All Hallows Read online

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  ALL HALLOWS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  YOUR FREE GIFT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DEDICATION

  For the Night Worms

  This is a work of fiction: any resemblance to real persons, places, events, or hideous monsters, living or undead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 W. Sheridan Bradford

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Diletta De Santis

  ALL HALLOWS

  W. Sheridan Bradford

  www.wsbradford.com

  1

  Maren Glover pressed her thigh against the spring-loaded screen door, swearing at the delicate balance required to hold an oversized purse, an occupied hat box, and a fistful of letters.

  The bell had been disconnected. Maren restrained an impulse to pound on the storm door until either it or her fist splintered. Instead, she flapped the letters and her swollen knuckles against the slab.

  When the door opened, it was thrown wide so quickly that Maren all but tumbled into the house—the hat box shifted perilously as she found her footing.

  “Whaddya want?”

  “And a good morning to you, Mister Hedgepeth,” she replied.

  “Miss Glover. About caught me in my drawers. Thought you was going to scratch through that damn door. Pegged you for the mailman.”

  “It would seem I am—this stack is yours. This was stuffed in the slot. Tore in places.”

  “Won’t be nothing but junk anyway. I ought to throw a plastic tub out there. That old boy pushes ’til it rips. He don’t want anybody missing a damn ad. If you wanna talk to… I’m up and going, but you’ll be wanting Eddie?”

  “Correct.”

  “Yeah, that might not… Christ, where’s my upbringing? Got you standing there; full load, too. Come in, come in—how you getting on? Figured you took sick.”

  “I am old, not ill. I was occupied, and I remain so. The difference is that today I am occupied here. No, thank you, Preston—I’ll keep my box and bag.”

  Hedgepeth eyed the purse warily. “You don’t got to tell me twice. Tweaked my elbow on it, before. Soldiers don’t lug rucksacks with half that weight.”

  “They must have less to do,” Maren said. “In honesty, this bag is lighter than it should be. The cosmetics required to look this good are astonishing at my age.”

  The younger man’s laughter was shrill. “That’s goddamn funny right there. Can I get you any… Eddie, he’s been gunning for a lesson. Hasn’t had an airing-out, here lately. Boy’s missed you something crazy.”

  “As he should. That was no ordinary binding. I was pleased to observe that every window bears the smear of face and palm. You don’t make him scrub the house?”

  “Yeah, well—hey, we do what we can, you know? Orphans and bachelors,” Hedgepeth said, stubby hands drumming at the paunch beneath his sweatshirt.

  The block lettering on his chest announced that Preston Hedgepeth was the product of an elite university—that, or he’d splurged at a department store. A careless dribble of bleach had permanently stippled the collar.

  Maren breathed deeply and fought not to wrinkle her straight nose. Hedgepeth smelled of musk and sweat, though what bothered her was the acrid note of… but then, she had chosen her student with care.

  “Eddie’s upstairs, you said?”

  “Yup. Might be in bed, or he might—he’s a real nervous kid, that one. Jumpy as a six-legged cat. I leave him be, most the time; let him do his thing. They said that was fine, me giving him space.”

  “Any progress on the paperwork?”

  “Coming along,” Hedgepeth said. “Processing, whatever that tells you. A royal pain, is what it is. You help out, you look at the litter, you take one in, and bang—they start-in with questions and inspections and… that kid was living like a damn sardine. Don’t any of it make a lick of sense. A kid can live in a house, or he can shack in them wards with the other hooligans. Don’t you think the house should win?”

  “Absolutely, if I’m not the gambler. Shall I go up?”

  “I’d wait for him to come to you… but you can… sure, sure. Eddie’s just… he’s washing-up. Betchya he’s looking in a mirror. Working himself over. Boys, you know?”

  “Not well. Summertime won’t stay, and Eddie is behind. We need to get learning.”

  “What you got him doing?”

  “Biology. We have a specimen to inspect. My last box of tricks was a moribund disappointment. I made a fresh effort, hence my absence. It’s a pity to see death reflected from a child’s eyes.”

  “Yeah, that’s… hey, if this don’t work-out, what you could do is, you could get one of those frogs,” Hedgepeth said.

  “Frogs?”

  “Yup—they come dead already. You get to chop them up. See what makes them tick. Boys that age, they love hacking away on a frog. That and anatomy are what I got out of that semester. Big old bullfrogs. We went to town, a group of us did.”

  “To town?”

  Hedgepeth snickered. “Yeah, we opened them hop-frogs up, and we poked a while, then we chucked them at the chalkboard. Made a helluva mess. Our fingers stunk forever. Anyway, you could get your hands on a frog like that.”

  Miss Glover gripped the handle of her large purse. “I don’t believe I could reconcile the expense with my budget. I’m here as a volunteer, you know.”

  Hedgepeth grunted acknowledgment, turning to open the kitchen refrigerator in spongy slippers. He clutched a gallon of milk to his chest, fishing his thumbnail under the safety seal. Preston pulled the blue ring free and threw it in the general direction of the trash. He appraised Maren’s attire as he drank from the jug, lips smacking. He belched with his mouth closed.

  “Beg pardon. You don’t spend much on clothes, I give you that.” Preston gestured with a slosh and continued. “I’d pitch some greenbacks for a frog. Find the price and give me a holler. We might as well teach Eddie right. The damn snowflakes have sucked the fun clean out of school.”

  “We’ll get him up to speed. He’ll be prepared for scalpels and pickled roadkill before his new term is underway. I believe I heard a latch. Upstairs, you said?”

  “Yup. Gotta be. Kid’s got clockwork in him, just you watch. Soon as he hears a creak on the stairs, he bangs the door and throws the water on. Spends half his life in the crapper.”

  “Charming.”

  “Gotta go if you wanna grow,” Preston quipped, knocking-back another slug of two percent.

  “Saliva will make that milk spoil,” Maren said, swinging her purse to gain momentum, the box in both hands. Hedgepeth reached for her shoulder as she moved to the stairwell, but, despite being thrice his age, Maren avoided his hand.

  Hedgepeth pivoted casually in his slippers, blocking the stairs with his weight, the gallon of milk somehow crude and club-like in his hands.

  “Can I see it?”

  “See what?”

  “The… the science thing.”

  “It is visible, but if you insist on… I am not carting about a stewed frog in brine. This is a live wire, as you might say.”

  “Why can’t—is it poisonous or something?”

  “It’s merely a worm, but you would do well not to—”

  “—Worms don’t bite. Kid’s gonna see it, ain’
t he? Lemme look. I’m responsible if anything…you know, the two of you do a whole lot of whispering.”

  “A child is not a drum kit. I see no need to raise my voice for a private lesson.”

  “You don’t got to yell, but I don’t like whispering. Makes me pace the damn floor. Lemme have a gander. Call it a refresher course. Adult learning.” Hedgepeth smiled, but wrinkles were the closest thing to warmth to reach his eyes.

  Maren looked at the hat box. “There’s no harm in viewing the worm, but it is exceedingly… delicate. You must promise not to—”

  “—Save lecturing for your pipsqueaks. I know how to handle an animal. Gave me a kid, didn’t they?”

  “They did. I am not them.”

  “Damn straight. You aren’t them. Said you was unaffiliated. That’s part of our deal—and you was the one who knocked. You don’t got the power to do anything but quit. Pop the top, Miss Glover.”

  “If you are going to look into this box, call me Maren.”

  “Maren? Sure. Whatever you say.”

  “What I say is this: museum rules apply. If you have not been a visitor, you have likely been an exhibit. Look. Do not touch,” she advised, tipping the lid in Preston’s direction; Maren turtled her head away.

  “You built it up enough. That’s a crispy critter you got there. Dead as a hammer.”

  “Can’t be. There’s zip in this one. Ate its siblings.”

  “You don’t say? Hell—sounds like my family.”

  “That would explain your belly.”

  Preston Hedgepeth looked at his stomach. He laughed and gave his prodigious gut a pat. “Don’t it though?” He returned his gaze to the worm. “If it’s alive, whaddya got to do to wake it up—shake it? Works with lizards.”

  Maren extended the box to improve her view. The worm did appear to be stunned. She wobbled the hat box gently, as though panning for gold. “There! Did you see that? Quite alive. It contracted.”

  “Uh huh. What it done is shrivel-up like a pecker in a snowbank. Spiders do that when they die.” Preston snapped his fingers against the side of the box repeatedly. “It’s an ugly mother. Looks like it—what’s it called?”

  “This, Preston, is a night worm.”

  “Says you. Don’t look like no worm I ever knew.”

  “They are quite rare. Don’t breed easily. As a matter of fact, this is more the result of a cocktail.”

  “Cocktail?”

  “Mr. Hedgepeth, I can pull-apart its relatives and contributors in a complex genealogy, but simple people like small words. It is a night worm, and it is alive. I will be profoundly vexed if it is not both.”

  Preston drank deeply from the gallon and placed the jug on the counter. He smoothed the logo of his alma mater and placed his hands in his armpits. “Which side’s what?”

  “I haven’t a clue. A few generations ago, I had the vestigial cloaca to—these latest variants like to keep me guessing. You don’t want to handle it.”

  “Sure I do. Just a worm,” Hedgepeth said. “Snakes, now, those I can take or leave. Worms don’t get a head to come after you with.”

  “Not yet,” Maren admitted. “However—”

  Preston reached into the box before Maren could snatch it away. He lifted the worm roughly, and an expression of concerned horror lined the tutor’s withered features.

  “What? This ain’t even… hell, it’s dry. It sick?”

  “No. Mr. Hedgepeth, if you insist on playing in fire, I’d like to have Eddie here to see the outcome,” Maren said, tiny muscles in her jaw working when she stopped speaking. “Drop it back into—”

  “—Lookie there, Miss Glover. It’s starting to… damn. I can’t tell what’s what. It’s shaking its moneymaker, looks to me.” Hedgepeth chuckled.

  “I must insist that—”

  “—Don’t nobody insist nothing in my house but me,” Hedgepeth said, his meaty hands grasping the creature like sodden rope. “It’s moving on this end, too. Never seen the like. You hear that?”

  “Only too well. You’re stirring it up,” Maren said, exasperated. A toilet flushed overhead, and she heard the first creak of a toe on the stairwell a moment later.

  “The whole thing don’t crackle. Just the tip,” Hedgepeth said, bringing the noisy side in for a closer look.

  “Mister Hedgepeth! Please. I was three weeks making… here’s the box. Casimir's crypt! You know nothing of anything, yet you have the nerve to—”

  Hedgepeth turned to face Maren, rolling his thick neck in a way that accentuated the difference in their stature. “Don’t nobody get to take that tone with me,” he said flatly. “Nobody.”

  Maren’s temper flared, and she would likely have said something regrettable, but the worm flexed violently in Hedgepeth’s hairy arms, constricting his wrist, and Preston spun away.

  “Don’t give it your face!” Maren snapped, taking a step backwards—if Hedgepeth wouldn’t listen, Maren felt that she, at the least, should.

  “What the devil? Stupid godd—” Preston said, the night worm having snugged on his wrist like a spiral bracelet. The worm fired its head at—and through—the man’s right eye.

  Maren groaned at the loss as unveiled jaws shredded and groped, glistening teeth meeting audibly.

  Hedgepeth screamed shrilly, which Maren fully expected by that point; Eddie, too, screamed from his vantage on the stairs. This was more of a surprise: the boy had never before made a sound louder than the click of a closing door or the shivering of pipes.

  “Come see the show!” Maren called.

  Eddie impressed her a second time by doing exactly that. He was a handsome, thin boy who hopped down the stairs as carefully as a sparrow. He was dressed in tube socks pulled to his knees, a formless pair of men’s briefs, and a white shirt so long that it met the tops of his socks.

  Hedgepeth plucked and pulled at the worm, and, as Maren could not foresee which of the two would emerge victorious, she bent to her purse, leaving Eddie to absorb the scene of his sponsor grappling with the worm. Had Eddie not seen the initial strike, he might have thought that a tentacle had sprouted from the ruined socket.

  Maren returned to the struggle holding a small metal hammer used to soften cheap cuts of beef.

  She ignored Preston’s screams, frowning as if considering the time. She twisted the handle of the textured hammer, ratcheting a dial.

  “What happened?” Eddie asked between screams. He had a steady nerve for such a young boy—which, aside from his general disposability, had been a key feature in catching Maren’s interest.

  Eddie stepped around a growing slick of blood and other fluids—Hedgepeth’s failing had knocked the gallon of milk from the countertop, adding to the chaos.

  Eddie repeated his question.

  “The fool wanted it his way,” Maren said, speaking between Hedgepeth’s anguished wails. She shifted the tenderizer in her hand, bouncing it on her palm as though wishing it weighed more. “You can see some of the night worm. It was to be your lesson today. I suppose it still is. Watch carefully.”

  Hedgepeth sputtered a string of pleading curses, howling in pain, mucous giving him limited purchase on his attacker. The worm continued its forward progress.

  A sinus cavity snapped with the sound of an eggshell pounding on the lip of a frying pan. Eddie didn’t flinch, nor did he move as Hedgepeth smashed into the refrigerator, butting with desperation—Preston kinked the final inch of the worm’s tail before it could tunnel entirely into his face.

  “Is he dying?”

  “Who, your sponsor? Yes. One way or another. The worm was meant for you. I won’t see it wasted on him.”

  “Would it have killed me?”

  “Starting to look that way, isn’t it? Your death would have been unintentional, Eddie. That said, I recognized a potential for concern. I shaved mesocarp into a reduction of quince rootstock this time around. Should’ve been a rational addition, but the lessons never end.”

  “What?” Eddie shouted. Hedgepeth roare
d, turning to charge at the sound of their voices. Maren stiff-armed Eddie; tutor and student stepped back together, shoulders to the wall.

  Preston screamed with hatred for the elderly tutor, but as he advanced, the worm exploded from the center of the man’s face with sinuous power. Chunks of gristle wheeled through the air, and the crater of Hedgepeth’s nose yawned, the insides of the cavity yellow and hanging until a rush of blood cascaded as though drawn from the tap.

  Preston collapsed to his knees, splattering his light blue sweatshirt and its jaunty insignia. Maren gripped the aluminum tenderizer in her hand. She glanced at Eddie, who stood in his sockfeet, his face emotionless. No—there was emotion: Eddie wore a calloused smile.

  Hedgepeth’s face bulged from within: probing, pulsing movements writhing. The worm heaved, and Preston’s left eye tore free, dangling by a scrap of tissue.

  Eddie breathed deeply inwards, fists balled at his sides.

  The night worm was a pimento in a green olive: it stuffed into Hedgepeth’s face until vascular flow ceased where it was lodged. Still chewing with mad abandon, the worm severed the remnant of the optical nerve.

  Asymmetrical, the eye neither bounced nor rolled when it hit the linoleum floor. The yolk-like object jiggled and stuck, anticlimactic.

  Maren twirled the small hammer, listening to Hedgepeth’s frenzied gurgling: the man was drowning and blind, his hands flapping at his throat with ineffective panic, seeking to clear his airway and protect what remained of his face.

  “It’s not even pretending to nest,” Maren observed.

  “Nest?”

  “Yes, nest,” she repeated—Eddie was a quick study, but he was easily distracted.

  Hedgepeth rolled to his side, sputtering, blue-faced in the few places his visage was not drenched with gore. Around him, blood swirled lazily through milk with the random artistry traditionally reserved for sullen baristas.

  The kink in its tail waggling obscenely, the worm jabbed its tail from the inside, distending Preston’s nostrils until his septum tore. Scissoring jaws burst through Hedgepeth’s cheek, slicing away a flag-like flap, exposing yellowing, eroded molars.