The Black Heart Crypt

  “Indeed it did,” said Ginny. “But only after he was ready to let his gift go.”

  “Sisters,” said Sophie, licking her chocolate-smudged fingertips, “today is Halloween. Dead souls will be popping up all over the place, searching for anybody who has the gift, anyone who can do their bidding. Oh, my—they’ll be looking for Zack! They’ll be looking for us!”

  “We should immediately counsel Zack to make the choice,” said Hannah. “To willingly drink the drink. We should do it before sundown!”

  “But, dear sister,” said Ginny, “what if, by taking away his gift just when he needs it most, we render Zack even more vulnerable to the demons who seek to do him harm?”

  “Who?” asked Sophie, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head. “Who wants to hurt Zack?”

  “Many,” said Ginny. “Never forget, we three made quite a few immortal enemies when we were young and in our prime.”

  “Very well,” sighed Hannah wearily. “What would you suggest, Virginia?”

  “Yes,” said Sophie, unwrapping a second candy bar. “Tell us.”

  “It’s very simple,” Ginny answered calmly. “Georgie will be taking Zack and his friends trick-or-treating on Main Street tonight. He will be surrounded by a crowd of living souls to shield him from the wandering dead.”

  “Being in a happy crowd often saddens deceased souls,” said Hannah, “especially those who did not seize the day and enjoy life while they were living it.”

  “Exactly. Now then, I will go along on the excursion to offer protection in the unlikely event it should prove necessary. Afterward, Zack and I will discuss his desires. If he truly wishes to be free of his gift, then, sisters, rest assured—I shall take him to the Hedge Pig Emporium at the first opportunity and order him their thickest, richest milk shake.”

  Hannah nodded solemnly. “So let it be.”

  Ginny reached out and clasped Hannah’s hand on her left, Sophie’s on her right. Sophie completed the circle by joining hands with Hannah. The three cats stretched into a tails-up, heads-down bow.

  “We three agree?” said Hannah.

  “We three agree,” chanted Sophie and Virginia in reply.

  And the matter was closed to further discussion.

  Around four-thirty on Halloween, Malik’s and Azalea’s parents dropped them off at Zack’s house.

  They both had a little trouble climbing out of the cars because they were already in costume: giant bright-yellow poster-board “Bs” splattered with ketchup and salsa (for chunkier blood). Zack, brandishing a bloodied rubber machete, met them on the front porch in his own big yellow “B.”

  “Buenos nachos, senor and senorita,” said Zack in a cheesy Spanish accent, because he and Malik had read up on killer bees and learned that a bunch of them swarm north from Central and South America every year, which was also why they’d added sombreros to their costumes. Azalea had kept the gypsy turban from Aunt Ginny’s trunk. She was going as the queen killer bee.

  The night before, when his two friends had learned that Zack still didn’t have a costume, Azalea suggested they all borrow Malik’s “awesome idea” and become a hive of killer bees. Judy went to the party store at the mall and picked up three pairs of deely-boppers—those springy glitter balls on a headband—so they’d all look like they had goofy antennae bobbing around on their heads. She actually found a fourth pair at the pet store. It was for Zipper.

  Zack’s dad came out to the porch to join Zack, Azalea, and Malik. Aunt Ginny, dressed in a fleecy purple tracksuit and toting a small purple backpack, followed him.

  “Wow, you guys look fantastic,” said Zack’s dad, who had caught the early train home from New York City so he could take Zack and his friends trick-or-treating. “What great costumes.”

  “It was Malik’s idea,” said Zack.

  “Well, Malik, I give your killer bees an ‘A.’ ”

  Zack and Azalea groaned. Malik, on the other hand, beamed with pride.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jennings,” he said.

  “I think you all look absolutely adorable!” gushed Aunt Ginny.

  Zack, Azalea, and Malik arched their eyebrows.

  “Adorable?” said Zack. “Aunt Ginny, we’re splattered with blood. We’re carrying bloody weapons.”

  “I even have blood on both my antennae,” added Azalea.

  “Oh, you know what, Azalea?” The seventy-seven-year-old clapped her hands together like a giddy first grader. “You should splash some blood on your turban, too. It’d look cute!”

  “Um,” said Zack, “cute isn’t exactly what we were going for here, Aunt Ginny.”

  “After all,” said Azalea, “this is Halloween. It’s supposed to be the scariest night of the year.”

  “Oh, of course, dear,” said Aunt Ginny. “My bad, as they say. Kindly allow me to rephrase my remarks: You three look absolutely horrible! In fact, you look hideous. Better?”

  “Much,” said Azalea with a laugh.

  Judy came out to the porch with the digital camera and a bowl of miniature candy bars. Zipper was right behind her. The three “Bs” knelt down around Zip and posed for a few quick pictures. They also helped Judy hand out candy to the first pack of little kids (two Disney princesses, one Batman, and an alien) to troop up the steps while their parents stood smiling proudly down on the lawn.

  “Guess we better hit Main Street,” said Zack’s dad. “The festivities are just about to start.”

  “The event officially starts at five,” said Azalea. “There’s a costume contest at six-thirty, doughnuts and cider at seven. I memorized the poster.”

  Of course she had.

  “You guys all set?” asked Zack’s dad.

  “Sí, Senor Jennings,” said Malik, only he pronounced it “Hennings,” the same way “Jose” is pronounced “Hose-ay.”

  They trundled down the porch steps and headed for the van. Zack’s dad and Aunt Ginny rode up front. Malik, Azalea, and Zack worked their way into the rear, careful not to crush or bend their stiff costumes. Zipper hopped in after them.

  “Seat belts buckled?” asked Zack’s dad.

  “Yes,” said Malik. “My motto is ‘Bee prepared!’ Hey, do you know what my favorite bee-movie is? The Sting!”

  When Malik said that, even sweet Aunt Ginny groaned.

  Main Street was packed.

  Zack saw vampires and zombies; a headless football player carrying a chainsaw; a cheerleader with an axe in her back; skeletons and ninjas; pirates, witches, and Tinker Bells; and one kid who had stuck two round pumpkins in the seat of his droopy jeans so he looked like he was mooning the world with a bright-orange plumber’s butt.

  “This is awesome,” said Malik as they pulled into a parking spot in front of a funky little health food store called the Hedge Pig Emporium. Zack and Judy had gone in there once. They sold junk like wheatgrass drinks, vitamin pills, and sugarless, wheat-free, eco-friendly, vegan carob chip brownies that tasted like baked dirt.

  “Did I mention there’s a one-hundred-dollar prize for best costume?” said Azalea. “So when we win it, we split it, deal?”

  “Deal,” said Zack.

  “Where’s the contest being held?” asked Malik.

  “At the base of the clock tower,” said Azalea, gesturing up Main Street to the intersection where the town clock, a massive stone tower, stood. The wealthy Spratling family had erected the six-story fieldstone monument because they’d run a clock company. The clock up top, however, was busted. Its scrolled iron hands stood frozen at 9:52.

  “I suggest we hit the candy shop first,” said Malik.

  “I like the way you think,” said Azalea. “Hit ’em early before they’re totally cleaned out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Um, do you guys need to come with us?” Zack asked his dad and Aunt Ginny, who were still sitting in the van.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Aunt Ginny. “None of these ghouls look all that … authentic.”

  “Yeah,” said Zack.

&nb
sp; “Why don’t you guys work your way up the block?” suggested his dad. “We’ll—you know—hang back.”

  “Cool.”

  “But if you see something …”

  “I’ll say something.”

  His dad gave him a loving smile. “Works for me.”

  “Come on, you guys.” Zack led the charge up the sidewalk.

  The owners of Main Street Sweets & Treats were giving everybody who walked through their door in costume a white bag filled with a half pound of their Halloween specialties: orange-and-yellow candy corn, those little orange pumpkins with the stubby green stems that taste just like candy corn, and Indian corn candy corn, which tasted like regular candy corn mixed with waxy chocolate. One girl who came into the store was dressed like a piece of candy corn. She got two little white bags.

  After Main Street Sweets & Treats, the killer “Bs” and bumblebee Zipper (who was allowed into all the stores except the ones that sold meat) headed up the sidewalk toward Ickes & Son Hardware.

  “Last year, the Ickeses gave out Almond Joys and Snickers, I heard,” said Malik. “We might want to skip the dentist’s office, however.”

  “How come?” asked Zack.

  “Last year, he gave out floss.”

  “Was it at least spearmint-flavored floss?” asked Azalea.

  Malik shook his head. “Plain. Unwaxed.”

  “Lame,” said Azalea.

  “Totally,” said Zack.

  A Frankenstein and a Star Wars Stormtrooper brushed past them, followed by three kids in bedsheets.

  “Killer bees!” shouted one of the bedsheets. “Awesome!”

  “Thank you,” said Malik, pleased to have his wacky idea appreciated by a total stranger.

  “So, Zack,” said Azalea, “were those real ghosts?”

  Zack laughed. “Uh, no, Azalea. That was Sammie Smith. From history class?”

  “Wow. You have X-ray vision, too?”

  “Nope. I recognized her voice.”

  “So what do ghosts wear on Halloween?” asked Malik, sounding genuinely interested.

  “Well,” said Zack, “most of the ones I’ve met are usually wearing what they wore when they were alive. That’s one way you can tell they’re, you know, not from here or now. They look old-fashioned. Like the people you see in movies.”

  The Ickes & Son Hardware store windows were illuminated by an impressive display of a dozen or more carved jack-o’-lanterns. Instead of candles, the hollowed-out pumpkins were lit up by low-wattage bulbs that flashed on and off in a random sequence.

  “Pretty cool,” said Zack.

  “Yeah,” said Malik. “I bet my buddy Norman rigged it up. Oh!” He reached into his Halloween sack and pulled out the black heart puzzle. “You’re sure it’s okay that I let Norman borrow this?”

  “Yep. I don’t think Aunt Ginny wants to play with it tonight.”

  “Come on, you guys,” said Azalea. “There’s loot to be had. Let’s go inside and score a few Snickers bars!”

  Barnabas wanted one of the Ickleby ghosts to venture out of the Haddam Hill Cemetery and go into North Chester to scout it out, since none of the thirteen souls were familiar with the town.

  “We need a spy,” he said. “To locate the Jennings boy. He will be the one to pay for what the three women did to us!”

  Eddie quickly volunteered.

  “I can scope things out better than anybody else,” he argued. “The last man into the tomb should be the first ghost out, because, unlike the rest of you freaky-deakies, I’m hip to the modern lingo, dig?”

  “You make an excellent point, Edward,” said Barnabas. “Return by midnight.”

  So Eddie Boy’s soul drifted down the highway toward town. He tried hitching a ride, but nobody could see him.

  “At night, you can will yourself to become visible to whomever you choose, even those who are not ghost seers,” Barnabas had told Eddie before he set out.

  So he tried that.

  And totally freaked out a truck driver, who drove his rig into a ditch when he saw Eddie Boy’s ghost materialize in the middle of the highway. So Eddie went back to being invisible and walked into town. It didn’t take too long, maybe fifteen minutes. When you’re a ghost, you move fast. Very little friction.

  Since it was Halloween, kids were out everywhere, dressed up as characters Eddie didn’t recognize. Back in his day, the big costumes were Casper, Kiss, and Charlie’s Angels. He did see one kid dressed up as a Star Wars Stormtrooper. Dy-no-mite. Eddie had dug that movie back in 1977. He wondered if they had ever made a sequel.

  Soon he was on Main Street.

  No one could see him, because he did not wish to be seen.

  He stuffed his hands into his wool peacoat and watched three “Bs” in sombreros scoot into Ickes & Son Hardware, where dozens of jack-o’-lanterns glowed in the windows.

  A jet-black raven, wings outstretched, swooped down out of the darkness, then perched on a street sign.

  “Haw!” it croaked.

  And suddenly, Eddie recognized one of the kids going into the hardware store. The one wearing glasses.

  It was the punk who had brushed up against their crypt.

  It was Zack Jennings!

  At that very same moment, up in Boston, Zack’s other aunt, Francine Potter, was standing at her front door, reluctantly doling out pennies to a group of trick-or-treaters.

  “Candy rots your teeth,” she said as she unwrapped another roll of copper coins. “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

  The children who weren’t wearing masks looked disappointed.

  Francine Potter could not care less. She hated Halloween, a holiday that turned bratty little boys and girls into something even worse: beggars.

  “That’s it,” she said, plinking five pennies into the last outstretched plastic bag. “Happy Halloween.” There was vinegar in her voice. “Now, go home. All of you!”

  The children shuffled down her front steps and rejoined their parents on the sidewalk.

  “What’d you get, hon?” asked one of the mothers.

  “Nothin’,” said her son, a boy dressed like a turtle in karate clothes.

  “That’s a lie!” Francine shouted. “I gave that child money. He can use those coins to help pay for college if he ever makes it past kindergarten.”

  The parents all gave her dirty looks. She gave them an even dirtier one back.

  “Move along. You’re loitering. I’ll call the police!”

  The clump of candy beggars hurried up the sidewalk.

  Except for one mother, who just stood there in the lamplight like an idiot.

  “What’s your problem?” said Francine. “Move along.”

  A few of the grown-ups escorting the trick-or-treaters looked back.

  “Who’s she yelling at now?” said one.

  “I don’t know,” said another. “There’s nobody there.”

  Francine Potter clearly saw a tall woman with a mop of curly hair standing beside the lamppost where the sidewalk met the pathway up to her stoop.

  The woman appeared to be in her twenties and was wearing a long, flouncy dress that fluttered in the breeze.

  “Why are you standing there gawking at me?” Francine demanded.

  The curly-haired woman drifted closer.

  “Hello, Francine.”

  “What? Do I know you?”

  “Of course you do, Franny.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Franny.”

  “Nobody calls me that. Not since my sister …”

  The curly-haired woman nodded slowly.

  Francine Potter took one step backward. “No. My sister is dead.…”

  The woman gave her another eerie nod.

  “Susan?”

  “Hello, Franny.”

  “Ha! That’s impossible. When was your hair curly like that?”

  “When I was happy. When I was an actress at the Hanging Hill Playhouse.”

  “Acting was a foolish waste of your time
and education. Father and Mother both said so.”

  “Acting made me happy.”

  “Well, Susan, none of us are put on this earth to be happy. We are put here to do our jobs.”

  Francine couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

  “Who are you? Why are you pretending to be my dead sister?”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Everything is possible on Halloween.”

  “No. You are not my sister.”

  “Yes. I am. I need you, Francine.”

  “What?”

  “I need your body.”

  “What? Go away. And next Halloween put together a better costume. You don’t even look the way my sister did when she died.”

  “You mean like this?”

  In a horrifying flash, the curly-haired woman shriveled into a withered husk of ashen flesh and bone. Her paper-thin skin shrank tight against her jagged face. The mop of curly hair wormed its way down into her scalp.

  It was truly her sister. Susan Potter Jennings. The way she had looked when she died.

  “We are flesh of the same flesh,” gasped the hideous creature. “Blood of the same blood.”

  Francine stumbled backward into her house. Slammed the door shut.

  Suddenly, her body was wracked with spasms of pain.

  A voice echoed inside her head: “I have unfinished business with Zachary.”

  Francine slumped to the carpeted floor. Her mind and memories swirled down a darkening sinkhole toward oblivion.

  Zack’s mother was alive again.

  Norman Ickes was stuck behind the front counter of his father’s stupid hardware store, handing out stupid candy bars to stupid kids in stupid costumes.

  A very pretty girl his own age stood behind the clump of children. She was costumed in a black hooded cape, like a witch or a wizard.

  “Um, d-do you want a candy bar?” Norman stammered. The girl had kinky blond hair and piercing green eyes.

  “No,” she said, her voice husky. “I want you.”

  Norman started to perspire. “Uh, excuse me?”

  “I find I am strangely attracted to you …” She paused. “Norman Ickes.”