Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

“...First he was small and green,” said Jack.

“...He bumps and he jumps and he thumps around midnight...”

“...Then big and yellow...”

— thumpity (Let)-whump (Us)-thump (OUT)! —

“...a goblin lives in OUR house, all the year round!”

“...Ol’ Jack Pumpkinhead is a very fine fellow,” all sang as one.

Marian struggled to stand again, letting the pain compel her, readying herself to make a run for it—

—and the organ music grew even louder, tinged at the edges with a dark majesty that soon gave it richer form and deeper feeling as it began “Let There Be Peace On Earth”—

—and Marian watched as a scene right out of her grainy childhood nightmares unfolded before her.

As the fiery sparks bounced against the soil, each grave split open and the thin, pale, rotted hands of its tenant reached up to touch the night air.

Marian felt her legs starting to buckle but she did not— would not —fall. She slowly pushed herself up, the pain pushing her forward, moving along the smooth oak doors, covering her head as bits and pieces of stone and plaster fell from above, steady, old girl, steady, that’s it, keep moving, no one’s looking at you, they all think you’re down for the count so don’t you dare stop moving, that’s good, just...a…little...farther...and...you...can... there! You can get through that gap in the gate and sneak back to the house, grab your car keys and drive away from here and—

— Boots .

She couldn’t leave Boots, not here, not now.

She looked over her shoulder and saw the hands from each grave grip the jack-o’-lantern left for them and pull it beneath the soil.

Then came the sounds of tearing and snapping.

She tried not to imagine what those sounds might mean.

She pushed away from the doors and edged herself over a section of crumbling wall into the ruins of the church, fell on her chest, and choked as the paroxysm of pain doubled her into a tight ball. She gulped down air and tried to stand, fell on her knees, rose again, half-crouching, and slowly struggled forward. The organ loft stairs were only a few yards away.

It was the longest trip of her life. Every movement seemed to jar something loose inside. Once, gripping the edge of a pew, she thought she felt a rib dislodge and puncture a lung.

Outside, the flames were growing so bright it looked like mid-afternoon. She caught glimpses of children running back and forth, carrying more twigs and dried leaves. “Marian!” came her Jack’s voice. She turned, balancing herself against a marble holy water fountain, expecting to see him standing behind her. Nothing.

So don’t wait around, she warned herself, moving toward the stairs. Where she was finding the strength to do this, she didn’t know. One slip and she’d collapse, she knew it, she’d fall and be poured from herself like water, all of her bones out of joint and clacking against one another as they were swept away in the stream of her fluids.

From the loft high above, the organ howled in ecstatic agony.

An owl perched atop a rotting crucifix spread its wings and soared past Marian. She gripped the railing and pulled herself onto the first stair.

“Honey?” called Mom-thing’s voice from outside.

Marian pushed herself up another stair, then two more, finally getting a delayed rush of adrenaline and taking them two at a time, blood dripping into her eyes, the pain spreading from her chest and ribs down to her pelvis. She kept climbing, thinking, Use the pain, use it, use it! She labored to breathe as smoke from the bonfire began rolling into the church and up the stairs, following her, nipping at her heels, then encircling her ankles and slithering up her legs, but then she rounded the first landing and found herself one flight away from the organ loft. The collapsed wall next to her allowed a harsh, cold breeze to cut through, holding back some the curling smoke. She filled her lungs with crisp air, blinking until her eyes cleared—

—and looked down on the cemetery below.

The glow from the fire illuminated the grounds, casting everything is a sickly pall of burnt orange.

From every grave (except her parents’, some part of her brain noted) came its occupant; many were old and feeble with little flesh left on their bones—what skin remained was shriveled, torn, and discolored; some were younger, perhaps her own age, housewives who’d died in accidents or factory workers killed in the riots or by their machines; a few were teenagers, buried in their favorite clothes, nice clothes, trendy clothes, who’d perhaps died drunk behind the wheel of a car or at the prick of a needle; and, worst of all, there were babies, the small ones, slowly crawling up through the dirt that had lain upon their fragile bodies for so long. Behind them came the descendants, the settlers, the founding citizens of Cedar Hill, all of them only bones now, only bones, clicking, clacking, shuddering. She wondered if the remains of Josiah Comstock were walking amongst them.

Marian felt the tears in her eyes as she looked straight down and saw one baby that crawled on its arms because where its legs should have been hung a twisted, stumpy tangle of cartilage and skin, a sad trophy from thalidomide days. Her heart broke at the sight of it; to have been born so horribly misshapen, to die so early, only to be called back like this.

The sight of the awakened dead was horrible enough; the thalidomide baby made it worse.

Who moves in the shadow?

But what terrified Marian the most, what caused the blood to coagulate in her veins and her throat to contract and her bowls to twist into one excruciating knot of sick, was the sight of what each of these dead carried—

Who rustles past unseen?

—their own heads, the ones they had been died with. Some had eyes, others only dark chasms, but all of their mouths were locked in death’s eternal rictus grin.

With the dark so deep...

And on every set of shoulders sat a new head, one with carved eyes, a three-cornered nose, and a crescent moon mouth, all glowing brightly inside.

...I dare not sleep...

She watched as every member of Jack Pumpkinhead’s lineage was greeted by those who had mourned at their graveside with calls of Mom or Darlin’ or Grampa, then with open arms and loving embraces in the light of the gigantic fire—

...all night this Hallowe’en!

—the organ stopped screaming.

Marian turned and saw Boots standing at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were wide and glazed, her hair hung around her face in clumps, caked with blood, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

“He told me he wouldn’t let Mama beat us anymore,” she said to her niece. “He told me that he’d make it better, that I wasn’t ugly because of my scar. That’s why Burt wouldn’t marry me, you know. He said he couldn’t look at my scar, it was too ugly.”

“Oh Boots....”

“Don’t worry about them folks down there. Jack’s gonna make everything fine again. All of ’em, see, all of ’em missed someone who was buried here. There ain’t a person in this town who don’t cry inside every day from some kinda loneliness. Even the spirits who live here, they cry, too. Loneliness follows you, hon, it follows you forever. But maybe that’s all over now. You should feel good, having all the family back like this. They all think the world of you. Shame on you for not letting them know their love meant something.”

“I’ll not have you speaking to her that way, Boots,” came the voice of Jack Pumpkinhead.

He was only a few feet away from Marian on the stairs. She had nowhere to go, except through the hole in the crumbled wall, and the drop was at least twenty feet. She bit her lower lip and cursed herself for getting trapped like this.