The Samhanach Page 5

  It turned and headed for the sundered wall; behind me Gillian screamed at me, “Shoot it! SHOOT IT!”

  I did. I unloaded both barrels of the gun into its broad back. It didn’t so much as stagger from the blows.

  Instead it stepped outside, and began to run.

  Its speed was immense, and I knew I could never hope to keep up. But I thought I knew where it was headed:

  On the other side of the peat bog was a small hill that some folk said was a fairy barrow, an entryway to the Otherworld.

  I ran as fast as I could for that mound, and reached it a few minutes later. There was no sign of the thing that had wrested my daughter –

  – but the mound was glowing, and there was an opening that had never been there before, like the entrance to a vast cavern.

  I didn’t stop to consider (as a wiser man would have), but ran for that doorway, my thoughts only on Aileen.

  Inside was a cave, with glittering walls that seemed to be their own source of illumination. I made my way through the tunnel, around twists and turns, ducking stalactites and dodging iridescent pools, until finally the cave opened on the other side…

  In the Otherworld.

  And that’s where I am now.

  I’m not sure at this point how long I’ve been here, searching for Aileen and the Samhanach. The things I’ve seen…God himself has surely abandoned this place. Were it not for the fact that my mind is focused on finding my daughter, I’m sure I would have been driven mad long ago.

  At some point I realized I still had this journal in a pocket, and so I’ve recorded everything into it that I can think of. I don’t know if there's a way to protect future generations with this, but I

  Merran and Luke

  “Ms. McCafferty –?”

  Merran, startled, sucked in her breath and looked up from the journal, to see a boy standing at the edge of her lawn. It took her a few seconds to place him: Luke Ahrens, one of the three delinquents who’d trudged by earlier in the evening. But something had happened to him since: He was completely white-faced now, his breath coming in shallow pants, and the front of his pants were wet.

  “Yes…?”

  The boy was shaking, too, and when he spoke there was a tremor in his voice. “I’m supposed to give you a message: I’m supposed to tell you that the –” he struggled a second before getting out the next word, “– the Samhanach has come tonight.”

  He’d turned the word into a strange guttural sound, with something like a “v” in the middle and a hoarse syllable, almost a cough, on the end, and so it took her a few seconds to connect it to the name she’d been reading in the journal:

  The Samhanach.

  How could he know that name?

  Before Merran could form a question, the boy was heading off down the sidewalk at a rapid pace. Merran ran to the front of her yard, calling out after him: “Please, wait –!”

  The boy didn’t turn, but gestured back at her. “I’ve got to get home.”

  “How did you know that name? Did something –?”

  He cut her off this time. “I’m really sorry that I can’t help you.”

  Then he started to run.

  Merran considered going after him, but saw how fast he was moving (he’s got twenty years on me, I’ll never catch him), and gave up on that plan of action. Instead she pondered the message:

  The Samhanach has come tonight.

  The kid – Luke – must have been in on some elaborate practical joke, even though the terrified look on his face told Merran that he’d been a victim, rather than a perpetrator. Someone – surely it had to be Will, for whatever fucked-up reason – was trying to scare her, with stories of ancestral curses, and a mythical creature that stole children –

  Oh God. Jeannie.

  Alarm shot through Merran’s system at the thought that her daughter might be part of some malicious prank. Before her heart could take another beat she was running for the house and the cell phone that was charging on the front table. It held Keesha’s number in memory, and Merran’s fingers were clumsy with panic as she flipped the phone open, punched a button and waited.

  After a few seconds Keesha’s cheery voice answered. “Trick or treat!”

  Merran’s heart slowed, slightly, in relief. “Jeannie is with you, right?”

  Even over the cell phone connection, she could hear the perplexity in Keesha’s tone. “Of course. She’s forty feet away from me right now, extorting candy from another homeowner. Is everything all right?”

  “Where are you?” There was a beat, as Keesha apparently looked around. “We’re on Houston, in front of 4452.”

  Merran calculated: That was about three blocks away. “Keesha, can you start heading for home now? I’m coming to you – meet you at the corner of Houston and 43rd.”

  “Okay, but…is something wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. Just start home – don’t go to any more houses or talk to anyone.” Merran snapped the phone shut, shoved it in a pocket, and ran.

  The Witch and the Old Man

  Keesha’s two kids were already at the door of the last house, shouting out, “Trick or treat!," but Jeannie was still halfway up the front walk. Her nose was falling off again, and she paused to adjust it.

  “Hurry up, Jeannie,” she heard Keesha call from the sidewalk, “your mom wants you home.”

  “She does?”

  “She just called. Something’s going on. Let’s make this the last house of the evening, okay?”

  Jeannie shrugged, then finally got her long, wart-encrusted nose properly aligned, and dodged Darren and Marissa as they ran by her. If this was going to be the end of trick-or-treat for another year, she was going to make sure she looked perfect and was well compensated in return.

  The porch, lit only by a very large, flickering jack-o’-lantern, was a little spookier than Jeannie liked, but she felt powerful in her witch costume, confident that she could banish either human or monster. She rang the doorbell, called out the classic solicitation – “Trick or treat!” – and extended her plastic pumpkin, waiting.

  After a few seconds the door creaked open, revealing the dim outline of a very old man. Although most of him was in shadow (they didn’t seem to have any lights on inside the house), she could tell he was long and bent, with a nearly bald head.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, and Jeannie was relieved to hear that his voice sounded nice, not mean or creepy at all, “What have we here? A little witch?”

  “Yes, sir – I’m the Halloween Witch!”

  The old man chuckled softly. “My goodness, I had no idea I was in the presence of such an important personage. And let me get a look at that costume…”

  He stepped out onto the porch, and Jeannie felt a moment of irritation – why didn’t he just hand her the candy? She’d said the right thing, and her mom was waiting.

  But the old man was whistling as he eyed her costume, and she did enjoy being admired. “That is very good. Very, very good.”

  He bent closer, and now Jeannie could see the lines in his face and tufts of white on the sides of his head. He wore little round glasses that made his milky eyes look huge as he squinted at her. “Why, I think this is the best outfit I’ve seen all night. Say, I don’t suppose you’d like to do me a favor?”

  “Uh…I’m kind of in a hurry…”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t take long.” He gestured at the dark open doorway behind him, and for a second it reminded Jeannie of a big, hungry mouth. “My wife can’t walk, but she loves trick-or-treaters, and I know she’d love to see your costume. Do you think you could come in and show her?”

  He stepped back, throwing an inviting arm toward the lightless living room.

  “Why is she in the dark?” Jeannie asked, trying to peer past him.

  “Oh, if you come in, I’ll turn on the lights so she can get a good look at you.”

  Jeannie considered for a moment, and looked back, hoping Keesha would make the decision for her – but she
couldn’t see Keesha on the street, or Darren or Marissa.

  “Uh,” she started, then faced him, bucking up the courage to turn down an adult, “sorry, but my mom doesn’t let me go into strange houses.”

  “You wouldn’t have to come any farther than just the living room.”

  Jeannie was starting to feel something more than just irritation; a tiny snowflake of dread was forming inside her. “I can’t. Sorry, but I have to go –”

  She started to turn, but the man called after her, “Wait!”

  She reluctantly looked at him again. He backed up a step, reached inside the doorway, and retrieved a camera. “May I at least take your picture to show my wife?”

  “I guess.” Seeing the old man poised at the entrance, Jeannie remembered why she’d come up to the house in the first place. “Do you have any candy?”

  He barked a short laugh. “Oh my – we have something much better!”

  He thrust an arm back into the house, and produced a perfect red apple, which he dropped into her bucket. Jeannie stared at it, perplexed. “An apple?”

  The man nodded. “The oldest of Halloween symbols.”

  “I don’t think my mom will let me have anything that’s not wrapped.”

  “Oh, that’s just not right. Apples have been a part of Halloween for thousands of years. Even the Celts included apples in their celebrations.”

  Jeannie frowned. “The who?”

  The man smiled wryly. “Right you are – they’ve been gone for a very long time now.”

  He held up the camera, preparing to snap the shot, and Jeannie eyed it curiously. It was a strange, boxy thing, like no camera she’d ever seen. It had a glass lens, yes, and a viewfinder that the old man peered through, but it seemed to have two flashes that popped up like eyes on either side of the black body. Something about it made Jeannie uncomfortable, and she thought about just going, running back to find Keesha, and then her mom… but she had been given an apple. And she felt bad for the man’s sick wife.

  “Say ‘Samhanach’,” the man murmured, finger poised over the shutter release button.

  “Huh?”

  There was a small click as the button was depressed –

  – and then there was the sound of a small detonation, and a thousand suns exploded in Jeannie’s eyes. She cried out and instinctively dropped her bucket as her hands moved to her face, knocking her fake nose off, but she was blinded, completely. She felt herself lifted, tucked up under an arm that was like an iron band around her waist, and now she couldn’t see or move, but she could SCREAM, as she was carried off, by something that ran, something that couldn’t have been the bent old man who’d moved so slowly and cautiously. She clawed at the arm holding her, and the flesh felt strange under fingers, like the tough rind of a pumpkin.

  All that was left to her was to scream.

  Merran

  Merran heard her daughter screaming. But the sound came from behind her.

  She was at the corner of her street and Houston, ready to head west and find Keesha and Jeannie – but then she heard that terrible sound. She whirled, and saw something huge and awkward rush out of a side street behind her, heading back towards her house.

  She reversed course and ran after it, every nerve set on fire by the sound of Jeannie’s shrieks.

  “Jeannie -!”

  The screams paused for a moment. “MOM -!”

  Merran tried to increase her speed, her lungs already ragged and burning, but that didn’t matter. What did was catching the thing that held her daughter underarm. It was a good eight feet tall, with misshapen head and too-narrow shoulders, and it ran with loping strides that were easily increasing the distance between it and Merran.

  No…faster…

  But she was nearly middle-aged, and human, and she saw that this thing would soon lose her…

  …until it turned into a yard that, even from half-a-block down, she knew was hers.

  It went into MY house?!

  But she didn’t let that question slow her down. She kept her speed until she reached her front yard. She effortlessly cleared the bordering hedge, dodged lit jack-o’-lanterns, and paused as she reached the porch, panting.

  The front door was still closed, just as she’d left it.

  But she’d been panicked enough that she hadn’t locked it. She threw the door back, racing quickly through the house, but knew in seconds that the monster and her daughter weren’t there.

  She ran back outside, her eyes darting about the yard. There was just nothing there, just innocent jack-o’-lanterns lighting a quiet yard. Nowhere that something that big could have hidden, and the sound of Jeannie’s screaming had vanished. She felt desperation and horror boiling up, threatening to overwhelm her, to set her screaming louder than Jeannie –

  – and then her eyes fell on the ring of toadstools in the dark corner of her lawn.

  The ring was glowing.

  She stepped up to it, and felt something change subtly; hairs on the back of arms and neck stood up, the air charged with ozone.

  There was power here.

  Something surged into her consciousness, something from her college days, when she’d studied the folklore of olden times:

  Fairy rings, formed from toadstools, were dangerous places, especially on Mayday or Halloween. Mischievous elves could lure unwary humans into the rings, and trap them there. The rings would mysteriously disappear a day later, along with the ethereal pranksters.

  Merran knew: The circle formed a gateway to the fairies’ realm. The Otherworld.

  The Samhanach (for such it could only be) had taken Jeannie, and escaped back to its own world here. Her only chance at regaining her daughter was to step through, attempt to follow it. Part of her urged her forward without hesitation, and she suddenly stood at the edge of the circle, a foot poised in mid-step to enter…

  She drew it back. She had to think this through. To enter another world, unprepared, unarmed, could do Jeannie more harm than good. No, she had to do this carefully. But quickly, because she remembered Connell’s journal, how the demon had disappeared at exactly midnight on Halloween. She glanced at her watch.

  It was 9:24. How had it gotten to be that late?

  Merran turned away, trying to remember those folklore classes, nearly two decades back. Demons…fairies…pranksters…what had protected against them?

  Something about…iron. Or was it silver?

  Did a modern, urban American even have access to either?

  She thought about iron, and could only come up with the term “tire iron”; she had a crowbar in the car, but had no idea if it was actually made from iron or not.

  Silver…she had silver jewelry, certainly…

  Sterling silver. She had the McCafferty family’s sterling silver flatware set, stashed in a drawer in the kitchen. It was supposedly nearly 150 years old…and it included a long, sharp, carving knife.

  She ran to the kitchen, tearing drawers open until she found the velvet roll that held the silverware. She shook it open, disregarding the clatter as spoons, forks, and dull butter knives spilled out onto the floor. There – the serving fork, and –

  The knife.

  She snatched it up, examining its surface. She’d been meaning to polish the set for years, to research the manufacturer’s marks and the value, but – as with so many other things – she’d never gotten to it. The knife still gleamed, though, with a long blade and tapered, sharp point. She ran a thumb along the edge, and although it didn’t cut through the flesh, she thought the point, driven into something with the weight of her body behind it, could prove quite lethal.

  Merran wasn’t sure if the entire implement was silver – she thought the blade might be stainless steel. Which meant it was an alloy of iron…so the knife had a silver handle, and an iron blade.

  It would do for a weapon.

  Grabbing a canvas bag from a cupboard, Merran threw the knife in, and – after quick consideration – added a lighter, a small container of butane, he
r cell phone, and Connell’s journal. She pocketed only her house keys – she wanted to keep the pockets of her jeans as free as possible, so nothing could impede her ability to run.

  She glanced at her watch again – 9:30 exactly – and left the house behind. As she locked the front door, she tried not to wonder if she’d ever be back.

  Frankly, she didn’t want to come back, if she didn’t have her daughter.

  Slinging the bag over one shoulder, Merran strode to the ring of toadstools – still glowing softly in the too-quiet evening – and hesitated. Then, taking a deep breath, she raised a foot, and stepped through.

  The Faerie Realm

  Nothing happened.

  Stifling an urge to scream out of sheer frustration, Merran looked around carefully. This was her lawn, there was her porch, the front door of her house, the jack-o’-lanterns…

  Wait – something had changed:

  It was the pumpkins. They had subtly altered, becoming larger and more malevolent looking. It wasn’t, perhaps, immediately obvious; but Merran had carved every one of them, and she was sure she hadn’t carved that one with an expression that looked like a pedophile’s leer, and surely that pumpkin weighed close to forty pounds, while she knew she hadn’t bought any that were even half that big. And the glow coming from each one seemed brighter, with more orange and red –

  Then the closest one widened its grin and rolled its eyes at her.

  Merran felt a thrill, made up of equal parts fear and wonder. She really had stepped through a fairy ring on Halloween night and traveled to some other place, where demons lived with stolen children and pumpkins wore living faces. She was in a world of magic, where anything was possible…

  One of the jack-o’-lanterns snapped at her ankle.

  Merran felt something brush her leg and heard a THUNK as rind-covered teeth clamped together, and she stumbled back, looking down at the pumpkin that now opened its mouth wide again, ready. Another sound came from behind her, and she spun to see two pumpkins actually leaning forward, trying to reach her.