This is halloween, p.1
This is Halloween, page 1
“THIS IS HALLOWEEN is a book full of love letters from James A. Moore. Love letters to all of the things he loves about the things that scare you.” — Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of DEAD RINGERS
“The next best thing to trick-or-treating at James A. Moore’s house! And in this book, he’s only giving out the good candy.” — Jeff Strand, author of DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE
“James A. Moore’s stories are a treat any time of the year and THIS IS HALLOWEEN is no exception.” — John McIlveen, author of HANNAHWHERE
ALSO BY JAMES A. MOORE
The Jonathan Crowley Chronicles
Under the Overtree
Vendetta
Cherry Hill
Boomtown (Forthcoming)
Crowley: One Week (Forthcoming)
The Serenity Falls Trilogy
Writ in Blood
The Pack
Dark Carnival
The Chris Corin Series
Possessions
Rabid Growth
Newbies
The Blood Red Series
Blood Red
Blood Harvest
The Subject Seven Series
Subject Seven
Run
The Seven Forges Series
Seven Forges
The Blasted Lands
City of Wonders
The Silent Army
The Tides of War Series
The Last Sacrifice
THIS IS HALLOWEEN
Ten Tantalizing Treats (and a Few Tricks)
James A. Moore
Haverhill House Publishing
A River City Writers Publication 2016
The Dry Season © 2010, James A. Moore
Harvest Moon © 1994, James A. Moore
Hathburn Avenue © 2008, James A. Moore
Bone Harvest © 2008, James A. Moore
Harvest Gods Revisited © 2013, James A. Moore
Patchwork © 2009, James A. Moore
Night Eyes © 2011, James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge
Blood Tide © 2004, James A. Moore
Shades of Grey © 2009, James A. Moore
The Walker Place © 2011, James A. Moore
A River City Writers Publication
THIS IS HALLOWEEN © 2016 by James A. Moore
Cover design and illustration © 2016 Dan Brereton
Cover formatting and setup by Dyer Wilk
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electrical or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
The stories contained in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Haverhill House Publishing
643 E Broadway
Haverhill MA 01830-2420
Visit us on the web at www.HaverhillHouse.com
🎃
Dedicated to every trick-or-treater, regardless of age.
We are kindred spirits.
Special thanks to Dan Brereton for the amazing cover art, to John McIlveen and Bracken MacLeod for the major assist in layouts and to E.J. Stevens for the technical support, know how, and patience. This book could not possibly exist without your help and patience, guys, and I appreciate it more than you know.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introductioni
The Dry Season 1
Harvest Moon13
Hathburn Avenue35
Bone Harvest48
Harvest Gods Revisited 68
Patchwork 78
Night Eyes122
Blood Tide138
Shades of Grey 153
The Walker Place181
INTRODUCTION
Early in 2015, I drove fourteen hundred miles with Jim Moore, all so he could fulfill his lifelong dream of living in New England. As a kid, Jim moved around a lot. No, no…you’ve got some idea in your head about what “a lot” means, and I’m going to tell you that idea is wrong. Whatever you think moving “a lot” is, banish it from your brain. Jim’s family moved more often than any three military families. More often than any six fugitives from justice. More often than desert nomads.
Okay, maybe not the nomads thing, but you get it.
In essence, the Moores were a nomadic family. But young Jim, he read horror stories, and so many of his favorite horror stories were set in New England that the region wove its mystique into his brain. He longed to live in that place where the nights would grow so very long, where the leaves would turn the colors of beautiful fire, then fall and skitter along the streets or dance and twirl in the autumn breeze, whipping up in a swirling wind so that they almost seemed—for a moment—to take the shape of a man. Or something like a man.
Now you understand.
Jim wanted to live in New England because, to him, that’s where Halloween is at its finest. New England, with its centuries of ghost stories and haunted houses, with its lonely villages and remote mountains, with its history of horror fiction. New England is Edgar Allan Poe country. H.P. Lovecraft country. Stephen King country. It is the ancestral home of horror.
In early 2015, James A. Moore moved to a place he’d never lived before, but which nevertheless was home.
These days, thanks to his Seven Forges series, Jim is best known as a fantasy author. With its dark philosophies and savage violence, his fantasy is of the variety labeled “grimdark,” and that label is more than appropriate. But when I read the Seven Forges novels and meet warriors on lonely roads, desperate people encountering dark and capricious gods, and shadowy, uncanny pirates in black ships, I can only think, “Jim, your roots are showing.” I love to see the influences of Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson and so many others looming in the background of these excellent fantasy tales. (And they are excellent. If you are reading this, no doubt you’re a horror fan, but don’t shy away from the grimdark fantasy of James A. Moore. You’ll find all that you love in those pages, too.)
I first met Jim more than twenty years ago, when I was serving as Secretary of the Horror Writers Association (Jim foolishly agreed to take the position when I abdicated the role). We were just getting started back then, but Jim had already had his first comics story published at Marvel, and had been quickly earning a rep as one of the architects of White Wolf Games’ World of Darkness. It wouldn’t be long before he’d start showing his true colors in novels like Under the Overtree and the massive Serenity Falls (later revised and released as a trilogy). The former introduced Moore’s fan-favorite, immortal, do-not-fuck-with-me antihero Jonathan Crowley, who went on to appear in the latter novel as well. Serenity Falls also introduced the world to one of Jim’s most memorable and most disturbing characters, Rufo the Clown. If you’ve yet to encounter Rufo in your own reading, the less I say about him the better. But y’know…he’s a clown, created by James A. Moore. Draw your own conclusions.
Speaking of clowns…
Sure, Jim loves New England. He loves his new home because he feels so at home here. James A. Moore draws the haunted autumn Halloween fabric of New England around him like a favorite blanket, swaddles himself in it like a contented baby, warm and safe, wrapped inside the things that scare you. Jim Moore loves the things that scare you. If you tell him you’re terrified of clowns—that even as an adult, the very idea of clowns makes your skin crawl—then there’s nothing Jim wants more than to write you a story about clowns. I’ve seen him do it. For Jim, it’s almost a love letter, a hymn to fear, personalized just for you.
THIS IS HALLOWEEN is a book full of love letters from James A. Moore. Love letters to all the things he loves about the things that scare you. A book full of his hymns to fear.
Be afraid.
But sing along.
Or he will find you.
Happy Halloween….
Christopher Golden
Bradford, Massachusetts
6th October, 2016
The Dry Season
The air was dry that year, dry enough that hair took on a static charge and the leaves fell from trees and commenced a hissing sigh when they were caught by the arid winds. Not that the kids seemed to care. If anything, the dry atmosphere made costumes just a little easier to breathe in, and added to the snap of cheap plastic capes in the wind.
The air had the perfect bite of cold to it, and the wind carried hints of distant conversations and the far away sound of cars on the highway. The scent of autumn mingled with the bite of candle-roasted jack-o-lantern. It was Halloween, and Linda loved that.
All around the town there were decorations aplenty, ranging from the cut out paper pumpkins in front of the Mueller house to the elaborate displays of jack-o-lantern artwork in front of Arielle Wilson’s home. Arielle was a longtime fan of Halloween and spent most of her time running the most prestigious art gallery in town. Some of the pumpkins she carved herself and others were by special arrangement with her creative friends. Her house, as was traditional, would be saved for the very last, because all the kids wanted to go there the most.
On Harper Street, the kids wandered mostly in groups, sometimes closely supervised by parents and sometimes barely watched over, but always with at least a token amount of adult supervision.
No one liked to talk about it, but everyone lik
There were rumors, of course. Always rumors. The man they caught, the man they arrested, the man they killed. Some people said he was innocent. Most people knew better. Some claimed he was a drifter. Some said he was a local who almost never came out of his house. In the end it didn’t matter. He died for what he’d done to three children. That was enough.
Most days.
People felt differently on Halloween. The anniversaries of atrocities are often remembered better than the celebrations of happier things.
There were ten of them that moved closer to the house where the children were killed. It had been a long while back, since the adults in the group were children themselves, and the legends of what Martin Lundgren had done were little more than legends any more. That was for the best.
There were differences this year, however. For the first time in memory, the house where Lundgren lived and died was occupied. After decades of being locked in probate and becoming little more than a haunted myth, the legal issues had been resolved and someone had moved into the place.
Linda was delighted. The old house was a beautiful affair, with three stories worth of gingerbread shingles, three gables and a wrought iron and stone fence around the place that added heavily to the creep factor, even after the entire place had been cleaned up. The large lawn was well maintained these days and the seven old oak trees that guarded the property were currently shedding the last of their leaves and were left reaching in all directions with long, skeletal limbs. She was staring right at the uppermost window—the one on the same level as the widow’s walk—when Nancy started talking.
“There is something seriously wrong with that kid.” Nancy laughed as she said it, but Linda couldn’t quite tell if she was joking. Of course that was hardly unusual when it came to Nancy. The two of them had been friends since high school, well before they were married, settled down and had kids of their own, and Nancy was officially her BFF, but that didn’t mean she could always tell what was on her best friend’s mind.
Except, of course, that Nancy hated Halloween. She always had. Couldn’t stand being scared. But she tolerated it for the sake of their kids. Nancy had her twin girls, Katie—currently dressed as Cinderella—and Mary—currently dressed as a black cat, because she hated looking like her sister. Nancy also had her newest, Tyler, who was only six and always half a second from getting himself into trouble. Currently his older sisters were reigning-in his worst habits with threats of taking away his candy. Linda didn’t really approve of using threats to manage her kids, but she wasn’t about to criticize, especially if it was working. Tyler was dressed in a ratty old sheet that had been converted into a proper ghostly outfit—complete with chains and bloodstains, because if Nancy was going to put up with Halloween she would at least do it in style—and twirling himself in circles and then staggering around like a punch drunk pugilist.
For Linda’s part, Halloween was still fun. The kids loved it and she had a good time herself. On the weekend she and her sister had gotten their tykes together and made candy corn balls and caramel apples and then watched a couple of kid friendly Halloween flicks while the kids were jazzed on sugar. Then they’d sat around and gossiped and caught up on life in general while the kids crashed and burned and slept off the end of the sugar rush.
Linda’s kids were in the mix too, of course. Barry, Tyler’s counterpart in the age department and currently dressed as Spiderman, was firing imaginary webs at anything that moved. Jack was dressed as a witch. It was driving Linda’s husband Mark just a little crazy that his son was dressed in a witch’s dress, but Linda worked it out with him.
They had five other children they were watching over as well. The Hall’s two little girls, both dressed as Powerpuff Girls, a very small Darth Vader, one clown complete with rainbow hair and shoes so large they were comical when the kid wasn't tripping over himself, and a very large, glittery thing with antennae and wings that was either Toby Martin or the world’s tackiest giant butterfly. Apparently, there was nothing more terrifying in the kid’s eyes and he wanted to be scary.
Halloween is for kids, right?
The sun was setting. Nancy made sure to hand all the tykes their flashlights, complete with pumpkin shaped shades that lit up and made them noticeable from the street, even though there was still a goodly amount of light left. The sun set quickly in the neighborhood.
Linda found herself looking up at the window of the house again. There were no decorations up, and there weren’t any lights, either, but someone had moved in.
“Honey, I know what you’re thinking and not for all the chocolate in North America.” Nancy’s voice cut right through her contemplations.
“Seriously? How can you be like that? We haven’t met them. We should meet the new neighbors.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s anyone home, for one thing, and for another, we can meet them another time. Not tonight.” Nancy’s nasal voice had an edge to it, but as she joined Linda in staring, her voice softened a bit. “Wait a week. I’ll even make them a big old pan of my lasagna.”
“Forget that. Make me a big old pan of lasagna.”
Nancy’s voice was smaller when she spoke again. “Deal.”
“You okay, Nan?” Linda looked toward her friend, frowning. Nancy had a very simple philosophy: if something scared her, intimidated her, or made her in any way uncomfortable, she got louder, not quieter. That was her defense and always had been. That simple fact had caused no end of trouble for her when it came to relations in high school and college, back when every guy she liked automatically intimidated her. It took Robert to sneak past her defenses long enough to get to know her and marry her. Linda sort of loved Robert for that, platonically of course. Nancy would kill her if she ever got any ideas about messing around with Robert. And Mark would kick her to the curb besides.
She shook that notion away as she did at least once a month. It was silly, really, being her age and having a crush on her best friend’s husband.
Nancy spoke up and broke her daydreams about being in Robert’s arms. “Is there somebody up there watching us?” Nancy’s hand rose toward the widow’s walk of the old house and Linda looked just in time to see what might have been a shadow and what could just as easily have been a person peering around the edge of the structure.
“Well, if I had that old place I’d be up there all the time. How neat is that thing?” It was an old discussion between the two of them. Nancy hated the house for what had happened there. Linda loved it because it was just plain the most unique structure on the block.
“You’d live with the Addams Family or the Munsters, too.”
“Heck, yeah!” That did it. Nancy was properly distracted. That was the idea, of course. To lead her friend away from the bad nerves and back to the fun of having kids.
Speaking of which, Linda looked around and did a head count. They were all present and accounted for, though Tyler was terrorizing the tiny Lord of the Sith. “Tyler, leave Ollie alone.”
“I wasn't doing anything,” Tyler whined-explained.
“Don’t sass your aunt Linda.” Nancy’s response was completely automatic. She was back to looking at the old house though they had moved on a few paces.
Linda looked back, too, frowning. “You thinking about sending the kids up there to get candy?”
“Not on your life. Don’t even joke about that.”
Nancy wrapped her arms around her narrow torso and shook. Linda couldn’t help but smile a little. Scaring her friend on Halloween was almost too easy. Almost. She was about to make a response along those lines when the shadows shifted at the corner of the old house and a dark form slipped from the house to the closest old tree.
No damned way.
