Tales Around the Jack O'Lantern Read online

  The wooden screen door lay haphazardly against its frame, the screening hanging loosely down the side. He put this hand through the hole and knocked on the old front door. A dim glow appeared in the windows next to the door and Timmy breathed a sigh of relief. Good! Someone was home.

  Timmy counted to sixty three times before the knob on the other side of the door rattled and the door slowly opened. A thin, wrinkled face peeked out from the narrow space between the door and frame. “Hello?” the parched voice whispered. “What do you want?”

  Clearing his throat several times to get rid of the panic, Timmy took his cap off his head to be polite and finally said, “I’m here with your paper.” Lifting the said object up for the thin man to see.

  Eyes almost too wide for their sockets followed the movement. “Paper?” he croaked.

  Nodding eagerly, Timmy handed it to him. “Yes, it’s today’s copy of the Chicago Beacon,” he replied. “I’m your new paperboy.”

  A long, thin hand reached out and grasped the paper, slowly pulling it back into the house, but at the last moment, the paper slipped from his grasp and tumbled to the floor. Dropping his hat, Timmy dove for the paper and caught it before it disappeared into one of the holes in the porch. “Here you are,” he said, offering the paper again.

  The old face stared at him for a moment longer and then nearly cracked in half with a wide smile. “Thank you, boy,” he whispered.

  “You’re welcome, sir,” Timmy replied. “Um, have a nice evening.”

  The old man nodded slowly and then closed the door.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Timmy walked down the stairs and stepped onto the sidewalk. The rustling in the overgrown lawn intensified and all he could imagine were big, hairy rats waiting to grab hold of him and pull him under. Tossing caution to the wind, he ran down the sidewalk and pushed the gate closed firmly behind him.

  Pulling his bike from the bushes, he hopped back on it and hurried down the street, delivering the rest of the papers. When he got to the very last house on his route, he reached in the bag and, to his surprise, found no more papers.

  There had to be a mistake. He had enough papers for every house on his route.

  Pedaling his bike next to a streetlight, he pulled out the paper with the route. He counted the addresses on the street; there was one less subscriber than houses on the street. Studying it, he realized the old house with the iron fence had not been a subscriber. He’d given them a free paper. He thought for a moment about going back there, but only for a moment. There was no way he was going back through that yard in the dark. But, it was his fault, he hadn’t checked his route before.

  He dug into his pants pocket and pulled out the shiny dime. He knew what he had to do. He rode out of the dead end street and over a block to a metal newspaper box on the corner, inserted his dime and pulled out the paper he needed. In a few minutes, the paper was delivered and he was on his way back home.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m home,” he said, walking through the front door.

  “How’d it go?” she asked, looking up from setting the dining room table for dinner.

  “Good,” he replied. “But there’s a lot to this newspaper business.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m sure there is,” she agreed, and then she paused and looked at him. “Where’s your hat?”

  He moaned and closed his eyes. He knew exactly where he’d lost it, on the rickety porch when he’d dived to catch the paper. “I left it at one of the houses on my route,” he confessed. “I’ll leave early for school in the morning and get it.”

  Maybe the house wouldn’t be as scary in the daytime.

  The following morning, Timmy rode his bike back down the route from the night before. It does make a difference coming during the daytime, he thought as he pedaled down the dead-end street, things look a lot less scary with sunshine on them.

  Although, he had to admit, the fence at the end of the street didn’t look a whole lot better. He leaned his bike against the fence again, as he had done the night before and walked over to the gate. But this time he saw something he’d missed the night before. A large sign was attached to the middle of the gate. “Condemned – Do Not Enter”

  How did he miss that?

  He hated to ignore the sign, but his hat was in there and, besides, it really hadn’t been all that bad last night.

  He pushed the gate as far as he could, this time there was a chain around the gate and the post, and he slipped through. He walked a couple of steps and froze. The house was gone. All that was left was charred remains. The porch was lying on the ground in pieces. What few windows that were left were shattered and there was no roof, only a burnt and gaping hole.

  Timmy shook his head. He could tell by the vines growing up the side of the house, the fire had happened a long time ago, not since last night.

  He took a step back, towards the gate, when something hanging on a post near the house caught his eye. His hat. Someone had placed his hat up where he could find it. It took him a moment to get his legs to move, but when he could he ran, grabbed his hat and sped back to the gate.

  As he pushed himself back through the narrow opening, he was sure he felt someone touch his shoulder and whisper, “Thank you, boy.”

  Chapter Four

  A cold breeze drifted through the room and the candle’s flame flickered wildly sending shadows dancing on the walls. Mary shivered and pulled the afghan closer in the darkened room, picturing the old man her father had described. She looked across the room and jumped, muffling a scream as she quickly realized the pale, white specters sitting across the room were actually her twin brothers holding flashlights under their chin. “Not funny,” she criticized.

  Chuckling, they gave each other high-fives and grabbed more candy from the bowl. “Not another bite of candy,” their mother warned, instantly staying their hands. Then her voice warmed greatly. “Not until you share a story.”

  The young men looked at each other and, in the uncanny way of twins, communicated without speaking and just nodded. Then, two voices taking turns and nearly speaking as one, they shared their story.

  The two Marines pushed through the thick forest, their weapons drawn and their senses alert. They had become separated from their unit during a skirmish with the opposition force but because of the unspoken bond they had shared from the womb, they were still together. They had been fighting in a valley and, between the bluffs and dense vegetation, had no way to see if they were in a safe spot or if the enemy troops were on their trail.

  They clambered up a hill, hiding behind the large boulders and primeval trees. This forest in Southern Europe was older than any building in the United States and the Irish twins from Chicago could feel the ancient power emanating from it. “Where do you think we are?” the younger twin, Tom, asked his older brother, Art, in a whisper.

  “I think we’re about six clicks from the main road,” Art replied softly, then seeing the look of frustration on Tom’s face added, “Like three miles.”

  Tom grinned briefly. “Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know why they can’t just use miles.”

  They hunkered down behind a huge boulder and listened to the sounds of artillery fire in the distance. “Sounds like it might be coming closer,” Art finally said softly.

  “Yeah, but who’s coming closer?” Tom asked.

  “Good question,” Art replied.

  They both took drinks from their water bottles, mimicking each other’s actions unconsciously and then wiped an arm across each face in twin synchronicity. Synchronicity so strong that the military, who normally separated brothers, decided that this time it would be a boon for the Special Forces they served for them to be together. “Which way?” Art asked Tom.

  Tom angled his head in the direction away from the noise of the fighting. “If we can get through this valley and up on one of the bluffs, we’ll be able to get a better idea of where our guys are,” he said. “And we might be in a better position to help them.”

 
; Pulling their helmet back onto their heads, they moved slowly around the boulder, staying low and headed down into the underbrush towards the edge of the forest. About a half mile later, Art put his hand on Tom’s shoulder to stop him.

  Tom turned and was about to speak when the quick shake of Art’s head stopped him. Instantly alert he listened intently and heard it too. In the distance, coming from the opposite direction of the fighting, were the sounds of voices.

  “Soldiers?” Tom whispered.

  Art shook his head again. “Too unguarded,” he said. “It has to be civilians.”

  “We’ve got to warn them a battle is coming to their neighborhood,” Tom said.

  Art nodded in agreement.

  Doubling their pace, but still trying to move stealthily through the brush, they covered another half mile in no time. There was a clearing a few yards ahead of them, so they stopped and listened again. This time the sounds were clearer.

  “Kids,” Tom said, grimacing. “Dammit, those are kids’ voices.”

  “I remember from the recon map there was an orphanage in the area,” Art said. “We gotta get them out of there.”

  They moved to the edge of the forest and stopped. “There it is,” Tom said, pointing to a large brick building on the top of a hill over a half of a mile away.

  Art looked up and down the tree line next to where they stood. “If we run out into that field, we’re sitting ducks,” he said. “There is no protection.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes and understood what they had to do. In one quick motion, they put their arms around each other in a quick hug, then stepped back, turned and ran into the field. The noise from the artillery was closer than before and they could feel the earth shaking from explosions from larger weapons, but they continued to run.

  In the distance they could hear the thrumming of a fighter jet and prayed, if it was one of theirs, it would recognize them and they wouldn’t become casualties of friendly fire.

  Their feet beat against the dusty, hard ground of the field. Their hearts pounding in their throats, their eyes focused on the base of the hill. Together, step by step, they ran, praying they would still be alive at the end of the day.

  They dove into the brush at the base of the hill, breathing heavily and waiting for a moment to see if sniper fire would follow them in. Finally, as their breathing slowed and their hearts stopped pounding, they heard them again. The children. But this time, they were singing.

  “What the hell?” Tom asked, standing and moving towards the stone steps at the bottom of the hill. “What kind of teacher has choir practice when they hear mortar shells exploding in the vicinity?”

  “Why aren’t those kids in a bomb shelter?” Art asked, finishing his brother’s thoughts.

  They jogged up the steps and rushed across the green lawn that led to the front of the large building. The song grew stronger as they neared; a haunting melody that was both a prayer and a lament.

  Tom grabbed the door and Art covered him, his weapon ready. Tom pulled open the door and they both rushed inside. The music stopped.

  The men stumbled back against the wall, too overcome to speak. There was no longer a school. All that was left was the front wall, a façade that covered the devastation of an attack that decimated both the building and its occupants. Scattered within the rubble of the building were the broken lifeless bodies of the children.

  Oblivious to the sounds of war beyond the hill, the two brothers worked into the night digging a grave and carrying the little bodies to their final resting place. There were no adults found, so the brothers assumed the children had been left to fend for themselves as the war waged on around them. At the far end of the school, in the place that used to be a playground, freshly turned earth now protected the remains of the children who used to run and play. Art and Tom removed their helmets and bowed their heads. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” Art began and Tom joined in, repeating the old prayer their mother had taught them as children. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. His Love to guard me through the night, and wake me in the morning's light. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Thy angels watch me through the night and keep me safe till morning's light.”

  Their voices cracked and they each took a deep, shuddering breath and continued with the final verse, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my soul to take.”

  Then, exhausted, the brothers stumbled to the lone wall and fell asleep under its shelter.

  The sounds of an approaching helicopter woke them in the early dawn. Looking up, they saw a Blackhawk circling the field in front of the school for a place to land. Grabbing their gear, they ran from the shelter towards their comrades.

  “How you do it?” asked the Marine who helped them climb into the chopper.

  “Do what?” Art asked.

  “Send up that beacon?”

  “Beacon?” Tom asked.

  “Yeah, it was like a beam of white light shooting straight up from your location. It lasted for about ten minutes,” the Marine said. “Long enough for us to figure out where you were and get you out before you were overrun. It was like a miracle.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Art said.

  “Yeah, just like that,” Tom added.

  Chapter Five

  “How come you never told us about this before tonight?” Sean asked his brothers.

  They both shrugged. “It wasn’t time yet,” Art said.

  “Yeah, tonight, it was the right time,” Tom added.

  A soft, sniffling noise was heard coming from their mother’s direction.

  “Hey, we didn’t tell it to make you cry, Ma,” Tom said.

  “I’m not crying at all,” Margaret contended. “It’s a bit of a cold I’ve had for a day or so.”

  “Well, my story will scare the snot right out of you,” Sean announced.

  “Sean,” his mother reprimanded.

  “Sorry, Ma,” he said, with a very unrepentant tone while his brothers snickered in the dark.

  “I was a rookie in the force,” he began. “And it was just about Halloween…”

  The rookies always got the worst beats and even though Sean O’Reilly was fifth generation Chicago cop, there were no exceptions. So, he walked the graveyard shift around Lincoln Park on the north side of the city, next to the lake. Although Lincoln Park stretched for over seven miles along Chicago’s lakefront, Sean’s area was twelve hundred acres of grass, trees, bike paths, jogging paths, museums and even a zoo that bordered Diversey Parkway on the north and North Avenue on the south. During the day, this area was a mecca of activity for families on picnics, joggers running alongside the lake and buses filled with children going on field trips. At night, it was a mugger’s paradise. This was why Sean O’Reilly was required to walk the nearly two square miles over and over and over again every night.

  With the leather band of his flashlight swinging slowly from his hand as he walked, Sean started on the farthest north portion of the park and followed the bike path along Stockton Drive, passing by the statues, the softball diamonds, the benches and the landscaping. After exploring this part of Chicago by foot for over a month, he had become familiar with every dark shadow and each unique sound. He experienced, in his own mind, a symphony of the lake shore at night. The waves slapping the rocks were the percussion, the sailboats rubbing against their moorings created the high-pitch cry of stringed instruments, the breeze whipping through the tall masts of the sailboats in the harbor were the wind instruments and the honking from the cars on Lake Shore Drive were the brass. Occasionally, especially if the moon were full, some of the animals from Lincoln Park Zoo would be featured as guest soloists, leaving their haunting cries echoing throughout the park.

  Sean even got to know the difference between the sound of a squirrel in the brush and the sound of a rat searching for food. He avoided them both, he was a cat person.

  It was on one of those
nights, when the moon was full and the leaves had nearly all fallen off the trees, that he met August. The old man sitting on the park bench in the dark startled him at first and then concerned him. “Excuse me, sir,” Sean said as he approached the motionless man. “Are you okay?”

  It took a moment for the man to respond; he stared at Sean and shook his head twice, as if he couldn’t quite believe someone was speaking to him. “I beg your pardon,” the man replied. “Were you speaking to me?”

  Nodding, Sean sat down next to the fellow. He was not very tall, rather plump and squinted, as if he’d lost his glasses. What was left of his hair was thin, white and tossed over his bald head in one of the worst comb-overs Sean had ever seen. “Yes, I was speaking to you,” Sean said, keeping his voice gentle so as not to startle the elderly gentleman.

  “Oh, well, then let me respond. I am quite well, thank you.”

  Sean smiled. “I’m Sean O’Reilly,” he said.

  “Oh, how do you do,” the man replied with a wide smile. “I’m Augustin Bates. Please call me August.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before,” Sean said.

  “Really?” August replied, surprised. “Well, that’s funny. This is where I spend most of my evenings.”

  “Well, perhaps that’s the problem,” Sean said, wondering if the old man had lost track of time. “It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. Not evening at all.”

  The old man met Sean’s eyes with a twinkle in his own. “No, not evening at all,” he replied with a chuckle. “More like the witching hours to be quite precise.”

  “I thought the witching hour was midnight,” Sean said.

  August shook his head. “Oh, no, historically any time between midnight and three in the morning were known as the witching hours.”

  Sean nodded slowly. “So, you’re into history?” he asked.