The old man turned into the main road of the town. A great sign, immaculately carved from a single piece of wood in the shape of a pumpkin, and still retaining its clean, hand-painted luster, read: WELCOME TO OCTOBERVILLE, POP: 10,031.

  There were trick-or-treaters everywhere: children and adults in full costume, vampires, mummies, aliens, devils with pitchforks, and sea monsters, all laughing and running in the streets, giving each other candy. For some reason, the sight made Tom’s heart pound. A line of dead-looking oak trees dominated the street and hundreds of orange lights dangled between them on clumpy lines of cobweb. Adults wore painted monster faces, while some children wore monster masks. Elsewhere, a group of men in queer robes led a procession, handing out treats and cakes to the children. Tom saw one child bite into a cake to find a large eyeball inside. The child swallowed it whole. Tom was amazed at how realistic the candy and costumes all looked. The truck pulled up on the side of the road and at first, Tom was afraid to get out.

  “I’ll take you up to the sheriff’s office and you can phone from there,” Vernon told Tom.

  Tom climbed out of the truck and everyone stopped to stare at him. Werewolf children, with their witch mothers and fanged fathers.

  “Well, who’s that you got there, Vernon?”

  A rotund man, dressed as a zombie, complete with exposed intestines, stepped up to them. Tom took a step back when he got a look at the man’s shredded form.

  “Well, hey there Mayor Kirkman. This here is Tom. I found him on the highway just past the cemetery. He had himself an accident.”

  The Mayor’s torn lips drooped. “Well, ain’t that a crying shame.”

  Tom scanned all the Halloween revelers. “I…uh, was hoping to use a phone, to call home. My wife and son will be wondering where I am.”

  Mayor Kirkman smiled, but his bottom lip still hung low. Tom thought his makeup was astounding. “Of course, of course,” he said. “I’ll take you up to see the sheriff.”

  “Uh…thank you.”

  The Mayor addressed the crowd. “Okay everyone, back to it now.”

  The crowd dispersed; the laughter and frivolity coming back on like a switch. The zombified Mayor put a decrepit arm around Tom’s shoulder and led him into town. Tom didn’t know where to look; he’d never seen so much Halloween in all his life, particularly amongst adults.

  “So, Tom, you had an accident you say?” the Mayor asked.

  “Yeah, I was driving back home from a conference and this…animal ran out in front of my car. I tried to swerve to avoid hitting it and ended up colliding with a tree.”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that, Tom. I see you’ve taken a knock on the head. We might have to get our town doctor to take a look at you.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Mayor Kirkman patted Tom on the back. “No trouble at all,” he said. “Here’s the sheriff’s office. I’ll introduce you, but then I’ll have to get straight back into the festivities.”

  “You sure do get into the spirit of the holiday.”

  Kirkman smiled that ghoulish smile. “Every day is Halloween in Octoberville, Tom.”

  They opened the door to the sheriff’s office and Tom saw a man seated at a desk, dressed in a black and white puritan costume, complete with a tall hat. Even the law seemed to be obsessed with Halloween.

  “Ah, Sheriff Price, we’ve got a newcomer,” Mayor Kirkman said. “He says he had an accident on the road, just past the cemetery. Old Vernon found him.”

  The sheriff stood and Tom was taken aback by how tall and imposing he was. “Truly?” the sheriff said.

  “Ah, where are my manners?” the mayor said. “Tom, this is Sheriff Price. I’ll leave you in his very capable hands. Sheriff, I’ll see you later at the cauldron.”

  The sheriff nodded and the mayor shambled out the door, getting back into character. Tom swallowed hard as Octoberville’s obsession started to get the better of him.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Tom?” Sheriff Price said. “You must be exhausted.”

  “Uh, thanks. Yes, I am a bit.” Tom sat and saw the old turn-dial telephone on the desk. “I was really hoping to call my family. Let them know what’s happened.”

  The sheriff opened a large leather book and dipped a quill pen in a jar of ink. “All in good time; right now, I need to record your accident.”

  “Please, Sheriff, I just need to call home.”

  The sheriff kept writing in large cursive letters. “What is your surname?”

  “Uh, Crane.”

  “And what is your profession?”

  “I’m…I’m a marketing manager for a sales company.”

  “What does your company sell?”

  “Knife sets.”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “Interesting… So tell me how you crashed your vehicle?”

  “An animal ran out in front of me and I swerved to miss it and ended up crashing into a tree.”

  The sheriff looked at Tom, his eyes narrowed. “An animal?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did it look like?”

  Tom’s headache returned, the throb beating in time with his frantic heart. “I don’t know. It happened so fast. Please, I just need to call home.”

  The Sheriff reached for the telephone. “I’ll call Dr. Steiner so he can check on you.”

  Tom watched the sheriff dial. “I want to call my wife.”

  The sheriff ignored him. “Dr. Steiner, this is Sheriff Price. If you could come down to my office, we’ve got a walk-in who might have a concussion.” He put down the phone and considered Tom again, his pale gaze more scrutinizing.

  “The animal—exactly how tall was it?”

  “How tall? Uh… Look I really don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Mr. Crane, it might be very important.”

  Tom shrugged and fidgeted; the sheriff’s questions and tone were becoming invasive. “I’m sorry, that’s all I can tell you.”

  The door opened and a bespectacled man in a white lab coat entered. He carried a large, black leather medical bag. He looked too young and unkempt to be a doctor, Tom thought.

  “Well, well, who do we have here?” the doctor said with a high-pitched, grating timbre.

  “This is Mr. Tom Crane,” the sheriff said. “He was in a car accident and bumped his head.

  The doctor bent in close and Tom could see wildness in his eyes. “Bumped his head, eh? Perhaps some injury to the brain?” He leaned to touch at Tom’s head wound, and Tom flinched.

  “He also may have seen the beast,” the sheriff added, and this piqued the doctor’s interest.

  “The beast-man?” he said, before looking to Tom. “You saw the beast-man?”

  Tom scrambled to his feet and backed away. “What the hell is wrong with you people? I think you’re taking Halloween a little too seriously.”

  The sheriff stood and folded his arms behind his back. “Please take a seat Mr. Crane, so Dr. Steiner can examine you.”

  Dr. Steiner sneered and tittered. His eyes were wide and ogling. “Yes, come on Mr. Crane, let Dr. Steiner take a good look at you.”

  “No, no thank you.” The two men stepped closer, as if they knew he intended to run. “I think I’ll just make my way back to the highway.

  “The highway isn’t safe,” Steiner said. “The beast-man is always hungry on Halloween!”

  Tom turned and ran for the door. He burst out into the street and met a wall of people. The entire town must have been standing outside the sheriff’s office, waiting, watching and listening. All their macabre faces locked on his.

  “Get back!” Tom said. “All of you get back!”

  “Tom, come now, I think you need to calm down.”

  It was Mayor Kirkman; he dragged himself through the crowd towards him. He tried to give Tom a comforting smile, but his face seemed so rotten.

  “Stay away from me!”

  The mayor held out his peeling hands. “Tom it’s okay. Everyone finds Octoberville strange at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

  Tom ran. He knocked over a man who looked like Frankenstein’s monster, but the crowd didn’t retaliate. They simply parted and let him through. As he ran down the street towards the road that led to the highway, he heard Mayor Kirkman tell Vernon to go after him. Tom’s head pounded with each step, with each breath, but he had to keep going. The people of Octoberville were insane. He imagined that if they caught him they would sacrifice him to the devil or some great jack-o’-lantern.

  Legs aching, Tom glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming and thankfully, there was nobody in sight. He reached the highway and ran in the direction he’d come. He knew Hayward was at least fifteen miles away, but he hoped a car would stop and help him.

  He ran for what seemed like forever. The glowing pumpkins either side of the road appeared to laugh at his misfortune. Just when he began to tire, the cemetery came into view, spurring him on. He had to get as far away from Octoberville, from the Halloween madness.

  A guttural growl had him whirl on his feet. Behind him, less than six feet away, stood what had to be the beast-man. In the light of the full moon, Tom saw that its face, hands and feet were covered in fur, but it wore a button-up shirt and trousers. Drool slipped from its large fangs, and Tom screamed.

  “No! No! Don’t scream, please!” the beast-man said. It held up its paws to placate him.

  Tom thought his heart was going to stop.

  “Please, don’t scream,” the beast-man said. “I don’t like it when they scream.”

  “Don’t…don’t eat me,” Tom said, but the words trailed off. The beast-man became a blur once more, as did everything around him.

  And the darkness swallowed Tom a second time.

  Tom awoke in a bright white room on top of an examination bed. He sat up and stared at the medical charts on the walls, the shelves of medical utensils, the jars of tissue samples suspended in bile-colored liquid. He realized he must have been in Steiner’s office, that the beast-man had brought him back to Octoberville to be cut up like some lab rat. Tom jumped off the bed and went to open the door and escape when it opened of its own accord.

  Dr. Steiner, the sheriff, Mayor Kirkman and even Vernon entered the room. Following close behind was the beast-man and another even taller man in a white theatrical mask and black overalls. Tom backed away, but there was nowhere to go.

  “You can’t kill me!” Tom said.

  “Mr. Crane, do calm down,” Sheriff Price said.

  “My family is probably already calling the police! They’ll find my car!”

  The mayor raised a hand to try and quiet him. “Tom, we’ve already collected what was left of your car and brought it back here.”

  Steiner smiled. “You’re stuck here, I’m afraid.”

  The masked man held up a set of knives. The wood was scorched, but the steel was still brand new. He pulled the largest one free and Tom recoiled.

  “Kenneth here found your car and this set of knives in the trunk,” Vernon said. “He loves a good knife, he does.”

  “Please! Look, if you let me go, I won’t tell anyone about this place!” Tom said.

  The beast-man stepped closer. It seemed unable to look him in the eye, as if bashful. “I’m sorry Mr. Crane, about what I did. I didn’t mean to.”

  Tom tried to catch his breath as the six figures closed in. “Wha-what?”

  “When I jumped in front of your car,” the beast-man said, his yellow eyes now on his hairy feet. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

  “It…it was you?”

  Vernon came forward then, the seemingly kind old gravedigger. He took off his hat. “You see, Ralph wanders a bit at night and usually finds himself in some trouble or another. But he’s got a good temperament. He don’t hurt nobody on purpose. He’s trying to say that he’s sorry he caused the accident that brought you here.”

  Tom looked from one to the other. He told himself he had to be dreaming, that this was a vivid nightmare about Halloween.

  “What…are you talking about?”

  “Tom,” Mayor Kirkman said. “I’m afraid you’re dead. When your car hit the tree, you died.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ralph the beast-man said, wiping a tear from his eye.

  Tom swallowed down the urge to retch. “I… How…how can I be dead? I’m standing here.”

  “Yes, yes, you are,” Dr. Steiner said. “But this is Octoberville.”

  None of them made sense. Nothing made sense. “No…”

  “What’s the last thing you remember, Mr. Crane?” the sheriff asked.

  “Waking…waking up on the side of the road…”

  “And seeing the sign to Octoberville, right?” the mayor said.

  Tom could see the sign in his mind: OCTOBERVILLE—2 MILES.

  The mayor placed a decaying hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I’m sorry Tom, but this is where you end up when you die on Halloween.”

  It wasn’t until Tom saw his own burned corpse inside the black­ened car wreck that he truly believed he was dead.

  “Don’t worry,” Vernon said. “I’ll take good care of you; give you a proper burial like everyone else. We’ve all got a story like yours,” Vernon said.

  “We’re all in the same boat,” Dr. Steiner added, chuckling.

  The mayor went to Tom’s side and placed that reassuring arm around his shoulder. “But there is a bright side.”

  Tom felt it ironic that he could still cry. “How? How can there be a bright side to the fact that I’m dead?”

  The mayor smiled and half his face opened up. “This is Octoberville!”

  They took Tom outside and Halloween was still going on. The main street was overflowing with people—dead people who got to spend eternity celebrating summer’s end. Tom knew he was a part of it now, but he wasn’t ready to give up his past. The mayor escorted Tom through the crowds and now everyone in Octoberville offered him a smile.

  “Before, when we were alive, we used to think that Halloween was about candy and costumes,” he said. “And it is, but it’s also much more than that. You know why?”

  Tom shook his head and it only made the zombie mayor smile anew.

  “Because it’s also about doors opening.”

  The mayor pointed to the hall with its spire at the end of the street and Tom could see its doors were wide open. A blazing light poured out and through it, Tom could see Sally and Tom Jr., walking the neighborhood back home, trick-or-treating. Tom turned back to the mayor and gave him a smile of his own.

  “Like I said, my friend,” the mayor told him. “Every day is Halloween in Octoberville!”

  The History of Halloween

  Lyla Martin stared at the Halloween decorations on the door to the recording studio at Radio 2NGB and realized how kitsch her life had become.

  The fake cobwebs, plastic pumpkins, and the five-and-some­thing-feet-tall skeleton framed the door like a wreath, but Lyla didn’t think they’d scare even the smallest child. Halloween, sadly, was becoming a joke.

  The deathly visage of the skeleton seemed to mock her, the red LED lights inside its eye sockets blinking in unison with the phrase swirling around her head:

  FA-KER

  FA-KER

  FA-KER

  Lyla turned to her cell phone and noticed her inbox was now pushing past one hundred emails. October 31st was her busiest day of the year, so busy she thought she needed an assistant to handle all the interview and presentation requests. After this interview with Radio 2NGB, she had to dash across town to the headquarters of the New Hampshire Historical Society to present a seminar on her upcoming book, Halloween Histories—a seemingly impossible task she was still in the process of writing.

  But Lyla Martin had to give the people what they wanted—every possible detail on Halloween and why the world, particularly the United States, was still obsessed with the holiday.

  Her phone pinged with a new email from Renata Dawson, Secretary of the New Hampshire Historical Society:

  Happy Halloween Ms. Martin!

  I am just writing to confirm your appearance at our hall, this morning. Everyone is just dying to hear about your next book!

  Sincerely,

  Renata

  Lyla rolled her eyes and fired back a short reply of thanks. Renata was starting to push the boundaries of their professional relationship. After this seminar, Lyla thought it might be time to decline any future invitations. No amount of money would convince her to try and explain Halloween to a bunch of wannabe history buffs every year, ad infinitum.

  The door to the recording booth opened and a tall, burly man with bushy grey hair and matching beard emerged. Radio 2NGB host, Tim Bryce. He offered her a strong handshake and a broad smile.

  “Lyla, so great to see you again,” he said.

  Lyla smirked and nodded. “It’s great to see you too, Tim.”

  He gestured to the door. “What do you think of our Halloween decorations? Our receptionist Sally put some real effort in this time.”

  Lyla looked the door up and down again. So, going down to the nearest Dollar Store and spending a few bucks on whatever was on the shelf was considered a real effort these days, Lyla thought to herself.

  “Looks great!” Lyla said.

  “Sally will be happy to hear that,” Tim said. “Well, come on through to the booth. We’ll be going live in a few minutes.”

  Lyla sat opposite Tim and put her handbag under the desk, ensuring her cell phone was on silent. The directional microphone seemed to reach out for her like a disembodied arm.

  “We’re going to open for questions at the end of our chat, if that’s okay, Lyla?”

  “Sure, that’s no problem.”

  “Fantastic. Well, did you want Sally to fix you a coffee, or anything?”