Chapter 6

The Halloween festivities were scheduled to start in two hours, and the haunted house was ready for business. For now, it was closed as the people who would work in it took the time to relax before the busy evening. The kids, on the way home from school, gathered outside the haunted house speculating about what they might see this year. Some of the younger kids looked at it with fear as the older kids teased them with horror stories and rumors of what would be inside. Watching them, Ed couldn’t help but smile. A simple reminder that everyone needed to be in costume, sent the kids running home.

With nothing to do, Ed walked over to the bar to visit Shirley and help her with any preparations that she might have for the evening. Entering the bar, he found Shirley sitting with the rest of her family. Shirley was holding the younger of their two kids in her lap and was kissing it on the top of her head. Edward was bouncing their son, John, on his leg giving him a ride. Both of the kids were beaming from the attention being given them.

Mary, sitting with her back to the door, was describing her job in the haunted house. She was stationed in a dark booth in the part reserved for the older kids and adults. This part of the haunted house included air jets that when aimed at someone’s back felt like a cold hand touching their back. Her job was to trigger the jets and show a holographic ghost behind the intended victim.

Shirley noticed Ed come in the bar and winked at him as he snuck up behind Mary. When he blew a puff of air on her back, a very startled Mary almost flew out of the chair. She let loose a scream and turned to look at Ed. With false anger, she tapped him on the arm and shouted, “You nasty man! You scared the daylights out of me.”

Laughing at the success of his little joke, Ed said, “I came over here to see if Shirley needed any help for tonight.”

Waving a hand in a gesture of dismissal, Shirley said, “The nursery is all set up. We’ve got a dozen cribs and two dozen sleeping mats for the young ones. It’s amazing how many young children there are in town, now.”

Sidney Fitzpatrick petted his seeing eye dog, Timmy, and said, “It might be that people have remembered how to love each other in this town.”

Shaking his head in wonder at the kinds of things going on in town, Edward said, “I saw a couple, in their sixties, making out in the park the other day. The man had his hand inside her shirt as they were lying on the ground listening to music. They looked like a couple of teenagers.”

Giggling, Mary said, “That was Manuel and his wife. I saw her giving him a blow job a little later behind the concession stand.”

Putting his hands over his ears as though to block out all sound, Sidney said, “Now that is something this little monkey wishes he could have seen.”

The gesture of putting his hands over his ears puzzled Ed and he asked, “What’s with the hands over the ears?”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Two out of three isn’t bad,” explained Mary as she reached over and fondled Sidney’s crotch. She winked at Ed and said, “You should see what he does when I start talking dirty to him.”

Ed laughed at the mental image that conjured. He could see Sidney trying to fill his mouth with her breast while she talked dirty to him. Sitting back in the chair, Ed looked at the family gathered there. They were six very happy people that were well satisfied with their lives. The idea made him wonder why there weren’t more people that had achieved that same level of happiness and satisfaction in their lives.

Dr. Hayes followed by Ling and Kelly carrying the babies came into the bar. When Ling spotted Ed, she said, “There you are. We were looking all over for you.”

Looking sheepish, Ed replied, “Just finished with the haunted house test runs and came over here to help.”

Going over to the bar, Dr. Hayes set his medical bag on the counter. He and Kelly were going to watch over the nursery so that parents and the older children could enjoy the festivities. They had done that the previous year and everyone in town had appreciated knowing that a doctor and a nurse were watching over their kids. Looking over at Ed, he asked, “You promise there won’t be any heart attacks because of that scary house you built?”

“I promise,” answered Ed laughing at the doctor.

Dr. Hayes had asked that question last year, but ended up going through the haunted house at least four times last Halloween.

Arms tired from holding her, Kelly set Beth on the floor. Free of her mother, Beth walked around the table wobbling very little. She paused to check her brother, resting comfortable in Ling’s arms, before going over to the slightly older John riding on Edward’s leg. When John saw Beth, he immediately hid his head against his father’s chest. After a few seconds, he turned to peek at Beth who stared at him in confusion.

Ed watched the interaction between Beth and John with interest. This was the first time that she had been in a situation where she was meeting another kid her age and it was clear that she didn’t know how to proceed. Finally after watching John for a minute, she said, “Hello.”

John buried his head further into his father’s chest. Watching the reaction of Beth, Kelly said, “He’s shy.”

“What’s shy?”

“He’s afraid to meet you,” answered Kelly with a little smile.

“Strange.”

After staring at Beth for a minute, Shirley turned to Kelly and said, “Her verbal skills are very highly developed.”

Even though the statement was targeted at Kelly, Ed said, “I was reading a book on infant development the other day. In some areas, she appears to have the cognitive development of a two-year-old. Physically, she’s a year old and her motor skills reflect that.”

Getting bored with John, Beth wandered around the bar checking out the sights. Finding the pile of toys, she squealed with delight. Sitting on the floor, she started building things with some small wooden blocks. Seeing what was going on, Kelly smiled and said, “She loves wooden blocks.”

Mary asked, “How about dolls?”

Dr. Hayes said, “She has several dolls and only plays with one of them. The problem is the fathers. They play with blocks.”

“Hey, I like playing with the blocks,” replied Ed as he looked over at Beth as she built another arch. Because all of the blocks were square, the closest she could get was a lintel. Watching her, he got an idea to get some blocks made that would allow her to construct a real arch. With a little pride, he said, “The other day she built a hollow pyramid.”

Shirley looked over at Ed like he was speaking Greek, or perhaps more accurately Egyptian. With a question in her voice, she said, “I take it that is significant.”

Surprised, Ed looked up and said, “I bet there are ten year old kids that couldn’t do that. It’s actually a very sophisticated structure that uses balancing forces to keep it from collapsing.”

Laughing at the passion of Ed, Kelly said, “Ed is disappointed because Beth is more interested in Physics than Geology.”

With a smile, Ed replied, “Wait until I take her out rock hunting, then we’ll see her change her mind.”

Dr. Hayes interjected, “Just wait until Leroy starts taking her to watch the animals. You and John won’t stand a chance.”

John climbed off his father’s lap and went over to where Beth was playing with the blocks. He watched her building some structure, but after a minute knocked it down as he said, “Mine.”

All of the adults turned their attention to the interaction between the two children. Beth frowned at the abrupt actions of John and asked, “Really?”

“Mine.”

Shirley started to get up to talk with John, but Kelly put a hand on her arm. Surprised, the mother looked over at Kelly and said, “I’ll have to teach him to share.”

“There are more ways for that to happen than direct intervention by the parent.”

Beth said, “They are nice.”

“Mine.”

“Is that the only word you know?” asked Beth confused by the singular response to every thing she said.

“No.”

Beth stood with her hands on her hips, mimicking the same position her mother used when she was upset about something. Disturbed, she grabbed John by the hand and led him to the table where her parents were seated. For a minute she looked from Kelly to Ed with concentrated deliberation. Finally, she pulled him over to Ed. Taking John’s hand she reached out and touched it to the medallion. Her action took both of her parents by surprise.

John stood there for a moment and then said, “Let’s play.”

The two kids returned to the pile of toys. Within minutes, they were playing with the blocks on the floor. Beth would point to a block and John would fetch it for her. They played quietly as Beth worked to recreate the structure that she had been building earlier. Watching them, a fascinated Shirley asked, “What just happened?”

Frowning as he tried to understand what had happened, Ed replied, “I’m not sure, but I think she took the matter to the Two-Sided One.”

Looking over at Little John, Mary was quiet and said, “I would rather not question it.”

Two women and a man came into the bar with another child. Setting the child down, they watched as he walked over to where Beth and John were playing. The two children greeted him and incorporated him into their activities. Their arrival caused Ed to check the time and say, “It’s time to get over to the haunted house. The kids will be coming soon and we have to do the makeup on our volunteers.”

Mary and Sidney went over to the haunted house with Ed. Mary helped wrap Sidney in the strips of bandages so that he could be a proper mummy. The seeing eye dog sat in the corner watching the proceedings with interest. While Mary did that, Ed was busy with Ling putting makeup on the volunteers from the retirement home. Mrs. Hayes was already in her witches costume and was talking with the children that had stopped by to see how much longer it would be before the haunted house opened.

It wasn’t long before everyone was ready for the haunted house to open. It operated on a schedule with first graders allowed in for the first half an hour. The second graders were allowed in the next half-hour. Each hour, making the rooms darker, adding special effects and more interactions with the volunteers increased the scariness of the exhibit. By the time the high school students would go through it, the haunted house would be very scary.

Mrs. Hayes started letting the kids into the house, allowing a group of five with their parents to enter at a time. All of the kids were in costumes. The first room was poorly lit and as the door closed behind the kids, the people waiting in line could hear them scream as the floor shook. Later in the evening, the room would go completely dark.

After a moment, a door opened leading them to a witch’s glade where a volunteer dressed like a witch was stirring a bubbling caldron of apple cider. The bubbling was caused by small pieces of dry ice in the brew. As she filled small cups with the cider, the witch cackled, “This witches brew shall make some of you tall and others small. Go through the door to the right to grow and to the left to shrink!”

Most of the kids waited for their parents to tell them that it was okay to drink the potion. It didn’t take long for them to finish the little cups of drink. Surprisingly, all of the kids threw their empty paper cups into the caldron labeled trash. Later in the evening, the display would be darkened and the witch would appear to cast a spell on one of the people turning them into a toad.

The next room was designed with the proportions all wrong so that kids on one side of the room looked like giants and those on the other looked like midgets. At first, the kids looked in horror believing they had actually shrunk or grown, but then realized that a trick had been played on them. The kids screamed in pleasure as they raced around the room, going from large to small and back again. This room would be turned into an elf camp for the bigger kids. Of course, the elves would play practical jokes on the teenagers.

An old man dressed like Dracula entered the room at the far end and directed the group into a darker room. This room was decorated with coffins and covered mirrors. Some of the kids moved closer to their parents as they wondered if this was truly a vampire. As he led them past a wooden coffin filled with rubber bats and plastic spiders, Dracula said, “One and one alone may you take. More than that and I’ll suck your blood.”

Under the watchful eye of Dracula, each kid took a toy out of the caldron. When one of the kids, trying to be brave, took two toys, Dracula smiled and said, “Now I feed upon a child!”

As Dracula slowly approached, the kid immediately dropped the second toy back into the coffin. After he returned to his mother’s side, another door opened and the group moved out of the room.

They entered an Egyptian tomb complete with mummy. As he started to step from a sarcophagus, Sidney shouted, “Who dares risk the curse of the mummy?”

The movement of the mummy was enough to scare the young kids from the room. In a mad dash, they all raced to the exit. At the exit, a good fairy dressed in a long flowing gown with very delicate wings greeted them. She gave them all little bags of candied corn in a large trick or treat bag. After that, she waved her wand over them all and said, “You are protected from bad dreams!”

The kids immediately dispersed to go trick-or-treating with dreams of filling their bags with sweets. Most of the items to go into the bags would be little toys, skeletons, rings, stickers, and other items that young kids would enjoy. Many of the store owners had agreed that the last thing anyone wanted was a lot of kids, hyped up on sugar, running around town. It was a sentiment that was shared by the parents.

At five, the costume contest for children that weren’t in school yet was held. The variety and complexity of costumes was surprising, but most amazing was the fact that none of the costumes were store bought. As Halloween had become more of a community event, entire families worked to costume their children. There were kids dressed up like battleships, rockets, clocks, vampires, princesses, and fantasy characters of all kinds.