Sam
“Sorry! I know I’m late, just give me two seconds to wash up really quick and then we can go,” I tell Noel as I rush into the kitchen where she’s seated at the table with her laptop in front of her.
She tips her head up and smiles at me as I lean down and give her a quick kiss on the lips.
“It’s fine. I’m just trying to finish up some work.”
I pause for a minute to stare at her as she fiddles around on her computer. She looks exhausted, and I feel like the biggest ass in the world for being away from her so much lately and for keeping a secret from her. I hate that she thinks I’ve been working all this overtime lately and feels bad for me whenever I tell her I’m tired. I’m deceiving my wife, and right now, it doesn’t make me feel good.
“Is that a beaver?” I ask, leaning down closer to look at her laptop screen.
“It’s a wombat. And yes, I Photoshopped a wombat, the ShamWow guy, and the Virgin Mary into our family’s Christmas picture from last year. Don’t judge me. I’m trying to get my creative juices flowing so I can get as much work done as I can before I go on maternity leave,” she tells me.
Noel got a job working for Seduction and Snacks two years ago on Valentine’s Day. It’s a huge company with chains all over the U.S. One side sells sex toys, and the other side is a bakery. They hired Noel to design inappropriate greeting cards for their stores. The popularity of Noel’s cards grew so quickly, the owners made her a partner last Easter, changed the name of the store to Seduction and Snacks and Salutations, and let her add whatever she wanted to the line, like T-shirts, pens, notepads, and a bunch of other shit, all with inappropriate sayings on them.
“What is all that stuff?” Noel asks, looking away from her laptop and noticing the two huge duffel bags I brought home from work.
“Don’t ask. Your dad called me earlier in a panic, asking me to bring a bunch of stuff home for him. He’s taking this Halloween-decorating contest to an extreme level,” I tell her.
“If he doesn’t win that thing this year, we’re all going to suffer, Sam.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat and let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh.
“Why wouldn’t he win? He’s totally going to win. Everyone knows he’s going to win. He wins every year. Why would this year be any different? He’s going to win. Should we update our passports just in case? I’ve heard Belize is a nice place to live,” I ramble.
Noel stares at me, her brow furrowed questioningly.
“Are you okay? If you don’t want to go to my parents’ house to help put together the treat bags, I can call my mom and make something up.”
I laugh again, all weird and girly, wondering why in the hell I can’t just laugh like a fucking man when I’m nervous and hiding something from my wife.
“I’m fine! Excellent. Everything is good. Give me five minutes to jump in the shower and then we can go.”
Giving Noel a kiss on the top of her head, I leave her to her wombats and ShamWow guy and head to the bathroom, hoping she’s not getting suspicious and that my surprise will still be a surprise, even though now I’m starting to worry that once everyone finds out what I’ve done, this family will go a hell of a lot more insane.
* * *
“Get your shit together, Sam! I thought you said you’d done this before. Stop acting like a pansy-ass little girl!” Reggie whisper-yells as our feet crunch through the leaves and we gingerly step over pumpkins and extension cords.
“I HAVE done this before. IN A FUCKING WAR ZONE, not for breaking and entering!” I whisper back angrily.
When Reggie called me at work earlier and told me to bring over night-vision goggles, tactical vests, camo face-paint sticks, a Ka-Bar knife, and combat helmets, I thought he needed these items for another asinine decorating idea for his front yard. I had no idea, when Noel and I got here for dinner and to help put together candy bags for wedding favors and trick-or-treat, that Reggie would drag me out to the garage, make me suit up, and threaten to cut off my balls if I didn’t do exactly as he said.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t bring the rifles. The ONE thing I told you was most important, and you conveniently forgot them,” he complains. I let out a groan when he kicks a jack-o’-lantern out of the way, caving in the front of the intricately carved thing.
“That took someone over two hours to carve, and you just ruined it!” I complain. “And I may be an idiot, but I’m not dumb enough to give you a loaded weapon.”
Reggie crouches down behind a shrub, grabs my arm, and yanks me down next to him. Since the sun set over an hour ago, the neighborhood is shrouded in darkness, making me feel like I’m in the middle of a scary movie gone wrong, and that a deranged killer will any minute jump out from behind a nearby tree and try to kill us.
“You have no idea how long that ugly-ass thing took to carve. It looked stupid and I put it out of its misery.”
“It was an exact replica of the DVD cover of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was artistic and genius,” I mutter like a petulant child.
“Do you need Midol? Are you on your man period? Quit your bitching and get your head in the game. We’re here to see what kind of lowlife scum moved into this house and is trying to take my title away from me.”
I can’t believe this is what my life has become. I used to be a strong, badass Marine. Now I’m wearing tactical gear, my face is covered in camo paint, and I’m lurking in shrubbery with my insane father-in-law, hoping none of the neighbors catch us and call the cops.
“Obviously these people aren’t lowlife scum. Lowlife scum wouldn’t decorate for Halloween with such attention to detail and fantastically lifelike figurines.”
Reggie glares at me over his shoulder before shuffling away from me in a crouched position.
“What are you doing?! Get back here!” I whisper loudly as Reggie walks right through the landscaping on the side of the house and up to one of the windows.
I have no choice but to follow him, studying my surroundings as I look for neighbors out on evening walks, or cops driving by to make sure a crazy man wearing a tactical vest over his wife’s pink, frilly bathrobe isn’t attempting to break into a house.
When I make it up to Reggie, the orange glow of the lights strung around the frame of the window highlights his face, giving his profile a creepy look. He cups his hands around his eyes and leans forward, pressing them against the window.
“There isn’t even any furniture in there. They’ve owned this house for a month and there’s no furniture. I bet they’re serial killers and they’re using this house to dismember the bodies in the basement,” Reggie mutters.
“Yes, because serial killers always get into the Halloween-decorating spirit,” I reply sarcastically.
“I bet they roofie their victims at a local bar; put them in the back of a white, nondescript van with dirty windows that someone wrote the word penis on; pull into the garage and close the door; drag the unconscious body inside and down into the basement; and put it onto a metal hospital table. Then they put on white butchering aprons and, using a knife from Paula Deen’s Walmart collection, chop up the body, starting with the fingers and finishing with the ears. Then they store everything in Halloween-themed Ziploc bags in seven chest freezers,” Reggie says.
“That was strangely specific . . . and horrifying.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this,” he replies.
“Clearly. Can we go back across the street now? I’d much rather watch Aunt Bobbie get drunk and try to put pot cookies into the kids’ treat bags than have to explain to the police that you’re not a sociopath who dreams about how his neighbors chop up people and put them in baggies with pumpkins and ghosts on them.”
Reggie sighs and finally pulls his face away from the window.
“Fine. We’ll go home for now, but this isn’t over,” Reggie complains as we sneak back through the obstacle course of the front yard, dodging pumpkins and other decorations as we go. “These people have declared war. If a war is what they want, a war is what they’ll get. Everyone on this street loves me and my Halloween decorations. I’m not going to let some serial killers ruin my life’s work.”
“You mean everyone but Susan, who called Bev today and told her that her son had a clown nightmare last night,” I remind him.
Noel called me at work right after Bev called her to tell her about Susan, because Noel likes to bring me down to her level of misery whenever she has to deal with either one of her parents.
“I can’t help it if her son is a sissy. He’ll have a lot more to cry about when he finds out he’s living down the street from people who will kidnap him and cut off his fingers.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as we cross the street and make our way up to the porch. “Never, ever say that out loud again. I don’t have enough money saved for your bail or to hire a reputable defense attorney.”
As soon as we walk in the front door, Noel comes into the front hallway from the living room, stopping in her tracks when she sees her father and me.
“Do I even want to ask?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not.”
“You married a dipshit, Noel. He wouldn’t even let me carry a rifle,” Reggie complains.
“Noel, we need more Snickers for the—”
Bev joins us in the hall and stops next to my wife, her words cutting off as soon as she looks up.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I tell her.
I have no idea why I said that. It’s exactly what it looks like. It looks like we just put on tactical gear and face paint and went creeping through the neighbor’s yard.
“Oh, Sam, you don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s about time Reggie told you how he likes to dress up as G.I. Joe when we role play.” She smiles at me before turning toward her husband. “Honey, did you tell him about how you make me pretend to be your commanding officer and I get to yell at you and give you orders?”
Reggie groans, Noel grimaces, and I try my hardest not to run screaming back out the front door.
“He likes it when I make him bark,” Bev whispers conspiratorially, giving me a wink.
“Jesus, Beverly! Is nothing sacred in this house?” Reggie complains.
Just then, the front door opens behind us, and we all turn to see Aunt Bobbie stumble in with an ungodly amount of makeup smudged all over her face and wiped off in random places on the sparkly black dress she’s wearing. It’s only eight o’clock and she already looks like she’s been on an all-night bender.
“Bobbie, what in the world happened to you?” Bev asks, rushing to her side to help her stand.
“It was a rough night at Drag Queen Bingo. I don’t remember much about what happened after the fifteenth round,” she tells us.
“The fifteenth round of bingo or of drinks?” Noel questions.
“Bacon!” Aunt Bobbie answers.
“Reggie, go make Bobbie some coffee. Sweetie, are you going to feel up to helping with the treat bags tonight?” Bev asks her softly.
“PHTEVEN!” Aunt Bobbie shouts as Bev wraps her arm around her waist and helps her walk down the hall and into the living room, moving around the shit-tons of Kit Kats, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Twix bars, Heath bars, bubble gum, and Blow Pops. She deposits Aunt Bobbie onto the couch.
“What’s a phteven? Aunt Bobbie, are you having a brain aneurism? Do you need medical attention?” Bev asks, bending down to stare into Aunt Bobbie’s glassy, unfocused eyes.
“It’s Steven with a PH! BACON!” Aunt Bobbie shouts.
“Sweet Jesus, she looks like a clown that just woke up after a gang bang,” Scheva states, looking up from her spot on the floor, where she’s already started assembling bags.
“In local news tonight, there have been several recent sightings of an individual dressed up as a clown, wandering neighborhoods and frightening people. The police have yet to ascertain if this person is just having some good old Halloween fun or is a genuine threat to the community. Please stay vigilant, and if you see anyone dressed up as a clown, call the local police. Back to you, Richard.”
We’re all staring at the television in the corner of the room with our mouths wide open when Reggie walks in with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.
“See, Dad? I told you clowns were evil!” Noel reminds him.
“Are you talking about that stupid news report they’ve been running all night? Poppycock. Bunch of horseshit, if you ask me. People getting scared over clowns . . . Clowns bring joy and laughter into people’s lives. What is this world coming to when people are afraid of something like that? It’s going to hell in a handbasket, that’s what’s happening,” Reggie complains.
He hands Aunt Bobbie the coffee, pushing it up to her mouth and forcing her to drink it as the rest of us stare out the front window, wondering how the hell we’ll be able to tell a real killer clown from the clowns all over the damn front yard.