All Hallow's Eve

Margaret V. Loudon is a copywriter whose non-fiction articles have appeared in numerous publications--but mysteries are her first love. She has been committing murder and mayhem on paper since the age of seven when she first read Nancy Drew. She has written three mystery novels, and her agent is currently searching for the right publisher. Margaret lives in New Jersey with her daughters Francesca and Annabelle.

Halloween. All Hallow's Eve. The night restless would leave their graves to wander among the living. Olivia always pictured them as bits of jelly-like ectoplasm hanging suspended in the air.

Tonight she hurried home past the cemetery, her head averted, her subconscious imagining a thickening in the atmosphere. She shivered and walked faster.

“Darling, you look chilled.” Marvin was in the hall when she opened the door. He took her hands in his and rubbed them briskly, his gaze on her face, ever watchful, ever careful.

“I’m fine.” Olivia pulled her hands away and then felt guilty for sounding churlish. She took Marvin’s arm and led him toward the kitchen. “Let’s make a cup of tea, shall we?”

The wind picked up later in the evening, and Olivia could hear the autumn leaves swirling in a death dance across the front lawn. A shutter was loose somewhere and banged rhythmically against the house. She’d have to get Marvin to look at it in the morning.

“Going up?” Marvin put down his paper, his glasses perched uneasily on the end of his long nose.

“I’m tired.” Olivia reached up and gathered her long dark hair off her face.

“Everything’s fine,” she snapped. “Sorry, darling, I guess I’m just tired.” She kissed him on the top of his head and went upstairs.

Olivia slipped her nightgown over her head. This was the part she dreaded. The dying of the day, the arrival of darkness and the long hours held hostage by the terrors of the night. The dreams still came every evening. Sleep, when it arrived, was fitful and uneven and she would awaken, drenched in sweat with the terrible vision still in her head.

And there was no one she could talk to, no one she dared talk to. Except Marvin.

She had been driving that night, Marvin in the passenger seat beside her. It was dark, and the car’s headlights barely cut through the thick fog that hovered just above the ground. A shadow emerged from the darkened stand of trees at the side of the road, and before Olivia could brake, the body was bouncing off the hood of the car. She screamed and tried to stop, but Marvin slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

“We have to go back,” Olivia cried. It was a young girl, she was sure of that.

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing we can do. It wasn’t your fault, she ran into the road.”

And so Olivia drove on, her teeth chattering so they were audible in the silence of the car.

That’s when the dreams began. She saw the girl’s face, more clearly than that night, but when she went to touch her, to try to help her, she disappeared.

The shutter banged and Olivia woke with a start, her heart beating rapid-fire in her chest. The face was there, against the wall, smiling to her, beckoning to her. Olivia crawled up onto the pillows and pulled her knees to her chest. “No, no,” she cried.

“Don’t you see her, she’s right there,” Olivia said and pointed toward the window.

“It’s a dream darling, just a dream.” Marvin stroked the damp hair back from her forehead.

Olivia looked again. He was right; the image was gone. Exhausted, she collapsed back against the pillows.

Her head felt heavy the next day as if she had been drinking. Olivia moved slowly about the bedroom, smoothing the comforter, plumping the pillows for another night. Marvin’s closet door was slightly open, and she pushed it absent-mindedly with her hand. It wouldn’t close. Something was in the way.

Olivia opened the door. There was an old movie projector on the top shelf. It was catching against the door.

“No, no,” she said repeatedly under her breath as she turned the machine on and aimed it at the wall. The eerie vision of her dreams appeared as if by some ghostly sleight of hand.

“Darling, have you seen my...” Marvin spluttered to a stop when he saw what she was doing.

“You bastard,” Olivia cried. “You bastard.” She picked the machine up and with all her force brought it down on Marvin’s unsuspecting skull.

It took a long time for the stench to clear. After a day or two Olivia became used to it. She never went down into the cellar anymore. She had no desire to see what the rats and mice and other creatures had done to Marvin’s body.

Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve. The night restless souls leave their grave to wander among the living. Olivia pulled the flannel nightgown over her head and crawled under the covers. The wind was picking up, and she could hear the loose shutter banging against the house.

She fell into a deep sleep almost immediately, but something woke her, she didn’t know what--a noise perhaps. She slid her feet into her slippers and followed the sound into the hallway. There, against the back wall, was Marvin’s face with its long nose and high forehead and disapproving look.

Olivia screamed and stepped backwards, and then backwards again. She went down the stairs head over heels.

And there was no one there to hear the sound of her neck snapping in the darkness.