Lunar Park

8. halloween

It was sweltering—the warmest October 31 on record—but having grown up in Los Angeles I was used to this weather, even though Jayne and the kids were sweating by the time we reached the end of the block. Robby had already taken off his helmet, his hair matted wet, and hooked up with Ashton Allen, who dissed the idea of going as a famous baseball player once the gay rumors surfaced, and whose parents, Mitchell and Nadine, now joined us along with their younger daughter, Zoe, who was trick-or-treating with Sarah and their guardian for the evening, Marta. (Zoe was Hermione Granger and, yes, Sarah was Posh Spice, complete with a T-shirt that read MY BOYFRIEND THINKS I’M STUDYING.) The two boys would wait on the sidewalk and then inspect their sisters’ treats before deciding to hit that particular house or not. I was drunk.

As we walked through the neighborhood I idly recognized the costumes from various video games (boys dressed as Shadow Phoenix Ninja and Mortal Kombat Scorpion) and movies (Anakin Skywalkers with Jedi hair braids wielding light sabers) while Harry Potters roamed Elsinore Lane everywhere you looked—wearing Quidditch robes, and they held broomsticks and magic wands, and there were green lightning bolt scars on their foreheads that glowed in the darkness as they chatted up a number of bloated ogres that I recognized as Shreks. There were no ballerinas or witches or hobos or ghosts—none of the simple homemade costumes from my childhood—and I was getting old and when I saw Nadine take a swig from the bottle of Fiji water she was carrying I suddenly craved another drink badly. Sarah kept running ahead of everyone, gyrating, while Zoe and Marta tried to keep up, and the four parents kept calling out to their children to stay in sight. There was collective murmuring about why there were so many cars this year—a long, slow-moving stream of them—with costumed kids meekly piling out and running up to the houses and then clambering back into the parade of SUVs that filled the lane. A quiet hesitancy hovered over everything. It was another reminder of the missing boys, and Nadine noted that there were more flashlights than usual and happier-looking jack-o’-lanterns (this was supposed to be an upbeat Halloween). I tried to listen attentively as a zombie pedaled past me on a bike, glaring. Jayne held a digital camera that sometimes she used but mostly didn’t. We ran into Mark and Sheila Huntington, an attractive duo made up of hard edges, as well as Adam and Mimi Gardner—both couples neighbors of ours as well as invitees to the Allens’ dinner on Sunday. As we watched our children move from house to house I noticed how apprehensive everyone seemed, and how lame our attempts at masking it were. People murmured about taking the kids over to North Hill this year, even though none of the missing boys came from our general vicinity. And I noticed how quiet it was, as if no one wanted to attract any unwanted attention from the stranger lurking in the shadows. Someone walked up to Jayne and asked for her autograph.

I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation the various couples were having (the cat that meditated, the healthy multitasking) because I had the feeling that we were being followed—or, more accurately, that I was. I tried blaming it on the lack of sleep, the bottle of wine, the halfhearted realizations in Dr. Kim’s office, my failure to find the jeans from the night before with the leftover coke in them, the sexual frustration, the boy who had lied to me in my office that afternoon.

But I saw the car again.

The cream-colored 450 SL was gliding down Elsinore Lane and came to a stop at Bedford Street. I just stared helplessly as it sat there, idling, and I tried distracting myself by figuring out when I could go to Los Angeles next week. The eight adults, now walking in pairs along the sidewalk, were moving toward it. Suddenly—and in retrospect I don’t know why—I asked Jayne for the digital camera. While commiserating with Mitchell about the new In-N-Out Burger that was opening on Main Street, she handed it to me. I looked through it and aimed it at the Mercedes. The light from the lampposts was ridiculously bright and washed out everything, making it hard to focus. I couldn’t understand why the car no longer seemed innocent, and why it was beginning—after just two sightings—to mean something; something dark, a reminder of something black. As I walked closer, zooming in on its trunk and then the rear window, it seemed as if the car itself sensed my interest and—as if it made the decision and not the driver—turned off Elsinore and disappeared down Bedford. I was in a haze. I felt haunted, and then there was a hot wind and the barely audible hum of what sounded like electrical equipment, and I was shivering. My heartbeat accelerated, and then, inexplicably, I felt sorrow. The moon was giant that night, hanging low in the black sky, and orange-tinted, and people kept commenting on how close to the earth it seemed.

Jayne was explaining to the fascinated parents why she had to go to Toronto next week when I suddenly had to excuse myself. I simply said I was tired. The pavement was wobbling beneath me and my skin was alive with perspiration. Jayne was about to say something when she saw Sarah attempt a cartwheel and yelled out for her to be careful. I said goodbye to everybody, assured the Allens that we were looking forward to Sunday night and then handed Jayne the camera. I knew that leaving was not a smart play but I had no choice but to go with it. I noted her ambivalence and dissatisfaction and headed back toward the house, which was dark, except for the jack-o’-lanterns, whose faces were already caving in. I could still feel Robby’s relief when I stumbled away.

In my office I poured myself a large glass of vodka and wandered outside onto the deck overlooking the lit pool and the backyard and the wide expanse of field leading to the woods. The trees looked black and twisted beneath the orange light of the moon. I sipped the vodka. I wondered: Were the strange lights flickering in the low gray sky that people had reported seeing back in June somehow connected to the disappearance of the boys, which began around the same time? The other explanations I came up with made me hope so.

Something passed over me and then flew away.

Suddenly Victor rushed out of the house and was standing near me, barking and panting. He was facing in the direction of the woods.

“Shut up,” I said tiredly. “Just shut up.”

He looked at me worriedly and then sat down with a whimper.

I tried to relax, feeling the hot wind on my skin, but my eyes were drawn to something lying next to the Jacuzzi, which I also noted was bubbling—someone had turned on the jets—and steam was rising off the heated water. I set my drink on the barbecue and moved hesitantly across the deck until I was standing over a pair of swimming trunks. I assumed the trunks were something left over from the party but when I picked them up they were soaked, as if someone had just climbed out of the Jacuzzi and removed them. And then I noted the patterns on the shorts: large, abstract red flowers. Hawaii suddenly was flying through my mind and it landed at the Mauna Kea Hotel, the resort my family stayed at when I was a kid. Are these mine? I asked myself silently, because I had once owned a pair (as did my father), yet almost immediately knew that the answer was no. I calmly wrung out the trunks and draped them over the deck banister to dry. I sipped my drink and then took a deep swallow. I breathed in and looked back into the woods.

The night was drenched with darkness and the darkness really was dazzling. And the sound of the wind seemed amplified, and I noticed that Victor was standing up again and staring out into the woods, the hot wind ruffling his golden coat. I just kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn toward the darkness as I always had been. And the wind rushed up against me and the wind felt . . .

. . . feral . . .

There was no other word for it. The wind felt feral.

“Hello darkness my old friend . . .” The lyric drifted into my thoughts and I felt as if a boundary were being erased. I closed my eyes. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, this is how you’ve always lived.) I opened my eyes when a moth landed on my arm. It looked as if the entire world were dying and turning black. The darkness was eclipsing everything.

And then Victor started barking—much more insistently this time, shaking as he stared out at the woods, and his barking was soon interspersed with growls. And, just as suddenly, he stopped.

He stood still. He had heard something.

He kept looking into the woods.

And then he leapt off the deck and ran toward them, barking again.

“Victor,” I called out.

I could see his shadow loping along the field as if he was chasing something and he was still barking, but when he entered the woods the barking stopped.

I sipped my drink and decided to wait for him to come back.

I looked at the bathing suit. I thought about the Mercedes cruising down Elsinore Lane. How long had it been following us? Who had been in the Jacuzzi?

And then I thought I saw Victor. A shape, low and hunched over, had emerged from the woods but I couldn’t make out what it was. It was the size of Victor, perhaps larger, but its movements were spiderlike as it lurched grotesquely sideways, clumsily darting in and out of the trees at the edge of the woods.

“Victor!” I called again.

The thing stopped moving for a moment. And then its dark shape scuttled sideways and picked up speed and it began shambling back into the woods. I realized, sickeningly, that it looked as if it was hunting something.

“Victor!”

I heard what sounded like squeals of despair coming from the dog but they stopped abruptly and there was only silence.

I waited.

Squinting, I could make out Victor’s bulk as he slowly walked back across the field and I couldn’t help feeling weak with relief when the dog—now eerily calm—moved past me and into the kitchen. But then something forced me to understand that I was not alone out here.

Can you feel me? it asked.

“Go away,” I whispered. I was too fucked up to deal with this. “Go away . . .”

It was time you learned something, I could hear it moaning.

I was not alone.

And whatever was out there knew who I was.

Something was moving in the woods again.

The swings on the swing set began rattling in a sulfurous rush of hot winds and then, almost immediately, they stopped swinging.

I could hear the soft, snapping sounds of something approaching. And it was moving eagerly. It wanted to be noticed. It wanted to be seen and felt. It wanted to whisper my name. It wanted to deceive me. But it wasn’t making itself visible yet. And as I kept peering into the darkness, I saw another figure hurrying across the field, grasping what looked like a pitchfork. I stood immobilized on the deck. My teeth had started chattering. The wind gusted again. And then there was the sound of locusts swarming. I started shaking. I’m scared, I suddenly thought. When it sensed how frightened I was, there was a strange odor in the air.

Get inside, I told myself. Get inside the house now.

But when I looked back at the house I knew it couldn’t protect me from what was out there. Whatever it was could get in.

And then I saw the headstone. It was off to the side at the edge of our yard, and it sat at a crooked angle, jutting up from the weeds that blanketed the field, and my momentary annoyance that the decorators hadn’t carted it off turned to dread as I found myself unable to stop moving toward it. The ground beneath the headstone was burst apart—as if something buried there had clawed its way out. Over the roar of the wind I could hear an oddly distinct flapping sound. As I moved toward the headstone I felt convinced that something had actually crawled out of that fake grave. Something huge and black was passing over the house—it was flying—and then it spun around in midair and it was suddenly beneath me and the wind kept howling and there was briefly the snarl of animals fighting in the woods and then the thing began circling above me as I knelt in front of the headstone next to the hole in the ground. There was something written on it. I started brushing the fake moss and cobwebs aside. The headstone was streaked with dried blood.

And scrawled on it in red letters was

ROBERT MARTIN ELLIS 1941–1992

The wind knocked me off-balance and I fell backwards.

The field was damp and spongy and as I tried to stand up I slipped on a large wet patch of dirt. But when I put a hand down to steady myself it wasn’t wetness I felt but something viscous and slimy that smelled dank and I kept trying to stand up because something was getting closer to me. The wind slammed the kitchen doors shut. Whatever was approaching me was hungry. It was pitiful. It was awesome. It needed something I didn’t want to give. I shouted out as I finally lifted myself up and lunged toward the house. Whatever was behind me kept shambling forward, its arms outstretched and grasping.

Once inside, I ran into the guest room and locked myself in it.

I waited desperately for Jayne and the kids to get home.

When they returned I made sure all the doors to the house were locked and that the various alarms were set. I pretended to be interested in Sarah’s candy. Jayne ignored me. Robby barely looked my way before climbing the stairs to his room.

Back in the guest room, drinking from the magnum of vodka, I kept thinking one thing, just two words.

He’s back.