The Culda Sack

Sometimes, I forget that “trick-or-treat” isn’t just some cute, little phrase that we say on the last of October’s eves. It’s a question. And, on the Halloween night of 1977, I got my answer.
“Trick.”
“Huh?”
“You said ‘trick-or-treat,’ and I said ‘trick.’” The man, who had now crossed his arms across his feeble chest, was an old one, and, rather than a costume, wore a crooked smile across his face. It sagged as he did. “Good luck.”
The door then slammed in my faces, one of which was that of a goblin. I turned to Donnie, who looked like a ghoul, and dropped my pillowcase until it clunked against the wooden porch. It creaked.
“Wait — what’d he say?” Donnie lifted the ghoul mask; he didn’t hear a thing. I shrugged.
“I dunno. He said ‘trick.’”
“Or treat?”
I shook my head and pulled the rubber goblin up past my forehead. “No. Just ‘trick.’”
Donnie looked up at the faded door with a squint, over to me, and then out across the dying lawn that seemed to stretch on for miles until it reached the rounded pavement, where all of the other kids were strolling, to and fro, with buckets and pails of the sweet stuff bathed in pale orange and purple hues.
“Well, that’s stupid.” He turned back to face me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I knew we shouldn’t’ve gone to Mr. Erikson’s house. He’s never decorated for Halloween.”
“What is he… a Ja-ho-ba Witness?”
I shrugged. “What’s that?”
“I dunno,” Donnie said, making the same gesture as I just had, “I heard my dad say it.”
We both turned from the house and began our descent down the three groaning steps to the lawn, patched with overgrown weeds. My cape, dragging along the prodding blades, began to tug on my throat until I stopped, yanked it from the ground, and bundled it in my hands.
“So, what’re we gonna do?” Donnie stopped when his shin bumped the little red wagon that housed the flashlights his mother had given us, the rejected bags of popcorn we didn’t want in our pillowcases, and the two pumpkins we had picked from Andy and the other Cub Scouts down at the church parking lot. Donnie dropped his sack of candy inside.
“We could egg ‘em. My brother said if someone doesn’t give you candy… you’re supposed to egg ‘em.”
I shrugged. “We don’t have any eggs.”
Donnie crossed his arms and looked down at the contents of the wagon. His eyes widened. “We could use the pumpkins.”
“We’d break the windows.”
“If we’re lucky,” Donnie smiled.
I grinned, and we both grabbed our gourds.
-----
“One… two… three!” we shouted. Donnie and I let go of the giant Jack and it flung through the air… a solid three feet. It spatted onto the dirt.
“Crap!” Donnie yelled, watching the guts of the gourd ooze a seed-speckled orange onto the brown dirt. I was about to go for the second pumpkin in the red wagon, but suddenly the broken one along the ground started to move. It was just the stem, at first. But as Donnie and I crept toward it, the hollow husk of the pumpkin cracked and something emerged — someone emerged, though the figure was hardly that of a human. Its nose was the stem of the pumpkin, in fact, and its tiny body was twiggy and crooked, just the same.
It brushed the guts and goo from its spindly body, the bells along its orange and black costume jingling as it did, and then it smiled up at us — a jolly, piercing, gleam full of yellowed teeth.
“Good eve,” said the little green imp as it took a strut closer to us, popping a pumpkin seed into its jaw. “The chill of the night nipped at my nose, and the scent of your sweets wriggled my toes. I thank you for letting me come out to play, for I know it’s the eve of a chilly Saints Day.”
Donnie and I turned to one another, not saying a word. The creature’s eyes darted across the neighborhood, and then it hobbled over to the wagon, jumping inside and lifting a pillowcase stuffed with popcorn balls. It sniffed until it sighed.
“This cul-de-sac has jolly good cheer, though some don’t seem to like it here. Tell me, friends, if you can, why do you hate the crooked, old man?”
I shrugged and Donnie did, too. Then I stepped a bit forward and clasped my hands before the little gremlin-like figure.
“What’s a cul-da sack?” I said, pointing to the cloth in its hands. It looked down, then up, and smiled widely.
“What’s in this sack,” it began to say, as it wiggled its fingers above the cloth, “will certainly do the trick. The crooked man, with no Hallows’ spirit, will give you candy quick.”
I approached the little goblin as he held the sack to me and Donnie. Inside, instead of popcorn balls, was a great bundling of eggs.
We knew what we had to do.
-----
One by one, we flung the eggs, as they splat against the old man’s place. The blinds began to crease and fold, and we could see the squinting, beady eyes of the geezer peer through.
Then he stepped out onto the porch, clicking his tongue as he did.
“You gotta do better than that,” he hollered. Again, he crossed his arms across his frail chest.
Not seconds later did the contents of the eggs along the house and yard — far greener than yolks should be — spring up and out and began to cling to the man, pointy ears and jagged, yellow teeth protruding as he began to holler once again, though this time not at Donnie nor myself but, instead, at the little bodies that crawled up and down his. The man stumbled back into the house as high-pitched, snickering laughter echoed from the doorway until the wooden door slammed shut with a loud CLACK!
Donnie, a dark stain growing across the front of his black pants, turned to me with a pale face. Mine must’ve been as green as my mask.
“Well, boyos,” the little imp said, hosting the culda sack onto his back, “I must be off, as you and your handsome mask can see… that whatever may be a trick to you is but a merry treat for me.”
Category:HWC23
Category:Halloween
Category:Monsters
Category:MakRalston