Happy Halloween Eve all! Here’s a bit of free flash fiction.
An October Walk
By Sidney Williams
Shea pulled off his rubber Frankenstein mask, pushed a branch aside and kept his head pointed downward, relying on moonlight to help him focus on the narrow trail. He didn’t need to get lost out here, just to traverse this bit of woods and get to the road on the other side.
It was not a well-traveled route, but he could make his way home from there in time.
“Big herry? You rush, you’re goi-nna fall.”
Whoever he was, the guy had a foreign accent.
Shea looked in the direction of the voice, impatient.
“Just need to thread my way through here,” he said. “Getting late.”
“Oi have a light.”
Shea turned and saw the guy was in some kind of Halloween costume, period duds, a bit grungy but well designed. Frock coat with gold buttons, vest. Hair or wig was pulled into a pony tail.
“I just need to get home.”
“Easier the other direction, feen. You broken down or somethin’?”
The light he held up was a crude, small jack-o’-lantern with bright embers glowing through jagged eyes and mouth.
“This way will do. Who are you supposed to be anyway?”
“Jack’ll do.”
He fell in beside Shea and held up the jack-o’-lantern so that it cast a good bit of glowon the path. Shea hadn’t really wanted to encounter anyone, but this guy seemed drunk. Must have stumbled away from a party. Even if he was staying in character pretty well, he probably wouldn’t remember much tomorrow.
“So, you’re wed to dis way, eh?” the man asked. He sounded as if he suspected or knew something as they wound forward and dodged bushes and underbrush, but he seemed helpful. He used his free hand to swat tangled vines aside.
“They used to call me Stingy Jack,” he said.
Keeping up whatever his cosplay game was. His voice grated as much as Candace’s. Oh well.
“Used to be known for being clever. You ever heard?”
“Something here or there.”
“My best trick, devil came for me for my sins. I took him to a pub and we drank ‘em almost dry. Publican came around, wantin’ to be paid ‘fore he poured more. My pockets were empty by then so I said, hey, diabhal, can’t you turn yourself into a silver coin, let us keep drinkin’? So he did, an ha, my pocket wan’t empty. I put the coin in next to a fancy rosary I’d lifted. Took him a while to get oit of dat fix.”
“I remember the story now. Then you wound up wandering the earth with the origin of the jack-o’-lantern there.”
Jack jiggled the makeshift lantern. “Wasn’t a pumpkin then, but yeah, I oughta be paid a fee, eh? This way. Lot of briars. We can get back to the trail in a minnit.”
He let out a tired sigh. “All of it’s mostly true. My luck ran out after a while…ah, crap, more thorns.”
He jabbed a thumb, redirecting them a bit to the left.
“You’re not getting us lost are you?”
“Nah, after all the years I’ve traveled, my sense of direction’s impeccable, feen. So yeah, I outsmarted The Devil and his minions a lot o’ times. One game after another. But you can just keep up the game so long. Brain gets tired.”
He made a gesture with his whole hand, routing them around a rotting stump the light had revealed.
“I had to cut a new deal.”
Shea followed him as he pushed a couple of tangled branches apart.
“Deliver the souls o’ the damned where they’re supposed to be now, don’t oi?”
As the branches parted, the throbbing glow of blue lights spilled across them along with the pink-red glow of road flares placed by a trooper in a round hat.
Candace was still in the driver’s seat, face buried in the air bag, silver streaked Bride of Frankenstein wig jutting back at an odd angle. Shea had arranged things so carefully, dammit. Made sure she was doused with alcohol.
Now the trooper was looking his way, registering his features and details like the rubber bolts stuck to his neck. They’d look closer at how the car had slammed into the power pole. The cop would be suspicious of how she smothered. They’d investigate with much more care all around, wouldn’t they?
And the man, Jack or whoever, was gone. Only the jack-o’-lantern remained, dangling by a thread he’d tied to a branch, jagged mouth wide and grinning as if having a broad laugh.