“Why don’t you just tell him you’re sorry?” she said.

  “Oh, I’ve tried that! I’ve told him I was sorry a thousand times. I went to his grave so many times. I told my parents and his parents I was sorry so many times, but it was never enough. It tore both families apart and I’m certain it sent my mother and father to an early grave. I’ve apologized to Donnie every Halloween, but he still comes!”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “Screw you!”

  “Oh, that’s nice, Gerald! You know something—you’re so-called suffering has left you an empty man, cold-hearted and weak. But out there is a boy who can never grow old, can never know love or see his family again because of you. And he’ll certainly never rest in peace unless you let him!”

  Gerald threw his hands in the air. “Then what would you have me do?!”

  Kelli crouched down beside him and looked him in the face. She had to choose her words carefully if she was going to convince him to do the right thing.

  “You have to accept what you did was wrong. You have to ask his forgiveness.”

  Gerald’s brow wavered with self-doubt. “I can’t.”

  “Put yourself in his shoes—you said yourself that could quite easily be you standing outside that door. Would you expect Donnie to say he was sorry?”

  Gerald put his head in his hands and released a prolonged cry of grief, a cry that had been pent up for more than fifty years. Kelli thought the old man had snapped, the weight of anguish finally shattering his will. Her heart quickened when his keening suddenly became gasps for air.

  “Are you alright?” Kelli said.

  Gerald lifted his head to reveal eyes wide with fear, a mouth wide in desperation, beckoning breath.

  “Can’t—”

  Kelli rummaged in the back of his wheelchair for the oxygen mask and put it over his face. She turned the dial on the oxygen canister, but there was no hiss of air being released. She sensed the oxygen was all gone and the only other canisters could be found outside in her car.

  “Oh, God!” she cried. “Gerald—listen to me. You have to try and take some deep breaths, okay? In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

  The old man clawed at the mask, as if it was useless. “Help—me!” he wheezed.

  Kelli leant down behind the chair again and turned up the dial to full. Still nothing came. She gazed up at him, her face a mask of defeat. Her expression melted to shock when she saw Gerald—straight-faced and breathing freely—raise his arm towards her face. He brought his elbow down hard across her face, plunging her into the black pool of unconsciousness.

  Gerald checked Kelli’s pulse and breathing, all the while telling her repeatedly how sorry he was. When he was certain she was fine, he took a towel from the rack near the shower, rolled it up and placed it beneath her head.

  Grunting, he pulled himself back up into the wheelchair and wheeled around to face the door. It must have been the early hours of the morning now and the razor-sharp cold was starting to creep into his home. He should have been in bed, but he’d stopped sleeping on Halloween a long time ago and now that his past had finally found a way into his home, he couldn’t afford not to keep his eyes open.

  He reached for the door handle, only to hesitate. He glanced back over his shoulder to look down at Kelli lying in a state of unawareness on the floor. He liked Kelli; she meant well, but she was wrong to think that Donnie was ever going to forgive him for what he did. There was only one thing Donnie’s ghost would ever accept.

  An exchange of souls.

  The bathroom door creaked open onto a shadow-soaked hallway. As quickly as he could, Gerald wheeled himself out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him, sealing Kelli safely inside.

  Gerald scanned the sleeping world of his home, his old eyes struggling to adjust to the absence of light. He wheeled up the hallway towards the kitchen, often checking over his shoulder for the unmistakable silhouette of his eternal tormentor.

  The wheelchair suddenly jerked forward, gathering pace. Gerald turned in his seat and saw the specter of his childhood friend had control of his chair and was wheeling him through the house up the hall and back to the living room.

  “Donnie—stop!” Gerald cried as the hallway rushed past him.

  The wheelchair barreled onwards, knocking into a display cabinet. The momentum caused the chair to tilt and Gerald tumbled out, landing hard on the living room floor. The old man rolled onto his back to look up at Donnie. The ghost child tossed the wheelchair aside and staggered towards Gerald, his cold, grey hands outstretched in search in vengeance.

  “Don’t!” Gerald screamed. “Wait!”

  Donnie stopped and slowly lowered his hands to his sides, his lurid, Frankenstein head cocked to one side in curiosity. Gerald was amazed the boy seemed to understand him; seemed interested in having a conversation.

  So, what to say to a friend you damned to hell?

  “Donnie I…” Gerald began, and the ghost looked eager to hear more, taking a step closer. “I know I’ve said sorry to you many times before…and I know that’s not what you want to hear.”

  Donnie straightened and his eyes were like hooks, reeling Gerald in. The old man swallowed before continuing.

  “So…I’ll say what you do want to hear.” He took a deep breath and his chest retaliated with a wheeze. “I deserve to die. I deserve whatever it is you want to dish out to me. I know that. I should be punished for what I did and all these years I’ve just been delaying the inevitable. I think…deep down…that I did really die that day, but it just took my body a hell of a long time to catch up. And I’m still a coward in the face of death.

  “So if you want to kill me and drag my miserable excuse for a soul away with you, then be my guest. I’m not gonna stop you.”

  Donnie’s ghost remained silent, but not still. Gerald watched as he turned and walked to the front door, reaching out with a frosted hand to unlock it. Then he turned back to face the old man, still with that same blank expression.

  “You want me to go outside with you?” Gerald said.

  Donnie’s eyes spoke for him, pools of beckoning. Gerald nodded in acknowledgement and rose up to his knees, his weary bones protesting; his lungs sacks of broken glass.

  “Okay,” he said. “Just give me a sec.” He pulled himself to his feet and felt a wave of dizziness. He thought he would fall again, almost as if his body was getting ready to finally give up his ghost. He shuffled to the front door, eventually coming to a halt at Donnie’s side. His end was in sight.

  He looked down at Donnie. The boy’s nose had stopped bleeding some time ago and there was a thin layer of glittering frost coating his body. The boy’s time in the cold and the dark was hopefully about to end too.

  “I’m ready, Donnie,” he said.

  Donnie reached out and turned the doorknob to open the door. Blake Street was bathed in a dull purple fog. To the east, Gerald could see the first blood red sliver of the new dawn. Halloween was drawing its curtains for another year. Donnie took Gerald’s hand and walked him down the front steps to stand on the front lawn. Blake Street was quiet, all the trick-or-treaters curled up tight in their beds, deep in the grip of sugar-induced dreams of fancy.

  Sleep: Gerald so wanted to sleep.

  When he turned his head to say something to Donnie, the boy had somehow gone back inside and retrieved his wheelchair. The old man gratefully took his seat, wondering why Donnie was suddenly treating him with kindness.

  As soon as he sat, there was a flash and when it faded a moment later Gerald discovered they were travelling along the sidewalk, Donnie wheeling him away from his house; in the direction of Blake and Washington.

  “Oh,” Gerald said, simultaneously fascinated and anxious. “We’re going back here then? It’s been a long time.”

  In the pre-dawn blackness, the only sound to be heard was the creaking of the wheels on the sidewalk, the tremor of his heart and the wheeze in his chest. The very air seemed to crackle with energy as they approached the intersection. Donnie brought their procession to a halt in the middle of the street and the boy walked around to face his long-lost friend.

  “What do you want me to do now?” Gerald asked him.

  Donnie’s mute ghost waited patiently.

  “What—what are we supposed to do?” Gerald said.

  His chest rattled and Gerald felt a blockage in his chest. He began to cough harshly, the effort becoming involuntary and incessant. He covered his mouth with his hand as a great gob of blood burst from his lips into his palm. He gaped at the stark redness of it as it dribbled between his fingers, down to the asphalt beneath their feet.

  Light struck them then as the world split in two. Through the veil of reality, Gerald could see the wide green mirage he’d first witnessed with his friend so many years before. When he looked at Donnie, the boy appeared brand new; clean and fresh, almost alive. Yet there was no life in his face.

  Gerald smiled in wonder at the sight of him, at the world on the other side. If his punishment meant he had to spend eternity with his friend here, then maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

  “You know the real reason I’ve hated Halloween for all these years, Donnie?” Gerald said. The boy turned to look at him forlornly and shook his head.

  Gerald said: “Because I never got to spend all those Halloweens with you.”

  Gerald smiled anew and they were moving again, Donnie silently wheeling him through the crack to the other side. In the distance, Gerald saw the great oak tree, its top leaves glistening emeralds in the ever-midday sun. Beneath the tree was shadow, a lush cool place to spend the rest of—

  Gerald saw one of the shadows beneath the tree move: a thin, wiry silhouette, gangly and broken, hair swaying as she walked. Gerald gasped as realization gripped his chest, but his lungs failed him and as his soul left his body Martha smiled and claimed it for her own.

  Kelli could see herself from the outside in. She was lying on the bathroom floor, cold in unconsciousness. Her point of view swelled, rose so she could take in the entire room from above. She saw herself on the floor and Gerald Forsyth curled up in the corner, riddled with guilt.

  The bathroom door crashed open in a swarm of splinters and white mist. The shape of Donnie slinked into the room, his silhouette like a knife. His grubby, frozen fingers reached out for Gerald, clasping around the old man’s throat. In seconds Gerald froze over, encased in a tomb of ice, sheer terror forever etched in his face.

  As the boy turned his attention to Kelli’s unconscious form, she came to, as if roused from a nightmare. Her scream was muffled as Donnie plunged his burning cold fingers into her mouth, filling her up with icy death from the inside out.

  Kelli woke on the bathroom floor, screaming. Her heart tramp­olined in her chest and only slowed when the miasma of shock cleared. Realizing it was only a dream she sucked in deep, calming breaths and scanned the room.

  The last thing she remembered was Gerald striking her in the head. Oh, boy, would she give him a piece of her mind when she found him.

  It was at that moment she realized Gerald Forsyth wasn’t in the room—and the door was wide open.

  Oh, God!

  Kelli scrambled to her feet and stepped out into the hallway. Furtively, she looked over the house from where she stood. Dawn was slowly painting the world in vermillion. She could barely think for the sound of her terrified heart.

  She saw no sign Gerald—or the boy. Had Donnie finally gotten hold of the old man? She sincerely hoped not. She so wanted a happy ending to this nightmare; anything but Gerald’s death. She did like him, despite his faults; he was still a fellow human being, who didn’t deserve to die at the hands of some supernatural evil.

  Slowly, she walked up the hallway to the living room. The house was empty and a frosty breeze from the open front door told Kelli the boy and the old man must have gone outside. Kelli ran out onto the porch, desperately hoping she’d find them standing on the front lawn, but to no avail.

  Seeing the street was devoid of anyone, Kelli instinctively ran to the next house and banged on the front door. After a few moments a man in his mid-40s, unshaven and half-awake answered the door with a look that could have even rivalled Donnie Psalter’s.

  “Call the police!” Kelli told him.

  “Say what?”

  “Call the police—your neighbor, Gerald Forsyth, has been abducted!”

  Kelli’s final word seemed to get the man’s attention and instantly he went back into his house to pick up the phone. Kelli left him to his task and ran into the street, past so many sleeping houses, everyone completely oblivious to what had happened on Halloween night—what was still happening. She felt like she should knock on every door and warn them, but her only priority was Gerald—her patient.

  As she approached the intersection of Blake and Washington, she glimpsed a figure standing in the middle of the street.

  “Gerald!” Kelli cried.

  The figure turned towards her voice. It wasn’t Gerald, but rather a woman, tall, slender, to the point of being anorexic. She wore a nightgown, fastened with a thin cord, of all things. Yet it was her face that made Kelli flinch; like thin leather stretched over a bulbous skull. Her eyes were the color of oil and her hair like snakes. The woman’s head was awkwardly cocked to one side.

  “Alas, poor Gerald’s gone now,” the woman said.

  “I’m sorry?” Kelli replied.

  The strange woman smiled, revealing yellow teeth. “He’s with me now,” she said. “Through the veil; you shan’t be seeing him again.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kelli tried to mentally get her heart to slow down, but something about this woman kept her fear center firing.

  “I had Donnie collect him—they deserve to be together, those two.”

  “How do you know about Donnie—” Kelli stopped mid-sentence and clamped a hand over her mouth. This made the woman smile even wider.

  “Gerald Forsyth’s childhood tale was mostly true,” Martha said. “All except the part where I told him and Donnie that I weren’t a witch.”

  “Oh, my God!” Kelli said, sobbing.

  The witch took a step backward and the space behind her split like a torn seam. Through the gap in reality Kelli made out a wide expanse of hills, but they were grey, not green; dead and gone. And a fierce storm was brewing.

  “No one ever escapes from my crossroads,” Martha said. “They all come home to me eventually—you’d do well to remember that.”

  With those final words, she was gone, swallowed into hell; her, Donald Psalter and Gerald Forsyth with her—forever.

  It wasn’t until she felt a hand on her shoulder that Kelli remembered to breathe. She turned and found Gerald’s neighbor with his wife and children, gawking at her.

  “Miss—did you find him? Did you find Gerald?” the man said.

  Kelli stared at the children—two little boys. After a moment she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “He’s gone.”

  Kelli looked from the boys to their parents. “You keep those boys away from that corner—you hear me? You keep all the children away!”

  The man frowned. “Excuse me?”

  Kelli ignored him, running past them to the police car that was turning into Blake Street. She had to find a way to warn them about the corner of Blake and Washington; about the witch that lived there. But most of all she had to warn them about Halloween.

  Happy Daze

  Harvey Dutton sat in front of the bathroom mirror and put on his true face.

  First, he applied a thick white greasepaint with his fingers, spreading it evenly. Black stubble poked through the white, but he doubted the kids would mind or even notice. Next, he applied blue mascara around his left eye and green around the right. Harvey always enjoyed the feel of the brush on his eyelids, smooth and soft. Then, he reached for his red lipstick pen.

  He drew a large, exaggerated smile on his lips, circling his entire mouth and stretching the line up his cheeks. He smiled to make sure the shape was just so. Then, finally, he put on his fuzzy rainbow wig. The sight of it and his great big red smile filled him with a deep warmth because he was no longer Harvey Dutton.

  He was Giggles the Clown.

  Once his face was touch dry, Harvey undressed down to his Y-fronts and took his Giggles costume off the hook on the back of the bathroom door. The suit was a custom-made three-piece, which cost him $750 way back when. It was patterned with rainbow pinstripes and embellished with oversized gold buttons.

  Harvey slipped the trousers out of the laundromat bag and pulled them on, careful to ensure the pinstripes lined up perfectly down the length of his legs. The kids would notice if they weren’t. He was about to put on his shirt when three soft knocks resounded from the other side of the door.

  “Harvey?”

  It was his wife, Louisa. Harvey replaced his shirt on its hanger and opened the door. She seemed to recoil when she beheld him partially dressed in his clown costume, which Harvey found odd.

  “Hey, hon,” Harvey said. “I’m just getting ready. You can have the shower soon.”

  Louisa looked to the floor, and then back to him, but wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Everything okay?” Harvey asked.

  Her throat bobbed up and down. “I-I need to talk to you,” she said.

  Harvey smirked, his big red mouth lifting at one corner. “Oh, sure. What is it?”

  Louisa scratched the back of her sandy blonde head. “I meant to talk to you last night.”

  Harvey sensed something troubled his wife. He reached for her, but she took a step back. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His red lips drooped.

  She shook her head. “I-I can’t do this.”