Time for our quarterly short stories. Since it’s October, the theme was an easy pick. Let’s go trick or treating, one of the hallowed traditions of Halloween. It’s the night when kids of all ages dress up—or not—and roam around in search of treats. The popular holiday has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain, celebrated on October 31. The Celts believed that the dead returned to earth on Samhain. On the sacred night, people gathered to light bonfires, offer sacrifices and pay homage to the dead. During some celebrations, people disguised themselves with costumes, and food was left out to placate the spirits. Centuries later, when Christianity spread to Celtic lands, the church designated November 2 as All Souls Day. Customs called “souling” and “guising” involved going from door to door, dressing in costumes and collecting offerings of food. Trick or treating as we know it began evolving in the early part of the twentieth century, and at times things got pretty rowdy, with the emphasis on the trick part of the custom. So here are two different takes on Halloween. Janet’s grownup narrator goes trick or treating and winds up giving someone a trick. In D. Z.’s story, trick or treating brings bad memories, until the narrator gets a wonderful treat.
The Trick You Deserve
Janet Dawson
I was too old to be out trick or treating. But here I was, wearing a cat mask and going door to door, collecting treats.
Ordinarily my sister Bev would have accompanied her twin daughters on the Halloween rounds. But she had a sprained ankle and a fractured wrist. I was staying with her temporarily, in the apartment she’d moved into a couple of weeks ago, when she left her husband.
I was happy to support my sister and I loved the little demons. Elsie and Evie were identical twins, not quite four, and well-behaved—mostly.
Right now, though, the girls deserved their demon nickname. Too much sugar. They’d been consuming candy—I could tell from the empty wrappers—despite my best efforts to keep them in check.
“Auntie Lou, come on.” Elsie tugged on my hand as Evie skipped ahead. The girls wore Minnie Mouse outfits, complete with red polka dot dresses and bows and black mouse ears. The only way I could tell them apart was because Evie’s brown hair was a shade lighter than Elsie’s.
On this Halloween, the temperature was pleasant, shirt sleeve weather. It was still light out. Since the girls were so young I’d taken them out earlier, to the downtown area, where many of the restaurants had candy available for trick or treaters.
Suddenly I got a prickling sensation on the back of my neck. The last time I had that feeling, I knew someone was following me, and I’d been right. I looked around. Well, yeah, we were being followed. The sidewalk was crowded with kids dressed as dinosaurs, pirates, princesses and spacemen. But no, that wasn’t it.
“More candy!” Evie detoured into a restaurant. It wasn’t quite 5 PM, opening time, but the door was open and the staff was preparing for customers. There was a table at the end of the bar holding a vase full of orange and yellow flowers. Next to this was a large basket, full of individually wrapped candies. Evie made a beeline for the candy.
Outside, Elsie dropped my hand. She looked behind me. “Daddy!”
Yes, we were being followed. By Kevin, the scumbag my sister was in the process of divorcing.
“What are you doing here?” I grabbed Elsie’s hand to prevent her from going toward him. She objected, but I held firm.
“Hey, Lou.” He waved a hand. “I just wanna see my girls. Your sister’s being a real bitch, won’t let me see them.”
“Might have something to do with you shoving her off that sidewalk at the grocery store.” I’d urged her to press charges against him, but no, she made excuses for him, said they’d been arguing and she stumbled when she backed away from him.
“Lies.” Another wave of the hand. “She makes things up. She’s not right in the head.”
“No, she doesn’t. You’re a jerk. You’ve always been a jerk.”
He flashed a nasty smile. “Let go of my kid. Baby, come give Daddy a hug.”
“No way.” I tugged Elsie away, heading through the door into the restaurant, where Evie was rooting through the basket full of candy and chatting with a young woman server. The guy behind the bar looked up and smiled.
Kevin followed me. “Evie, Elsie, come with Daddy. We’re going to a Halloween party. And then you can live with Daddy.”
Over my dead body.
“The hell you are.” I called to the server. “Call the cops. He’s trying to take the kids.”
The server looked startled, but the guy behind the bar pulled out his phone and punched numbers.
Kevin made a grab for Elsie and I fought him off. “Run and hide,” I yelled. The server grabbed both girls and headed for the back of the restaurant, ducking behind the bar.
“Cops are on their way, man,” the bartender told Kevin. “You better back the hell off.”
“You bitch,” Kevin snarled. “You’re just like your bitch sister.” He lunged at me.
I backed away, hearing the welcome siren getting closer. I threw the basket of candy at him. “You don’t deserve any treats, but here’s a trick.”
I grabbed the vase and emptied the water and flowers onto his head.
D. Z. Church
Happiest Halloween
The school insisted she dress up for Halloween, so Emma taught in black tights with white spots and pinned on dog ears. She dreaded the holiday since her sister disappeared two towns over while trick or treating with four sorority sisters. They were drinking door to door, and from all accounts, Ann was showing off her dance moves dressed as a cat in black tights and cat ears. Like Emma today, but with different ears.
Emma stopped her Prius at a rural mailbox cemented into a lopsided steel milk can marking the dirt road to the farmhouse, with its front and back parlors, eat-in kitchen, and four bedrooms upstairs. The Sears’ house kit had been delivered by wagon in the late 1800s; now, it was all that remained of a once proud farming family. Who was she kidding? She was what was left.
The mail was the usual bills, the box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string was not. There was no return address, no address for that matter, just a box the size of a card deck. It rattled. Emma set the mail on an antique ewer table used as a catchall at the back door, then took the brown-paper wrapped package to the metal kitchen table and sat.
With her dog, once Ann’s puppy, watching, she tore the butcher paper off but saved the string, winding it in a ball before lifting the lid. Within was a pair of hooped earrings with a crystal letter A dangling from the base. Emma sucked in her breath.
Ann wore these or a pair just like them attached to her cat ears the night she disappeared. By all accounts, she danced up a dark street under a canopy of walnut trees, singing I Need a Hero and swaying her hips. When her friends rounded the corner after her, Ann was gone. Emma ruffled the dog’s flop ears. The manhunt lasted months. The cold case years.
Two years ago, an up-and-coming detective, Collier Rambeau, of all names, took over the case. He had been attentive, combing through the files, asking Emma questions, going back over old territory. He was nice enough looking, single, about her age, so she let him buy her a coffee at the local coffee shop. He asked her out. She turned him down. He asked if she would change her mind if he found her sister.
Emma hadn’t heard from him since. Though occasionally, word reached her that he had talked to this person or that.
Now this. Unsettled, Emma telephoned Detective Rambeau. He was out. She left a rambling, non-sensical message, then stared at the earrings, willing his call, her sister’s dog curled at her feet.
Rambeau called back. “When you weren’t home, I left the earrings in your mailbox, figuring you’d call me. The coroner removed the earrings from Jennifer Morgan’s ears. An officer boxed them as evidence. Do you remember that murder?”
Emma nodded at her phone, then said, “Yes.”
“Once Jennifer’s parents identified her body, no one wondered why she wore earrings with an A. Plus, it had been years since Ann disappeared, meaning your description of the earrings was lost in the report. I ran into it, did a search and found the earrings.”
“Haven’t you broken the chain of evidence?”
“Well, yes, but once I established a link, one person common to both emerged. We nabbed him today. He led us to your sister.”
Emma stared at her smartphone, afraid to ask. “Can I see her body?”
A sharp knock on the front door set the dog running in circles. Another knock, then Rambeau called, “Emma, open up.”
Rambeau stood on the front stoop, as attractive as she remembered, more so now with her sister Ann, worn and thin, beside him. Emma held Ann’s face between her hands before hugging her, uncertain she could let her go.
“Happy Halloween. The perp kept Ann hostage in a chamber he designed in his basement. All these years.” Rambeau smiled, “Now that I’ve kept my promise, how about dinner sometime?”
“Maybe someday when Ann —”
Ann’s dog bounced at her feet until Ann took his face in her hands and kissed his nose.