The Porch

Spooky ol’ Mr. MacCourt,

Left candy for us on his porch.

Be brave or beware,

Go and take some, I dare ya.

He really loves the gutsy sort.

***

Henry opened his front door and looked up at the cold and darkening sky, which was now a deep maroon fading into dark blues at the far eastern reaches of the horizon that disappeared over the tall hedges surrounding his home—his front door was hidden from the street well enough. There was a gate near the corner that was arched by green bush and when you entered through it you went down a windy brick path that eventually brought you to the wide, three wooden steps. At the top of the steps was a quaint, slatted porch. And then the door. An ornate thing that was very old but was well taken care of. A private property, yes, but a pretty one once you got to looking around at it. The yard was attractive and well groomed, as was usually the case with Henry, the homes’ owner. Usually. But not on this night.

On this night, as Henry looked blankly out at the sky and then at his yard and then his porch, he looked very wild, like a rabid dog who’d been tranquilized but had not yet toppled and succumbed to sleep. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair—which earlier that day had been well oiled and combed and could have been mistaken for glistening chrome—was now dull and sticking up in all directions but the right ones. A sudden noise from down the street yanked Henry from his hypnotic state—a child’s shrill and joyful laugh. They were coming. They were almost here.

It was rounding five and heading into six in the evening when he pulled the weighted chair out onto his front porch and plopped the overflowing bowl of candy down onto the soft cushion of pink, splotchy red and veiny purple. An unexpected shiver slithered through his body and he let it jostle him a bit before he closed his cardigan tightly around himself. It had rained earlier, and felt like it might rain again soon. He looked one last time out into his yard, to his gate at the far end. He checked to see if the latch was up or down. It was up. Unlocked. Good, he thought, then disappeared back into the house.

***

The first child was hesitant. The house looked hidden, or at the very least private, like they didn’t expect or even want anybody to come up and ring the bell. But when he peeked over the short height of the wooden gate he saw a porch light and it illuminated a man sitting in a chair. The kid got excited and tried the handle of the gate and, yippee, it opened!

The boy—dressed as Evel Knievel, white striped jumpsuit and all—and his friend, Freddy Krueger, stepped through the gate and started their way up the windy path, not caring that their pillow cases, weighted down with only four houses worth of candy, were dragging on the wet brick, picking up a stray leaf and some streaks of mud here and there along the way up to the porch. As they neared they noticed that in the man’s lap was the reason for the season, their prize—a gargantuan and opulent bowl filled to the very brim, and then some, with individually wrapped chocolate bars and sweet tarts and sugar sticks and gummy worms and all the like. At such a sight Evel and Freddy could barely contain their excitement. They’d never seen such bounty in all their eight years! So, halfway up the path, the two kicked into gear and skittered the rest of the way up to the man…

…only, it wasn’t a man.

Or, was it a man? It looked like one.

They stopped and stood dumbly at the first of three steps, looking up at the thing that sat in the chair with the bowl of candy in its lap. It did look like a man, yes, but now that they were closer they knew it had to be a thing that was meant to look like one.

It was pale and it was hunched in the wooden chair. Its eyes were glassy and rolled off into opposing directions and its tongue hung comically outside its blue lips. The arms dangled at its sides, some of the fingernails broken, bent backwards and purple, and one booted foot was crooked, facing inward as if pigeon toed. At its middle the flannel shirt was cleanly torn and stained red. But that was just the beginning of the spooky nature of the prop.

Mounds of rolling guts bulged from a gaping slash in the figure’s stomach and they glistened with slimy wetness. Resting atop the twisting mass of exposed flesh, like a crystal ball placed onto a velvet cushion, was the bowl of candy.

The boys shared a glance and took the first step up to the bowl, the golden idol. The wooden step squeaked. They had seen some elaborate decorations before, but this one topped the list. The sheer realism was such that Freddy actually stumbled on the second step, his knees had begun to shake. He told Evel it was the cold—not that he was a little spooked and Evel said that the hiccups that had just then possessed him were because of the same, but they weren’t. They both took the last step together and stood for a second, not reaching out just yet. They thought there had to be some game—some catch, the trick aspect of this whole deal and they imagined that the figure might flinch or kick or whirl and open its big glassy eyes at them and shout and they’d scream like babies and maybe piss themselves and some older school-yard jerks would laugh at them. That’s what they were really afraid of and it kept their hands from reaching for another several moments. But when nothing happened, nothing at all, Evel made the first move and he made it fast. He snatched a precariously placed nougat bar and brought it back to his chest tightly.

The figure did nothing.

Freddy leaned into it, head tilted this way, then that, reached his little gloved hand—the one with second-hand store forks taped to the fingers—and waved at the prop’s face.

Still nothing.

So they dug in. They grabbed two fistfuls each and threw the loot into their filthy sacks and turned to go. Freddy hopped down the three steps in a single bound and made quickly for the gate to continue his pillaging, but Evel stopped and looked back. There had been a small wind that had come by, a cold draft that maybe would have made a leaf at the end of a spiders thread sway, or a candle’s flame flicker, but that’s all. That gentle draft, small though it was, brought something up with it, and it made Evel’s nose scrunch.

A sickly, sour smell, and the kid thought it had come from the bowl of candy, or probably the figure. But that couldn’t be right…

Freddy shouted then and told his daredevil companion to get a move on, they didn’t have all night. So Evel shrugged and leapt from the porch and went on his way, onto the next house. The gate slammed behind him on its spring hinges and it masked the muted shriek of agony that came from somewhere inside the dark house.

Two trick-or-treaters come and gone, hundreds more to follow, and most of them would be satisfied. There was plenty more candy to go around.