make sure they went inside at a decent hour. They never moved from those chairs though.

Halloween was quickly approaching and all the children were becoming quite excited. They did not come outside at night anymore to play because it had become much too chilly and they had costumes to work on. The couple had moved their ritual back to the porch, but sat outside after the children got off the bus. Now the way their house was situated, second to last in the development, meant that by the time all the young ones had walked each other home, there was only one child walking by their house to get to his. Jones was a small timid boy, but he enjoyed playing with the other children and he had grown to like the couple who had sat outside and chatted with them all this time. So, every afternoon as he walked by to go home he waved and the couple smiled back. This went on all the way until the night of Halloween.

Trick or Treat was simple for the neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone so it was put your child in a costume and send them out all at once and then, at the agreed time, turn your porch light off and all the children came scampering home. It was a great system. The parents could relax without freezing and all the kids felt independent and got candy. So, the night began. All the little witches and vampires and doctors were running around gathering their candy, happy as could be. The couple sat on their porch, light on, handing out candy to each child as they came by, smiling and offering a kind word, the only adults visible outdoors on the chilly night.

At the agreed time, all the porch lights went off and each child reluctantly went home, dragging a bag of candy with them. Jones waved goodbye to his last walking partner as they ran inside their own house and began his small journey home. As he was walking past the couple’s house he noticed, even though their light was off, that they were still on the porch. They saw him, smiled, pointed to a bowl of candy that was still quite full and waved him over. He made his way up the sidewalk and excitedly opened his bag and watched as they dumped all of it in. He grinned and said thank you.

The next morning the police were at the last house in the neighborhood. The family was hysterical for it seemed that their little boy, one in a ghost costume who goes by Jones, never came home. The police made their rounds that morning to each house and questioned the families. When the police questioned the couple, who were on their porch drinking coffee, they found nothing out of sorts, as with everything else in the neighborhood. Three days later the neighborhood woke up to find the second to last house in the neighborhood vacant again, the porch light flickering ominously. Void of the couple and their Halloween décor.  Obviously suspicious of such a quick departure, the people of the neighborhood took it upon themselves to investigate.

Inside they found beautifully decorated walls, with pictures of the couple hung all about. Odd artwork of a dark nature, not really depicting anything for certain sat about in random corners, giving each person an uneasy feeling. The house otherwise was empty. No beds or furniture or food. Not ever toilet paper or a toothbrush. Yet, when they made their way into the garage they found the black Mercedes sitting alone. The doors of the car were locked, but the trunk was left slightly ajar and dirty handprints had seemed to have caressed it not too long ago. All the neighbors looked at one another, no one really knowing what to do or daring to touch anything. Suddenly, without anyone touching the trunk of the car, it flung itself open with a creak to reveal a large bag of trick or treat candy. The candy was not alone in the trunk. Staring down each neighbor, striking fear and questions into each heart, lay a tiny, blood soaked, ghost costume.