The October 2009 Editor's Pick Story is by Chris Castle

Feel free to email Chris at: chriscastle76@hotmail.com

The Real-Time Boogey-Man

By Chris Castle

It was getting dark, and Martha peered out her front window, watching the other boys and girls trick or treat the town in their costumes. There were pumpkin heads, skeletons, pirates, and ghosts.

She picked out her favourite, an angel, and followed the child with her eyes. Martha watched as the angel scuffed up the dirt on the driveways on the street; watched her shut the broken gates as she waved goodbye to the houses. Then Martha watched the angel turn away from her own house. Just like the others, the angel wouldn’t trick or treat at her house, because of her pa.

Pa was working and not home until midnight, give or take. When he finally would get home, how many punches he gave depended upon how many beers he took.  She watched the kids in their costumes lean into each other, whispering. Every mum and dad had given their kids strict instructions not to knock on her door.

Martha knew the stories about her pa. The real-time boogey-man. She heard the whispers in class; whispers into shouts outside, graffiti on walls, notes in her locker. She knew them all by heart because she’d seen them all first hand. Martha moved away from the window, making sure she wasn’t seen. She slipped down against the wall and just sat there, inside her living room. Quiet to other kids was a treat to Martha.

She sat there for a long time, sometimes thinking, sometimes dreaming. When she opened her eyes, it was completely dark. She was hungry. She wished her pa kept some food in the house. But then she wished her pa was and wasn’t a lot of things.

She closed her eyes and tried to see her ma, whoever she was, wherever she was. Right now, this time, she imagined her ma was a pretty woman in a dress that came to her knees. A dress with daisies printed all the way through. Martha could always imagine the dress each time, even the legs, but never the face. It always managed to be a blur of sorts, like looking up into a sun so a person’s face becomes a shadow.

When Martha wasn’t thinking about her ma, she was thinking about the couple next door. The wife was young and beautiful; the husband was tall and honest. Martha knew things like this. She could tell by his eyes; they were so open and true, so different from her pa’s eyes.

Martha tried to let her neighbours know that she cared. She would sweep the leaves off their yard, or deliver their paper. Each day when Martha came back from school, the young wife would stand by her door and ask Martha about her day.

Martha wouldn’t spoil it by telling the truth. Instead she told her about a day she wanted but never had and the woman would nod along and smile at the end of it. It was the most perfect smile Martha had ever seen. Sometimes at night, she practised it. She didn’t have a mirror but she felt the smile, or a close one on the muscles of her mouth.

Pa said cruel things about the neighbours. Said the girl was ‘dusty’ and was jealous of him for having Martha. Usually she just ignored what he said, but this secretly upset her every time.

Sometimes Martha would turn down a drink of tea or an offer of food from the neighbours for fear of her pa coming back early and causing a scene, which she knew he’d have no shame in doing. But still the young wife offered hospitality. She never gave up on the thought that one time Martha would say yes, and Martha never gave up on the thought that the woman would keep on trying.

Sometimes Martha heard them talking or just laughing through the walls and she would put her ear to the wallpaper and join in with their conversation; finish what they were saying for them. Sometimes she felt the quiet fall when they began to kiss and she moved her head away softly; but not before she heard each of them say the other's name, tenderly, like she imagined lovers should. Sometimes, just sometimes, she said her own name just as softly, when the house was empty and she was alone, and imagined it was someone else speaking, someone who loved her, just for who she was and not what she represented or could do.

But now Martha pulled herself up from the living room floor, all alone, and rubbed her hungry stomach as she looked out into the street. The older boys and girls were out now. Martha thought the older kids were less fun and they were meaner in the way they played, and Martha knew she’d hear the sound of smashing pumpkins or even breaking glass soon enough. Her stomach rumbled and she couldn’t help thinking about the bins people kept out the back of their yards, full of food scraps not good enough for them and too good for foxes. Just about right for a broke girl in an empty house.

But them she remembered the night the Brayden baby saw her grabbing out of their yard and how the poor thing started crying. How bad Martha had felt scaring her, how ashamed she was that it came to this; something else too, some crazy fear the baby would rat her out somehow, in her eyes or something and she’d be found out.

“Hi,” came a voice, bringing her out of her thoughts. Martha looked out the window and saw a young man standing on her porch, a year or two older than Martha.

Amazed that anyone would trick or treat at her house, she opened the door. Then she realized that the boy wasn’t wearing a costume, just a rock band t-shirt and jeans. The colours were drained like a cheap photo but the words were holding even if they were a little blurred.

“Hi. I like that band, too.” Martha said. She nodded down to his chest but he didn’t look down.

“They’re okay. It was my brothers t-shirt. I’d borrowed it on that day. Your name’s Martha.” He said it as an answer rather than a question.

“Do I know you? And you are?” she asked.

“Mark. Mark Simpson.” He almost took a step forward but rocked on the balls of his heels.

And then Martha recognized him. She led him inside her house and shut the door behind him. She slipped back down the wall of the living room to sit. It wasn’t that it had become colder, but something different was in the air.

“You don’t look like how I thought a ghost would look,” she said.

“I don’t feel like how a ghost should feel, most times.” He shrugged and sat down in the middle of the room. He moved in one fluid motion, rather than legs or arms, like water coming out of a tap.

“How do you feel?” she asked. She didn’t whisper, she didn’t shout. She knew he could hear her.

“Happy. Except when I have to scare.” He smiled; his mouth didn’t part, his teeth didn’t show, but there was a warmth in him that told her he was smiling.

“That’s too bad,” she said, moving into a more comfortable way of sitting. She watched the way he seemed to shift even when he sat still. She liked watching him; it was like watching someone made of sand getting caught in a little breeze.

“It’s okay. I get shown what they’ve done and it makes me want to…act, I guess. It’s easier since I know what your pa’s done.” He craned his neck, looked around her room.

“You gonna scare my pa?” she asked.

He nodded.

“You know what he’s done. To me. He's the real-time boogey-man.” She forced the last part out, caught in her throat a little. He nodded again.

He looked about as sorry as anyone ever did. As soon as she said it she started to feel bad. She didn’t want to make anyone feel sad. She recognised the look too easily.

He edged closer, so their knees were nearly touching, and said,“I mean, just because I'm dead doesn’t mean I'm bad or anything, right?”

She shook her head. In fact, she had thought about that every Halloween when the kids ran round shouting and hollering. Where were the good deed ghosts?

He continued, “I suppose you got your bad apples in death, but that happens in life, too, right?” His fingers appeared above hers all of a sudden. His eyes cooled as he looked her over and said, “You gonna miss him?”

There was a beat. She didn’t look away. Even the silence changed a little with him in the room, like it was alive or something, even though he was not. Martha liked the way he made ordinary things seem different just by being there. Made her think of possibilities.

“No, I won’t miss my pa.” It was true. She’d thought it through well enough.

And then Mark stood up. “You got leave right now?” she asked, feeling desperation creep back in.

“No, I’m not leaving yet, but you should go,” Mark said. “Maybe you could join the trick or treaters for a while. I don’t think you should be here when, well, you know.”

“Mark, I’m not sure you’re cut out for being bad.” Martha wished he was in her class. She didn’t mind him being dead, all things considered. At least he was kind. She’d rather have a dead friend than a breathing enemy, she figured.

“I’m not bad,” he said.

Silently she agreed with him. Considerate. That was the word she was thinking about him.

“I went to your school once, Martha,” he told her.

“I remember.” She blushed and if she didn’t know better she thought she saw something light in him too, something warm. She went to say something but then stopped herself. Instead she just stood with him, the two of them smiling and she thought: this is how it could be, if we all got the chance to be happy.

“Happy birthday,” he told her.

There was a moment when his smile was lit too brightly and she had to close her eyes and when she opened them again, he had faded from view. She stood there for a long second. There was no trace of him, no sign or scuffmark, but she knew he was still there. Because he had some scaring to do.

She was still standing, her throat still dry from talking maybe as long as she ever had. It had happened. She looked down and there was no mark where he had touched her hand but there was warmth. She knew it because she’d never felt it before. She leaned down and reached for her jacket. It was red and she figured it was almost a trick or treating jacket.

Martha dallied for a while out in the night, passing time. Then she made her way down to her neighbours’ house and found candy placed outside in a bowl. It was late now and she carried the whole bowl with her, promising herself she would return it the next morning. She walked up to her back door and let herself in.

The house was quiet even though there was a breeze from the open front door. It was quiet even though two empty bottles were on the table and a coat had been slung on the kitchen floor. It was quiet even though it was past midnight.

She sat down in the kitchen and ate the Halloween treats, which were truly tasty, but she saved one special piece of candy and put it in her pocket. She put the plate in the sink and took one long breath. Then she walked into the living room and braced herself for what she knew she would find there.

*****

The next morning, Martha took the empty candy bowl outside. As she walked to her neighbours’ house, she saw discarded masks, smashed pumpkins, and scattered candy wrappers in the street. People weren’t born careless but got that way; that’s what the trash collector, Robbie, always said. And it was true. People didn’t know how much they had if they threw things away.

Martha understood that; it was the same as having nothing and then being offered a chance. Like inheriting a house on the day she legally turned into an adult, whatever that meant. She’d been old and adult for too many years already.

It was time for a bad luck baby, born on Halloween, to have a little fortune. She would sell the house, since she didn’t want to ever go back there.

As she brought the empty candy bowl back, the young wife was at her door. She hugged Martha without saying a word and Martha thought: I could stay here, right here, in all this warmth for the rest of my life.

The tall, honest husband came to the door and smiled at her, and asked her to come in for tea, and Martha thought: These two are who I will miss. Just these two and no one else.

But for now she just smiled back to the only two people who’d ever smiled to her and drank tea right along with them. So it had happened: Martha finally accepted her neighbours' invitation for tea.

And Martha talked with her neighbors. The only thing she would keep a secret would be Mark. That would stay with her, Martha decided, as she put her free hand into her jacket pocket to touch the piece of candy she had saved; the one for Mark, in case he ever came back again. Just like the first time he had come back.

Chris Castle

Chris Castle has been published in over thirty publications and is currently working on new stories as well as a full length novel. He is influenced by the works of PT Anderson, Tom Waits and Ray Carver. Chris is also working a a set of poetry and hopes to collaborate in the future with fellow horror writer, Paul Edwards.