Erika Holzer - Freedom Bridge

“Boo, mommy, boo!”

She whirled around, almost dropping the phone, then laughed at the small masked figure in the doorway above.

“Only ghosts say ‘boo,’ darling.”

“Oink, oink.”

“Thata girl. Now off to bed, Miss Piggy.”

“Rhyme, rhyme, you owe me a dime!”

“Stop stalling, Susie. Tell you what. You get three dimes for three rhymes under the pillow by morning —if you’re in bed by the count of five. Ready? One… two… three… ”

She retrieved the phone. “Susie is still keyed up. Lots of little trick-or-treaters made house calls.”

“Ghost and hobgoblin time…”

“You’re dating yourself, kiddo. These days, it’s characters out of Star Wars and the Muppets . Me, I’m nostalgic. I prefer ghosts and hobgoblins.”

“Isn’t that your doorbell?”

“What’s on the other end of that line, Karen, an amplifier?”

“Why would Mark ring? Could he have forgotten his keys?”

“Not likely. Probably some last-minute trick-or-treaters. No home-by-eight in the suburbs. Be right back.”

She pressed her face to frosted glass and grinned, feeling like a kid again as she picked out the slightly distorted shapes. Kids draped in sheets, clustered around one little Muppet in green. All of them were holding tight to their goody bags.

“Would you believe old-fashioned ghosts outside my door?” she chuckled into the phone. “Takes me all the way back.”

“Sarah, maybe you better—”

“Oh, and one modern touch,” she said. “An adorable little Muppet frog. Hang in there while I distribute the loot. Homemade candied apples this year, if you please!”

She held a silver platter of apples in one hand. With the other, she turned a key. A chip of light next to the doorknob went from unblinking red to bright yellow. She opened the door.

They pushed in on her so that she teetered precariously, almost dropping the platter. “Hey you little roughnecks,” she scolded, “I was about to hand you—”

Except for the frog, they weren’t so little, she thought. She counted seven ghosts as they fanned out into the foyer… the dining area… the living room.

She opened her mouth to yell at them—

And was cut off by a howl. They were howling and whooping!

A brown hand flipped the radio dial, turning up the volume.

She took an automatic step backward as a ghost moved in on her. A denim sleeve shot out from under a sheet, tilting the silver platter. The candied apples went flying.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped when she saw where he was headed.

He was piling up her silverware .

“Put it back, damn you!”

But he didn’t. Then one of them, a ghost like the others but with a black hood, approached her table—her exquisite table—and she didn’t move to stop him because he had picked up a knife. A vicious yank of the tablecloth sent her crystal and china to the stone floor with a splintering crash. An overturned vase spilled water, drowning the flame of a candle.

Black Hood advanced on her—

But stopped short while the frog took his picture.

She could almost feel him smiling under his mask as he stood there holding the knife as he waited for the picture to develop. Instant results from an Instamatic…

Her head swayed to the crazy rhythm. Ghosts wearing sneakers and running shoes. Thick denim legs, weaving and bobbing. Hands that grabbed, ripped out, piled up, tore through, smashed aside—

And stopped, they kept stopping while a frog took their picture.

Insanity!

She snapped out of it with a jolt. Inching sideways, step by invisible step, she moved in the direction of the front door. She was almost there when Black Hood let out a yell. She lunged.

Her heels caught in the doormat as her hand snaked out, missing the alarm’s panic button by an inch.

She went down.

Two of them dragged her toward the mess in the dining room. Water seeping into black satin… fabric tearing—and flesh. Her thigh scraping across broken glass.

The howling started up again, turned piercing—

And brought her, thrashing, to her feet.

Susie!

It was less a thought than a silent cry of panic that leapt to her eyes. That sent her glance up three steps to the doorway on the left. Had Black Hood noticed, damn him? He was coming over!

“Jewelry,” she told him. “Up there. The bedroom to the right. My jewels. My husband’s. Just open the—”

He cut her off with an imperious wave. Two of them went up without waiting for her to tell them where it was. But they’d stopped howling. And they’d gone in the opposite direction from Susie’s bedroom.

When they came out of the master bedroom with a pillowcase, she forced herself to turn away.

A few others disappeared into her kitchen and came out gnawing on a chicken breast. What turned her legs to rubber was that they’d let her see their faces.

Black Hood walked over to her. She backed away slowly. She knew what the bastard

had noticed this time… the diamond pendant that had been her engagement ring. It rose and fell with her ragged pulse. She had a flash-memory of telling Mark that, as much as she loved her engagement ring, it was too many carats to wear safely in public. With a rush of bitterness at the irony, she reached for the clasp. “Take it, it’s very valuable,” she told Black Hood. “Take your loot and get the hell out of my house.”

Her hands were still fumbling with the clasp when he ripped her blouse open to the waist.

They came at her like a wolf pack.

Her only weapon was a silent litany…

Susie, Susie. Dear God, let me be quiet for Susie.

Her arms were grabbed from behind.

Susie—

Her legs were yanked up, stripped, pulled apart.

Susie, Susie!

Her body was slammed against the wet stone floor.

As their leader whipped off his face mask, Sarah stared into utter vacancy… and shuddered at the thin slash of a mouth. And because she dared not scream, dared not risk awakening her child, she gave in to tears.

His mouth twisted as his hand shot out, knocking her senseless.

Not quite senseless. She felt the tearing pain of forced penetration.

She felt it again… again—oh God, again and again! How much more could she endure?

“Hey, lookee, a natural blonde!”

They were gloating, howling, whooping over her, while someone kept yelling at them to stop—the frog?

She half raised her head in time with a flash of his camera.

More flashing, more howling, she was on the verge of howling herself, she was on the brink of unconsciousness—

She was yanked back by a squeal of laughter and an “oink oink.”

“Kermit! Mommy, it’s Kermit the Frog!”

Her scream went off like a delayed siren.

When Karen heard the scream, the telephone clattered to the rug, a strangely muffled sound.

She snatched it up again. “Sarah, in God’s name, tell me what’s happening!”

No voice to answer her. Only the sound of raucous disco and some weird repetitive howling. But she’d heard Susie’s voice babbling about a frog and a—a hermit?

She yelled Susie’s name into the phone. She yelled for Sarah.

She heard Sarah’s voice, heard her rage—

“No, don’t—not on my wedding anniversary! You’ve got the diamond, damn you to hell! What more do you—”

A scream — agonized.

She heard her own scream as she dropped the phone again.

Hang up. Get help.

But how would she get Sarah back?!

She heard the baby crying—so clear, so close to the phone.

“Somebody turn the fuckin’ brat off!”