Trick or Treat Read Free

Everyone’s glad to be here but me . The thought made her feel lonelier than ever, and she dragged herself upstairs, fighting back tears.
    The cold was still there, trapped inside her room.
    Not as strong as it had been before … not as jolting … but there, just the same … seeping from the corners like an invisible fog.…
    Martha rubbed her arms and began emptying her suitcases. This room must be on the windy side of the house; that’s why the temperature’s so much lower …. For a brief moment she toyed with the idea of telling Dad, but then decided against it. He would only joke about it or accuse her of being difficult. I’m just tired . . once I get a good night’s sleep, it’ll be gone … once the sun comes out I’ll probably even laugh at myself . She hoped Conor wouldn’t say anything about it — she’d been embarrassed enough, acting like such an idiot in front of him.
    Shutting her door, Martha got into her night-gown, her eyes going uneasily across the room … the windows … the closet. Funny … that closet was open before …. Puzzled, she tried to remember — had Conor closed it when he’d shown her around earlier? She was almost positive he hadn’t, yet now the door was shut.
    Beads of sweat prickled her forehead. It was so quiet … so lonely…. She couldn’t hear anyone talking downstairs. Maybe they’d all gone out somewhere…. Maybe she was completely alone….
    With a cry, Martha jerked open the closet door.
    The closet was empty.
    Weak-kneed, she crawled into bed, leaving the lamp on beside her pillow. Just this once I’ll keep it on, she argued with herself, just this first night and I don’t care if they do laugh at me ….
    Exhaustion settled over her like a huge weight. She was asleep almost at once, deep and dreamless, and she had no idea how long it had been, how many hours she’d lain there, when the phone jarred her awake.
    Martha bolted upright, heart pounding, eyes frantically probing the darkness as she fought to remember where she was. The lamp was out, and beyond her door the phone shrilled again, insistent.
    “Dad?” Martha called out fuzzily. “Sally?”
    Stumbling out into the hall, Martha felt her way towards the sound. Someone had left a nightlight burning near the baseboard, and it cast a pool of shadows at her feet.
    “Dad?” Martha tried again, and her hand fumbled for the receiver, rattling it off the cradle, its scream abruptly silenced.
    “Hello?” Martha mumbled.
    And at first there was nothing.
    At first the quiet was so convincing that Martha really thought it had been a mistake and the embarrassed caller had hung up.
    And then she heard the breathing.
    Slow … hollow….
    The raspy, choking sound it made as it tried to speak….
    “Look outside,” it whispered. “ Trick or treat .”
    Martha dropped the phone. As her heart hammered in her throat, she groped back through the darkness to her room. It’s just a crank call … what’s the matter with you? You’ve gotten crank calls before ….
    But her window was there, waiting for her as she walked in, a black gaping hole against the night, frenzied trees clawing at the glass….
    Martha moved across the floor like someone in a bad dream. She climbed onto the window seat and forced herself to look out.
    The body was hanging there, so close she could have touched him.
    She knew he was dead from the way he was swinging, a slow, crazy dance in the cold, cold wind.
    There was a carving knife through his head….
    And as the moonlight fell across his slashed face, he grinned up at her.

Chapter 2
     
    As Martha screamed, a pair of hands came out of nowhere, catching her by the shoulders.
    “What is it?” Conor’s face was eerily distorted in the half light. As Martha shrank back from him, he pressed his face to the glass, stared a moment, then steered her to the side of her bed. “It’s the scarecrow.”
    “What!”
    “The one from the porch. Someone sure went to a lot of trouble for a