Night 4: “Halloween’s a Time for Family”
The night was young and the house was dark.
The neighbour’s house had two levels and a deck with bannisters and the bannisters were decorated in wisps of string like cobwebs.
In the windows there were paper silhouettes. A warty witch in one, a tuxedoed vampire in another, and Frankenstein’s monster in another.
In the lawn there was a blow-up ghost 7-foot tall and tombstones. The tombstones were slanted and said RIP.
At the door there was a welcome mat that said “HELL-come to our HOUSE!” and had a pitchfork beneath the caption.
It was Oct. 28th.
The night was cloudy. The wind breezy and chilled.
The guy who lived next door was out and about and currently he was taking the garbage to the curb. He turned. He saw Tom, the neighbour with the wispy bannisters and tombstones. Tom was in the front yard adding to his decorations.
He was digging around some props. Little baby arms and baby legs stuck up from freshly-dug ground before two of the tombstones. One was already finished and the other Tom was finishing.
“Hey there, Tom. Looking good!” said the neighbour.
“Hey there, Steve,” said Tom. “Yes, thank you.”
Steve went inside.
The next night was Oct. 29th and Steve was pulling his garbage can up the driveway this time.
“Hey Tom,” said Steve as he passed. “Creepy mummy there. Looks good.”
Tom was in his front lawn. He was just setting up a mummy for Halloween. It was almost as tall as Tom was and ugly and its eyes were wide and staring from between its wrappings.
“Hey Steve,” said Tom. He didn’t look around.
The next night was Oct. 30th and when Steve came home late from work he saw two more figures on Tom’s front lawn. One was a witch and the other was a zombie. The witch had a pale face and looked almost real and the zombie really did look like a decomposed body. Tom was out there with a small can and was applying paint to the witch’s face.
“Pretty good decorations this year, Tom!” said Steve.
Tom waved. He looked a little tired, though. Dark rings under his eyes. His eyes looked downcast and forlorn.
The next night the kids started showing up around five-thirty and Steve became busy and he didn’t notice when Tom and Tom’s wife and kids got home from trick or treating. It can’t have been too late. They had new-born twins to look after this year.
The next day was a work day. But none of the vehicles left Tom’s driveway.
When Steve got home later he noticed for the first time the last piece of decor Tom had added to his scene.
It was a hanged man. Right in front of the doorway. Before it was a stool where an empty bowl for Halloween candy had been left for trick-or-treaters.
The bowl had yet to be taken in. The hanged man had yet to be taken down.
There was something about that hanging man that made Steve stop and reconsider.
Then, he walked up to the Davidson’s front sidewalk and past the fresh tombstones, and past the witch and zombie, and past the wrapped mummy and as he got closer he saw the hanged man’s swollen face and now understood the smell coming not from a sewer grate or from some dead bird nearby, but from his neighbour’s lawn.
Oh God, Steve was now thinking, how did I not see? How did I not see? His decorations! His decorations! I complimented him on his damn decorations!”
The Compendium 