Editorial
“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.”
A smirking Ronny Rainer, dressed as a horned devil, used his wooden pitchfork to rap on the door as he stood impatiently on his neighbour’s rickety porch.
Old Mr. Hall better shell out the good stuff, Ronny thought, holding his pillow case wide open with anticipation. There were no carved pumpkins on the railing, and the only light was a dim glow that filtered through the drapes in the front window.
Ronny banged on the door again as the moon cast tortured shadows on the two-storey shack that was half hidden from the street. Kids stayed away from this house, and Mr. Hall in general; he was just too creepy for their liking. They called him “The Stick Man” because he looked like a gnarled piece of wood with a crooked mouth.
Ronny’s friends bet him a pack of unopened O-Pee-Chee hockey cards if he would go to Mr. Hall’s house on Halloween and throw an egg at his window. At first, Ronny gulped, saying he had too much homework to do.
“Who are you kidding, dude? You don’t do homework, you’re just a fraidy cat,” Danny had retorted with a group of his friends after school.
“No I ain’t,” Ronny spewed a defence. “I’ll . . . I’ll show you . . . Mr. Hall is gonna give me a chocolate bar after I’m done with him.”
“Ya, right!” the group guffawed in unison.
That was three hours ago, and this was now . . . on The Stick Man’s porch after dark. “I must be crazy,” he muttered, feeling the smoothness of the egg in his pocket before chucking it at the streaked pane of glass. The yolk slithered down the window like a melting sun.
“That’ll teach ya,” Ronny crooned, making his way down the steps.
A gust of wind careened around the corner of the old house and ruffled his red, plastic tail. The sound of pain and splintering wood followed, making it seem like the trees in the yard were coming alive.
“R-r-r-onnny,” came a creaking voice from within the withered walls of the shack.
“Redeem thyself or be haunted forevermore,” it rasped again like a file against glass.
Trembling with fear, the lad watched a crippled pine tree lurching toward him from the side of the house. It resembled an old crone whose fingers snapped off each time she clawed her way forward.
Ronny stumbled backwards and fell in his attempt to get away. His scream speared the night but held no meaning as tree roots erupted from the ground, binding his arms and legs. As the trees converged on him, he awoke from the nightmare, his heart racing like a thoroughbred crossing the finish line.
Late for school, Ronny put his bike in 10th gear all the way just as a postie, on the other side of town, was delivering a letter to The Stick Man’s house.
“Those darn kids,” he said, shaking his head at the frozen egg yolk that smeared the front window.
Lyonel Doherty, editor
