Part 12 (1/2)

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.