Author: Sam

Story: Halloween in Hazzard: 9 of 10

Series: n/a

Characters added: none new

Note: This happened to me, my friends, Jamie and Ricky, and their mother, Patty, when I was a teenager.

Feedback: Yes, please? Especially constructive. samwise_baggins@yahoo.co.uk

Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/samwise_baggins/index.html

Roscoe frowned at his older sister but didn't argue with her. He was too used to Lulu having her own way. And it wasn't like he could protest, either; he'd told her about the horrifying event when it'd happened. With a shake of his head, frown firmly in place, the normally exciteable Sheriff merely stared straight ahead as he began his tale.

"I was just turned thirteen, so was pretty dumb." For once none of the crowd decided to get a quip in supporting his self-derision. "I was over the other end of Hazzard with a coupla pals of mine, Barnabie and Jacob, and we'd bene huntin'. It was late by then, and we went up to Barnie's house to spend the night. His Mama, Rosie, was there and that mean old grandma of theirs, only she stayed shut upstairs in her rooms and we was all down in the cellar. We had that single bulb on over our heads and it shone well enough to see every corner of the small place, which was stuffed full of odds an' ends. There was broken furniture and old 'shine bottles and heaps of newsprint everywhere. What struck me odd, though, was there were a couple o' brand new games in the corner, never been opened or had their wrappers taken off or nothing. A baby cat was in there, too, strayed in from the barn I guess. He was scratching away at one of the other corners, probably looking for mice, but we ain't seen none, so i don't think he'd a found any."

Roscoe was amazingly a born story-teller, setting the scene for the spook story with a thuroughness the other wouldn't have really expected. Without looking at any one person, he sipped his beer and continued. "Well, being young and foolish, I was wantin' a bit of excitement. Barnie's Mama Rosie was a witch, or so she claimed, and was teaching her two boys the same things. Well, I never believed such talk, but that night... well, I ain't never forgot, and I ain't never gone back, neither." Here, he looked directly at his sister, who had the grace to blush, having put him in this situation.

"Barnie says he wants to call up spirits, and I went along. I near always went along with anything Barnie said back then. Rosie was all for it, but said we needed to do it up right, so she brings out candles an' a bottle of red wine. I hadn't really expected someone poor as Rosie to have wine, but I didn't question it, neither. They gave me the honor of lightin' the candle, and I did it happily. Then we poored the wine and each had a sip. It wasn't too bad, neither. That's when we fell to talkin' 'bout who we wanted to call up. Rosie wanted her father, who'd died when she was young. I wasn't sure who I wanted to talk to, being that I thought of this as a big game, really. Well, Barnie had to go and get stupid and say he wants to call up the devil. We all three started yellin' at him... come to think on it, until then Jacob had been pretty quiet; normally he was as louder than his brother, but that night it was like they was switched.

"Just as we get Barnie to agree not to try to call up no evil, the candle goes out and so does the lightbulb. There was no flicker, no breeze, no nothing. Just one minute both was one, the next, they was off like they'd never been on. We were too scared to do anythin' and Rosie lets out a gasp. The scratching in the corner from that kitten stopped, and just as the sound stopped, the lightbulb and the candle pop back on again. The baby cat was sitting in my lap, and I never felt him jump up there. We're waitin' for that Grandma to yell, since the cellar light and her upstairs light was on the same circuit, but not a sound came from her. Jacob even asked her later if she noticed anythin', and she thought he was bein' stupid and told him so.

Sittin' there, tryin' to figure out what happened, Rosie suddenly pulled up her trousers leg and we all see it: four diamond-shaped bite marks in her leg, bleeding fresh. She was scared, you could see it, and she swore that she hadn't had any marks, old or new, before the lights went out. Barnie pointed to those new games that was sittin' in the corner, waitin' for someone's birthday no doubt, and we was all shocked. One of them had the wrapper off and four diamonds cut into the box top. The diamonds weren't all the same, neither. One was just an outline, one had the color pulled off, another was half-through the box, and the last was clean through. There weren't no sign of the wrapper or the bits that had been cut out, neither. We decide it was some kind o' warnin', and didn't mess around like that again."

Roscoe finished his tale, and Lulu was shaking. She'd forgotten just how terrifying that had been when he'd told her the first time. Everyone just stared at each otehr blankly for a long moment, then looked away, none of them looking at Roscoe or his sister. The entire group had to admit, out of all the tales, Roscoe's was the most terrifying.