Norman Partridge - Dark Harvest

The flashlight beam skitters across the blacktop and finds something waiting there.

The October Boy’s carved teeth chew over a grin.

The boys have found the bait.

Mitch drops his pitchfork, snatches up an Oh Henry! and rips into it. A couple quick bites and he’s got the whole damn candy bar in his mouth. He chews desperately, salivating like a son of a bitch, his jaws snapping together as if he’s trying to murder that hunk of chocolate before it starts crawling around in his mouth.

One hard gulp and a sticky lump of sugar makes a beeline for his belly. That sugar hits his stomach like a lightning bolt tossed by Mighty Thor himself. Man oh man. Five days with nothing to eat. Mitch doesn’t know how he managed to live through that, but he’s intent on making up for lost time now.

He isn’t the only one. Bud’s pitchfork is planted in soft ditch dirt. He’s on his knees in the mud, polishing off a couple of Clark bars he found down there. And Charlie’s ahead of both his pals. He’s filling his pockets at the same time he’s gobbling an Abba-Zaba. He’s working the flashlight with one hand, following the beam into that break he spotted in the cornstalks, picking up candy as he goes along.

Mitch wants to warn the doofus, but he’s got another Oh Henry! in his mouth and can’t say a word. He’s got to say something, though. After all, Mitch has a plan, and he needs Charlie. Charlie’s the guy with the flashlight. It’s his job to spotlight the October Boy while Mitch and Bud pin him to the ground with those pitchforks. That’s when they’re supposed to get the candy — when the Boy’s helpless, when Mitch can go to work on him with the switchblade and take the time to do the job right. Carving his orange skull until the light spills right out of it. Slicing through ropes of green innards until all that gutted candy falls to the ground, and they can chow down without watching their backsides.

Yeah. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen: kill first, eat later. But it’s no surprise that Mitch really can’t help himself any more than the others. He’s so damn hungry, and the candy tastes so damn good. Still, he knows he has to get a grip on things. He swallows hard, says, “Hey, that’s enough, guys. We gotta be careful — ”

“Yeah,” Bud says. “You’re right, Mitch.”

Charlie doesn’t say anything.

Charlie has already disappeared into the corn.

Charlie hears Mitch yelling, but that doesn’t slow him down. He’s ten feet into the field. There’s a narrow trail pushing through the dead stalks, and up ahead he spots a heavy sprinkling of Atomic Fireballs and Candy Corn. Hell, it isn’t exactly a trail of blood, but in this case Charlie’s pretty sure that it means the same thing.

The flashlight beam plays over the narrow path. Charlie follows along behind it, picking up those Atomic Fireballs as he goes. He’s starting to wish he’d brought a sack with him. And he’s starting to figure that Mitch has gotta be wrong about missing the October Boy with the Chrysler. Gotta be. Because Ol’ Hacksaw Face is losing candy like a busted piñata, which is about what you’d expect if a walking tangle of vines went head to head with a hunk of Detroit steel going eighty miles per.

The more candy Charlie finds, the more he’s convinced of that. Any second now, he expects the flashlight beam to reveal what’s left of Sawtooth Jack there on the ground, dim light flickering in his busted-up noggin, a thick patch of mushed Bit-O-Honeys and Red Vines staining his shirt.

But that’s not what Charlie sees up ahead. Not at all. In fact, it’s not what he sees that’s important. It’s the smell that hangs in the air that counts. And it’s not chocolate, or caramel, or marshmallow filling, but an odd mix of scorched cinnamon, gunpowder, and melting wax.

There’s a soft rustle behind Charlie. As he turns, he’s certain he’s going to see Mitch or Bud catching up to him, but you’ve already figured out that isn’t what’s creeping up on him out there in that cornfield.

Hey, that’s no surprise, because you’re a whole lot smarter than our buddy Charlie, aren’t you?

Tell the truth now — who the hell isn’t?

The kid with the flashlight is wearing a leather jacket and motorcycle boots, but the October Boy can tell right off that he’s not tough at all. The little punk nearly screams bloody murder as the Boy lays the well-honed edge of the butcher knife against his jugular.

But the kid doesn’t scream. He knows better. He barely whimpers. The October Boy’s razored grin glows fiercely, a tiger-stripe of yellow light spilling across his wicked maw. The man with the knife had tried to muzzle him, but the October Boy isn’t muzzled anymore. The Atomic Fireballs the man stuffed into his hollow head are gone now. The Boy spit every one of them onto the trail. He can speak again, and the words that cross his carved teeth are so simple and direct that even an idiot like Charlie Gunther can understand them.

“Give me the flashlight,” the October Boy says.

His voice is sandpaper and battery acid. Charlie does what he’s told, and right away. Back there on the road, Mitch is calling his name, but Charlie doesn’t dare answer him. Even so, the October Boy’s knife stays right there against his throat. Charlie feels his blood pounding against it, and the thing standing in front of him keeps right on smiling as Mitch yells louder and louder and louder.

“Don’t listen to him,” the October Boy says. “Listen to me.”

Charlie starts to nod, but he’s afraid he’ll cut off his own head if he does. And his fears aren’t misplaced — that knife blade presses harder, imprinting a deeper furrow in Charlie’s flesh. And the knife’s not even the worst of it. As far as Charlie’s concerned, that prize goes to the monster’s voice, which works over Charlie like some radioactive sandstorm in a sci-fi movie.

“You’re going to do exactly what I tell you.”

“Uh-huh,” Charlie says. “I’ll do anything.”

The October Boy steps back, taking the knife with him.

He shines Charlie’s flashlight at the road.

The instructions he gives aren’t complicated.

He says, “Run.”

“Maybe we should get the car,” Bud says. “We can drive it down here, aim the headlights where we want to. That way we can see what the hell we’re doing until Charlie drags his ass out of that field.”

Mitch shakes his head. No way. He’s not walking all the way back to the car, not with Charlie vanishing like the goddamn Invisible Man. That would put him a couple hundred yards up the road, and Bud right here, and Charlie god knows where. Splitting up like that wouldn’t be smart.

So he yells Charlie’s name. Loud. For the fifth goddamn time.

For the fifth goddamn time, he doesn’t get an answer.

“That dipstick.” Mitch sighs. “I should have left him back in town — ”

And just that fast there’s a sharp snap crackle pop of activity up ahead of them. It sounds like an avalanche of busting bones out there in the cornfield. Something bursts through the cornstalk wall on the other side of the drainage ditch. It crosses that dark furrow and is up on the road before Mitch can even close his yap, and it hits the blacktop running just as the cornstalks crackle again and a second figure emerges from the field like a misplaced shadow holding a flashlight —

And the running thing’s closing on Mitch. The first thing out of the chute. The thing without a flashlight. Mitch grabs his pitchfork. From the side of the road, the pursuer’s flashlight beam skitters through the darkness and plays into Mitch’s eyes, and then it’s erased by that front-running pocket of midnight heading straight for him, and he cocks the fork over his shoulder like a javelin, and he lets that sucker fly —