The air in the car was growing chill. Lewis Robertson stopped the tapping noise he was making with the envelope on the steering wheel. Angrily, he tore the card from the envelope and re-read the words of the invitation.
On the front was a cartoonish picture of a ghoul, and in the voice bubble above his head were the words, "Come to a Halloween party!" Inside was an address. Lewis checked for the hundredth time to be sure the address inside the invitation matched that of the building he was parked before; they were the same. He tossed the invitation to the passenger seat of his car.
He stared at the front of the building for a while longer. It was one of many abandoned warehouses along the waterfront, though not in as bad of repair as most. Still, there were no other cars here, and he had seen no sign of other people in the half hour he had sat in front of the old building.
Was it a joke? He wondered.
He hadn't wanted to come to any damn party anyway. He hadn't wanted to do anything for the past month except stay in his dark house and be left alone. He didn't need to work anymore, Beth's life insurance had paid the mortgage as well as all the other bills they had accumulated in their five years of marriage. And the policy they had taken out on little Brandon only two months before had been enough to pay the funeral expenses for both of Lewis's loved ones.
Lewis stopped that train of thought, afraid if he stayed on it he would begin crying again. He didn't want that; recently it had become too hard to stop the tears once they began. He thought instead of his mother and how she had nearly forced him to come to this nonexistent party.
"You haven't left the house in weeks," she had scolded. "This is a golden opportunity to get out and mingle with friends. You need that."
"How do I know this party is being given by any of my friends?" Lewis argued.
"Why else would you have been invited?" She countered. She had nagged until Lewis finally gave in and agreed to attend the party. He knew his mother was only concerned about him being shut up alone and brooding over the accident. She had made the red devil costume he was wearing.
"Shit!" He muttered as he suddenly threw open the car door and stepped out of the vehicle. "Might as well be sure it's just a damn joke." He slammed the door, then straightened his wiry tail behind him, pulled the red mask over his face, and strode determinedly toward the door of the warehouse. A brisk wind brought the gooseflesh out beneath the thin material of his costume. From the other side of the warehouse Lewis could hear the steady rhythm of the river slapping against the pilings. Thin fingers of fog drifted toward him, curled around his legs like lovers, and then broke apart to reform behind him.
Knock? Or just go in, if the door is unlocked? Lewis reached out and jerked on the door's handle. The wooden door opened with a groan of protest. Lewis quickly stepped inside and let the door close behind him. He was in an office. Another door faced him from the other side of the room. Lewis stepped to it and pulled it open as well. It led into the warehouse itself, and as it closed behind him, Lewis realized he was alone except for two tables in the center of the vast, dimly lighted storage area. He reached behind him for the door handle, ready to leave, angry at himself as well as his mother.
"Lewis, there you are," a hand came down on his shoulder and held him. The grip was cold and heavy. Lewis turned his head to face a tall, muscular man dressed as a Greek warrior. The man smiled, a twinkle in his eyes.
"Do I know you?" Lewis asked.
"Not yet," the man answered. "But we'll have a while to get to know one another."
"Am I the first to get here?" Lewis tried to grin.
"No, you're late. But you're the guest of honor, so it doesn't matter. As long as you're here."
"But I don't see anyone else," Lewis protested.
"Your eyes will adjust."
"Who are you?"
"Who do I look like?"
"I don't know," Lewis answered. "Hercules, or Achilles maybe."
"Odysseus, my friend, Odysseus."
"Okay, fine, but who are you really?"
"Does it matter?"
"I'd like to know."
"You'll know later, though by then I doubt you'll care about me."
"But--"
"Come, Lewis, let's have some punch." The man took him by the arm and led Lewis toward one of the two tables. Lewis could now see that there was a large punch bowl and a single glass on one table. The other was empty.
"One glass?" He questioned.
"Do you need more?" The man picked up the small glass and began stirring the sweet-smelling red punch with a ladle he held in the other hand.
"You miss your wife and child, don't you?" The man dressed as Odysseus asked.
"You know..." Lewis eyed the man more suspiciously than before.
"We all know." Odysseus nodded. He filled the glass and handed it to Lewis.
Lewis lifted the glass and held it near his mouth, suddenly not sure he should drink. His host sensed his hesitation and laughed.
"It's not poisoned," he said. "Would you like for me to drink some, too?" He lifted the ladle and sipped from it, swallowing loudly.
Grinning sheepishly, but still unsure, Lewis took a small drink from the cup. He swallowed, and then noted the aftertaste; a thick, coppery, salty taste.
"There's blood in here!" He dropped the cup to the table, where it overturned and spread its contents in a shining puddle. "What the hell are you trying to--" Lewis choked on the words as he looked up from the spilled fluid.
"It is Halloween," he heard Odysseus say, but Lewis barely took notice of the words.
The warehouse was filled with people. They stood in bunches and talked among themselves, or flitted from group to group carrying news and gossip. Children scuttled among the adults, playing tag, laughing and shouting. Everyone kept glancing toward the table where he stood, Lewis realized, dumbfounded by what he was beholding.
"Your eyes have adjusted?" The voice of Odysseus asked.
"I--But--Where did they come from?"
"The Realm of Death, of course," there was a smile in the man's voice. "Here comes someone you will recognize."
Lewis turned, and his eyes widened as he saw Beth part from the crowd and move toward him, her arms outstretched. He ran to her and they embraced, her cold lips finding his and kissing him passionately.
"I missed you," Beth whispered.
"How can this happen?" Lewis asked, but before Beth could respond, the voice of Odysseus was ringing over the throng.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he called, "Our guest has arrived and tasted the drink we offered. Let the festivities begin." He clapped, and from somewhere came soft, urgent music.
Beth grasped his arms and began leading him in a dance Lewis did not recognize. All around them, other couples paired up and began moving with the rhythm of the music.
"I don't understand," Lewis whispered.
"You don't need to," Beth answered. "Just be with me, dance with me, and love me."
Lewis pulled her closer and they danced to the unending music, tears of happiness running down his face.
Finally he was able to ask, "What about Brandon? Is he here?"
"Yes, he's playing with the other kids," Beth said. She looked around, and then pointed, "There he is."
Lewis followed her finger and found his four year old son tossing a ball to a girl of about the same age. Brandon's eyes met his, and Lewis saw his son mouth the familiar words, "Hi, Daddy." Then the child waved to him before returning to his game. There was a lump in Lewis's throat and he buried his face on the cold shoulder of his wife.
They danced again for what seemed only moments, but Lewis knew might actually be hours, before the music stopped and Beth put her lips to his ear.
"It's almost midnight. Halloween is almost over, and it's time for you to make a decision."
"Lewis!" Odysseus called from the center of the warehouse. "Come over here, and bring your lovely wife." Arm in arm, Lewis and Beth Robertson walked toward the tables.
On the one table still stood the punch bowl and spilled glass. The other table remained empty, but now Lewis saw that beneath it was another bowl, larger than the punch bowl, and empty.
"Lewis," Odysseus began speaking when the couple stood before him, "We are allowed to return to this world only one day every year. On that day, we must have sustenance, or the next year we may be too weak to return.
"Every year we must search among the living for one willing to help us," the man continued. "One who will feed us."
There arose a murmur from the assembled spirits.
"You have tasted the blood of all those who have gone before you, Lewis. The others who have helped us. It allowed you to see those you believed lost to you. Will you help us, and stay with us now, or will you return to the world of the living?"
"What--what is it you're asking me to do?" Lewis asked as he clutched Beth's arm tighter.
"Feed us from your living veins."
Another murmur from the crowd.
"Kill myself?"
"Yes, slay your body so that your soul may join us," Odysseus answered.
Lewis looked to Beth, and then down at the shadowy image of his son, Brandon, who had come to join them at the table. Brandon smiled up at him.
"It's for you to decide," Beth said quietly. Lewis turned back to her and looked intently into her large, soft eyes. "You can join us now, or wait until your natural time comes. You'll be with us again eventually. But, you need to decide now."
"Yes Lewis, we need your decision now," Odysseus concurred. The horde of spirits murmured once more. He motioned to the table and the bowl, and now Lewis saw a long, curved knife laying on the table. He knew he was supposed to put the glittering blade to his throat, let out the life, and join his family in this shadowy world of death. He reached for the knife.
The crowd shifted, and Lewis could feel their excitement; their hunger for him. The knife was cold and heavy in his shaking hand.
"Lie on the table, with your head off the edge so the bowl can catch your offering," Odysseus instructed.
Lewis stepped closer to the table and then stopped. A shudder ran down his body as he considered what he was ready to do. Suicide. Slice his own throat open with this razor-sharp blade. His eyes shifted to find Beth and Brandon; their faces were impassive and their thoughts unreadable. He would join them, Lewis thought, just as Beth had said, if not now, eventually.
"I can't," he whispered as he dropped the knife to the table. The spirits became angry, frustrated. He felt something cold being slipped into his right hand, and then his left arm was taken in an equally chill grip. Beth was holding his arm, and Brandon had come to hold his father's hand. Lewis felt the warm tears running down his face.
"We'll wait, Daddy," Brandon promised.
"Yes, we have nowhere to go," Beth smiled at him. Lewis nodded, no words would come through his throat.
"But you have somewhere to go, Lewis," the voice of Odysseus was stern and angry. "You must leave here immediately. Go."
"Good-bye," Beth whispered. She was fading from his sight as Lewis watched. He reached for her, trying to hold her to him, but she was like a wisp of steam that slipped through his desperate fingers.
"Bye Daddy," Brandon was already gone, leaving only a cool place in the palm of his father's hand.
Lewis turned and ran from the warehouse as the other ghosts faded, ignoring their curses as well as their pleas. He fumbled for his keys as he ran, and then he was in the car and driving, not caring where he went or what route he took.
He drove for hours, and eventually found himself parked on a narrow gravel road that ran beside the river a few miles outside the city limits. It was a favorite spot for fishing. He had brought Beth and Brandon here many times for picnics beside the water. Brandon had caught his first fish, a small, slimy catfish from this place.
"I should have done it," Lewis said to himself. "I'm weak. I was given the chance to be with them again, and I didn't take it because I was scared. Scared of a little physical pain. The damn knife was so sharp I probably wouldn't have even felt the cut. DAMN!" He slammed his fist against the steering wheel and then rested his head on the balled hand. He was still wearing the red mask, he realized. He pulled it off and tossed it to the floorboard, where it lay with the fallen invitation.
What if it wasn't too late?
He restarted the car and swung it around in the road, throwing gravel and dust high and far behind him as he spun the tires and raced back toward the highway.
The eastern horizon was just beginning to turn gray as Lewis reached the warehouse once more. He jumped from the car and ran to the door. It was locked. Lewis pulled until his arms ached, but to no avail. He returned to the car and fetched the tire tool. Within minutes he had splintered the wood around the lock, and the mechanism broke loose and fell to the floor inside the building. Lewis hurried through the office and into the warehouse area.
The vast room seemed darker. Only the pale light of the fading stars crept in through dirty windows set high in the walls. Lewis could barely see the tables. He started toward them.
"I'm back," he called to the empty chamber. "I've come to feed you. I want to be with you. Beth! Brandon!" There was no answer. Lewis felt his pointed tail swishing behind him as he walked. He was now close enough to see that something large was laying on the top of one table.
It was the body of a man. A derelict, by the shabby dress and stench of stale, cheap alcohol that came from the corpse. In the pale light Lewis could see the long gash in the man's throat. Not a drop of blood remained on the wound. Beneath the man's head, which hung over the edge of the table, just as his own should have done, Lewis saw the large punch bowl, now overturned. Only the faintest smear of crimson gave evidence of what had been contained therein.
Lewis began to weep again. "It should have been me," he moaned. "It should have been me." He began hitting the corpse, pounding the lifeless body as if the tramp were the one to blame for his failure.
Beth and Brandon, his own wife and son, had been forced to take sustenance from this nameless bum, he thought. Forced to feed from society's waste all because their husband and father had been too weak to give them what they needed. He threw his head back as a sob tore from his body and tears streaked his face.
A powerful beam of light hit Lewis full in the face and he staggered back, his arm raised to ward off the illumination. "Hold it right there, buddy," a man's voice echoed throughout the warehouse. Lewis saw the gun in the man's hand and a glint on the badge pinned to his chest. Had there been an alarm system activated by the breaking of the lock?
"What is it, Bill?" Another man entered the building.
"Somebody dressed as the devil," the fist cop answered. "And it looks like a body on the table there."
"You! On the floor," the second policeman approached Lewis, motioning with his gun for him to lie down.
"You don't understand," Lewis began. Why bother to explain, he thought.
"On the floor, now!" The cop was moving closer.
"I'm coming, Beth," Lewis whispered. He could feel the chill spot in the palm of his hand where Brandon had held him. Was the hand there again, pulling him forward, begging him to play, to run, to go fishing?
Lewis broke into a run, a smile on his face, the image of a small, green catfish splashing in a river as it was pulled to shore urging him on as he heard his wife's laughter and squeals of delight ringing in his ears.
He didn't hear the exclamation of surprise from the policeman barring his exit. He didn't feel the impact of the bullets as they slammed his body to the floor.
"Hi, Daddy," he heard Brandon's voice and felt the soft, loving touch of his wife as she helped him up and into a new world of shadows.
