Tales From the Darkside Part 12

The Goblin waved to Killup, a friendly wave that was somehow not friendly at all.

The Goblin smiled at Killup, a genial smile that was somehow not genial at all.

The door slammed shut.

Killup opened it instantly.

No Goblin perched on the porch railing.

No sound but the wind and the rustling dead leaves. Both wind and rustling dead leaves blew in upon Killup.

He shut the door slowly and carefully. As he turned the lock, the clock on the living room wall began to chime the hour. He turned, took one step, and heard a crack.

Killup looked down and found he'd trod upon his watch.

Kneeling carefully in such a way that minimized the pain in his neck, Killup retrieved the watch. The hands pointed to midnight exactly. He put the watch to his ear. No ticking.

"Broken," he said. "d.a.m.n that kid."

The clock chimed the twelfth stroke of midnight and then was silent.

In his chair before the television Killup waited for the Goblin to return, to push the buzzer, to stomp on the echoing floor boards, to call out "Trick or treat" in that harsh, low voice that didn't sound like a child's at all.

The Goblin did not return.

Killup turned the television set back on. He still got nothing but static. Obviously the cable was out again.

He thought about calling the cable company, but after midnight he'd only get a recorded voice, and there would be others calling, anyway.

He went through every channel, from 2 to 56. Nothing but static. He looked at his watch.

Midnight exactly.

Then he remembered he'd broken the watch by stepping on it.

He decided he'd climb the stairs to bed. He only went up and down the stairs once a day. Down in the morning, only once. Up again at the end of day, only once.

He turned off the television.

In the sudden silence he heard a faint rustling.

Like leaves blowing on the porch outside.

But it wasn't that.

The rustling was from inside.

Killup blinked his eyes so that he could focus them beyond the distance of the television set. He peered into the hallway and for the first time noticed that the Goblin had left behind his trick-or-treat bag.

It was small, rectangular, of coa.r.s.e burlap.

As Killup peered at it, trying to determine whether the slight, continuing rustling sound was coming from it, the trick-or-treat bag began to inch across the floor. Not as if someone were hiding out of sight behind the stairs, pulling on it with an invisible string, but moving as if a severed but lifeful hand inside the bag were slowly clawing its way down the hallway, sneaking out of Killup's sight, headed for the kitchen.

Killup stood out of his chair. But as he moved to the entryway the burlap bag suddenly changed direction and headed toward him. As if, once discovered in its attempt to secrete itself, the bag had decided to attack.

With one hand grasping the edge of the open doorway for balance, Killup raised his foot to stomp on the burlap bag and whatever was inside it.

At that moment the bag overturned. c.o.c.kroaches swarmed out of it. It was not a severed hand but the random motion of a hundred insectsa"of all different sizes but all the same glowing chocolate colora"that had propelled the bag across the floor.

Killup brought his foot down on thema"or on one or two of them, at any rate. The rest disappeared beneath the iron base of the standing floor lamp, beneath the television stand, beneath Killup's chair, beneath the rug. They slipped into crevices between the floorboards and hid in the shadows of the faded curtains.

Killup ground the burlap sack beneath his heel and kicked it into a corner. He went to the telephone on the hall table and peered at a sc.r.a.p of paper wedged in the wainscoting. It read: "Michaela"KL5--1186."

Killup quickly dialed the number, and his call was answered before he even got the receiver to his ear.

"At the tone, the time will be midnight exactly."

The tone sounded, and at that same moment the clock in the living room once more began to chime the hour.

Killup hung up. His hand remained on the receiver as he counted the strokes of the clock.

. . . ten . . . eleven . . . twelve.

Not only had his watch stopped, the clock was broken too.

He dialed his son's number again, this time speaking each digit aloud as he read it on the sc.r.a.p of paper.

"At the tone, the time will be midnight exactly."

Killup slammed down the receiver. He picked it up again and dialed 0, for the operator.

"At the tone, the time will be midnight exactly."

Once more he slammed down the receiver, held it there, picked it up again in order to dial 0, but before his finger had even touched the dial, he heard: "At the tone, the time will be midnight exactly."

Killup put down the receiver. He stood still for several moments and tried to make sense of what had happened. He couldn't, which suggested that nothing really had happened at all. Sometimes, at his age, things got confused. He stood with his hand on the newel post and looked up the stairs.

He decided he'd sleep in his chair tonight. He was tired, and some nights the stairs were steep. He had no telephone on the second floor, and just in case it rang, he wanted to be down here. And just in case that child dressed in the Goblin costume was still around, he'd prefer to meet him down here, where windows could be locked, and doors bolted, and where he could see that dreadful child in the dreadful mask that didn't look like a mask. Killup wanted, as much as he dreaded, the return of the Goblin. So that he could slip his fingers beneath that mask and pull it off sharply to expose the putty putto face behind it.

Once more Killup peered between the slats of the venetian blinds. The leaves blew across the porch and the swing creaked on its chains and that was all. He rummaged over to his chair, more weary than confused or frightened now, slipped into it comfortable, adjusted his brace, and fell asleep.

He dreamed vivid dreams, but in the very instant of waking forgot them completely. He looked around the room. No light showed through the blinds. But that didn't seem right.

"Feels like I've slept for hours," he said aloud. "It should be morning by now."

Automatically he glanced at his watch.

The broken watch still read midnight.

He laughed, that first croaking laugh of morning. Except it wasn't morning.

"Still midnight. Halloween. But it feels like it should be morning. I feel like breakfast."

He roused himself, stretched and twisted, and pressed till he was upright and out of the chair. It was hard to remember a time when simply getting up out of a chair didn't hurt. If it wasn't morning, then at least it was very late. If it was very late, then he should climb the stairs toward bed. He headed that way but stopped at the clock on the living room wall.

Both hands were upraised to twelve. Broken, like his watch. He took advantage of the coincidence and decided that if it was still midnight by the evidence of two different timepieces, he might still call Michael.

He peered at the sc.r.a.p of paper in the wainscoting and picked up the receiver. Without dialing a single digit he heard: "At the tone, it will be midnight exactly."

He put down the phone hastily and, without thinking what anything might mean, went into the kitchen. He pushed aside the ruffled curtains that covered the panes in the back door and peered out at the sky.

All was darkness beyond.

"I know I slept for hours," said Killup aloud and carefully. "I feel it. It's morning, but the sky is dark.

That's all. Dark clouds in the sky make it seem like night."

Hungrily he turned toward the cabinet, raising his hand to open it. But his hand fell when he saw the kitchen clock.

It, too, was stopped at midnight.

"This one stopped too," said Killup aloud. A kitchen clock that ran on electricity, a wall clock that was wound once every seven days on Sunday, a wrist.w.a.tch that operated on a battery for a yeara"and they'd all stopped with both hands pointing to twelve.

Once more Killup deliberately ignored the increasing improbability of this coincidence. He spoke aloud to rea.s.sure himself: "I don't care if it is midnight. I still feel like I haven't eaten in days."

The refrigerator door swung open of its own accord. There was nothing strange in this, for the magnetic catch hadn't worked properly in the last nine years.

Michael Killup had found five eggs in the refrigerator that afternoon. Killup had broken one into the glop he poured into the trick-or-treat bag of the tiny Devil. Four eggs were left. Of its own accord, one of those four rolled down the aluminum grid of the refrigerator shelf, poised a moment on the precipice, and then plunged to the floor.

It broke open, and c.o.c.kroaches swarmed out of the broken sh.e.l.l.

Killup crushed the sh.e.l.l beneath his feet. The c.o.c.k roaches, gleaming like expensive Swiss chocolate, fled to safety beneath the refrigerator, beneath the stove, slipped beneath the sliding door into the living room, hid themselves in the shadows.

Killup slammed the refrigerator shut. Hunger still gnawed, but at the same time his appet.i.te was gone.

He'd also decided that this was also more than mere late-night confusion.

He wanted no more recorded voices on the telephone, no more goblins that appeared and disappeared, no more timepieces that stopped at midnight, and especially no more insects.

The stove swarmed with them. They swam up from beneath the white porcelain, they flared in the pilot lights, they crawled on the surfaces of the pot in which he warmed his canned soup, they scurried around the lid of his coffeepot.

It was time to leave. No matter what time of night it was. No matter what time of night it was. No matter that he couldn't get Michael on the phone. He turned the bolt on the back door and opened it.

Tried to open the door. It remained locked. Sometimes the door stuck in wet weather, but it hadn't rained in weeks.

The autumn had been dry. Killup turned the k.n.o.b again and the door remained locked. He shot the bolt again. Unlocked it again. Still the door wouldn't open.

When he turned around again, all the insects had disappeared from the surface of the stove. It was blotched with rust and spots of dried grease that looked like insects, but that was all. Probably he's imagined the swarming c.o.c.kroaches.

The late hour. The fretting over the trick-or-treaters. His stomach was empty, his throat dry. He upturned a gla.s.s in the drainboard, turned on the faucet, and filled the gla.s.s with water. He sighed a long sigh and raised it to his lips. It was the middle of the night. He was confused, and there was no more to be said about it. As he raised the gla.s.s to his lips he sensed something behind him. He turned quickly.

Through the window over the sink, where he'd hoped for a glimmer of dawn, he saw only the Goblin.

The Goblin grinned that friendly grin that wasn't friendly, c.o.c.ked its head, and disappeared.

All was darkness again, and Killup said aloud, "That's not a mask."

The gla.s.s he held to his lips was empty of water. But it was filled with c.o.c.kroaches the color of expensive Swiss chocolate. They cluttered up the sides of the gla.s.s toward his mouth.

He dropped the gla.s.s on the floor and it shattered. Once more the insects scattered, hiding out of his sight and out of danger of his tread.

The refrigerator door swung slowly open once more.

Without closing it, without glancing out the window, without looking again at the clock, Killup stumbled through the swinging door into the living room again.

Treats. Or. Tricks.

The Goblin was outside. Killup stumbled toward the front door, not minding the pain in the joints of his hips, the pain in his neck that stung with every lurching step. He pulled his cane from the umbrella stand, not for support but for a weapon. He pulled on the front door.

It was locked too.

In his frustration Killup picked up one of the bowls of candy on the table and flung it at the door. The china smashed, the candy scattering across the floor. Killup stumbled backward against the table, knocking "At the tone, the time will be midnight exactly."

Killup kicked the telephone cord from the wall, nearly losing his balance in the process.

He went into the living room, dragged the draperies aside and ripped down the venetian blinds to get at the latch on the cas.e.m.e.nt.

It wouldn't turn, no matter how hard he jerked at it.

Behind him, the television switched on. Only static.

Killup stared at it a moment, then swung his cane at the window.

It didn't break.

Bracing himself not to fall, he swung harder.

Still the gla.s.s did not break.

It was still night, and leaves blew down the length of the porch.

Killup hooked his cane between the slats of the blinds on the second window and jerked them down.

He then tried to shatter the window.

The gla.s.s did not break.

Treats. Or. Tricks. Mr. Killup.