Tales From the Darkside Part 10

At least a dozen people in the crowd turned to gaze at someone who stood half in the shadow at the rear of the gathering.

The Hypnotist spotted him at once; his dark eyes seemed to smolder. "Perhaps," he said in a purring, mocking voice, "the one who interrupted is afraid to come up. He prefers to hide in the shadows and throw popcorn!"

The culprit voiced a sudden exclamation and then pushed belligerently toward the platform. His appearance was not in any way remarkable; in fact, he somewhat resembled the first young man, and any casual observer would have placed the two of them in the farm-laborer cla.s.s, neither more nor less capable than the average.

The second young man sat down in the platform chair with a distinct air of defiance and for some minutes visibly fought the Hypnotist's suggestion to relax. Presently, however, his aggressiveness disappeared and he dutifully stared into the smoldering eyes opposite his own.

In another minute or two he arose at the Hypnot ist's command and lay flat on his back on the hard planks of the platform. The crowd gasped.

"You will fall asleep," the Hypnotist told him. "You will fall asleep.

You are falling asleep. You are falling asleep.

You are asleep and you will do anything which I command you to do.

Anything which I command you to do. Anything . . ."

His voice droned on, repeating repet.i.tious phrases, and the crowd grew perfectly silent.

Suddenly a new note entered the Hypnotist's voice and the audience became tense.

"Do not stand upa"but rise from the platform!" the Hypnotist commanded. "Rise from the platform!" His dark eyes became wild and luminous-looking and the crowd s.h.i.+vered.

"Rise!"

Then the crowd drew in its collective breath with an audible start.

The young man lying rigid on the platform, without moving a muscle, began to ascent horizontally. He arose slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, but soon with a steady and unmistakable acceleration.

"Rise!" the Hypnotist's voice rang out.

The young man continued to ascend, until he was feet off the platform, and still he did not stop.

The crowd was sure it was some kind of trick, but in spite of themselves they stared openmouthed. The young man appeared to be suspended and moving in midair without any possible means of physical support.

Abruptly the focus of the crowd's attention was s.h.i.+fted; the Hypnotist clasped a hand to his chest, staggered, and rumpled to the platform.

There were calls for a doctor. The barker in the checkered suit appeared out of the tent and bent over the motionless form.

He felt for a pulse, shook his head and straightened up.

Someone offered a bottle of whiskey, but he merely shrugged.

Suddenly a woman in the crowd screamed.

Everyone turned to look at her and a second later followed the direction of her gaze.

Immediately there were further criesa"for the young man whom the Hypnotist had put to sleep was still ascending.

While the crowd's attention had been distracted by the fatal collapse of the Hypnotist, he had continued to rise. He was now a good seven feet above the platform and moving inexorably upward. Even after the death of the Hypnotist, he continued to obey that final ringing command: "Rise!"

The barker, eyes all but popping out of his head, made a frantic upward leap, but he was too short. His fingers barely brushed the moving figure above and he fell heavily back to the platform.

The rigid form of the young man continued to float upward, as if he were being hoisted by some kind of invisible pulley.

Women began screaming hysterically; men shouted. But no one knew what to do. A look of terror crept over the face of the barker as he stared up. Once he glanced wildly toward the sprawled shape of the Hypnotist.

"Come down, Frank! Come down!" the crowd shrieked.

"Frank! Wake up! Come down! Stop! Frank!"

But the rigid form of Frank moved ever upward. Up, up, until he was level with the top of the carnival tent, until he reached the height of the tallest treesa"until he pa.s.sed the trees and moved on into the soft moonlit sky of early October.

Many in the crowd threw hands over horror-stricken faces and turned away.

Those who continued to stare saw the floating form ascend into the sky until it was no more than a tiny speck, like a little cinder drifting far up near the moon.

Then it disappeared altogether.

HALOWEEN CANDY.

by Michael McDowell.

(Based on a Teleplay by Michael McDowell).

The neighborhood was neither this nor that. Half the houses had been built in the early twenties. The other half had been built in the early fifties. All the houses were shabby, all the houses need paint, all the houses stayed on the market at least a year before they sold. All the houses went at what the realtors called bargain prices, and all the buyers of all these houses felt they'd been taken. People lived in these houses for forty years, or else they lived in them for two months.

Daniel Killup had lived in the house on Dana Street for forty years.

He'd carried his bride over the threshold there.

He'd seen her coffin taken over the same threshold a little over three decades later. He owned the house, and that was the most that could be said for it.

The house was small. Most of the first floor was taken up by a large living room with furniture that had been a.s.sembled in the first years of Killup's marriage. Dusty velvet and rotten springs and mahogany that was dark with decades of wax.

Only two pieces of the furniture were in current usea"Killup's recliner and the television set that faced it.

Through a swinging door behind Killup's recliner was a galley kitchen that had been modern and inconvenient in 1945 and was old fas.h.i.+oned and inconvenient in 1985. Upstairs were cramped rectangular bedrooms, a leaking tiled bathroom, a few tiny closets, and a hallway without either lights or windows. Kil lup's wife died of cancer and boredom after thirty-seven years of marriage, and Killup had halfheartedly tried to commit suicide, out of meanness and boredom, a year later. He drove his car into a ditch, telling his son and the state police that a moving van had tried deliberately to run him off the road.

He didn't die, but now he wore a neck brace because of genuine injuries suffered to his spine.

Killup had a daughter who lived in Seattle and telephones once a year on his birthday and said she loved him but he never otherwise heard from her and knew neither her address nor her married name. His son, Michael, lived two suburbs over, was unhappily married, and earned seventy thousand dollars a year doing something or other in the city.

"I hate Halloween," said Killup.

"You shouldn't smoke, Daddy," said Michael. "You smoke too much."

Michael Killup took the burning cigarette of his father's hand. He crushed it out in the shallow ashtray on the arm of Killup's armchair.

Ashes spilled on the dark red carpet.

"I hate those kids coming around," said Killup. "Last year they played tricks. Last year they soaped my windows.

Last year they put toilet paper in my trees."

"That's because you didn't give them any Halloween candy," said Michael.

"They have no right to expect candy."

"Mother always gave them Halloween candy."

"Your mother's dead," said Killup. "I'm not your mother.

I'm not going to give candy to kids as a reward for ringing my doorbell."

Michael Killup looked around the room. It hadn't changed.

Same draperies on the windows, but faded by endless afternoons of slanting sunlight. Same cheap Brussels rug, but worn threadbare along the paths from Mr. Killup's reclining chair to the front door and from the reclining chair to the kitchen.

The same television set, from the era when only NBC had prime-time color in lurid greens. The same splotchy bra.s.s and horns flanking a fireplace that never saw a fire. It all depressed Michael Killup.

"Everybody on this street gives out Halloween candy," he told his father.

"The kids expect it. I remember one year Mrs. Claussen didn't give us any candy. We sheared her poodle. I cut off the end of her garden hose myself. The old woman deserved it. She was meaner than you are, Daddy."

Killup lit another cigarette.

"Mrs. Claussen is dead," Killup said, and laughed.

"Makes me the meanest on the block."

Michael saw no reason to contradict his father. He had been the meanest on the block even before Mrs.

Claussen died.

Michael went into the kitchen. He visited his father twice during the week, once on the weekend. He brought with him groceries, and took away with him whatever bills had arrived since his last visit. Killup never thanked his son for doing any of this, and in fact, was always careful to have something to complain about with each visit.

"What are you doing in there?" Killup called from his chair.

"Nothing!" Michael called back. He was, in fact, opening half a dozen bags of cheap candy and pouring in out into shal low bowl for the trick-or-treaters his father so much despised.

As he was reaching a third bowl out of a high cabinet, the door of the refrigerator swung slowly open.

The metal handle popped sharply against his hip as it had done many, many times before.

"Door hasn't worked for nine years," Michael said to him self, giving it a sharp kick with his heel. The refrigerator door was one of those things Killup complained about frequently. At the same time, he wouldn't allow Michael to buy a new one. Killup claimed that the ice made by new refrigerators tasted funny.

"Michael!" his father called again from the next room. "I know you're doing something in there."

Michael kicked open the swinging door and entered the living room behind his father. He balanced the bowls of candy on his arms and carried them to the rickety table beside the front door. He gave his father's chair a wide berth. Killup wasn't above sticking out a foot for the nuisance of it.

"I don't intend to wash your windows this year, Daddy.

And I certainly don't intend to climb up in those trees and take down five rolls of toilet paper. So I brought you some candy to give out."

"Waste of money," said Killup.

"A waste of my money," Michael amended.

"I'm glad you don't have children."

Michael set the three bowls of candy on the table, slid the table a few inches nearer the front door, and then turned back to his father.

"I decided against it. I thought I might end up as bad a father to than as you are to me."

Neither the honesty nor the insult of the remark had any effect on Killup. Michael considered that his relations.h.i.+p with his father had improved over the years, for, if nothing else, he could say aloud anything he d.a.m.ned well felt.

"If you want that stuff given out, you're going to have to stay here and do it yourself."

"No," said Michael, "you're going to do it. You're not senile, you're not crippled, you're certainly capable of getting up and answering the door. It's one night a year, and it's all over by eight o'clock.

Halloween doesn't last for ever."

"If I'm lucky," said Killup, "maybe one of them will drop dead of an overdose of sugar, right on the doorstep."

"It's no wonder you're so popular in this neighborhood.

It's no wonder I love you so much. I have to get back to work."

"Lock the windows before you go," said Killup.

"What for!"

"I don't want those kids trying to sneak into the house.

They do that nowadays. Sneak in the house and scare you if you don't give *em candy."

"Then give them the candy!" Michael cried in exasperation.

When Michael made no move to comply with his father's wish, Killup made a great show of weakly raising himself from his chair and shuffling over to the window. He groped through the slats of the closed blinds, searching for the latch on the cas.e.m.e.nts. Then, as Michael continued to watch grimly, his father shuffled over to the nearer window and repeated the process with excruciating slowness. Michael finally sighed in exasperation, shoved his father aside, and completed the operation.

His father didn't thank him. Not even when Michael prompted with a sarcastic, "Satisfied?"