Allhallow's Eve: (Richard Laymon Horror Classic) by Richard Laymon Page B

in to have a party? I just think the whole thing’s queer. I bet somebody sent out those invitations for a gag.’
    ‘Or to ruin my party.’
    ‘If it is for real, nobody’s gonna go. Nobody with sense, anyway. I wouldn’t be caught dead in the old Sherwood house myself.’
    ‘Oh, I imagine half the kids in town would love to get in there, especially on Halloween night. It is the creepiest place in the whole world. Wouldn’t you like to see where it all happened?’
    ‘No. Thanks anyway.’
    ‘I certainly would, but not when I’m having my own party. I’ll just die if nobody shows up ’cause they’re all over at the Sherwood house traipsing through gore.’
    Beth laughed softly. ‘I don’t think the gore’s still there. Someone must’ve cleaned it up. I mean, it’s been about fifteen years or something.’ The hand resting on her flat belly bounced as she laughed. ‘And even if itdidn’t get cleaned up, it’d be all dry, by now. It’d take a putty knife to pry it off the floor.
    ‘Beth! You’re awful!’
    Beth couldn’t stop laughing. Her eyes teared. ‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, wouldn’t that be a sight …! Some old janitor crawling around with a putty knife … trying … trying to jimmy the guts off the floor!’
    ‘Beth, you’re sick,’ Aleshia said through her own laughter.
    ‘Ohhh. Oh wow.’ She wiped her eyes, and tried to catch her breath. ‘Oh. Don’t know … what got into me.’
    ‘While you’re on that subject, who’s your date for the party?’
    Beth took a deep, shaky breath. ‘I … I don’t know.’
    ‘You what ?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Beth, the party’s tomorrow night!’
    ‘Oh, I’ll find someone to take me.’
    ‘I certainly do hope so. Well, I’d better leave you, now. I’ve got a jillion more calls to make.’
    ‘Are you phoning everyone you invited?’
    ‘I just might, Beth.’
    Karen Bennett sat at the kitchen table of her rented house, correcting a stack of papers turned in yesterday by her fourth period class. She finished Dave Sanderson’s Halloween theme. At the bottom, in red ink, she scribbled, ‘Cats are people, too.’ She flipped to the front page and marked the top B-.
    She took a sip of Chablis.
    She scooted a bit farther forward, and gently rubbedthe underside of her right leg. Earlier, she’d bandaged the worst of the scratches. For the past hour or so, they’d been feeling itchy. If she used her fingernails, though, they hurt.
    That creep, Houlder. She really ought to report him. She couldn’t write him up, though, without implicating Bill. She hated to do that.
    Hell with it.
    She lowered her eyes to the next theme, and moaned. Jim Miller had used a pencil. After all the times she’d told them only to use ink. Doesn’t anybody listen, for Christsake? She picked up her red pen.
    ‘Use ink only!’ she wrote at the top.
    Then she began to read. ‘Halloween is the time for tricks and treats. Little kids get dressed up like pirates and hobos and wiches and nurses, and docters and bums …’
    The telephone rang.
    Thank God.
    She put down her pen, picked up her wine glass, and went to the phone. ‘Hello?’
    ‘Hello, Miss Bennett. This is Aleshia.’
    ‘Oh, hi Aleshia.’
    ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
    ‘No, not at all. What’s up?’ Reaching down, she scratched the back of her leg, and winced.
    ‘I’m calling about my Halloween party?’
    ‘Yes. I’m looking forward to it.’
    ‘Oh good. I was a little bit worried that you might change your mind, or something.’
    ‘I’ve already got my costume ready.’
    ‘Oh, super. I was just wondering, because it turns outthere’s this other party tomorrow night and I’m afraid some people might decide to go to it instead of mine.’
    ‘Not me.’
    ‘Did you get an invitation to it?’
    ‘No. Yours is the only one I got.’
    ‘Maybe they’re not asking teachers.’
    ‘Maybe not.’
    ‘I mean, I didn’t invite any, either. Just you. But that’s because