“You can just come to the town party as a vampire victim,” Linc quipped as he pointed at his neck then mine. Dahn snickered softly. My cheeks flamed. There were two love marks. That they could see. Two. And now they were all sitting here sniggering into their fucking pumpkins.
“You can come as a jerk pickle,” I snarled. I was doing my best not to curse since Dodge got upset if we cussed in front of Dahn. Baker snorted while trying to cut out a triangle eye. “A big, hairy jerk pickle with a dumb accent!”
Linc laughed. Baker laughed. Everyone on the other side of the table laughed. It made me feel stupid, just like I had as a kid in school. Some tiny something inside me snapped. I fisted the guts in my hand, jerked my fist out of the hole in the top of my scary jack-o’-lantern, and whipped it at the big jerk pickle. My aim was excellent. The handful of seeds and slimy gourd guts hit him right in the face.
Bella gasped. Lincoln blinked like a stunned mackerel, seeds and goop sliding down his beard to his lap as the others roared in amusement.
“Gut fight!” Dahn bellowed then flung some pumpkin guts at his father. Dodge ducked. The goo slapped Hanley in the ear. With a cry of surprise, Hanley then flung some back at Dahn, who juked just in time to avoid the incoming mess. Baker took it right on the kisser. Linc snapped out of his shock, pointed a goopy finger at me, and then the battle was on officially. Lady picked up on the silliness, leaping about while flinging bits of shell this way and that.
Bella and Granny skedaddled to the porch, Bella shouting to be careful of her new dress. Ollie, still in his uniform, decided to use me as a human shield for a quick second or two.
“Anyone gets pumpkin on this shirt and I have to go home and change before the party, I’ll lock them up for assaulting an officer of the law with seasonal fruit.” Ollie waved a finger at us as he raced to his cruiser. None of us quite dared to test him.
Guts flew for a solid two minutes until our buckets were empty. Once the ammo was gone, we all slowly rose from where we’d been crouching, watching the others for any last-minute salvo. There were none. Everyone was a seedy mess.
“That escalated quickly,” Dodge said as he flicked a seed off the end of Dahn’s button nose.
“Guess you boys know you just wasted the makings for a pan of roasted seeds and some chili pumpkin soup,” Granny called from the front porch.
We all looked at each other, coated in guts, smiles playing on our grimy faces.
“Worth it!” we shouted in unison. Amazing how much better a man felt after slapping his brother in the face with slimy orange gourd innards. Wish I’d had them around when I was a kid and I’d been picked on in school for being a weirdo. Not to beat up Tommy Ianello, the bully of PS 804, as I eventually did that—took me until I was in high school, but I finally got him alone behind the gym one day—but these clowns would have been really handy for making me laugh when I felt like a loser outcast.
10
Chapter Ten
Scary things come out on All Hallows’ Eve.
Pulling up to the fire hall on the outskirts of town, I spied the Learys right off. They were hard to miss. Big bunch of morons lingering outside, drinking beers, shouting who knew what at the people bringing their kids inside. If Ollie were here, he would probably run them in for public drunkenness, but he’d been called out to investigate a burglary at a chainsaw shop on Biggerstaff Road. He probably had his deputy with him, so until he rolled back into Bastian Grange, these assholes would continue to be assholes.
We arrived in two vehicles: Granny and Bella and me in the farm truck and the rest in Hanley’s Jeep. Dodge lived in town now, so he would join us as soon as the candy in his handout dish was gone. Dahn was out with his friends trick-or-treating until eight, then they’d arrive here before heading to Phil’s house for a sleepover/pizza/slasher movie night. Better them than me. I hated scary movies, now more than ever.
As soon as I saw the Learys at the door, I looked at Bella. She was dressed up as a scary,Silent Hillsort of undead nurse. Freaked me out. She even had that disjointed walk/twitch down pat. Granny was done up as a saloon girl, right down to a feather in her upswept plum hair. She sure did look the part, aside from her support stockings and cane. I was not a vampire victim. I was a ’50s greaser, thanks to an old black leather jacket that had come west with me. Brylcreem in my hair, old jeans, and a bad attitude. Something a doofus from Bensonhurst could pull off. I didn’t ask how old the hair gel was, but the tube Granny had given me looked old as hell.
Sitting in the truck, parked facing the front doors, I glanced at Bella.
“We can go in the side door,” Granny offered, blowing the tip of the purple feather out of her face. Her fascinator wasn’t fastened too well. “Avoid those knuckle-draggers.”
“No, I am walking through the front doors just like everyone else,” Bella stated, her chin rising as it did when her mind was set. I nodded and eased out of the truck. Funky music thumped inside the hall, “Monster Mash,” I think it was. After jogging around the front bumper, I opened the passenger door to help Granny out then Bella. Both got their wraps settled as a cold wind howled through the naked trees that lined the ball field to the left of the fire station. Adults and kids were everywhere, most dressed up, some not. Shouts and laughter floated by on the autumn wind as I waited for the others. They arrived a moment later. Baker, Hanley, and Lincoln pulled up beside us and exited.
“Looks like they got a gang of baboons collecting tickets at the door,” Baker, kitted out as Chef Carmen Berzatto fromThe Bear,said.He looked nothing like Jeremy Allen White, obviously, but he hadn’t planned out a costume, so he had to settle on a white tee and one of Granny’s blue bib aprons. This is what happens when you don’t research.
“I got a ticket for them if they say one fucking word about Bella,” Lincoln growled as he held up a fist the size of an Easter ham. For a man who spent hours meditating, doing yoga and tai chi, and reading Eastern Zen books, he sure was fast to flash a fist.
“This is a party, not a bar brawl,” Bella reminded him as she slipped her tiny hand into his arm. “Let’s go inside.”
So we marched to the front doors. Rip wasn’t with his brothers yet, so I would have to hold off clocking him. Someday I’d find him. Just like I had Tommy Ianello. Mom always said patience was a virtue.
“Nope, sorry, we’re not allowing his kind of freak inside with all the kids,” Leary One spat out as he glared down at Bella. “Pedo-files itching to sneak into the women’s room to spy and fondle little girls. Not on our watch!”
“No one said you were on any kind of watch, Gary, so step aside and let Miss Bella in,” a booming voice from behind us said just as Baker opened his mouth to speak. Manfred Owens strolled up, tipping his cowboy hat—guess he was a cattleman tonight, which was pretty poor costume picking—at Granny and Bella before pushing in close to Leary One, aka Gary Leary.
“We got the right of the good Lord on our side to deny entry to—”
Manfred, a large man with all kinds of clout in Bastian Grange, took a step closer to Gary, a skinny drunk in filthy overalls.
“I don’t think you speak for the Lord nor for the board of the Bastian Grange VFD, of which I am a founding member. If Miss Bella has her ticket, then she is allowed to enter the party. Now, I suggest you move your crusty backside out of the way before I forget we have two ladies here.”
