48 - Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns (6 page)

Tabby picked up her trick-or-treat bag and turned to me. “You’ll have to do
better than this if you want to scare Lee and me,” she said with a sneer.

“We’re not scaredy-cats like you two,” Lee boasted.

Flames darted out of the pumpkin heads’ eyes. They both tilted their big
heads as they stared at Tabby and Lee.

How do they do that? I wondered. How do they control the flames? Do they have
some kind of remote control?

“Well, are we going to stand here and freeze? Or are we going to
trick-or-treat?” Tabby demanded.

“Let’s do
your
block,” I suggested to her.

Tabby started to reply—but a hiss of fire from the nearest pumpkin head
made her stop.

“Let’s go somewhere else,”
the jack-o’-lantern said from somewhere inside
the pumpkin head. His voice came out in a hoarse crackle. Too harsh to be a
whisper. A dry, choked sound.

“Somewhere else,”
his partner echoed. Her voice also came out in a hoarse
crackle. Like dry, dead leaves being crinkled together.

“Excuse me?” Lee cried.

“We know a better neighborhood,”
the first pumpkin head crackled. The
jagged mouth, cut through the thick pumpkin flesh, didn’t move. The voice hissed
from inside. The orange and yellow flames tossed in rhythm to the words.

“We know a better neighborhood.”

“A neighborhood you won’t forget.”

Tabby laughed. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, wow. Scary voices!” she said
sarcastically.

“Oooh, I’m shaking! I’m shaking!” Lee teased.

He and Tabby laughed together.

“Give us a break, guys,” Tabby said to the pumpkin heads. “Your costumes are
pretty good. But they didn’t scare us. So lose the creepy voices, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lee agreed. “Let’s go do some houses. It’s getting late.”

“Follow ussss,”
one of the pumpkin heads hissed.

“Follow us to a new neighborhood. A better neighborhood.”

They led the way down the street. Their big heads bounced on their shoulders
as they walked. The fire flickered from their heads, casting a glow like lighted
torches.

“What are they doing?” Walker whispered in my ear. “This isn’t in the plan.
Where are they taking us?”

I didn’t know.

We walked three blocks, heading away from our houses. We passed a row of big
stone houses set back on wide lawns behind tall hedges. The next block had an
empty lot where someone had started to build a house, and then stopped.

The two pumpkin heads walked quickly, taking long strides. Their heads
bounced on their shoulders. They kept their fiery faces straight ahead and
didn’t glance back at us.

“Where are we going?” Lee demanded, jogging to catch up to them. He tugged at
one of their shoulders. “You’re passing a lot of good houses across the street.”

The jack-o’-lantern creature didn’t slow down.
“Let’s try a new
neighborhood,”
he crackled.

“Yessssss,”
his partner hissed.
“A new neighborhood. A better
neighborhood. You’ll see.”

They led us past the empty lot. Past a row of small, dark houses.

“Where are we going?” Walker whispered. He motioned to Shane and Shana. “What is their problem? Why are they doing this?
They’re starting to scare
me
!”

“I’m sure they know what they’re doing,” I whispered back.

I gazed around the block. I didn’t see many other trick-or-treaters. It was
getting late, and most of the little kids had already gone home.

In the next driveway, two tall kids—a gorilla and a chubby clown—were
pawing through their trick-or-treat bags. They had their heads lowered to the
bags. We passed by them, and they didn’t even look up.

“Hey—we’re missing a lot of good houses!” Lee protested. He pointed to a
brick house on the corner. “Can we stop there? Those people always give out
handfuls of candy bars. Really. Handfuls!”

The pumpkin heads ignored him and kept walking.

“Hey—whoa! Stop!” Tabby demanded.

She and Lee both trotted up in front of the pumpkin heads.

“Stop! Come on—whoa!”

“A new neighborhood,”
one of them croaked.

“Let’s try a new neighborhood,”
the other one echoed.

“A better neighborhood.”

A chill ran down my back. Shane and Shana were acting so
weird.

I tugged my cape off a clump of weeds. The air suddenly felt colder, and
damp. I wrapped the cape around me.

Up ahead, Lee fiddled with his bee antenna. I saw that Tabby’s ballet
slippers were soaked with mud.

We followed the pumpkin heads across the street. And then they stepped off
the sidewalk and started into a dark woods.

Walker hurried up beside me. Even through his heavy makeup, I could see the
worried expression on his face. “Why are they taking us into the woods?” he
whispered.

I shrugged. “I guess they’re getting ready to scare Tabby and Lee.”

Twigs and dead leaves crackled under our shoes as we made our way between the
trees.

A frightening thought flashed into my mind. I suddenly pictured the four fat
people who had disappeared.

Four people. Vanished into thin air. Never seen again.

I remembered all of my mother’s warnings. I remembered how she told us to
stay where there were a lot of kids and a lot of bright lights.

I remembered how she didn’t even want me to go trick-or-treating tonight.

This is wrong, I realized.

Mom’s advice was smart. We shouldn’t be walking through the woods tonight, I
knew.

We shouldn’t be away from the street, away from the brightly lit houses.

We shouldn’t go off by ourselves like this in the dark, creepy woods.

“A new neighborhood,”
a pumpkin head crackled from up ahead.

“Just past these woods,”
the other one whispered.
“A really good
neighborhood. You’ll see.”

The light from inside their heads flickered over the dark tangles of bare
trees and tall weeds.

My heart began to thud. I hurried to keep up with the others.

Shane and Shana are good friends, I told myself.

I’m sure they know where they’re going.

But this isn’t what we planned. This isn’t what we planned at all.

Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?

“Shane! Shana! Give us a break!” Tabby complained shrilly. “Look at me! Look
at my ballerina skirt!”

She held up the front of the skirt. Even in the dim light, I could see the
mud stain on the front.

“We have to get out of these woods!” Tabby wailed angrily.

“Yeah. It’s too dark. And we’re wasting too much time,” Lee agreed.

His trick-or-treat bag got caught on a low tree limb. He tugged it hard to
pull it loose.

Shane and Shana ignored the complaints. The big, fiery pumpkins bouncing on
their shoulders, they made their way steadily and quickly through the darkness
of the woods.

A few minutes later, we stepped out onto a narrow street. Seeing the bright
street lights and rows of little houses, we all let out a happy cheer.

“Now we can trick-or-treat,”
one of the pumpkin heads croaked.

I turned my eyes up and down the street. I saw house after house, all small,
all on tiny lawns. Most of them had lights on in front. Many of them were
decorated for Halloween.

The houses stretched for blocks. Two rows of brightly lit little houses—as
far as I could see.

“This
is
an awesome neighborhood for trick-or-treating!” I declared,
starting to feel a lot better. A lot less frightened.

“Excellent!” Lee agreed. “We’ll clean up here!”

“Where are we?” Walker demanded. “How come I’ve never seen this neighborhood
before?”

No one answered him. We were all too eager to get started.

I pulled some wet leaves off my cape and straightened my mask. Tromping
through the woods had messed all of us up. We took a few seconds to get our
costumes in better shape.

Then the six of us hurried up to the first house.

A young woman carrying a baby in one arm came to the door. She dropped
miniature candy bars into our bags. The baby stared at the flaming pumpkin heads
and smiled.

At the next house, an elderly couple took forever getting to the door. “Trick
or treat!” we shouted at the top of our lungs. They raised their hands to their
ears. I guess they couldn’t stand the noise.

“I’m sorry. But we don’t have any candy,” the old woman said. She dropped nickels into our bags. A nickel per bag.

We hurried across the small yard to the next house. Two girls, about seven or
eight, greeted us at the door. “Awesome costumes!” one of them said to Shane and
Shana. They gave us little bags of M&M’s.

“This is cool!” Lee declared as we hurried to the next house.

“The houses are so close together,” Tabby added. “We can do a hundred houses
in no time!”

“Why didn’t we ever come here before?” Walker asked.

“Trick or treat!” we screamed as we rang the doorbell on the next house.

A teenaged boy with long blond hair and an earring in one ear answered the
door. He snickered at our costumes. “Cool,” he muttered. Then he dropped
packages of candy corn into our bags.

On to the next house. And the next and the next.

We did the next block, stopping at every house. Then we covered two more
blocks. The little houses seemed to stretch on forever.

My trick-or-treat bag was nearly full. We stopped at the corner because
Walker’s shoe had come untied. While he bent down to tie it, we all stopped to
catch our breath.

“Hurry up!”
a pumpkin urged Walker. Flames leaped angrily from his
eyeholes.

“Yesssss, hurry,”
the other one hissed.
“No time to wasssssste.”

“Give me a break,” Walker murmured. “I have a knot.”

As he struggled with his shoe, the two pumpkin heads bobbed and squirmed
impatiently.

Finally, Walker climbed to his feet and picked up his bulging trick-or-treat
bag. The pumpkin heads were already leading the way to the next block of houses.

“I’m getting a little tired,” I heard Lee whisper to Tabby. “What time is
it?”

“My bag is nearly full,” Tabby replied. With a groan, she shifted the heavy
bag to her other hand.

“Hurry,”
a pumpkin head insisted.
“Lots more houses to do.”

“Lotssssss,”
the other one hissed.

We did two more blocks. Both sides of the street. About twenty houses.

My bag was filled to the top. I had to carry it in both hands.

Walker’s shoelace had come undone again. When he bent to tie it, it ripped in
his hand.
“Now
what am I going to do?” he muttered.

“Hurry,”
a pumpkin head insisted.

“More houses.”

“I’m getting tired,” Tabby complained, loud enough for everyone to hear this
time.

“Me, too,” Lee agreed. “And this trick-or-treat bag is getting heavy.”

“Stupid shoelace,” Walker muttered, still bent over his shoe.

“I guess it
is
getting pretty late,” I said, gazing around. “I don’t
see any other trick-or-treaters. I think they’ve all gone home.”

I pulled off my cape. It was all tangled, and it was starting to choke me. I
balled it up and tucked it under my arm.

“More houses,”
one of the pumpkin heads whispered.

“Hurry. Lots more to do,”
the other one insisted in her dry, crackling
voice. The yellow flames danced inside her head.

“But we want to quit!” Lee whined.

“Yes. We’re done,” Tabby agreed shrilly.

“You can’t quit!”
a pumpkin head snapped.

“Huh?” Lee’s mouth dropped open.

“Keep going! You can’t quit!”
the pumpkin head insisted.

They both appeared to float up, to rise up over us. The fires raged in their
triangle eyes. The heads floated up over the dark, caped bodies.

“You can’t quit! You can’t EVER quit!”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Tabby rolled her eyes.

But I saw Lee step back in fear. His knees seemed to buckle, and he nearly
dropped his trick-or-treat bag.

“Another block,”
a pumpkin head insisted.

“Another block. And then another.”

“Whoa. Wait a minute!” Tabby protested. “You can’t boss us around like that.
I’m going home.”

She turned and started to walk away. But the two pumpkin heads moved quickly
to block her path.

“Let me go!” Tabby protested.

She darted sharply to the right. But the big pumpkin creatures floated with
her. Their fiery grins appeared to grow wider. Brighter.

The two of them began circling us, floating silently. They swirled around us,
faster and faster—until it looked as if we were surrounded by flames.

A wall of leaping flames all around us!

“You will obey!”
came the crackling command.

The flames pushed us from behind. Forced us forward.

We had no choice but to obey them. We were prisoners. Prisoners of their
fire.

An old man was standing at the door to the first house. He grinned at us as
we stepped onto his front stoop. “You kids are out kind of late—aren’t you?”
he asked.

“Kind of,” I replied.

He dropped packages of Chuckles into our bags.

“Hurry,”
a pumpkin head urged as we crossed the wet grass to the next
house.
“Hurry!”

Lee’s trick-or-treat bag was so heavy, he dragged it along the ground. I
carried mine in both hands. Tabby complained to herself, muttering and shaking
her head.

We did both sides of the block. I didn’t see any other kids out. No cars came
by. Some of the houses were turning out their lights.

“Hurry!”
a pumpkin head insisted.