The Children Love My Eyes

A Story by BelAir

A wicked man recieves the ultimate revenge from his trick-or-treaters.

BelAir

He had sat there for maybe an hour, curly locks of hair, sweaty, squished to his face under a Six Flags ball cap, and knuckles protesting with great shards of pain as ole Arthur set in. Days like this one had always welcomed him in with a warm hand—rainy, cool. And wasn’t that perfectly okay today?

It sure was. Today was Halloween, and he would have woken before dawn without Arthur’s help anyhow.

Halloween had its own effect on Frank Elmer, or, rather, his left eye, which had wondered slightly since his childhood days. This day it seemed to wonder on him more than ever, and with each coming year, when Frank Elmer would wake at four o’clock and stare sleepily into his bathroom mirror, he knew it was worse. He had a guess as to why that was, oh boy did he ever: excitement. Without his eyepatch—that damned thing made him feel like a pirate—it was harder to focus, and the excitement just added in the gamble.

A blemish such as this almost had their way as a rule with men like him.

Frank Elmer placed his tongs from one hand and his knife from the other on the kitchen table and reached for another piece of candy. Gum balls, actually. Eye gum balls, to be exact—the kind you bite into and sweet red liquid spills out; they were the only kind he had ever given out to the children, and they fancied them. Would they like them as much this Halloween? Unwrapping this gum eyeball, he peered over to Sammy, who he hadn’t moved for several days, left him there as a kind of reminder: the children would like them fine probably.

The gum eyeball was naked now, looking up at him, perfect unlike his own. Frank Elmer picked his knife up again, sliced it carefully in half through the pupil. He reshaped it as it was by squeezing gently, and red candy blood oozed onto his gloved fingertips. Next, Frank would clean all of it out with a toothpick.

Denny never did tell him what was in those syringes, but did it matter? He picked one of them out of their line now and filled an eyeball half. The funny thing about them was how identical the liquid was to its original candy blood, both color and smell. Frank didn’t know, but probably their taste was the same, too.

He squeezed the other eyeball half to this filled one and picked his tongs up as before.

Light her.Frank flicked the metal cover back on his lighter. Flt! Its flame popped up nice and yellow, and he would melt the gum ball halves as one and wrap it and toss it into his plastic candy bowl.

He would wait.

Night was coming. Shadows were shrinking past his recliner chair back to the apartment windows; under their closed blinds, a rich yellow-pink light was glowing.

Frank’s legs bounced up and down, stepped at his living room tile in loud pats. His palms were moist, gripping the candy bowl on his lap. Arthur had bid farewell.

He sat his bowl aside and rushed to the front door. He stomach was groaning, but

never mind that; Frank hadn’t had even a nibble today, and he supposed if he did, it would come out on his lap with excitement. The porch light of his apartment was on. Right. He’d done that earlier.

What if no children come?He plopped into the corner rocking chair beside his living room window, looking out through a single cracked blind. Greentop’s streets were empty. Kids would be eating an early supper and running from the table to change into ghosts and princesses with star-head wands.

No, no, don’t worry. They love your eyes.

Five-thirty.

When Frank Elmer turned back from his kitchen clock, two figures were moving down 3^rd Street, a much larger someone tailing them. His heart was throwing a tantrum behind the stubborn bars of his rib cage.

Trick or treat, smell my feet.He snatched his Halloween bowl full with perfect, blank eyeballs, blind in the darkness of their wrappers.

Give me something good to eat.Paxton and Jeremy had waited all week for this night.

"What’s he got?" Jeremy had asked his older brother through the slit mouth of his mask and pointed to apartment eighteen. Paxton would know. Paxton had been trick-or-treating a long time before him.

"Eyeballs. They’re real cool. Looks like blood comes out of them."

Jeremy replied softly, "Cool." But, to him, it didn’t sound all that "cool." Sounded kinda creepy, really.

Paxton’s not scared and neither am I.Paxton pressed the old man’s doorbell. Almost immediately the door swung open. Jeremy recoiled at apartment eighteen’s face, grooves of dark wrinkles, a yellow grin, one eye resting to the left. He opened the screen door between them with one gnarled hand and held an orange bowl forward.

"Boys! Happy Halloween! Go’n, take as many as you like."

His first trick or treaters! Cute. The littlest one was an alien dressed in a black robe. The taller boy was in a skeleton suit. Frank nodded to Mr. Ivring and watched their little gloved hands move into his bowl and pluck out a few.

"Go’n, take more if you want."

Mr. Ivring’s boys took a couple more in courtesy and thanked him.

"Oh, welcome, boys! Happy Halloween!"

After they had disappeared down his walk, Frank Elmer shut his door, laid the bowl out of his way, and threw up. It was discolored water. What clung on his mouth he wiped away and headed for the kitchen.

A light gust of wind slipped Sarah’s cheerleader skirt higher on her thigh as they walked. Brad swallowed because his mouth had gone dry, observing that.

"Nice view?" The nylon skirt fluttered down again as if to second this.

She had caught him. Brad tried on a sweet smile.

"You would like to think your innocent," she said.

"So would you."

" . . . There next?"

"Sure. My little brother likes those gum balls."

They shuffled up the parking lot in his porch light. Her skirt, it was doing it ag— Frank scrubbed at his carpet some more.

Deeeedoooo.He tossed his rag, stumbled up, grabbed his candy.

Sarah jumped back when Elmer’s front door flew open to them.

"A zombie cheerleader, lookit that! And a football zombie! Happy Halloween there!"

"Happy Halloween," Brad muttered and took a handful from the old man.

"Get a good hand’n those bags."

Sarah took her share, gazed up into that smiling face. "Thank you."

"Uhuh. Happy Halloween."

November 1^st :

Barb McCullen gulped her coffee down at the kitchen table—her mind this morning was still jello—and followed the sun’s journey above Greentop. That girl’s gonna be late today!As the story has been told, and truthfully at that, Barb McCullen made up the staircase to her granddaughter Rebecca’s room to find she never would be late for school again.

Molly and Drew Casey:

Molly lowered the stove flame under her pan of boiling water for "Chinese cereal," rice, milk, sugar, and butter. It was given a name by her mother during Molly’s younger years.

Drew was pulling out of the drive with a thermos of black coffee, heavy with sugar, as it was every morning.

I wonder if he took his lunch off—"Mommy?"

Molly had jumped at the sound of her youngest’s voice. She stood in the doorway, a small silhouette in a nightgown with bed hair. "Yeah? Sis up yet?"

"No, I . . . I don’t think . . ."

"Well, go get her up. I’ve got Chinese cereal."

She was unaware of what she had said, that she had spoken at all, while stirring her rice in, and the thing enough to wake Molly of her slumber was a runny clot that landed in her pan, splattering hot rice up into her face. Mrs. Casey yelped and clawed at the grains.

Before all of this, a wet bursting sound.

The Kooper family:

Amanda, nanny for a month now, dropped the novel she had started without interest at the beep of her watch. Seven o’clock, rise and whine.

She moved down the hall, a charlie horse crippling up her left leg and altering it into a stiff limp. This morning she was waking Ashley first, because his moaning in the night—when she was snoozing on the Kooper’s sofa and that damn charlie was just forming—had been a little too . . .

Amanda turned through his doorway at the end of the hall. Ashley was on his side in a huddle of blankets, gazing at her.

"O . . . Oh . . . Jessica!"A red substance like blood was still leaking around those bulging eyes, and God knew how long he had been there. His smell. A scatter of gnats had eaten a dime-sized hole through the window screen.

Jessica burst down the hallway and groped for Amanda. She whirled when her balanced steadied . . . and stood . . . trembling slightly . . . yes . . . and standing.

WHY DID I CALL HER IN HERE? A shriek erupted out of Amanda, and she dug her fingers into the moist flesh of Jess’s arm and pushed her sprawling to the hallway tile. Amanda locked the door separating them, pushing away, stumbling—

She fell flat this time, her left leg busting onto hardwood, but—no, wait!—she had something in her hand. Amanda looked up.

Ashley was staring down at her—it was his comforter she held, and she had rolled him. A warm rush landed against her forehead. More and more began slapping on her and sliding. Her eyes, with those above, became blind with it, but they didn’t seem to want to close against

the pain.

Marcie Bradley and "that Brayburn fellow" :

7:10! 7:10!"S**t." She yanked her sheets—their sheets—back and swung out of bed.

Greentop called him "that Brayburn" fellow—be damned if she knew why they didn’t call him by his first name. He rolled onto his back.

"Fell asleep. He’s got school today."

Turning over, his words were cut half through. Something that sounded like yeommm.
Why hadn’t the baby cried at all last night? Instead of dressing, she grabbed Harry’s tee-shirt and pulled it around herself and ran to the spare room.

He lay a white bundle across the bedroom, infected with pink light of first-morning. Marcie lost control only when she glimpsed his little hand dangling down out of the crib bars

. . . with something in that grip.

Blood and phlegm was plastered to his face, smeared on his blankets, jammies, the bars of his crib, the wall? Marcie Bradley inched a stranger hand to him and removed his blanket. The baby’s throat had exploded in the night.

. . . Marcie was gliding out with her son as his hand spilled a gum eyeball to the floor.

When he had looked over, Harry saw she was sleeping again, had crawled back in next to him sometime with the baby. Kid’s gotta go to school, his mind groaned. She sure as s**t wasn’t doing it.

He stepped into the living room of her little complex, where the lights were still blazing from the night before. Another trace of last night: a small boy propped against the couch, his head tilted back, and spread out next to him, a mix of candy concealed away in wrappers of purples and blacks and oranges. Harry grinned at that, he did.

"Jackie. You’ve gotta go to school."

The boy was so tuckered out he had not stirred in the least.

Brayburn walked to him. "Come on. Get u—s**t!" Harry went wheeling back.

" . . . Oh jeez . . . sh . . . God."

His skin had hardened over to ancient brown. Jackie’s eyes were caught on the ceiling, pupils shot to the size of pinholes. A purple Sega controller untangled from his fingers and bungee jumped to the floor. Dear God, the thread had been eaten away of his Halloween costume, and so had his stomach.

November 3^rd, 1991

"I call this meeting to order."

Greentop’s town council had consisted of one constable (two until Bobby Rodger was charged up with indecent exposure and that whole mess), there were three for an events committee, Mayor Thorin, a treasurer and secretary, and four ordinary members.

Mayor Thorin let out a sigh they surely wouldn’t have heard from his podium, and that was good. This is a mess. Jesus. "We’ll skip the secretary’s report for now." He scanned over their faces . . . "Uh . . . as we know . . . As we all know, there have been some tragedies among some of the families here. A death of a child."

What if it had happened to Amy or Jake?The two of them were through college, married, each of them, starting families of their own and enjoying all and more of life’s jewels being thrown every which way at them.

Even still, the thought ricocheted off the walls of his brain.

"One of our members, Barb, is unfortunately going through this.

"Now, I would like to say a prayer."

So Greentop’s council bowed their heads around the table below, and Thorin gave his prayer for those families. When he had finished, Sam Duncan, that’d be Constable Duncan to you, took the mayor’s place on their miniature and overrated wooden stage.

"Just brief: we called this meeting tonight because some people came to Mayor or me or one of us with some suspicions, and we found a piece of evidence, kinda." Duncan raised a half-eaten gum eyeball into their view. It rolled to one side in the Ziploc baggy. He could see tears clouding their treasurer’s eyes, and she looked away. "I took this from Marcie Bradley’s home ‘cross town . . . and some other candies, too. But this piece here was the only kind that all children had."

Ralph Miller spoke up. "That’s hard for me to believe, Sam, because you can’t tell me all of them had different candy with . . . M&Ms, Snickers, Milk Dud being given away."

"That’s right, and the reason I said that, what I mean, is Marcie’s children both were killed, you know, Jackie, and one a baby. Her baby wasn’t out trick-or-treating, of course, so why did he have one of these in his room? Chances are he picked it up somewhere. Anyhow, he was found dead with one of them, same with Jackie, and unless he picked something else up, which he could have with all means, this was all he ate."

They carried on with silence, perhaps thinking over what he had tried to explain, perhaps holding in because if they opened their mouths to contribute, a weak cry would arrive instead and lay out the welcome mat for a good, long bawl.

Constable Duncan went on: "But I’m not sure of this." He flicked the bag and lowered it. When it wasn’t haunting the rest of the council, it was staring up at him from the podium. "I’m going to talk to more parents and look things over. The police up to Kirksville are here, arrived

this morning. I’ll talk to them and tell them what I think, we’ll get some tests done, and that’s about as far as I can go."

Cynthia Brown waved her hand at him. "Yes, here . . . I’m wondering how a gum ball could . . . Um . . ." The elderly woman wiped at her nose. "Yes . . . What would kill someone that could be in them?"

"We think whatever may of killed them was inside, but the ones we found weren’t in good condition to see. Far as specifics, we don’t know."

"As he said, police are here, and we will have tests performed," Mayor Thorin added. "This to be kept quiet until a set trial."

"Yes. Mayor, if you don’t have anything else to discuss . . ."

"No."

No questions, none, not so much as a mutter.

"Wait, wait."

Duncan turned to face the council member—Jim Griffen, he saw, member for . . . what now? Six years? He took his home outside Greentop on a sheep farm.

"Go ahead, Jim," Constable said.

"It’s that b*****d in the senior housing, ain’t it?"

"We can’t say that."

"Bet I know who they thought it was, too, when they talked to you, huh, Sam?"

"Bet you do. I call this meeting adjourned."

November 6, 1991

He walked in the drizzle, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his Levis. A hooded shadow stepped with him on Marion Street under the orange street lamps.

Didn’t see much movement this time of night—there wouldn’t be a single rebel soul at the park he would see, Constable supposed, if he had chosen that way to walk tonight—and locking doors, that was something new.

The .357 Mag in his jacket bounced lightly against his upper thigh, a possession that, at one time, was ole Larry Duncan’s, when he lived in the back of Check’s bar, woke at noon, started drinking at five, hey, Check, get George and that slide guitar playin on the juke. It was his now, anyway; his grandad had given his babies to him before passing. Was that why fellow Greentopers had elected him constable? Because he had all of Larry Duncan’s guns? That was a more reassuring thought.

Apartment eighteen. Here it was.

And by the end of this night, Constable Sam Duncan would be honored for the hero he never imagined himself as when he had lived.

It’s guaranteed, is it not?These nightmares.

To have these dreams?

Yes, Frank Elmer knows it is. He reminds himself this every time he lays for sleep. Not at night, though. Frank Elmer doesn’t sleep at night, and he can’t remember how long it has been since he has. The nightmares are too much during the night, but, then, maybe if he did rest, night would speed him by.

Frank Elmer closed his journal on words similar to these, prying his bookmark out between two yellow pages with his fingernails so only its tip peeked above, and sipped his coffee, a pale grey color with unsettled creamer floating at its surface. He emptied another Sweet Thing packet into his mug and downed the rest of it.

He had been at his desk a lot lately. Not that the words came easily, no, no, they never did, but he would sit there, hours at a time, and regardless of the pages he would pass in that span, Frank enjoyed his journal’s sense of freedom, release.

Frank cracked a blind in the window to the side of his desk for that pink-orange glow to come above his slice of paradise, a f**k for nothing two acres and this house. A paradise all the same.

He left when they had asked him.

Of course, they hadn’t had so much as a saliva sample on him . . . because Frank Elmer was good in his work. He had left after Constable’s mess. Frank was expecting a day when they would find him. Some just didn’t know he was as close as their backyard.

Stop. He laid a hand over his chicken scratch ink.

Stop, d****t.He knew they were not about to back out.

Don’t think that.

The glow was there, and it was time for bed, time for bed.

Frank sat down in his recliner, the television a low and soothing babble. His recliner faced it at an angle. The apartment hallway passed on his left.

He tossed a third eye gum ball into his mouth.

That was when Constable Duncan always craned his neck around the hall corner at him.

Frank stiffened in his chair, even his jaws that were chewing restlessly that night.

Sam Duncan moved through the living room doorway. Light dirt brushed onto the floor from his tattered remains of a jacket, and, coming to Frank Elmer, his throat spat a wet sludge down, soil entwined with grass. It gathered like a bib on his undershirt.

Frank had to feel hot urine (coffee that finally had caught up with him) spill over his bare foot before he knew it had let out on him at all.

Constable’s eyes glowed with an unhuman-like quality when his straggling limp got him fully into the living room, and, now, passing a table-side lamp. They slid down to meet his soaked lap, and Constable’s head followed their direction.

He was closer, and Frank could not leave his recliner because he knew how it—he was bound to end.

His hand on the arm of the chair dropped the gum ball it had gripped in its trembling.

Was it better if he did end it?

Rather, was it better if he let Constable end him?

The gum ball rolled its blue–printed eye up at the ceiling, to the floor, up, to the floor, up, to—It struck his steel-toed boot and lay fixed over Elmer’s shoulder. Constable looked up at him questioningly—you gonna come and get your gum ball?—held it on him, and picked the candy up in a dirt-creased palm. Looking at him still, Duncan rose to his feet.

"Trick or treat . . ." His hand closed over the candy. "Gimme something good to eat."

They’re JUST TEEEEEETH!As if to back Elmer’s thought, Sam Duncan grinned; his lips were apple red with dried candy blood, and they stretched back, and a full mouth of unnatural teeth were there to greet him.

Piss left again.

His living room was empty, and a different living room, at that . . . the one of his new home.

"Dreamdream," stammering, "dreamdreamer, dreamer."

Frank snapped over to his front door. The porch light was on as it had been . . .

A knock.

Constable’s here, that’s who it is!a soft voice. " . . . Mr. Elmer, trick or treat, open the door. Open the door."

No,

"No."

A second voice, deeper. "It’s Paxton, too—"

"And Germy Ivring! Remember me, Mr. Elmer, huh?"

"Brad and Sarah here, too."

"Open up, Frank."

He whispered back to them, "Get away from my door."

"Open it."

"—or treat!"

"It’s Adrien Russle, open the door, it’s Halloween! Trick . . ."

" . . . door! I can’t get my treats if you don’t open—"

"Denny, man, what the fickfuck’s up with ya?"Husky: " . . . annibal Duncan . . ."

"Trick or treat! Smell my feet, Mr. Elmer!"

" . . . you open this . . ."

"—Jill from down our street—"

"If you don’t, I DON’T CARE, I’ll just pull down your underwear."

"—candy! Give me something good to eat!"

"GET AWAY FROM MY HOUSE!""—Mabel’s son. She tells me you have really cool candy—"

"GET BACK, GET AWAY!"" . . . will answer this door . . ."

"Yeeeaaaaa–What’s up, doc?"

"—Joe and if you—"

"—sometimes I need things—"

"—trick or treat—"

"GIVE US—"They molded into one jumble behind his front door, chanting, screaming, begging. Frank Elmer could not tear his eyes from the shadows of feet at the foot of his door.

"—EAT—"

"—door, man!""—Cannibal Duncan, and I order you—"

"NO!" Frank pushed out of his chair and scrambled through his kitchen and into a small hall, the back door, the back door, only way, yes, because they were breaking (No way, no way to run from—), that’s what those sonsofbitches were doing and—

—and an unstable hand found the knob of his back door. Arthritis like a high-voltage charge was racking his hip now. He ripped the door open . . . to four men. They were identical in workmen’s overalls and urgency on their young faces.

Now he noted what was about the boys that had brought relief to him: sincere concern.One asked him, "Do you want to be saved?"

"Yes . . ." he said . . . "Yes" . . . and he took his hand.

They were walking together, now, along a gravel road. These boys had found it below the hill that marked the end of his property. All of them were dead silent, so each could hear Frank Elmer’s trick-or-treaters away in the distance.

Surrounding him, they walked with a sort of sailing wonder . . . gliding. Frank thought of it the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Up ahead . . ."

They made a few more feet together, and the leader came to a stop. He sang.

They kneeled around him.

It was more of a chant to his ears, like a Gregorian Chant pulled from The Dark Ages. His voice hung around them and never seemed to be carried on the wind, never began to mix with those screams on the hill . . .

"Touch this . . ."

The boys passed a . . . something to Frank. It had lit under his eyes and could not be seen. It didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and caressed the smooth, metallic-edged object . . .

He touched it . . .

I wantI want

(Bright . . .)Opening them now.

Here, there was no light.

Only faces with eyes of an unhuman glow in the darkness.

Wet fingers were passing over his body. Pulling him down.

There was wheezing, too. A horrible wheezing, as if something had happened to their throats.

And teeth.

The children love my eyes.

Baby.
" . . . Think I feel good."