Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (10 page)

pockets. The phone hung on a wall in your house, or sat on a table. It was easy to ignore. If it rang and you didn’t answer it, you’d have no idea who called. No caller ID. No muss, no fuss.

My phone didn’t ring a lot, just enough to tell me there was

someone out there who wanted to talk to me. Just enough to tell me they were going to keep trying.

And then one day it didn’t ring at all.

It was a Saturday. I’d been off for a full week, and I was trying to figure out what to toss on the barbecue.

That was the evening Ana Jones knocked on my front door.

“Take a walk with me?” she said. “I’d like to talk.”

So we walked. It was a crisp night coming on after a sunny day, the kind of day that makes you think of spring more than fall. Ana wore a long dark skirt, sandals, and a flannel shirt over a tight top—the kind dancers wore. As we walked the road toward Butcher’s Lake,

sunlight trickled through the branches and shone against her long

black hair. Wherever she went that night, I would have followed.

She wanted to go down to Butcher’s. I wouldn’t have suggested

going there. I would have thought she’d never want to see the place again, but she said she needed to. So we went down to the lake, neither of us saying a word. I was carrying a couple of blankets and a bottle NORMAN PARTRIDGE [73]

of wine. I thought the wine was the least I could do for putting her off, because I was sure it was Ana who’d been calling. Besides that, I figured a little wine might help loosen my tongue. Hell, I probably could have used a case of wine and a shoebox full of dynamite, too.

But there were things I needed to know. I didn’t know if Ana had the answers, but I knew I needed to find some before I skidded into a

really bad place.

We sat, and we watched the sunlight on the dark water. That

wasn’t exactly a conversation starter, considering. So I took out my knife, flicked the corkscrew out, and opened the wine.

The sun went to orange and started to set.

“I guess I forgot cups,” I said.

“That’s okay.” Ana smiled. “I think there’s enough history between us to share a bottle.”

It was easier after the bottle went back and forth a couple of

times. Ana talked about her job, and the town, and what it was like settling in. She even talked about the gossip that was going around.

“Have you heard the latest? Some people are saying you shouldn’t

have saved me. They say I’m a witch, and that I would have sunk to the bottom of that lake like a stone.”

“People.” I stared across the water. “That’s why I like to be alone.”

“Yeah. I kind of figured that out.”

“Look, it’s nothing personal. I’ve been having a tough time of it.

Nothing like you’ve had . . . but it hasn’t been good for me lately. Ever since that night with the bikers some old ghosts have come knocking at the door. I’m trying to handle them.”

She handed me the bottle, and when I took it she caught my arm

and my gaze.

“Am I one of those ghosts?”

“I don’t know, Ana. You’re the only person who can answer that

one.”

“I wish I could. Sometimes I think I’m so close to figuring things out. I feel like I’m scratching at the surface of a real memory. I wish I’d never read any of those tabloid articles or listened to any of the gossip. It gets in there, too . . . and sometimes I can almost see some of it happening—even that whole thing on Halloween night all those

[74] THE MUMMY'S HEART

years ago. I wonder if I really could have been there. And sometimes I have these nightmares—”

“I have a few of those, too.”

“About Charlie Steiner?”

“Yeah.”

I handed back the bottle and she tipped it against her lips—a

short, sharp swallow. “Last night was the worst. I dreamed of Egypt.

I was standing near a pyramid, and Charlie was there . . . fresh off the autopsy slab. He didn’t say anything. Every time he tried, blood spilled out of his mouth and splattered the sand like rain. But it didn’t matter that Charlie couldn’t speak. There were a dozen dead roses in his hands, and I knew what he wanted. I couldn’t get away from him.

I tried, but he just kept coming. And then he cornered me, and he

peeled the petals off one of the roses with a three-fingered hand, and he pressed them against my lips, and he opened my mouth with a

pair of withered fingers, and—”

“Don’t torture yourself. It was just a nightmare.”

“You really believe that?”

I looked at her, realizing what I’d said. We might have laughed

then, and maybe we should have, but we couldn’t.

Something else happened.

She put down the bottle.

And she reached out and took my hand.

“This isn’t easy,” Ana said.

“For me, either,” I said.

“You know, sometimes I think that maybe they’re right. The ones

who say I popped out of some warlock’s bubbling cauldron. Maybe

that’s the reason I took that princess’s name, or at least part of it. Like the poet said:
Such stuff as dreams are made on
. Sometimes I think it could be true, and I’m just a shadow of someone else’s dream. I was nowhere for such a long time. Forever, almost. And then you came

along and—”

“Don’t read too much into me. I’m no knight in shining armor.”

“Maybe not. But if it is true—and let’s just say it is—then you’re the one who tried to save me the first time around and paid a price for it. You lost your brother. And you’re the one who came back all NORMAN PARTRIDGE [75]

those years later and did the job the second time, and you’re paying still.”

I didn’t say anything. I looked across the water.

“And I just want you to know. I have to tell you: When you swam out there and took my hand, that’s when life started for me. I was underwater, and you saved me. But part of me feels like I’m still underwater.

And I’m never going to get to the surface unless you pull me through.”

Her grip tightened, and it was strong.

“See, it doesn’t matter who I was,” she said. “It doesn’t matter at all. It only matters who I’m going to be.”

She moved closer then, and my arm slid around her shoulder. We

kissed, and our kiss deepened. And it was so quiet out there by the lake. The wind was still, and so was the water, and the tall eucalyptus covered us in long shadows.

It was so quiet. I could almost hear her heart beating. I could feel it beneath my hand. And in that moment I wouldn’t have cared if the worst of it was true. It wouldn’t have mattered if Ana was a witch, or a dead thing born in Egypt five thousand years ago. Because in that moment I believed what Ana believed, that none of it mattered, that what really mattered was ahead of us.

I held her tight, and I held her close, and I told myself I’d pull her through.

I wasn’t going to let her go.

That was what she wanted.

That was what I wanted, too.

I didn’t work on the house the next day. To tell the truth, I didn’t do much of anything. I had a big breakfast and then I went for a walk, following the dirt road until it connected up with a county two-lane on the other side of the lake. I thought about what Ana had said,

and I thought about the past and the future. Then I came back to the house, ate lunch, and fell asleep.

No dreams came my way, and that was a very good thing.

At dusk, a knock came on the door. I got up, running a hand

through my hair, and went to answer it, expecting that Ana had cut out of work early and come back.

[76] THE MUMMY'S HEART

I opened the door, and a mummy was standing there.

A small one.

He held out a paper bag and said, “Trick or treat.”

I didn’t have any Halloween candy, so I grabbed a bag of cookies

out of the cupboard and gave a few of them to the kid in the mummy costume. He thanked me, and I watched him walk across the yard,

alone. He made me think of Roger somehow, and that last night we’d gone trick-or-treating so long ago. For a second I wanted to call out to him and ask his name, but I didn’t. Still, it felt right somehow, remembering Roger. It felt good.

I closed the door. I didn’t know how the date had slipped by me,

but the circle had come around again. But for the first time in as long as I could remember, Halloween seemed different. It wasn’t just Ana, though she was a big part of it. Things were changing. I was different.

The Steiner house was different. And maybe those old ghosts could

finally get some rest.

I poked around the kitchen. It turned out I had a couple candy

bars in the house, but that was it. I didn’t figure to get much action since the house was down a dirt road and a good piece off the beaten path. But I also knew the Steiner place was as close to a haunted

house as we had around here, so it was hard to tell. After a few more knocks, I drove down to the grocery store, grabbed a couple bags of Snickers and enough goods for a late supper with Ana, and then I

headed back home.

By eight-thirty, maybe ten Snickers were gone.

After that, the only ones that disappeared were the ones I ate.

And then, just past eleven, there was another knock on the door.

I have to admit, that knock gave me enough of a jolt that I set my

.38 on the side table next to the door . . . just in case.

Then I answered the door.

An Egyptian princess was standing there. Diaphanous gown.

Little tiara. Lots of eyeliner.

Ana said, “That bastard down at The Double Shot made all of us

dress up in costumes tonight.”

She tossed the plastic tiara on the floor as she came in.

“I think I’m going to quit that job.”

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I picked up the tiara and threw it out the door.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.

I’d bought a bottle of wine, a loaf of sourdough, and fixings for pasta.

We never got to it. A few Snickers, and we were out of there. The

bedroom was too strong a draw.

Later I slept deeply, and I didn’t dream, and I didn’t wake.

Two hours passed.

And then I woke sharply.

I thought I’d heard a knock at the door.

Ana was still asleep. I slipped on my jeans and grabbed a flannel

shirt. I was halfway down the hall before it hit me.

I didn’t want to answer that door.

Not at all.

Certainly not without a gun in my hand.

And suddenly I wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing. Sure.

Maybe that knock was just a leftover shard of dream jackknifed in

my brain. By the time I reached the end of the hallway that opened into the living room, I’d almost convinced myself of that. But I’d also remembered that I’d left the .38 on the side table next to the door, and I planned to grab it before I checked things out.

But like they say, plans change.

I came around the corner. The lights were out in the living room,

but I could see.

Because the front door was open.

And dull moonlight spilled across the hardwood floor.

I waited for Charlie Steiner to follow that moonlight through the

doorway. And I thought of those bikers I’d killed, too—after all,

they had friends who might be looking for revenge. All that flashed through my brain in a couple ticks of the second hand, but no one

was there.

I didn’t wait for someone to make an appearance. I was moving.

Toward the door, and the side table. I snatched up the .38 and flicked on the living room light. I hit the porch light at the same time and scanned the front yard.

[78] THE MUMMY'S HEART

Nothing. No one there. No sign of movement. Just my pickup

truck parked on the gravel drive, and Ana’s beat-up Toyota parked

next to it.

I closed the front door and set down the pistol. I was just about

to turn around when I caught a flash of reflection on the living room window. Something against the far wall behind me, a dark smear

waiting in the corner. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong there.

It wasn’t moving . . . yet.

I spun, staring across the room.

The thing that stood in the corner wasn’t a mummy.

But it was Charlie Steiner.

All trace of the Hollywood monster was long gone. No costume,

no bandages, no Lon Chaney, Jr. frightface. Charlie wasn’t a

rampaging mountain of cobwebs anymore. No. He was just a thing

that had lain in a leaking plywood box for ten long years. Shrunken and black. Desiccated and degraded. His corpse had rotted in the

wet earth, then dried and baked in the heat of summer, then rotted some more when the next rains came. It had been like that month

after month and year after year as the seasons ran their circles and ran them again, until all that was left of him was bone and gristle and the black jerky that held it all together . . . along with a little bit of a very old dream.

What remained couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds.

Charlie stood in that corner, looking more like a giant marionette than anything human, a pile of tottering bone. Empty-eyed, he stared across the room at me, death’s eternal grin on his skinless face.

I expected him to collapse if he moved so much as an inch.

But he didn’t.

He still knew what he wanted.

He still knew what he needed.

He came after it, faster than I ever could have expected. He skittered across the room like a giant insect, and his bones clicked against the hardwood floor, percussion for a nightmare dance. His arm came up

just as I raised the .38, and as I turned to face him I thought that arm had become thicker and whiter as it descended toward me.

But the thing I saw wasn’t Charlie’s arm at all.

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It was Roger’s Louisville Slugger, and it came at me in a white-ash blur.

The bat slammed my wrist, and I lost the pistol. Charlie’s jaw

clacked open and closed, and the sound was castanet laughter as