Now, you usually think of Halloween as having a full moon where you could see the silhouette of a broom-mounted witch sailing across its surface. Not this night! There was no moon at all. It was so dark that you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. How those kids did their thing with any sense of direction or safety, I haven’t a clue, but they did, as kids always seem to do. It wasn’t long after we had received our last trick-or-treater that Pat picked up a lone Snickers bar from the candy bowl and begun to unwrap it, when she turned to me and said, “Matt, what do you think has happened to Sam Smithy’s property since he didn’t pay his taxes?” “I suppose the county has taken it,” I said. “That’s not fair!” “That simply isn’t fair!” “I am going to call our lawyer tomorrow and see if we can pay all the back taxes and penalties, and take control of it.” “Why?” I asked. “Several reasons, Matt.” “First and foremost; there just may be an heir out there.” “And secondly, anybody could make better use of it than the county!”
It was sometime around midnight and we had no longer than just turned-in, that “all hell broke loose.” It seemed to be emanating from the direction of our guesthouse… Screaming, scratching, growling, breaking of glass, slamming of doors and a few other noises that didn’t fall into any particular category. “My God, Pat, what was that?” “Probably Halloween pranksters, dear.” “I don’t know. It sounded more like an accident or something of that nature, and why aren’t the “kids” barking?” “Good point.” “I have to go and check it out or I’ll be awake all night, worrying about it.” “I figured you would. Just be careful, Matt, you know how the “crazies” are now-a-days!” I threw on my pants, shirt and a jacket and continued talking as I headed for the door, “Don’t worry I’ll have the “thirty-eight special” in my jacket pocket.” “More the reason to be careful!”
Did I mention that it was dark? It seemed even darker than before. It was as if I was spun around, in a game of blind man’s bluff and I had lost all sense of direction. I heard an owl hoot, not knowing from where the sound had come. Two cats were mating but where? I wended my way around the house as wish had piled upon wish that I had brought along a flashlight, but I did get a slight reprieve from the darkness when I saw the walk-lined figurines still glowing, but the batteries had worn down and the light had faded to a faint glimmer as they tried to do their part in pointing my way to the guest house. In the process of their, trying to help, the plastic “look-a-likes” seemed to be playing their own little game. The jack-o-lantern’s smile was a little too big and bent out of shape. There was too much yellow in the black cat’s eyes and its tail seemed to be swishing. Casper was floating just a little too high above his moorings, but what really scared the bee-jeebies out of me was when the witch, broom and all, fell over the walk, in an obvious attempt to block my passage. I had a feeling that if I didn’t walk around she would bite my ankle. I walked around with my right hand caressing the butt of my thirty- eight. I was almost sure that these occurrences were not real and probably just figments of my imagination, brought on by the season. As I reached the kitchen door to the guesthouse, I looked back and saw that all of the figurines were dark. “I fixed them,” I uttered out loud. I slowly and quietly turned the knob and pushed the door open with some trepidation, just enough to reach the light switch with my left index finger. Although the temperature had fallen down into the low forties I could feel beads of sweat forming on the nape of my neck that were slowly starting to trickle down my back. Click! Click, again! No power. As a product of my unfulfilled anticipation, it seemed darker yet, and all was quiet except for the low and continuous growl that I recognized immediately. It was, obviously emanating from Kleinie, but why? And where were the other two? Something was not, only wrong, but terribly wrong and I wasn’t about to enter that atmosphere in total darkness, then it dawned me. There was an emergency roadside light setting on the workbench, in the garage. The garage was attached to, and ran the full length of the guesthouse, and the inside door knob was about twelve inches from my left hand. I turned the knob and entered, nearly falling as the step-down was a little deeper than I had remembered. Regaining my balance, I sidled along the workbench until I felt the smooth round lens attached to the large rectangular battery. Armed with the light in one hand and still massaging cold hard steel with the other I was ready to tackle the unknown… or so it would seem.
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