Paper Aeroplanes & Other Stories

Under the Apple Tree

Halloween had always been Lara's favourite time of the year. She loved nothing more than getting dressed up and going trick or treating. Then she got older and dressing up for Halloween meant going to parties and drinking shots.

She'd been to many parties over the years, and despite the lack of music and alcoholic drinks this one in the middle of the woods was up there as being one of the best. The costumes and the make-up made the fellow partygoers look as if they'd just walked off the set of a Hollywood movie; she'd never seen anything like it.

Lara walked over to one guy; his jaw was hanging off his face, and she wondered what special effects make-up he'd used to achieve such a look. "Hey, I'm Lara," she said with a smile.

Instead of answering, he just stared blankly ahead.

"Cool party, huh?" she said in an attempt to make conversation.

Still, he ignored her, fed up with the one-sided conversation Lara walked away. She walked passed a girl who looked as if her eyes had been gouged out. And a guy who still had rope knotted around his neck. The party suddenly didn't seem so great anymore, the people were weird, and Lara wished she'd stayed home with Spencer instead, yeah, so maybe her friends thought that he was weird too, but they didn't know him in the same way that she did. Bypassing a few more people, she walked through the trees, climbed the fence and made her way through the town until she reached home.

The house looked different; there were no grinning jack-o-lanterns on the front porch — none of the usual Halloween decorations that her mum was famous for. Usually, every kid in the neighbourhood visited their house on Halloween, but Lara could just tell that things were different this year, the house looked devoid of life.

She could see in through the living room window from the garden path; her parents were sat in front of the fireplace, looking through an old photo album. Lara recognised it from the pink print on the outside; it was full of all her old baby pictures.

The mantle clock neared midnight — every Halloween her mother would wait for what she called 'The Witching Hour.' "If my parents are going to communicate with me, it will be between the hours of midnight and 3.am," she'd say.

And Lara's father would call in 'mumbo-jumbo.' "I don't believe in any of that nonsense," he'd say before going up to bed.

So, she was surprised to see him still up, impatiently watching the clock — she wondered why this year was different to every one previous. Why had her father suddenly changed his mind? Who was he hoping would come through and communicate with him during 'The Witching Hour?' Lara couldn't remember any close family members or friends dying in the last year.

Lara pressed her face against the glass and watched them. She waited for her breath to steam up the window, she'd draw a smiley face like she always did, her mother would moan, but she didn't mind, not really. Her mother looked up towards the window; Lara smiled through the clear, smudge-free glass, but her mother didn't smile back.

Hearing footsteps on the gravel drive behind her, Lara turned around; she saw Spencer stood on the edge of the drive, the sleeves of his jumper pulled over his hands. "Hey, Spencer, what are you doing out here? I thought you'd be at home with that old witch of a mother of yours" she called out.

"Lara," he shouted, running towards her. "I thought you'd left me," he said, throwing his arms around her.

"What do you mean?" she asked confused, "I only went to a party; you could've come if you weren't so anti-social!"

"I missed you so much," he said kissing her. "My mum, she told me you left, and I missed you a lot, and I didn't think you'd ever come back."

"What are you talking about? We only saw each other yesterday." They'd spent the day together in Spencer's room, listening to music and making plans for the future — plans to run away from Spencer's mother, and her own parents too. They'd run as far away from this town as they could. "I came to your house this morning, and your mum said you weren't home, which was weird because you're always home. She that I could wait for you if I wanted to, and I did. I waited, and you didn't come home."

"I don't know, I don't know any of this," Spencer said rubbing at his temples. "I don't know what's happening anymore. My mother said you didn't love me, and you left, that you wouldn't be coming back. And then she gave me this stuff to drink, and then I went to sleep, and I can't remember anything after that."

Lara put her arms around Spencer, he looked so vulnerable when he was scared, the tears in his eyes shone in the moonlight. He was far more sensitive than she was, that was one of the things that first attracted her to him; it was the same reason his mother hated her so much, she'd accused Lara of leading her son astray.

"Something weird is happening Lara. To me, and to you, to the whole town. I've seen things," Spencer said.

"We'll figure it out," Lara said trying to reassure him, despite the fact that she didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"Look at you two; you don't get it, do you?" Ray, the postman, said as he walked along the path on the other side of the fence. "Dumb kids," he said while continuing to walk past them.

Lara saw that he was missing half of his head, that was when she remembered that he'd blown his brains out in a drunken rage three years ago.

"It's All Hallows Eve, dear; you know what that means? It's the night when the dead walk amongst the living," her long-dead grandmother said from the bench beneath the apple tree.