"Steve Rasnic Tem - Tricks And Treats" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tem Steve Rasnic)

real. That was what Halloween was all about, wasn't it? Remembering the dead and
celebrating hard because you weren't one of them.

Tommy had liked Halloween the best of all of them -- he'd been the one who'd
organized all their parties, the one who'd come up with the tricks they would
play. So this last night as they went door to door they thought of him when they
called out "Trick or treat!" They thought of him while they munched on the candy
on their way to the next house, like they were eating his memory a piece at a
time.

Halloween Street was always the last place to go. It was traditional. You could
play the best tricks on Halloween Street, too, since none of the neighbors ever
came out to bother you. You could just do whatever you pleased.

Sandra led the way to the first house on the street: a tall thing missing most
of its roof and leaning toward the rest of the block like it was drunk. She
knocked on the door and knocked on the door until finally they gave up and
started to go away. But as they turned away the door opened and oranges came
rolling out for all of them. They put them into their sacks and walked on down
the street.

At the next house, a wide place with fire damage on the outside walls, Willona
did the knocking. An old man with no teeth gave each of them a peanut butter log
and then they left and walked on down the street.

The middle two houses looked even emptier than the others, twins that seemed to
be looking at each other all the time with small window eyes. Maryanne and John
knocked at both houses and at each house one of the old twin brothers who lived
there gave them a box of raisins.

By the time they all got to the end of the street the sacks were getting heavy,
unbelievably heavy, and Sandra insisted that they sit down to rest. The gang sat
in a circle and reached into their sacks for the goodies.

When Sandra looked into her sack her orange had turned into Tommy's head,
bleeding from a gash that crossed the crown of his head.

When Willona reached into her sack for the peanut butter log she found a
slippery finger instead, Tommy's ring wedged on it so tightly she couldn't get
it off no matter how hard she tried.

What John and Maryanne found in their sacks when they went looking for the
raisins was a mass of black insects, each one carrying a small pale bit of
Tommy's broken flesh.

But the gang never said a word to each other about what they had found, nor did
they show any alarm on their faces. They went on munching and smacking their
lips, giggling to themselves because it was so good to be alive on this the
final Halloween of their childhoods.