Norman Partridge - Dark Harvest

Autumn leaves and candy wrappers and wax-paper Bazooka Joe comics churn in the night. And now the town is behind us, and we’re racing down the licorice-whip road. By the time that dust devil stops swirling on Main Street, we’re a mile away.

Rows of dead cornstalks on each side of the road blur by like a crop of bones. There’s something up ahead in the middle of the road, something that’s pulling away even as we gear up the night’s own tach and close on it.

A pair of coal-red brake lights glow in the rusty ass-end of that thing.

A pair of dead-white headlights glare up front, raking the blacktop like a Gorgon’s stare.

Yeah. Mitch Crenshaw’s rattletrap streetrod is dead ahead, chewing a hole through the night. But that doesn’t cut any slack with us. Pedal hits metal that isn’t even there. In a flicker of moonlight, we’re even with the Chrysler’s rear bumper. Another second and we’re eyeballing the driver’s side window.

The window’s down. Inside, Crenshaw’s got a fistful of steering wheel and a brain crawling with pissed-off spiders. He sucks the last drag from a cigarette and flicks it into the night….

The cig sails through the window and kicks up a hail of sparks as if hitting something solid out there in the darkness, but Mitch Crenshaw doesn’t pay any attention to that. He knows there’s nothing outside his window but the night, and a shitload of dead cornstalks, and a pumpkin-headed monster he’s ready to carve up for Halloween pie.

So Mitch does what he does best — he hits the gas and drives straight ahead. He flicks the headlights to high beam, and they cut the belly right out of the sky, and he races along the gash feeling like a guy who’s just about to butt heads with his very own destiny.

Which is exactly what he’s gonna do. And, in this case, Mitch knows that destiny doesn’t stand a chance. The way Mitch figures it, he’s the only guy in town who’s smarter than the average bear. Being behind the wheel of the only car on this road proves that. This year, Mitch has it all figured out and —

“Slow down, Mitch,” Bud Harris says. “You ain’t gonna have a chance to kill the Boy if you kill us first.”

“Yeah.” It’s Charlie Gunther now, chiming in from the backseat like a goddamn alarm clock. “Ease off, buddy. You keep the hammer slammed and we’re liable to miss the whole damn field, let alone Ol’ Hacksaw Face — ”

“We ain’t gonna miss nothing,” Mitch says sharply, and his booted foot stays right there on the gas. Because he knows he’s right, and he’s not afraid to say it. Not tonight. Not when he’s been locked up in his room for five days without a thing to eat. Not when hunger’s burning a hole in his belly and his brain is clicking away overtime.

No. There’s no room for argument on Mitch’s agenda. Tonight the Run belongs to him. It’s his game. His second crack at the October Boy, and this time he’s going to get it right. Mitch doesn’t really count last year, anyway. Last Halloween, he was just two days past his sixteenth birthday. He didn’t even have a driver’s license. But this year, things are different. This year he’s seventeen, and he’s got the Chrysler and a switchblade knife and some other dangerous implements in the trunk that’ll spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E for anyone who gets in his way. But best of all, he’s got the whole deal figured out good.

“Hey, I ain’t kidding,” Charlie says from the backseat. “I think we missed the field. We better turn around, or someone’s going to beat us to the Boy — ”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” Mitch snaps. “ We didn’t miss the goddamn field. And no one’s going to beat us to nothing. I mean, have you ever even heard of anyone doing what we’re doing tonight? You ever hear of anyone jumping the Line?”

“No, Mitch… but — ”

“No buts, stupid. I’ve got it all figured out. Those other dipsticks always treat the Run like it’s a game of hide ’n’ seek. They hang around town, waiting for the Boy to come after his ollie ollie oxen free . They don’t bust the city limits. But that ain’t the way we’re gonna play it tonight. We’re gonna take the Run straight to our buddy Sawtooth Jack, and I’m gonna splatter his ass before he even gets a chance to step across the Line.”

“But what if it don’t work? What if the Boy gets past us somehow?”

“You know, Charlie, there are two little words that can get your ass kicked out of this car. One of them is what, and the other is if .”

Mitch shoots a glance at the rearview, eyeballing the dope in the backseat. Charlie’s sitting there with a Mighty Thor comic book rolled up in his hands, and he looks like he just got whacked over the head with the big guy’s hammer. And that’s the way Charlie should look as far as Mitch is concerned. The way Mitch sees it, tonight you can screw what if … and second guesses, too. There’s no room on Mitch’s plate for any of that. He’s up for a one-course meal, and that means winning the Run. Then everything will be different for him. Sure, the town will get what it wants — what it needs to get through another year of raising prize crops from the same old dirt, what it needs to turn those crops into cold hard cash — the whole deal delivered with a king-size platter of blessings from above or below, depending on who the hell you listen to.

Mitch sees it this way: You can screw the blessings, wherever they come from. He doesn’t have a clue how anyone could settle for a life in this nothing little place, and he won’t need one after tonight. Not after he bashes that living Jack o’ Lantern’s head into the pavement and carves those candy bars out of its woven-vine chest. That happens, the whole damn town can bury their favorite spook story in the bottom drawer and forget about it for another year, the way they always do. Until the calendar flips a bunch of pages and another crop gets picked and shucked. Until another pumpkin starts growing in that same dead field. Until someone drives out there one night, hammers together a cross, and nails up an empty suit of clothes for a fresh tangle of growing vines to fill.

But Mitch Crenshaw will be long gone by the time that happens. Once he nails Ol’ Hacksaw Face, things will be different for him. Once he eats himself some of the candy that serves up a heartbeat, there won’t be anyone to stand in his way.

Yeah. Bring down Sawtooth Jack, and he’ll be the winner. And that’ll mean a whole hell of a lot… both for him and his family. The family will get treated differently around town. They’ll get a new house, a new car. They won’t see a bill for a year — not at the grocery store, no mortgage payments, nothing. That’ll make Mitch’s old man particularly happy. But Mitch doesn’t care about his hard-ass father, or his shrew of a mother, or his little snot sisters.

No. Mitch pretty much just cares about himself, and what winning the Run will get him. Do that and he’ll grab a pocketful of green, just like Jim Shepard did last year. Even better, he’ll be on this road again, headed out of town like a bullet, and for the very last time. Guys like Charlie and Bud, they couldn’t even handle that. Wouldn’t want to win. Wouldn’t want to see their hometown in the rearview. Wouldn’t know what to do if they could. Hell, they’d probably break down in tears, run screaming for mommy and daddy if someone kicked there asses across the Line for good.

That’s why those guys aren’t built to win the Run. But Mitch is. Winning the Run is the only way to get out of this squirrel cage of a town, and Mitch wants it so bad he can taste it. Hunger burns in his belly and burns in his brain. He wants that money in his pocket, wants everything that comes with it. Wants the town in his rearview. Wants to see what’s down that black road, and across those dead fields, and out there in the world.