Happy Halloween!
“Would you like me to tell you a ghost story?” Mr. Morley asked.
“Sure. After all, it’s Halloween. ” Charlene Carson smiled and leaned forward toward the crippled man scrunched down in the wheelchair. He peered at her with a rheumy glazed look. In the dim yellow light cast by lamps in the musty living room, the old man appeared frail and twisted, his gray wispy hair quickly disappearing due to the chemo. Charlene knew from his medical charts provided by the hospice agency that he was only fifty-eight, but the ravages of terminal cancer had aged him beyond his years. She tucked the blanket tighter over his lap. “First, are you warm enough, Mr. Morley?”
“Yes, yes,”
he replied as he waved her away with his hand.” Do you have any children, Nurse
Carson?”
“I’m not married.”
“I never married either.” A thin smile pushed through the loose skin of the old man’s face. “You’re a very pretty nurse. Not like the other broads with rough hands and a rude bedside manner to match. To them, I’m just a living corpse. Someone whose butt they have to wipe. You’re different and would make a good wife.”
“You’re too kind, Mr. Morley.” she said as she pushed a lock of blonde hair from her face. The only men in my life now are dying ones, she thought. I work too many hours as a nurse to even think of a boyfriend, let alone a husband. “Why did you ask if I had children?”
“Because Halloween is a wonderful night to be a child. When I was growing up, it was one of the biggest holidays of the year. I was raised very poor. My brothers and I looked forward to the night with great anticipation. We would trick-or-treat until our feet were raw and our bags were full. When we were done, we would go home and dump our candy out onto the bed and stay up late, eating and trading sweets.” He looked down at his gnarled hands. “Those were the good days of Halloween.”
“I love the children dressing up and going door to door to get candy.”
“Of all my childhood memories, Halloween is my best,” Mr. Morley said.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought so. You told me to turn off the porch light so we wouldn’t have any trick-or-treaters. Why didn’t you ask me to buy any candy? We could have handed out treats to the children who came to the door. I figured you didn’t believe in Halloween for some religious reason.”
“Quite the opposite. In fact it is tonight, on Halloween, that I’m going to die.”
“Mr. Morley, we both know you have terminal cancer but the doctor says you have another six months. You’re going to live to see Christmas and Valentine’s Day.”
Mr. Morley shook his head. “Tonight I’ll die and you’ll be here to witness.”
“I’ve been at the bedside of dozens of terminal patients. I can tell you only God chooses when you die.” Charlene stood from the couch and adjusted the old man’s pillow behind his head. “If you want me to assist with your suicide, I won’t do it.”
One of his gnarled hands grasped her by the wrist as he looked up to her. “Do you believe in life after death?”
Charlene paused for a moment. Death was part of her job. She thought of the patients who had expired with her by their bedside, the shriveled husks of old men and women taking their last breaths, some surrounded by family members, some alone and holding her hand. She liked to believe they went to a better place after death, but she really wasn’t sure. “I have faith in the idea there is a place we go after we die,” she answered.
“Your faith is not misplaced, for there is life after death.” Mr. Morley released her wrist. “Oh, don’t get me wrong; it’s not like your Sunday school fairytales where an omnipotent white-haired old man sits upon a throne in the sky above a city with streets of gold. The spirit passes into a lifeless gray realm that is a shadow of our own world. Here, the souls of the departed shuffle aimlessly until passing through the envelope to the next world.”
“It sounds very bleak.”
“It is what it is. Sometimes a given spirit still has ties to this world because of the unfair or violent nature of its passing. These souls cross over into our realm from time to time.”
“Ghosts,” Charlene said.
“Precisely. Which brings me to my ghost story.” Mr. Morley leaned back in the chair and crossed his hands in his lap. “The story of Scabby Bobby.”
“Scabby
Bobby? Why on Earth would anyone have a name like that?”
“On the mantle you will find a photo album. Please, bring it to me.”
She checked her watch. Just after seven in the evening; three more boring hours to go until she finished her shift and went home to a lonely five-room apartment. At least if she kept Mr. Morley talking the time might pass more quickly. Charlene stood and crossed the living room carpet. Waiting on the mantle of the unused stone fireplace sat a leather-bound photo album. She picked it up and prepared to return to Mr. Morley’s side when she heard the laughter of children from somewhere outside the house. Sliding aside the edge of a curtain, she glanced out a picture window to the street. Beneath the streetlight on the corner, a group of trick-or-treaters passed along the sidewalk in a parade of goblins, witches, and other Halloween costumes. They walked on down the dark street without paying any attention to Mr. Morley’s old house.
“What did you see out the window?” Mr. Morley asked as she handed him the photo album.
“Children trick-or-treating,” Charlene said as she settled back onto the couch. “None came to the door.”
“Eventually, one will.” Mr. Morley opened the leather cover of the album. “But, I’m getting ahead of myself.” One of his yellowed fingernails tapped a black-and-white photograph on the album page. “That’s us in 1960. The Rowdy Rangers were what we called ourselves then, just a rag-tag bunch of boys growing up on the poor side of town. We spent our days playing sandlot baseball, riding bikes, and getting into mischief.” He slid the album over for her to get a better look at the photograph. In the faded black-and-white picture she saw four boys, about thirteen years old, standing together wearing T-shirts and ball caps, and holding baseball bats. A fifth overweight boy, who reminded Charlene of a fat Beaver Cleaver, stood apart from the motley group.
Mr. Morley tapped each boy’s face in the photo with a fingernail. “That’s Alex, Paul, Tanner, and me.”
“Who’s the heavyset kid?” Charlene asked.
“Bobby Riser,” he said and let out a long breath, “or Scabby Bobby as we so cruelly named him. Back then, childhood obesity wasn’t so common or accepted as it is today. Poor Bobby took the brunt of all our teasing and name calling. He was a disgusting kid, too. He would pick and eat his scabs and, thus, he earned the nickname. He always smelled like sour milk and spoke with a speech impediment and could not say words ending with a T without severe stuttering. He wanted so badly to be a part of the Rowdy Rangers, but we never let him join. We only tolerated his presence so we could push him around and call him names. We made him do terrible things, too. One biology class, Tanner told him to eat some dead flies lying on the window sill and he did, right in front of the class. I guess he just wanted desperately to fit in and be a part of us.”
“Children can be so heartless.” Charlene slid the photos back to Mr. Morley.
“I’m not proud of our actions back then,” he said and closed the album. He placed his wrinkled hands on top of the cover and gazed back at her. “Three years after that picture, we were sixteen years old and still called the Rowdy Rangers. Our activities had matured as well. Now, we were committing acts of juvenile delinquency such as breaking windows, picking fights, shoplifting cigarettes, etc. It was Halloween night in 1963, and we were going up and down the neighborhood, scaring little kids and egging houses. Finally, it got so late that all the kids were in bed. That’s when we ran across Scabby Bobby out trick-or-treating. He came down the sidewalk, dressed in a stupid hobo costume, and carrying a bag full of candy.”
“What happened?”
“It was like hitting a gold mine for us Rowdy Rangers when we found Scabby Bobby in a lame hobo mask and too old to be trick-or-treating. We laughed and pushed him around, calling him all kinds of terrible names, until he cried and pleaded for us to leave him alone. Tanner then grabbed his bag of candy and we took off running across a road. Bawling like a baby, Bobby followed, and because of the puny eyeholes in that stupid hobo mask, he couldn’t see the truck. I remember hearing the squeal of brakes and looking back as his body flew up onto the hood and then back onto the pavement with a sick thud. I can still see Bobby, lying on the pavement with his head turned sideways and his mask halfway off his shattered face, a pool of red blood spreading outward from his body. We ran off into the night and sat and ate Bobby’s candy together in a railroad yard.”
“That’s awful, Mr. Morley.”
“The next morning at school, we heard the news that Bobby Riser was dead. We didn’t think twice about it. We never felt bad about Bobby and soon forgot all about him. Our lives continued and eventually the Rowdy Rangers grew up and broke apart. Tanner died in ’
“This can’t be a true story,” Charlene said.
“You said you wanted to hear a ghost story. Here it is,” Mr. Morley said, and added, “the next Halloween I waited for Scabby Bobby in the living room of my house. I knew what I had to do. The doorbell rang and there he was in his hobo outfit, his torn mask hanging from his dead face. I handed him a bag of trick-or-treat candy and he disappeared. Bobby had come back from the spirit world to get his stolen candy. That’s how I know there is life after death.” Mr. Morley’s rheumy eyes looked toward the foyer and the front door of the house. “It’s been the same every Halloween since. Scabby Bobby comes to the door, I give him his bag of candy and he goes away.”
“This is a gag, right? You’re setting me up for a joke or something,” Charlene looked around the living room. “I don’t see any bag of candy to give Scabby Bobby when he shows up.”
“I told you on this night I was going to die,” Mr. Morley replied. “Tonight it ends.”
“You’re scaring me, Mr. Morley. I know it’s Halloween, but that gives you no right to frighten me. I don’t think it’s funny.”
“An old debt must be paid.” Mr. Morley shrugged. “You’ll see firsthand evidence of life after death tonight.”
“Mr. Morley, I must thank you for creeping me out this―”
The doorbell rang. Charlene gasped in shock.
“It’s time,” Mr. Morley said. “Go see who is at the door.”
She stood as the doorbell chimed again. Entering the foyer, Charlene did not turn on any lights but placed her eye against the peephole in the front door to see who was on the porch. In the absence of a porch light, she could only make out the shape of a short, stocky person wearing a clown or hobo mask; she could not be sure. The doorbell rang again.
This is ridiculous, Charlene told herself. Get a grip on yourself. It’s just some kid out trick-or-treating. After all, it’s Halloween, for God’s sake.
The doorbell rang once more.
“It’s Scabby Bobby,” Mr. Morley’s voice called out from the front room. “Let him in.”
Charlene unlocked the door but left the chain latched. She opened the door the one-inch space the chain allowed. In the dim light of the foyer, a hobo mask filled the gap of the open door; a painted rubber eye with a pencil-sized hole where the pupil should be, stared back at her.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t,” a distorted childlike voice spoke from inside the mask. For a second, Charlene thought she smelled something sour or rotten wafting out from the figure.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Charlene said. “We’re not celebrating Halloween. Try another house if you want candy.”
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
Charlene shut the door and locked it.
The doorbell rang again. Twice. Three times and then silence. Pressing her ear against the door, she heard the sounds of slow shuffling feet stepping down the steps from the front porch. Letting out a long sigh, she returned to the living room.
“He’s gone, Mr. Morley,” she said.
“No,” the old man shook his head. “He won’t stop until he gets his candy or me.”
Charlene sat back on the couch. “I have to say this is a great Halloween trick. First you tell me this ghost story about Scabby Bobby and then you have someone come to the door dressed in a hobo costume to scare me. Who was it? A nephew or the child of someone you knew? Of all the tricks to pull on someone tonight, this has to be one of the best. Am I on television? Is there a hidden camera somewhere?”
“It’s no trick.” Mr. Morley’s eyes looked at her with sadness. “I wish it was, but it’s not.”
A shadow appeared against the shade hanging in a living room window. The silhouette reminded her of Emmett Kelley, the famous hobo clown from the Barnum and Bailey circus of the fifties. A light tapping shook the glass.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
“Screw this, I’m calling 911!” Charlene said, fishing her cell phone out of her purse. She dialed the number. It rang three times.
“Emergency operator,” a woman’s voice buzzed in her ear. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I’m at a house on
“You’re aware this is Halloween night? Are you sure it is not some kids out trick-or-treating?"
“He is pounding on a window right now!” Charlene held the phone up so the operator could hear. The tapping at the window had grown to a hard rattling knock threatening to break out the glass.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
Charlene returned the phone to her ear. “Does that sound like little kids to you?”
“I’m sending a squad car over to your address. Keep all your doors and windows locked and don’t let anyone in the house until they get there.”
Charlene hung up the phone. The rattling against the glass grew louder.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
Putting her hands over her ears, she shouted, “Go away!”
The silhouette stepped away from the window. Silence followed.
She knelt beside Mr. Morley in his wheelchair, still clinging to the photo album in his lap.
“Bobby’s not going to stop,” he said.
“Police are on their way.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You said he would leave if he got candy. Is there any in the house? Something we can give Bobby to make him go away?”
“I might have a bag of old candy left over from last year in a cabinet in the kitchen.” His aged hand reached out and touched hers and unrelenting terror shone in his tired eyes. “Charlene, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to die now. Not like this.”
“You’re under my care and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She crossed the dark dining room and into the kitchen where a lone light bulb lit the faded linoleum floor and the dingy yellowed curtains. Charlene swung open cabinet doors, knocking aside dishes and cups as she searched for the bag of candy. Her heart pounded as she pulled out drawers, spilling their contents onto the floor. A movement beyond the drawn curtains of the dark kitchen window caught her eye. Someone or something shambled through the bushes outside the house.
Where is it? Her mind screamed. Where is the bag of candy?
She flung open a drawer and threw aside cooking utensils. Her heart jumped at the sight of a plastic bag of Halloween candy corn sitting in the bottom of the drawer. She snatched up the bag and the contents spilled out all over the linoleum of the floor. Cursing to herself, she checked the bag and found the plastic had been eaten through by mice. She threw aside the empty bag and fell to her knees and scooped up the orange candy.
In another room, a door creaked open.
“Tell me, Mr. Morley, is the back door locked?” She yelled.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
With shaking hands, Charlene reached into an open drawer and lifted out a large butcher knife. A floorboard creaked as a shadow of someone walking in the adjoining dining room passed across the kitchen walls. The sliding scrape of dragging footsteps across a wooden floor resounded in the next room. Someone had entered the house! The smell of something sour and stale wafted in the air.
Where are the police? They should be here by now.
“Charlene!” Mr. Morley screamed from the front room, “Scabby Bobby’s here!”
Butcher knife clutched in her hand, she charged across the dining room to the door of the living room. At the entrance, she froze. A dark form occupied the center of the room. Scabby Bobby stood a little over five feet in height and wore a shabby jacket on top of a muddied clown suit. His round stomach gave his overweight body a pear shape. A cheap rubber hobo mask covered his head. The combination made him look both comical and gruesome. He ambled slowly toward Mr. Morley, his head moving from side to side as if it wasn’t connected to his neck.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
“Bobby, I’m sorry,” Mr. Morley cried out to the misshapen form. “I can’t imagine how much anger and hate it took to bring you back from death. I ask forgiveness for the way we treated you. We were young and stupid.”
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
“Hey!” Charlene shouted and threw some pieces of candy corn against the back of the figure. Slowly, Scabby Bobby turned around to face her. His head hung to one side on top of an obviously broken neck. The torn rubber hobo mask only covered half of the boy’s face; on the other, bones showed through gray, rotting flesh. Broken teeth in a slack mouth formed a grimace of hate.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.”
“Mr. Morley, get out of here!”
Old man Morley turned in his wheelchair and rolled toward the front door as fast as his diminished strength would allow.
Scabby Bobby shambled toward her.
“Trick or treat-t-t-t. Smell my feet-t-t-t. Give me something good to eat-t-t-t.” His horrid mouth worked the words as the stench of something sour hung in the room.
“You want something sweet?” Charlene shouted. “Here it is.”
She threw more candy corn pieces onto the floor as she heard the front door slam shut. Mr. Morley has made it outside, she told herself. At least he’s safe. In horror and fascination, she watched as Scabby Bobby knelt slowly to the floor and picked up a piece of candy corn with decayed fingers. Slowly, he put the candy in his mouth and chewed it with his broken teeth.
“Sweet-t-t-t.”
The next second, the lights of a police cruiser lit up the window shades of the living room. Charlene turned and ran out of the back door of the house and into the flashing lights painting the patio in alternating shades of red and blue.
“Drop the knife now!” A strong voice shouted as a bright light hit her face.
“Help!” She let the butcher knife fall out of her hand and onto the patio stones. “Someone broke into the house!”
The light left her eyes and a police officer stepped up to her. A black pistol filled his hands. “Are you hurt or wounded?”
“No.” Charlene shook her head. “Check on Mr. Morley. He’s in a wheelchair and escaped out the front door. I’m his nurse.”
“Who’s inside?”
“Someone in a hobo outfit. He came in the back door and was in the living room when I left him!”
“You stay out here,” the police officer said and turned to his partner. “Frank, you go around front and I’ll take the back.”
Tears formed in her eyes as the two officers entered the house, awash in the glow of the blinking red-and-blue lights. The night air carried a cold crispness of late October and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm. She watched the windows of the home as the officers searched through the interior turning on the lights in the process. There were no gunshots or shouting, just an eerie silence filled with the flashing of the squad car lights and the crackling of the police radio. She sensed people watching and turned to look at the street. Groups of children and adults stared at the police car and the house, the shifting lights flashing across the various costumes they wore.
“Miss,” the young police officer said from the back door of the house. She turned her attention away from the onlookers. “What is your name?”
“Charlene Carson.”
“I’m Officer Daniels. Will you follow me please, Mrs. Carson.”
“It’s Miss Carson,” she corrected as she stepped forward and his hand guided her back in the house. “Is Mr. Morley all right?”
“You were his nurse?”
“I’m his hospice nurse. Mr. Morley has terminal cancer.” Her eyes darted around the rooms of the house now lit by the interior lights. “Did you find the intruder?”
“We found no one.”
“But he was right here.” She stood in the middle of the living room floor covered with the scattered pieces of candy corn.
“There is no sign of any intruder. We searched the whole house.”
“Mr. Morley can verify my story.”
“When you fled out the back door, where was Mr. Morley?” Officer Daniels looked at her inquisitively with his dark brown eyes.
“He went out the front door with his wheelchair,” she said and glanced through the foyer at the open front door. Flashlight beams shone through the space and men’s voices were talking outside on the porch.
“Was he aware there was no ramp for the wheelchair?”
“He just became crippled in the last six weeks as his health deteriorated. He didn’t have enough money to put in a ramp for the chair.” She began walking toward the front door. “What happened?”
Officer Daniels put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think you want go out there.”
She pulled away from his hold and ran toward the door. “Mr. Morley!”
The scene waiting for her outside caught her breath so hard she couldn’t even scream. The wheelchair lay on its side on the porch, one wheel badly bent. Like a broken mannequin, Mr. Morley lay sprawled at the bottom of the porch steps. The beams of a police flashlight highlighted his face twisted unnaturally over his back due to a broken neck. His mouth hung open and his white eyes stared up at her.
She found her scream then.
* * * *
Charlene
sat on the couch drinking hot coffee from a police thermos while Mr. Morley’s
body was loaded into a waiting ambulance. Officer Daniels sat with her and
quietly asked her questions. She liked his brown eyes and the way he tended to
her needs.
“Do you believe me that some big kid broke into the house?” Charlene asked as she sipped the steaming cup.
“We found foot prints around the yard along with trampled bushes,” he said. “Mud was tracked in from outside. Someone was here.”
“Who do you think it was?” Charlene didn’t tell the police the story of Scabby Bobby. She knew they would never believe her. She barely believed it herself.
“Who knows?” Officer Daniels shrugged. “Some retarded kid or some crackhead in a clown mask. There’s a full moon tonight and it’s Halloween.”
“Halloween,” she repeated softly.
“Whoever broke into the house, they are long gone now. We canvassed the neighborhood and found no one walking around dressed as a hobo.”
“Am I free to go?” She handed him the empty cup.
“If I have any more questions I can call you tomorrow,” he said and smiled. “Or maybe I can call you even if I don’t have questions.”
“I’d like that.”
“Are you good enough to drive home or do you want a black-and-white to take you?”
“I’ll be all right.” She picked up her purse.
“It was nice meeting you, Charlene.”
“And you, Officer Daniels.”
“Call me Mark.”
Charlene walked out of the late Mr. Morley’s house and into the crisp October night air. The world no longer seemed real to her after the events of the evening. Her Saturn was parked under the streetlight. Climbing behind the wheel, she took one last look at poor Mr. Morley’s run-down old house before pulling away.
Tonight, Mr. Morley’s debt was paid in full.
She drove through the dark middle-class neighborhoods leading back to her lonely little apartment as her mind began to rationalize the things she’d experienced. Officer Daniels could be right. Maybe it wasn’t Scabby Bobby after all. Just some handicapped kid breaking into the house for candy. Mr. Morley’s story made me believe the intruder was Scabby Bobby. I know it seems like an incredible coincidence, but it makes more sense than believing an avenging ghost came back from the grave.
Turning a corner, her headlights caught the dark figure of someone walking across the street. She slowed and cruised past the person now on the sidewalk. It was a kid trick-or-treating. Dressed in a hobo outfit and mask, he waddled down the street under the halogen lights. In one hand, he held a bag heavy with candy. Charlene glanced down at the digital clock in the car’s dash:
Looking in her rear view mirror, she imagined this must be the way Bobby Riser looked before the Rowdy Rangers stole his candy and he died by being hit by a truck. The way he looked on a forgotten Halloween night in 1963.
“You will see firsthand evidence of life after death tonight.” The words of Mr. Morley echoed in her mind.
She had to find out the truth. Pulling the car over to the curb, she parked and got out. A dark sidewalk covered with dead leaves stretched before her. Ahead in the shadows, she heard the footsteps of the kid walking briskly away. She followed with her heart pounding in both fear and excitement. To know the truth of life after death, she told herself. To know as I sit by each patient in the last moments of their lives, it will not end there. There is a place beyond death.
She quickened her pace and began to overtake the slower moving figure. A few feet ahead, the back of the ridiculous hobo mask bobbed before her.
“Bobby,” she called out to him.
“Go away,” he pleaded. “Don’t-t-t hurt-t-t me!”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “I just want to talk to you.”
So close she could almost reach out and grab him. She wanted to turn him around and see if he was a ghost or just another kid out late on Halloween night.
So close to the truth.
“Don’t-t-t!” he cried out and took off running and bolted into the street.
“Bobby, wait!” she shouted and saw headlights of the approaching truck barreling down the street.
The screeching of brakes echoed across the neighborhood as the pickup truck slid to a stop. Charlene ran out to the front of the truck as the driver jumped out of the cab.
“Jesus!” he said. “The kid came out of nowhere. I didn’t see him. What was he doing out in the street?”
Charlene knelt down in the bright glow of the headlights expecting to see Bobby sprawled out on the street, but he was not there. The only thing lying in the road was a bag of Halloween candy scattered across the pavement. Scabby Bobby was gone.
“Where’s the kid?” the driver asked as he bent down and looked under his truck. “Where’s the kid in the hobo mask that ran in front of my truck? I swore I hit him!”
“There’s no kid here,” Charlene said.
The man ran his hands through his thick hair in relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought I ran over some poor trick-or-treater. I swear I saw this kid in a hobo mask run in front of my truck. What the hell just happened?”
“You know what night this is?”
“Halloween,” the man said climbing back into his truck. “I guess that explains it. Strange things happen on this night.”
The truck pulled away leaving her standing alone. She stared down at the candy scattered across the pavement. A light breeze began to stir the dead leaves and several rolled across her feet, as overhead, a full moon peeked around the clouds. Somewhere an owl hooted. She stood silently in the street where a boy had died, not on this night, but on a forgotten night many years before she was born. Tears came to her eyes, for now she knew the truth of death.
“Halloween,” Charlene repeated to herself before she walked back to her car.
the end
