Pumpkin (2 page)

“Want some coffee?” she said.

“No, I’m okay.” He gulped the drink, then refilled his glass.

Vera took another deep breath. “You’re not okay.”

David shrugged. “Have it your own way. I’ve got no job and no prospects. Winter’s coming, we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, and God knows what happens next year when we run out of savings. Is it any wonder I’m uptight?”

“That part I can understand. But since we came here you act as if you were afraid of something—”

“Afraid? You’re imagining things.”

“I think you’re the one who’s imagining. That look you had when I said Billy was across the road tonight. And other times, when you just stare out the window.”

David scowled. “I told you I never wanted to live here in the first place. It gives me the creeps.”

“What does?”

He lowered his glass. It was empty, and so was the expression in his eyes. “All right. I didn’t want to say anything but it’s probably better than letting you think I don’t have both oars in the water.” He sighed and leaned back. “If you must know, this isn’t the first time I’ve come to live here.”

“David—you never told me that—”

“I never told anyone. But a long time ago, when my mother took sick after the divorce, I spent a summer and part of the fall with my aunt and uncle in this house. I was just about Billy’s age then. So you see, I know.”

“Know what?”

“About the place across the road. The first thing Uncle George did was warn me never to go over there, because the old man didn’t like strangers.”

“Who was he talking about?”

“Jed Holloway. He lived on the property all alone, ever since anyone around here could remember. Uncle George moved in here right after he and Aunt Louise were married, but he said that even then Jed Holloway was an old man. God only knows how long he’d been there or what he did to keep going. Maybe he raised enough food from his vegetable garden, because nobody ever saw him at the stores in town. Folks said he had a wife once, and after she died he never left the place, just boarded up all the windows like they are today. If the salesmen or anybody else showed up he’d run them off the property with a shotgun.”

“Didn’t anyone ever do anything about it?”

David shrugged. “Like what? It was his place. If he wanted to cut off the water and electricity that was his own affair. He had an old well and an outhouse in back, and he must have used candles in the house because some nights you could see lights flickering from cracks between the boards on the windows. It wasn’t as if he was breaking any law—just an old coot who went off his rocker when he lost his wife. Maybe he lost a kid too, because she was supposed to have died in childbirth. That would explain why he hated children so much.

“I know he hated me. Playing in the yard here, sometimes I saw him puttering around in his garden, mumbling to himself. I’d never seen anyone talking to empty air before and it scared me. The way he looked was pretty scary, too—tall and skinny, with long white hair down to his shoulders and a beard that hid all of his face except the eyes. That was the worst, those eyes of his, glaring at me when he noticed I was playing outside. I’ll never forget it, him standing there dressed in rags like some kind of scarecrow come to life, a scarecrow with little red-rimmed eyes staring—”

David broke off and reached for the bottle again.

“So that’s why you didn’t want to come here again,” Vera said.

David finished pouring and raised his glass. “There are other reasons. Oh, I never believed those stories floating around about Holloway getting into magic and practicing witchcraft. That stuff about his putting curses on people and making spells to wither their crops and kill off cattle sounded pretty wild even then, and nobody ever proved anything. I probably would have gotten used to how he looked and acted if it hadn’t been for Halloween.”

David drank, then sat back. From the hall beyond, the ticking of the grandfather’s clock echoed through the silence.

Vera leaned forward. “Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”

“Jed Holloway left the house,” David said. “That’s what happened. Two other kids and myself, we were playing out by the barn after supper and we saw him come out and start walking into the woods behind his house. He was carrying an armful of candles and something that looked like a big book—black, with metal bands around it.

“These kids I was playing with, Tom and Terry, were older than me, and I guess they’d heard all those stories. Tom told us Holloway was going down into the woods to pray to the Devil. That’s what witches and wizards did on Halloween, they prayed to the Devil and conjured up ghosts and demons.

“Terry didn’t buy that. He said there were no such things as witches or ghosts and Jed Holloway was crazy as a bedbug. The way he acted, chasing kids and yelling at them and all, maybe it was time to teach him a lesson. So later that night, after dark, we did it.”

“What did you do?”

“We tipped over Jed Holloway’s outhouse.”

Vera started to laugh, but David’s face was grim.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Of course it is.”

David nodded. “So did we, at first. I remember the way we kept giggling when we sneaked across the road. It was a moonless night, everything dark and still. Not quite everything, because far away through the trees we could see little glimmers of light. Tom said Jed Holloway must be off in the woods down there lighting his candles, and sure enough we did hear a voice that sounded like someone saying a prayer, very solemn and deep.

“That sobered us a little, that and the way the shadows seemed to move in the darkness around the outhouse up ahead. Then we set to work and forgot about being scared. The outhouse was old and rickety and quite small, but prying it loose from the foundation with a shovel was a big job for kids our age. And when we did, the next problem was how to tip it over without making a racket.

“Only noise wasn’t that much of a problem after all, because all at once a cold wind began to whistle through the trees. It seemed to come from somewhere back in the woods and Terry said we were in for a storm. Sure enough, the sky was pitch-black overhead and we could hear thunder growling off in the hills.

“But we didn’t mind, since it drowned out the creaking when we started to lift the outhouse and tilt it over on its side. Then, just as we got ready to ease it down, lightning turned everything green and there was a clap of thunder so close and loud it almost deafened us.

“One thing for sure, it scared the hell out of Tom and Terry. They let go of their hold and took off for the road, leaving me standing there trying to balance the damned thing all by myself. I guess I was too startled to move. Then the lightning flashed again and I looked up over my shoulder.

“Jed Holloway was standing there at the edge of the woods, and he
was
the lightning. It was playing all around his body like green fire, playing around his hair and beard and his little, red pig eyes. Only it wasn’t just around—the lightning seemed to be coming
from
his eyes. Then he opened his mouth and the thunder boomed right out of his throat.

“I let go of the outhouse and it dropped back into place on its foundation. At least I think it did, but I didn’t wait to see. I turned and ran and the lightning followed me, stabbing into the ground at my heels. I swear one bolt came so close it grazed the hairs on my neck.

“The next thing I remember was blubbering in my bed, with Uncle George and Aunt Louise trying to calm me down. Of course they didn’t believe what I told them. They even dragged me over to the bedroom window so I could look for myself. By this time the storm was howling and the rain kept coming down in buckets, but I saw that the old farmhouse was completely dark and Jed Holloway had disappeared.

“They tried to tell me he’d never been there, that it was all just my imagination, but I knew better. And when they realized I wouldn’t go outside to take the school bus the next day or the day after, they finally decided to pack me up and ship me back to my mother in town.” David forced a smile. “So that’s the way it was.”

“Was,”
Vera said. “Not
is.”
She met his gaze. “Look, David, I understand, really I do. Living with that traumatic experience bottled up inside you all these years must have been a terrible thing. But it’s over now and you’ve got to realize that. You’re not a kid anymore, and Jed Holloway is long dead and gone.”

She rose briskly, glancing at her watch. “Look at the time! We’d better get to bed.”

David’s hand curled around the bottle. “Ill be up later.”

Vera hesitated. “Sure you don’t want me to sit with you a while longer?”

“Of course not. I’ll be all right now that I’ve gotten this out of my system. Thanks for being such a good psychiatrist.”

“Come up soon.” Vera smiled. “I may be able to offer you another kind of therapy.”

era’s smile faded quickly once she got upstairs. She’d done her best not to let David see how his story had disturbed her—not what he said, but the way he said it. Maybe telling all this would really help him; she hoped so.

Of course there was nothing to be alarmed about, but just the same she looked in on Billy before going on to the other bedroom. He was sound asleep.

That relieved her, and by the time she’d undressed and slid under the covers the tension began to ease. Now, if only David would come up—

The grandfather’s clock tolled the hours in the hall. Windows rattled in reply, and somewhere a door groaned on rusty hinges. Vera snuggled back against her pillow, fighting a sudden childish impulse to bury her head beneath it.

No wonder David had a hang-up about returning here. To a small boy, suddenly being torn away from his home and family was a disturbing experience; living here in this lonely old house must have been an ordeal for him.

Vera sighed, shifting her head on the pillow. Thank heaven Billy didn’t seem to have that problem—

“Mommy!”

Vera levered upright in sudden shock, alarm propelling her out of bed and into the hall.

“Mommy—”

The shrill cry rose again as she raced into Billy’s room. Crouching amidst the tangled covers he turned to her, eyes alive with terror. Vera sank to the side of the bed and he buried his contorted face against her breast.

“There now, it’s all right.” Her fingers smoothed tousled hair, soothed trembling shoulders.

“That’s better,” she said. “What happened?”

Billy moved back on the bed, eyes darting around the room. “Where is he?”

“Nobody’s here, nobody but us. You can see for yourself.”

The boy stiffened. “No, he’s coming—can’t you hear him?”

And she did hear something, the sound of footsteps from the hall. For a moment Vera panicked, then relaxed as David entered.

Billy looked up. “Dad—did you see him?”

“See who?”

“That man. The one who was looking at me through the window.”

David strode across the room and stared out into the night. “Nobody’s outside,” he said. “Look—the window’s locked.”

“But he was here.” Billy’s lower lip quivered. “He was standing there, outside.”

“Now you know better than that.” David turned, shaking his head. “We’re upstairs here, on the second floor. So how could anyone be standing outside?”

Vera held Billy close. “It was only a bad dream,” she said.

“No!” The boy pulled away. “I saw him! This old man—he had long white hair and a beard and little red eyes staring at me—”

Seeing the fear in Billy’s face was all Vera could bear. Luckily for her, she couldn’t see David’s.

avid’s face was haggard in the hazy afternoon sunlight filtering through the parlor window. No wonder he was beat today; it had been a rough night before they got Billy calmed down and back to sleep again, and there’d been little enough rest for him afterward.