Mist and Moonlight of Halloween

 Be careful who you mess with!

Leon Birch sat inside his rented room, listening to the Senate committee hearings. Eating his cold supper, wishing he could afford to get married. Since getting his degree, he’d only been able to pick up a few substitute teaching jobs.

Listening to the government root out subversives usually gave him hope for the future, but now it all seemed far away. The hearings were all taking place back east, and he was in San Francisco, which seemed to be ground zero for everything that was going wrong these days.

It really wasn’t fair that he was living alone, paycheck to paycheck. He had all the skills and all the credentials. He certainly had the necessary moral convictions, yet the good jobs all seemed to be taken by determined spinsters and others of questionable politics and even more questionable “lifestyles.” No wonder the public schools were turning out delinquents.

And worse, like that Carstairs boy in the fifth-grade class he’d taught today. To Leon’s great annoyance, the school he’d graced with his services was one of those careless places that allowed the students to wear costumes on Halloween. Leon wasn’t having that nonsense and required his class to remove their dime store covers and masks. All would have been well but for the Carstairs boy.

Instead of a cheap costume thrown over his school clothes, Patrick Carstairs was dressed in green and brown, with some sort of ivy twined around his tattered sweater. The same stuff was also tangled in his black hair, which Leon thought badly needed cutting. Instead of a mask, the boy wore makeup. Not only eyeliner but glitter, for heaven’s sake.

“What are you supposed to be, young man?”

“Robin Goodfellow, sir,” was the grinning imp’s answer.

Leon glanced down to scan the attendance chart. The class tittered, so he changed his gaze to the seating chart and found the impertinent brat’s name. “I don’t know how you got out of the house dressed like that, Carstairs, but it won’t do. Go to the restroom, wash that filth from your face, get rid of that shrubbery, and comb your hair.”

The whole class stared in dumbfounded silence. “What are you waiting for, Carstairs? Get on, and don’t be all day about it!”

As the boy slunk toward the door, something else caught Leon’s eye. “What on earth is this?” He yanked at the boy’s ear, and a pointed rubber tip came off in his hand. “Fairy ears?” Leon pulled the other ear tip off and threw them in the wastebasket. “Your parents shall hear of this. Now get going.”

The class kept their heads right down after that, working away on the assignment he gave them. Should have been a simple task to fill their day, writing a family history. But again, the Carstairs boy proved a problem.

“We come from an Elder Race. My grandfather, Jonathan Hamilton Carstairs, came to San Francisco in 1912. He established Carstairs House on top of Shipwreck Hill because the hill is full of faerie magic, just like the place he came from, the Hamilton estate in England, called Oakwood. Oakwood is named for its ancient oak groves. Some of the trees are harvested, but some are left untouched so our Faerie ancestors can continue their revels, and the Carstairs family retains the blessing of the Fair Folk. Carstairs House doesn’t have oak trees, but Uncle Nigel planted a holly hedge all around the property to contain the magic. So, our house has the blessing of our High King Oberon and our High Queen Titania, and the Fair Folk are free to hold their revels in our secret garden at the center of the holly maze.

“Halloween is a special night for the Fair Folk. They often reveal themselves to mortals during the hours when the veil between the faerie and mortal realms is thinnest. Especially the Huntsman. He is King Oberon’s enforcer. Unlike the courtly knights who are defenders of the faerie realm, the Huntsman is a monster. Darker than night, but for his eyes, which shine red with lust for the blood the Wild Hunt demands. He leads a pack of damned souls in pursuit of other damned souls, who will, in turn, join his Wild Hunt. Unless the High King has decreed they be hunted to death, in which case, the Wild Hunt shows no mercy. Even their horses will join the hounds in rending the prey till nothing remains.”

Leon smiled, recalling his enjoyment of the shock on the boy’s face when he handed back the paper at the end of the day with a large red F in the upper margin.

Continue reading the story in the anthology:

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The True Horror of Being Bitten

 A story from the What If? #4 Anthology

In the days of the Roman Empire, a French peasant and thief learns the true horror of what it means to be bitten.

Once bitten, twice shy

August 28, 45 AD Provincia Romana

Francois slips quietly over the villa’s wall, dropping softly to the ground. Crouching, he looks along the wall in both directions and then down the gentle slope from the wall to the edge of the woods. None of the Roman guards are visible. They all must be searching the estate’s grounds.

Moving in the shadows, Francois cautiously makes his way down the hill. He avoids the bright spots of reddish light from the ‘blood moon.’ We should have waited for the full moon to pass; there is too much light tonight.

Wraith-like Francois disappears into the edge of the forest. He holds his stolen treasure inside his loose-fitting shirt. The cool, hard silver of the wine pitcher comforts him. This could feed the family for a year. I hope Luc has taken something of equal value. That will get us through the next year.

Silently, Francois follows the trail that leads to their rendezvous spot, a small knoll that is almost a league away from the villa. After half an hour, he gets the feeling he is being watched. The feeling stays with him, so when he is more than halfway there, Francois stops and listens.

At first, he hears nothing, not even a night bird. It is so quiet that all he can hear is his own breathing. The hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up. His heart begins to pound. Then he hears it.

The breathing is heavy and, at the same time, rapid. Is that a dog? Has that Roman set the dogs on me?

The longer he listens, the surer he becomes. If it is a dog, it is huge. Francois slowly turns his head, trying to find where the sound is coming from. He focuses on a copse of small oak trees to his right. Brush and tall grass grow around the trees. The sound is definitely coming from them. His vision zeroes in on the shadows between the trees, concentrating on a patch of bushes and tall grasses.

A flash of reddish yellow, then it is gone. What was that? Francois turns, facing the direction he is looking, and starts to crouch, keeping his eyes on the spot where he thought he saw the yellow flash. After a moment two yellow orbs appear, the moonlight adding a reddish tinge to them. With the appearance of the orbs comes a low, rumbling growl.

Slowly, the yellow orbs move closer, and the growling gets louder.

Francois draws his knife, taking up the fighter’s stance his father taught him. He keeps his eyes on the approaching yellow orbs. As they draw closer the drooling snout of a wolf comes out of the shadows and into view. Its fangs are exposed, lips drawn back, and ears flat against the wolf’s head. Drool drips from its mouth onto the ground.

Francois looks around, searching for more wolves. Wolves always attack as a pack! But there are none to be seen or heard. Where are the others?

As the wolf advances on him, Francois quickly considers his options. I could run, but I cannot outrun him. If I fight, and I do not kill it quickly, the other wolves will get here and kill me. My only chance is to kill it quickly and find a tall tree to climb before the other wolves arrive. Francois prepares to attack as the beast gets closer.

The wolf is about ten yards away now. Its coat might be gray with silver highlights, but it is hard to tell because of the reddish light from the ‘blood moon.’ It must be the biggest wolf to have ever lived. Francois guesses that it is at least a hundred and seventy pounds. As it prepares to pounce, Francois charges. For a moment, the wolf is surprised, but it recovers quickly and races toward Francois.

Francois rushes forward in a half-crouch, ready to strike. He realizes the wolf is going for his throat, so he leaps forward, going erect at the same time. The wolf’s jaws do not slam closed on his throat. Instead, they clamp down on the silver pitcher inside Francois’ shirt. He grabs the wolf’s left ear with his left hand, twisting its head to the wolf’s right, exposing the massive canine’s throat. Francois drives his knife deep into its throat, all the way to the knife’s hilt. The wolf howls in pain and leaps backward, away from Francois, wrenching the handle of the knife from his hand as he falls to his knees.

The wolf moves a few yards away from him and sits down, keeping his eyes on Francois. He looks at the wolf and watches ‘smoke’ rising from the wolf’s mouth. That cannot be smoke, it is cold, it must be steam. Francois looks closer and it seems to him the wolf’s tongue is burned.

While the wolf stares at him, it starts swatting at the knife hilt with its left hind paw. With a few swats, it gets a ‘grip’ on the hilt, pulling the knife free. The knife falls to the ground, and then the wolf swipes it into the bushes with its left front paw. What strikes Francois is it is barely bleeding. Blood should be gushing out of that neck wound! What the hell am I going to do now?

Read the full story in the book:

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