A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre: Halloween Is Going to Be Jealous by ed. Shane McKenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

Henry has full, rounded cheeks, covered in a rough fur of stubble, and it’s Easter so Sally immediately thinks of bunnies—not rats the way she had the night before. Had she warmer feelings toward him, she might feel grateful to have an uncle Easter Bunny. Only Henry doesn’t look like the dapper, well-groomed Peter Rabbit from her storybook; he looks like a sickly and mean cousin to that magical creature.
    “Sally,” her mother barks, “you get on out of here. I don’t want you getting muck on your dress. You go on up to your room until it’s time for church.”
    “Don’t badger the girl, Millie,” Uncle Henry says, sounding uncommonly protective.
    “Mind your business,” Aunt Sheila snaps at her husband.
    Sally doesn’t move. Leaving the kitchen means passing by Uncle Henry, and Sally doesn’t want to get near the man.
    Impatient, her mother says, “You go on, now. I won’t tolerate a disobedient child. Go on.”
    Sally turns and encounters her Uncle’s sick-bunny eyes. He smiles at her and shrugs as if to say , I tried . She lowers her head, focuses on the light playing off the toes of her black shoes, and hurries out of the too-hot room. Her mother’s voice is trailing after her: “And don’t forget your basket. You won’t get many eggs if you don’t have your basket.”
    She trudges through the house, avoiding the screeching, silliness, and roughhousing of her cousins. In her room, she closes the door and sits on the edge of the bed, wishing the holiday were over so the family would go away—so Henry would go away.
    ERIC AND MARY WERE at the sunrise service held in St David’s Lutheran Church. Even if she hadn’t been charged with decorating the eggs, Sally wouldn’t have joined them. She hadn’t been to church in thirty years, not even for her wedding. Another point she refused to discuss with Eric, or anyone else.
    She was glad her daughter enjoyed it, though.
    Sally’s faith had never been allowed to fully form before it had been broken. Sometimes, she regretted her belief in religion’s impossibility. The comfort. The hope. To shed life and rise into glory. To one day know the grand plan, to feel swaddled in its calculation and reason. It would be amazing to believe that everything had a purpose, and the guiding force of all things was a being of good. Wonderful. Sally so wished she could look forward to such a revelation. But she couldn’t. Life was life. Death was death.
    Her family would be gone until ten-thirty, and then Eric would bring their daughter home to begin the hunt for the things Sally had been charged with hiding: the plastic egg holding the silver bracelet and most of the eggs Sally had decorated that morning.
    Most of them.
    She drank from her coffee and opened the fridge and knelt down to open the crisper. There, the decorated eggs rested on a white cloth like vivid tumors. Sneering at the display, Sally placed her coffee cup on the counter and reached in for the fabric nest. Her hands shook, and she closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.
    Once the eggs were on the counter, Sally transferred them to a wicker basket she had filled with green plastic confetti. Mary would use the same basket to gather the colorful atrocities later that morning. Joyful and ignorant of the ritual’s meaning, her daughter would push aside leaves and crouch behind stones…
    Such a lovely, ghunt .
    “Don’t,” Sally whispered, choking back a sob.
    All she had to do was get through the next ten minutes. Hide the eggs and come back inside. She didn’t have to watch Mary. Didn’t have to watch the…
    Ghunt .
    SALLY SITS ON HER bed. Uncle Henry fills the doorway. Though not tall, he is an adult and built wide, so he looks like a wall erected between her and the rest of the house. He holds a sugar cookie out to her, but she shakes her head.
    “You look pretty,” Uncle Henry says, bouncing the cookie in the air like he’s trying to lure a dog inside. “Why you have to look so