Over the next few weeks, the weather grew even colder.  It was far too early for snow, but a thin layer of frost clung to the ground each morning, geometric ice crystals twinkling in the rising sun.  The large oak and maple trees scattered throughout the village stood bare, their empty branches reaching for the sky like gnarled brown fingers.  Only the dense evergreens retained a bit of color against the perpetual graying of late autumn. 

   Since the night at the skating rink, Lester, Mae, and Amanda’s lives had settled into comforting normalcy.  Their first year of middle school was in full swing, and the challenging classes kept them busy.  Week after week, the assigned homework grew, not only in volume but difficulty as well.  Lester was thankful for Amanda’s impressive math skills and Mae’s seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of history.  Each of their academic strengths complemented the others, and they tackled every new test and assignment together. 

  Lester had told them about his conversation with Mrs. Q, and they’d both agreed she could be removed from their shrinking list of potential members of The Light.  Fortunately, Mae and Amanda had been careful to hide any evidence of their activities at the skating rink before going for help.  It had been relatively easy since the ice sculpture of Bernard engulfed in flames had reverted to a puddle of water the minute Lester had fainted.  After that, they’d simply disposed of the buckets and pocketed the ring.  Amanda had returned it to Lester, and he’d hidden it in his room, in no hurry to repeat their experiment anytime soon.

  Mae was skeptical of Lester’s theory that there might not actually be any members of The Light in Giles Hollow and never had been.  Though, she did begrudgingly admit to the possibility that, technically, he could be right.  They remained vigilant for anything out of the ordinary or strange but, with no new leads, found themselves at a bit of a dead end.

  Life at Amanda and Lester’s houses had returned to normal, or what passed for normal in the world of The Council.  Meaning both their fathers were largely absent due to work.

  The three friends still met regularly in the Library basement but, more often than not, spent their time joking and eating junk food.  Mae had gotten a new book on ghost hunting, and she shared it with Lester as they pretended to listen to Amanda.  Unfortunately, Amanda’s continuing infatuation with Thomas made it impossible to talk to her about anything else.  For his part, Lester steered clear of the new kid.   Mae’s touch-screen argument might have put him above suspicion, but that didn’t mean Lester had to like him.

  As the days grew shorter, the farmers brought in the last of the corn and dried hay bails, leaving the fields a patchwork of close-cropped brown and yellow squares.  The younger kids at school spent their recess time jumping into piles of leaves and talking excitedly about Halloween.  They compared costume ideas and discussed how much candy they planned to eat before relinquishing their haul to their parents.  Who claimed too much sugar before bed caused nightmares.   

  The Halloween holiday fell on Saturday this year, which meant Elmwood City’s Annual Pumpkin Festival would take place on Friday.  Without the specter of having to trudge off to school the following day, most kids reasoned they should be allowed to enjoy the festival late into the evening.  This was the same argument Lester, Mae, and Amanda made to their own parents.

  It was late afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Chase dropped the three friends at the wooden barricades, marking the outer boundary of the celebration.  They removed their carved pumpkins from the car’s trunk, thanked Mae’s parents, and walked inside.

  The Pumpkin Festival was a beloved tradition that Amanda and Lester had attended since they were little.  It started early in the morning with the blocking off of Elmwood City’s downtown.  The entire area was closed to everything but pedestrian traffic, all the way up to the small park located in the heart of the shopping district.  In the middle of this green space, with its cute white gazebo and bronze statues, a three-story high scaffolding had been erected for the occasion.

  Each year attendees arrived with armfuls of pumpkins in a collective attempt to break the world record for the most lit jack-o-lanterns.  The previous Halloween, they had fallen short with a total of 30,111.  If the current giant wall of orange looming in the distance was any indication, they were determined to do better this year.  However, while the pyramid-shaped scaffolding, with a giant pumpkin at its center, was impressive, it was by no means capable of displaying them all.  Every bench, window, sidewalk, and storefront would be awash in a sea of flickering candles when the sun went down.

  Lester followed Amanda and Mae past dozens of tiny vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and mummies.  The miniature monsters roamed in packs.  They rode the Ferris wheel, jumped in bouncy haunted houses, and gorged themselves silly at food stalls, all to a soundtrack of spooky music blaring from hidden speakers.  

  Adults were in costumes too.  Several had even dressed up their pets, many of which didn’t seem to find the cute outfits they struggled to remove with their teeth quite as amusing as their owners did.

  Every store had its doors open wide.  Employees were busy giving out candy, painting faces, reading fortunes, or acting out mildly spooky ghost stories.  Each shop worked hard to compete with the others to draw customers inside.

  Lester loved seeing the creative ways people chose to carve their pumpkins and called out his favorites to Amanda and Mae as they walked along.  There were plenty of traditional offerings with square teeth and triangular eyes, but others had gone a more creative route.  Some had names of businesses, logos for rock bands, or the local high school mascot etched onto their sides.  One simply read homework in letters that looked like dripping blood.  A bit farther on, the mouth of a large pumpkin chomped down on a small gourd, carved to look as though it were screaming as it was being eaten.  A particularly fierce jack-o-lantern had a small kid’s pajama bottoms clenched between its rows of pointed teeth.  Lester’s favorite was a stunningly lifelike carving of a gremlin from the old horror movie of the same name.

  They arrived at the check-in booth and placed their pumpkins on the table.  The attendant let them know that it looked like they were on track to finally beat the record this year.  Amanda’s pumpkin was a standard design, except she’d made one of the eyes appear to be winking.  Lester had carved the mathematical symbol for Pi on his in what he considered to be a hilarious pumpkin pie joke.  And to no one’s surprise, Mae’s creation had an intricate Loch Ness Monster that wrapped all the way around, seeming to chase its own tail.

  Their hands now free, the three of them made a bee-line to the Ye Olde Goode Shop, whose main attraction was a large copper kettle used to make the store’s famous homespun sweets.  As they approached, a dozen wide-eyed kids stood outside the shop’s front window, leaving drool marks on the glass as they gawked at whatever delight was currently in progress.

  Veterans of the festival, Lester and Amanda skipped the candy shop’s front door and instead led Mae to the back of the building.  This was where the annual Halloween Seconds Sale happened.  The sweets sold here were fine and tasted as good as anything in the shop, but somewhere in the manufacturing process, a mistake had been made.  As a result, there were bags of neon-blue candy corn, trays of chocolate witches with droopy brooms that resembled mops, and unfortunately malformed gummy ghosts with green eyes, looking disturbingly similar to a pile of used tissues.

  None of this mattered to Lester and his friends, and they each filled paper bags with their favorites for a surprisingly low sum.

  They were walking away from the sale, taking tentative bites of something that had been labeled mystery fudge, when a thin woman dressed as a cat called out to Mae.  She had two little girls in tow, one with blue, spiky hair and a blow-up guitar, the other wearing a black and white prison jumpsuit and stubbly beard.  Lester didn’t recognize her but noticed Mae’s posture sag as she approached.

  “Maeko, I thought that was you.”

  “Hello, Doctor Doona,” mumbled Mae.

  “It’s so nice to see you out and about,” the woman continued cheerfully, despite Mae’s lackluster greeting.  “Isn’t this a great festival?  Are these friends from school?”

  When Mae didn’t answer, Lester and Amanda jumped in and politely introduced themselves.  By the time they’d finished, the two young girls had spotted the candy shop and sprinted off.

  “It looks like I’ve got to go,” Dr. Doona said, running after them.  “I’ll see you soon, Maeko.”

  Lester found an empty bench beside a stop sign covered in a white sheet with two holes.  The three friends sat under the floating ghost with red eyes and traded candy.  Mae was unusually quiet, but neither Lester nor Amanda wanted to pry.  Their friendship had evolved over the last month, reaching that comfortable space where it wasn’t necessary to keep conversations going all of the time.  They now understood Mae well enough to know that if she had something to share, she would, and if she didn’t, that was okay too.

  Lester finished the last of his bag, burped loudly, and swiped a chocolate cow’s tail from Amanda.  He broke it in two and handed half to Mae.

  “I’m in therapy,” Mae said as she accepted the candy.  “Doctor Doona’s my psychiatrist.  My parents didn’t move to Giles Hollow for work.  In fact, my father left an excellent job because he and my mother thought I needed a fresh start.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to us,” Amanda said.  “It’s no big deal.  I bet half the people here are in therapy.”

  “I know,” said Mae, “but I want to.  I’ve tried to tell both of you so many times.  I just never knew how to bring it up.”  She took a bite of the candy and let out a long breath.  “I was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.  At the base of Mount Fuji.  Not far from Tokyo.  I left too young to recall much of my life there.  Mostly it’s a blur of buildings, fields of purple flowers, and the snowcapped mountain always looming in the distance.  Except for the night my parents died.  That I remember perfectly.”

  Amanda put her arm around Mae while Lester shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  He hadn’t known about Mae’s birth parents.  Hearing her speak of it for the first time, he felt a twinge of guilt settle in his stomach.  How often had Mae listened to him complain about his family when she’d lost hers.

  “It was the end of a hot summer day,” Mae continued.  “The sun was setting, and the pretty little lights of our neighborhood were blinking on, one by one.  I was playing alone outside in the small yard in front of our house.  That’s when I saw her.  At first, I thought it was just someone taking an evening stroll.  But as she came slowly down the street, I could see that something was off.  Her walk was stilted as if she were missing every other step.  And even though the sky was clear, her long dark hair was dripping wet, leaving damp streaks down the front of her white dress.  I remember wondering why she wasn’t wearing any shoes. 

  “It was near dinner time, so there was no one else outside when she reached our house.  As I watched her pass by, she turned and looked straight at me.  Her face was so pale.  Then, without a word, she pressed a single finger to her black lips, warning me to stay quiet.  I was unable to move.  It wasn’t until she finally disappeared around the corner at the end of our block that I found the strength to get to my feet.  I was about to run inside to find my parents when the first tremor knocked me back to the ground.”

  “An earthquake?” Amanda asked.

  “Yes.  Yamanashi, like the rest of Japan, has a history of them.  But never one like this.  It struck fast, hard, and without warning.  My parent’s house was flattened in a matter of minutes.  I like to think they tried to reach me, but they probably never had a chance.”

  “I am so sorry, Mae,” said Lester.

  Mae wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

  “I don’t remember anything after that,” she said.  “They say a neighbor grabbed me and ran.  He and I were the only survivors.”

  “And that’s why you’re in therapy?” asked Amanda.

  “Not entirely,” said Mae.  “After the accident, I stopped speaking.  My adopted parents took me to a string of doctors and specialists, and each one told them the same thing.  There was nothing physically wrong with me.  I would talk when I was ready.  Until then, they suggested I be homeschooled.  My new mom was the local librarian.  So she became my teacher and the library where she worked, our classroom.  It went on that way for almost two years.  Then one day, while I was roaming around in the stacks during a break in my lessons, I pulled out a children’s book of folklore from around the world.  On the first page, there was a story from Japan titled, The Onryo.”

  “Onryo?” asked Lester.

  “It means vengeful spirit,” said Mae.  “Anyway, I’d just gotten to the part about how Onryos could cause natural disasters to punish the living for wrongs they’d suffered in life when I noticed the drawing on the opposite page.  It was the woman I had seen in the street the night my parents died.  I dropped the book and ran to my mother, screaming the first word she ever heard me say.  Onryo!”

  “You were a little kid, trying to find answers to questions that don’t have any,” said Amanda.

  “That’s what my mother thought, too,” Mae said.  “She was convinced that I’d been read that book, or another like it, by my birth parents.  And that I’d used the memory to make sense of their loss.  She tried to explain that what I thought I saw that night was just a ghost story.  Either way, once I started talking, according to my parents, I didn’t stop.”

  Lester and Amanda shared a look.  It was easy to imagine a young Mae, smaller but just as inquisitive.

  “They were finally able to enroll me in school,” said Mae, “and things settled down into a happy little routine.  Then, a few years later, Japan was hit by a massive tsunami.  I was ten years old and hadn’t been back since my parents died, but it was all over the news.  I started going online to look at pictures of the devastation.  You know the ones with the before and after photos?  And there she was, the same woman — same hair, same white dress, and bare feet.  She was just standing there in an image taken minutes before the wave hit.  As you can imagine, I kind of freaked out.”

  “We don’t have to imagine,” Amanda said softly.

  “No,” added Lester.  “We don’t.”  He let out a long sigh, and the alley behind The Mortician’s Eye drifted into his mind.

  “Oh, right,” Mae said.  “I suppose not.”

  The three friends sat in silence for a brief moment, side by side on a bench in the middle of a costumed crowd, feeling utterly alone — together.

  “After that, I became obsessed,” said Mae.  “Every hour I wasn’t in school was spent researching Onryos and any other phenomenon that might give me some sort of clue.  At first, it was every day after class.  Then I started skipping school altogether.  I took buses to other libraries, wandering endless aisles of books, desperately looking for answers.

  “It wasn’t long before the school told my parents I hadn’t been showing up, and they confronted me.  I tried to explain, but they wouldn’t listen.  They believed the tsunami news had brought back the trauma of losing my birth parents.  My phone and computer got taken away, and I was banned from all libraries within an hour’s drive.  I think they thought if they could shield me from it long enough, it would eventually pass.  But they were wrong.  One night, I packed a bag, went to the airport, and snuck on a flight to Japan.  A stewardess found me hiding in the bathroom as the plane was taxiing onto the runway.”

  Mae’s voice quivered, and Amanda took her hand into hers.

  “That turned into a whole thing,” said Mae.  “All the passengers were evacuated on those big yellow inflatable slides.  While fire trucks and police cars circled the plane like they’d found some radical terrorist.  I was taken off in handcuffs.  My parents were mortified.  The lawyer they hired convinced a judge that I wasn’t a troublemaker, just a kid who needed help.  He sentenced me to court-mandated therapy.  Then my school politely suggested that perhaps I would do better in a calmer environment.  So we packed up everything and moved to Giles Hollow.”

  “And landed smack in the middle of our — situation,” Amanda said.  “Exactly the kind of thing your parents were trying to avoid.”

  “I’m sorry, Mae,” said Lester.  “If I’d known, I never would’ve brought you into this.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Mae.  “It’s not like I gave you much choice.  Besides, finding out how messed up your two families are kind of makes me appreciate my own.”

  Amanda smirked.  “Glad we could help.” 

  “Anyway,” said Mae, “as for my parents, it’s not all bad.  My father still hasn’t found work, but they’re both really pleased that for the first time in a long time, I’ve made friends.”

  Mae flashed an embarrassed smile.

  “Oh yeah?” said Lester.  “Is it anyone we know?”

  “Or are these friends, like, here now,” asked Amanda, “but you’re the only one who can see them?” 

  They all laughed, and Mae threw the rest of her chocolate cow’s tail at them.

  Back on Main Street, they lined up on the sidewalk to watch the parade.  Standing there as a stream of adults and kids flowed by in costumes, Lester thought Mae seemed lighter and more at ease than any other time since he’d known her.  He guessed sharing her story must have made her feel like he had the night at the ice rink.  When she’d suggested his family’s fate didn’t have to be his own.

  As it grew dark, an army of volunteers began lighting the jack-o-lanterns.  Thousands of twinkling candles glowed yellow and orange.  They cast flickering shadows across the festival and filled the air with the sweet smell of roasting pumpkin.

  The local bank was giving away free hot dogs, and Lester devoured three covered in hot peppers.  Watching him, Amanda and Mae groaned, still too full of candy to eat.  With the sun now down, the temperature dropped quickly, and they set off in search of something warm to drink.

  Exiting Artist’s Way, a small street where local painters displayed their most recent works, Lester suddenly stopped.  While many of the canvases had images appropriately macabre for the season, it wasn’t the gruesome artwork that had made his heart skip a beat.

  “Perfect timing!” Mrs. North called, beaming at them from beside the sheriff’s patrol car, which, once again, was doing double duty as the meals on wheels delivery vehicle.  “Kids, come give me a hand.”

  Since his return from visiting Mathis, Lester and his mother had settled into an awkward truce.  Sticking to subjects like the weather, school, and — the weather, their conversations had become too dull to erupt into arguments.  

  “Hi, Mrs. North,” Amanda said, pushing past Lester, who was still rooted to the spot.

  “Amanda!  So nice to see you, dear,” said Mrs. North giving her a quick hug and an air kiss on each cheek.  “And it’s Maeko, right?”

  Lester felt uneasy as he watched Mae shake hands with his mother.  He hadn’t exactly been hiding who he’d been spending time with these days, but he hadn’t seen a need to advertise it either.  The less his parents knew of his activities, the less there was to be suspicious about.

  “Thank goodness you kids happened by when you did,” Mrs. North said.  “Do you think you could do me a favor and take this inside?”  She gestured to a stack of tinfoil-covered trays that filled the back seat of the patrol car.  “They’re for the food pantry.  I’d do it myself, but I’m afraid I’ve got to dash off and judge the costume contest.”

  “Um, sure,” Lester said, relaxing now that he knew their encounter with his mother would be brief.  “No problem.”

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Mrs. North said.  “I knew I could count on you.”  She kissed Lester on the forehead and set off at a brisk jog.  “I’ve got the keys, so just close it up when you’ve finished.  Have a fun night, you three!”

  They made short work of the delivery, loading up each other’s arms as they shuttled the food inside.  When Lester and Amanda returned from dropping off the last batch, they carried three hot chocolates given to them by the grateful shelter’s staff.  Mae had already locked up the car, so they headed back to the festival.

  Sounds of laughing and cheering erupted from the orange glow in the distance as the costume contest got underway.  Lester, not wanting to miss it, sprinted ahead, taking a shortcut through a nearby parking lot.  Tall lampposts dotted the vast stretch of pavement, creating small islands of light in the dark as he zig-zagged his way around the tightly packed cars.

  Lester had just come out from behind a large van when someone slammed into him, spilling his hot chocolate.  “Hey!” he shouted, wiping the front of his coat.

  The young man who’d been responsible stopped and turned around as though to apologize.  But instead, he looked nervously passed Lester to the long rows of cars stretching behind him. His eyes were wide, and his face was an ashen gray.

  “Wait.  I know you,” said Lester.

  At the sound of pounding footsteps, Lester spun to see Amanda and Mae approaching.  When he turned back around, the man was gone.

  “Who was that?” Amanda asked, catching up to him.

  “Remember the accident from my paper route with the cows?” said Lester.  “That’s the guy that was driving the truck that smashed into the stonewall.”

  “That was Truck Boy?” Mae asked, craning her neck to see where he’d gone.  “What was he doing here?  And why did he look so scared?” 

  Before Lester could answer, more voices came from the dark.

  “He’s over there!” a man called.

  “Right behind you!” shouted another.

  Lester leaned around the van and was watching two flashlights dance their way closer when a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.

  “Get down!” Amanda said, shoving Lester and Mae to the ground.

  “What the heck, Amanda?” said Lester, rubbing his arm.

  “Shut up and listen,” she hissed.

  “You go left and drive him towards the back of the theater!” the first man called, now only a few rows away.

  “Alright!  I’ll meet you there!” his partner replied.

  When Lester was sure they had passed, he slowly sat up.

  “Oh, crap,” he said, looking at Amanda, who nodded.

  “What?” asked Mae.

  “The two men that just ran by,” Lester said, “are our fathers.”

  “Your fathers?” said Mae.  “What are they doing here?  Why would they be chasing the kid from the accident?”

  “No idea,” said Lester.  “I don’t see how they could even know him?”

  Mae’s face took on the familiar faraway look it got when she was deep in thought.  Sometimes in the library basement, she’d sit like that for long periods, pondering some new information they’d uncovered.  But this time, it cleared quickly, and she jumped to her feet.

  “Okay.  Let’s go,” she said, crouching low and running off into the dark.

  “Mae, wait!” called Lester.  

  He and Amanda sprinted after her, finally catching up behind a green sports car.

 “Truck Boy just cut through the alley between the frozen yogurt place and the theater,” Mae whispered before darting into the next row.

  “What about our fathers?” Lester asked, following closely, Amanda at his heels.

  “I’m sure they’re around here somewhere, but I haven’t seen them,” said Mae.

  “Mae,” Amanda said.  “He means, what do we do if they see us?”

  “Oh.  I don’t know,” Mae replied.  “I guess we’ll just have to be really sneaky.”

  Lester and Amanda gave her a skeptical look.  Between her loud voice, louder clothes, and penchant for falling over things, Mae Chase was the least sneaky person they’d ever met.  

  “No one’s going to notice us among all these people,” Mae said as they continued moving.  “Besides, what if what happened to that guy behind the Mortician’s Eye happens to Truck Boy?”

  “They wouldn’t try something like that in front of a crowd,” said Amanda.

  A thought occurred to Lester.  “You don’t think Truck Boy could be a member of the Light, do you?” 

  “I don’t know,” said Mae.  “Which is why I want to follow them.  Now let’s go.”

  Careful to stay out of sight, Mae led the way, now and then popping up to peer through a car window.  When they reached the edge of the parking lot, she sprinted ahead into the mouth of the alley where Truck Boy had disappeared.  Once she was sure the coast was clear, she waved for Lester and Amanda to follow.

  The space between the buildings was narrow, and their shoulders almost brushed the brick walls on either side as they made their way.  Lester kept looking back, sure that he would see his father appear in the slim opening behind them.

  Finally, they made it to the end and popped out onto Main Street.

  It was like going from black and white to color.  The costume contest was over, and a massive crowd had packed into the street in anticipation of the announcement that would tell them if they’d broken the jack-o-lantern record.  A rock band, each member dressed as Frankenstein, played the song Monster Mash from a raised stage.

  Lester, Mae, and Amanda pushed their way through the revelers, who were dancing and singing along to the music.  At the far side of the street, they found a clear spot and began to examine the crowd for signs of Truck Boy.  The band was so loud they had to shout into each other’s ears to be heard.  How were they going to find anyone in all of this?

  Amanda motioned for Lester to crouch down, and she climbed onto his shoulders.  He wobbled under her weight as he stood but clung to her legs and managed to stay upright.  She twirled her finger, and Lester began to revolve slowly.

  “There!” Amanda shouted.  She pointed towards the small park with the large pumpkin display, and they could just make out the back of Truck Boy as he dashed inside.

  “And here come your fathers,” Mae said, standing on her tip-toes to see.

  Mr. Poole and Mr. North were approaching from the opposite direction.  They were easy to pick out among the sea of costumes in their dark suits and matching ties.

  “He’s going to run right into them,” Amanda said.  She slid off Lester’s shoulders and headed into the crowd.

  As the band finished their song, a woman climbed onto the stage.  She was dressed in a top hat and tails and carried a lion tamer’s whip.

  “Is this thing on?” she said, tapping the microphone and causing a piercing squeal of feedback.  “Oh, I guess it is.  Sorry, folks.”  When the collective groan of those nearby had died down, she continued.  “Ladies and gentlemen!  Ghosts and ghouls!  As mayor, it is my honor to inform you that the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived!”

  A cheer went up from the crowd as Mae took Lester’s hand and pulled him after Amanda.

  “We nearly beat the record for most lit jack-o-lanterns last year!” the mayor bellowed.  “But that wasn’t good enough for us, was it?”  

  “NO!” came the shouted reply.

  Lester and Mae caught up with Amanda, and the three of them followed Truck Boy as he disappeared behind the towering scaffolding packed with pumpkins.

  “I don’t know, folks?” the mayor said doubtfully.  “Did everyone here remember to bring a pumpkin?”

  “YES!”

  In the center of the park, among the benches and scattered bronze statues, sat a large ornate fountain.  As part of the festival, the shallow pool at its base was full of fresh apples.  Dozens of costumed kids knelt around the edge, hands clasped tightly behind their backs.  They dipped their heads in and out of the water like ducks, attempting valiantly to grab a floating apple using only their teeth.

  A circle of parents stood nearby, laughing and cheering.  Several were filming the apple bobbing contest with their phones.  None seemed to notice the three out-of-breath kids joining their ranks or the intent way they watched the nervous young man walking across the grass. 

  “Okay, everyone.  It’s time!” the mayor called through the loudspeakers.  “Are you ready to hear this year’s pumpkin tally?”

  Another roar went up from the crowd, and Lester watched as Truck Boy stopped on the other side of the fountain.  Following his frightened stare, Lester spotted their fathers approaching quickly from the other direction, eyes locked on their prey.

  “This year’s final, official, lit jack-o-lantern count is —  I don’t know if I can say it!  I’m too excited!”

  Without taking his eyes off of Truck Boy, Lester reached into his jacket pocket.  He hadn’t intended to bring the ring to the festival, but today was laundry day, and he’d thought it best to remove it from beneath his sock drawer.  Slipping the ring onto his finger, Lester kept his hand low and focused.  He centered his thoughts and felt warm energy flow through him.

  There was a gurgling sound, and the water dribbling from the top of the fountain suddenly shot out, arching high over the kneeling children, who shrieked and went running for their parents.

  “30,581!” the mayor shouted.  “We did it, folks!  A NEW WORLD RECORD!”

  The crowd erupted.  There was a series of popping sounds, and orange and black confetti filled the air.  The band of Frankensteins launched into a loud rendition of We Are The Champions as ghosts hugged vampires and werewolves jumped up and down, slapping staggering mummies on the back.

  In all the commotion, no one saw the two men in suits slip on the icy patch that had inexplicably formed across the grass on which they landed.

  Truck Boy, wasting no time, took advantage of the opportunity and bolted off back down Main Street.  Lester and his friends raced after him. 

  “That was brilliant!” Amanda said as they ran.

  “Thanks,” Lester replied.

  Mae, who was in the lead, called back over her shoulder.  “Come on!  He’s headed towards the college!”

  Elmwood City College occupied roughly a dozen buildings clustered together on the other side of the barricade marking the edge of the festival.  It wasn’t a large school, but the money the students and faculty spent in town was an essential part of the local economy.  Because of this, the police department tended to look the other way during the festivities.  As long as the loud Halloween parties stayed confined to the college grounds, they were happy to let them be campus security’s problem.

  Judging by the mass of disheveled kids in torn clothes and green face paint, this year’s theme was zombies.  The living dead dragged their feet and moaned admirably as they stumbled along to pulsating music provided by a decomposing DJ holding a severed arm.  The costumes were elaborate, looking as though they’d required weeks of work, and the effect was only spoiled by the bright red plastic cups nearly everyone held.   

  Lester, Amanda, and Mae hurried under the stone-arch engraved with the school’s name.  They were only a few seconds behind Truck Boy, who hit the students gathered in the courtyard at full speed.

  As the panicked young man pushed through them, he bumped a tall student in a torn basketball uniform.  That student stumbled, spilling his drink onto the head of a short zombie.  Then, in a domino-like effect, the short zombie fell into a dancing circle of female undead, who began shouting and hitting each other.

  Lester skidded to a stop.  He’d never seen anything like it.

  The minor scuffle rapidly spread through the rest of the party, growing in severity as it did, like a highly contagious virus.  Students began shoving and tackling each other for no apparent reason.  What moments ago had been a friendly celebration was now a pack of costumed zombies fighting as though they really did want to eat each other’s brains.  Meanwhile, no one seemed to notice Truck Boy, who’d accidentally started it all, slip by them and disappear into the night.  

  “What just happened?” Mae asked, gawking at two fighting girls, who crashed into the DJ’s equipment, abruptly cutting off the music.

  “I don’t know,” Amanda said, perplexed.  “But maybe we should go.”

  A pumpkin came sailing through the air and shattered on the ground in front of them.

  “We should definitely go,” said Lester.

 They turned and began quickly walking out the way they had come.  At the sound of breaking glass Lester risked a look back as a cheer became an angry roar.

  “Run!” he shouted, giving both Amanda and Mae an encouraging shove, and together they sped off as fast as their legs could carry them.

  It was as though a horror movie had come to life.  Zombies spilled out of every entrance to the college campus.  They jumped over neatly trimmed hedges, climbed on parked cars, and swung from stop signs and lamp posts.  The anger that had first turned them on one another was now focused outward as the students upended trash cans and smashed through the barriers marking the entrance to the festival. 

  Lester followed Mae and Amanda past the closed Ferris wheel and empty bounce houses.  Thankfully the area was deserted.  After the record-breaking announcement, most families, especially those with younger kids, had headed home.

  When they reached the edge of the park at the end of Main Street, they found a small crowd of people still milling about.  Lester and his friends were far enough ahead of the enraged students that several adults wondered aloud where they were going in such a hurry.  However, their lead must have been shrinking because a moment later, Lester heard shouts and crashes as the two groups collided.  He did not look back.

  Ducking around the side of the giant display of pumpkins, Lester realized he’d lost sight of his friends.  His lungs were burning, and he made his way to the fountain, crouching down behind it to catch his breath.

  Peering over the placid pool filled with floating apples, he saw adults in costumes fighting with a zombie horde of college kids, who swarmed over everything like a colony of ants.  A couple of them had even climbed to the top of the scaffolding and were raining pumpkins down indiscriminately on anyone below.

   Scanning the rows of shops at the edge of the park, Lester spotted Mae and Amanda underneath the green, white, and red awning of a closed Mexican restaurant.  They were huddled in the doorway and waving frantically at him to join them.  

  Lester waited until he saw a space in the brawling crowd, then made a break for it.  He dodged left to avoid a girl in a t-shirt that read, If zombies chase us, I’m tripping you, then sprinted along the back of the scaffolding.  Avoiding several pumpkin bombs that exploded around him, he executed a slide through a patch of orange goo, narrowly escaping being knocked over by two fighting students.  As they rolled past, Lester saw that they were actually biting each other.

  He was nearly there and could hear Amanda and Mae shouting something that sounded like, “Hurry, Lester.  Grab the ball!”  But that couldn’t be right.  

  “What?” he yelled back at them.

  “Hurry, Lester!” screamed Amanda, pointing to his left.  “It’s going to fall!”

  A screeching sound, like a hundred fingernails dragged across a chalkboard, came from the bolts holding the scaffolding, and it began to slowly tip backward.  The sporadic rain of pumpkins thrown down by the students became a never-ending deluge that now included heavy boards and metal pipes.

  Lester threw himself forward.  Tucking into a ball, he tumbled and rolled out of the park as the collapsing display slammed into the ground behind him.  For a moment, all was lost in a billowing cloud of debris.

  Spitting pumpkin seeds, Lester moved to get up.  But before he could right himself, hands began grabbing him from both sides.  He fought back, fearing the zombie students had caught up to him, but his strength was gone, and his struggles amounted to little more than a fierce slapping.

  “Ow!  Lester, cut it out!  It’s us!”

  He looked up, relieved to see Amanda and Mae.

  “Come on!” Amanda shouted and pulled him to his feet.

  Dust was still settling on what was left of the pumpkin display as Mae and Amanda sat Lester down in the Mexican restaurant’s doorway.  The sound of police sirens blared somewhere off in the distance.  Amazingly, no one appeared to be seriously hurt despite all the destruction.  Even the two students who’d been atop the scaffolding when it fell had walked away with little more than a scratch.  Unfortunately, their brush with death had done little to dampen their appetite for mayhem.  Armed with metal pipes, they were now making their way along the line of storefronts, smashing windows as they went.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Mae, watching them bludgeon their way towards the restaurant.

  “Right,” Lester said.  “Just give me a minute to rest.”  

  The alarm at the jewelry store two doors down began ringing loudly as the zombies, hooping and hollering, shattered yet another window.

  “Maybe you can rest later,” said Amanda.  But as she forced Lester to his feet, he cried out and grabbed his ankle.

  “It’s no good,” he said, hopping on one foot.  “I’ll never make it.  You’ll have to go on without me.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Amanda.  “We’re not leaving you here.”

  She and Mae each took one of Lester’s arms, and the three of them began shuffling away.  They moved as steadily as they could, the continuing sound of smashing propelling them along.

  Finally, they reached the opening of a narrow side street.  They were debating whether to go down it when a set of oncoming headlights blinded them.  Shielding their eyes, they barely had time to flinch as the white postal delivery truck screeched to a stop in front of them.

  “Hurry, get in!” 

  Lester smiled at the sight of Ben Titus sitting behind the wheel in his uniform.

  Amanda and Mae threw open the side door, tossed Lester onto a stack of mailbags, then jumped in behind him.  Exhausted, the three of them fell against each other, breathing heavily as the truck sped away.  

  Ben concentrated on driving, weaving them through a maze of alleys, parking lots, and one-way streets.  They passed police cars going in the opposite direction several times, their sirens on and blue lights flashing.  It was only once they’d crossed the city limits and were on the road back to Giles Hollow that Ben slowed down.

  “So,” he said as if nothing unusual had happened.  “Good festival this year?

  “Not bad,” Lester replied, just as casually.  “We beat the jack-o-lantern record.”

  “Well, now, that is good news!”

  Mae laughed, and Amanda punched Lester hard in the arm.