Free Servants of Darkness by Mark Hall Page B

was dream.”
    “Why didn’t you say something?”
    “Because you would have laughed at me. You know how you are. You don’t believe in anything you can’t see, hear, touch or taste.”
    “Yeah,” I said, thinking about what the ghoulish creature had said to me. “You’re right. I don’t”
    “But we had the same dream, Bobby.”
    “Tell me something, Megan, in your dream, was the creature talking to you or was he talking to me?”
    “He was talking to you, Bobby, and you were talking back.”
    “Then apparently it wasn’t a dream.”
    “Oh my god,” Megan said. “Tell me we’re not both crazy.”
    “Perhaps we’ve both been reading too many Stephen King novels,” I said, trying to lighten the moment. I turned away from the door and took a step back into the living room. Megan grabbed me by the arm.
    “Look at us,” she said, pointing at my Dracula costume and running her hand down the length of her own. “Why do you suppose millions of otherwise rational people go out of their way every year to celebrate Halloween if there’s nothing to it?”
    “Fun, Megan. It’s all in fun.”
    “No! We do it because we are compelled to do it. Because there is something to it. That’s why.”
    Something suddenly slammed against the glass of the door, rattling it in its frame. Actually it was more a ‘fwaap’ sort of sound than a slam. Like something heavy and wet. Megan screamed. I grabbed her and jumped back. One of our arriving guests trying to frighten us, was my initial thought. I turned and saw a demon staring me straight in the eyes. Its face, plastered against the glass, had fleshy lips that were pulled back in a grimace, exposing teeth that looked like long ivory needles. The eyes were two brilliant emerald pinpoints surrounded by a glowing aura of green luminescence. Its wet, leathery face hung there on the glass for a long moment before it slowly slid down the door leaving a trail of gray slime in its wake. It thumped down onto the porch like a sack of wet laundry.
    I turned back to Megan in wide-eyed disbelief. She just stood there, balled fists pressed helplessly against her mouth. I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. A huge bat-like creature lay there twitching its membranous wings. I knelt down, wanting to believe that it was a child in costume who had stumbled accidentally against the door. My pragmatic mind refused to accept any explanation beyond that. “Are you all right?” I asked, reaching my hand out. The thing hissed and snapped at me, the ivory needles gnashing together, just missing my fingers. I pulled away from the awful thing, stumbling back on unsteady legs. My body had become numb with fear, my mind: mush. In the distance I began hearing a mingling of terrifying sounds. Some were screams, human I knew, high and shrill, some were not human at all, grunts and commands in a language that I’d never before heard. Terror gripped me with paralyzing force. Out on Front Street a car came to a screeching halt with a loud crash. Then I heard someone bellowing in utter terror. That moment seemed to stretch into an eternity and I could not move. What finally spurred me into action was Megan’s harsh screams. “Heather!” she shrieked. “Oh my god, you’ve got to find Heather!”
    “Heather?” I said stupidly. And then I suddenly realized that Heather, our eight year old daughter had gone out trick-or-treating with her best friend Matt. Panic seized me, and I can only remember bits and pieces of the next several hours. I leapt to my feet, ran inside and grabbed the car keys. I bolted from the house, telling Megan to lock the doors and not to let anybody in. From out of the sky (or perhaps it wasn’t the sky at all, but perhaps some sort of rent in the space/time continuum) dark shapes, most without substance, swooped down on me, buffeting me as I ran. Something heavy glanced off my right shoulder and went cartwheeling across the lawn. I shook in revulsion, daring not