The Cat, the Crow, and the Cauldron: A Halloween Anthology Read online

  The Cat, the Crow, and the Cauldron:

  A Halloween Anthology

  Featuring:

  Joe DeRouen

  Celia Kennedy

  Zeecé Lugo

  Angie Martin

  Heather Osborne

  Leonie Rogers

  CJ Rutherford

  Jada Ryker

  and

  Jalpa Williby

  Good Fortune—Copyright © 2015 Joe DeRouen; All Rights Reserved.

  Nothing Scares Me—Copyright © 2015 Celia Kennedy; All Rights Reserved.

  Five Stories Up—Copyright © 2015 Zeecé Lugo; All Rights Reserved.

  Sold—Copyright © 2015 Angie Martin; All Rights Reserved.

  Will You Remember Me?—Copyright © 2015 Heather Osborne; All Rights Reserved.

  Roast Pumpkin—Copyright © 2015 Leonie Rogers; All Rights Reserved.

  Treaters—Copyright © 2015 CJ Rutherford; All Rights Reserved.

  Dead Eye—Copyright © 2015 Jada Ryker; All Rights Reserved.

  The Beauty and the Beast—Copyright © 2015 Jalpa Williby; All Rights Reserved.

  Authors retain all necessary rights to their stories, and are free to publish them in other anthologies.

  Table of Contents

  Good Fortune by Joe DeRouen

  Nothing Scares Me by Celia Kennedy

  Five Stories Up by Zeecé Lugo

  Sold by Angie Martin

  Will You Remember Me? by Heather Osborne

  Roast Pumpkin by Leonie Rogers

  Treaters by CJ Rutherford

  Dead Eye by Jada Ryker

  Beauty and the Beast by Jalpa Williby

  Good Fortune

  Joe DeRouen

  Grimsley Harkness sat alone at his dining room table with a fifty-two-year-old bottle of Glenfiddich scotch, carefully cutting open packets of fortune cookies and pulling out the little fortunes that lay hidden inside. Sometimes a cookie would break as he tried to wheedle out the pieces of paper, but that was okay. These he would throw into the wastebasket that he placed beside the table for just this occasion. He had a near-infinite supply of fortune cookies, so a few broken ones here and there wouldn’t change a thing.

  Harkness wasn’t a brilliant man, but he was a cunning one. It was that instinct, his ability to identify opportunities and seize them by the throat, which led to White Owl Fortune Cookies becoming the largest fortune cookie factory in the country. However, as cunning as he was, he was just as cheap.

  Every Halloween, he gave out fortune cookies. One to each child, and one only. The children never appreciated his generosity, and most November the Firsts he awoke to find the huge maple tree outside his house covered in toilet paper, or nasty messages scrawled in shoe polish on his car windows.

  This Halloween would be different, very different, indeed, and if the entire neighborhood were to get together and burn down his house, well, more power to them.

  Harkness now had exactly 200 fortuneless fortune cookies piled on the table before him, and so it was time to begin phase two. He opened up a ream of copy paper he’d purchased from Wal-Mart on clearance, and began cutting the pages into tiny strips the size of the now-discarded fortunes.

  He was nothing if not methodical. He waited until he had cut all 200 identical strips from the sheets of paper before, in a spidery hand, he began writing on them. He wrote a fortune, set it aside, and took another drink of the scotch his board members had given him for Christmas last year.

  To think last night he sat at this very same table, tears coursing down his face, his .357 Magnum shoved in his mouth, finger tightening on the trigger. It was then that he’d had this idea, his one last chance to get back at all those little shits who came begging for treats each and every year, and then, unsatisfied with their bounty, vandalized his house. Oh, he’d still kill himself, there was no doubt about that, but at least this way he’d go out with a different kind of bang.

  Harkness looked down at his first attempt:

  You will break your arm.

  Not bad, he thought, but surely I can be a little more inventive than that. He wrote out each fortune with care, cackling gleefully at his wit as he read some of the best ones back to himself.

  You were adopted.

  Your parents hate you.

  Daddy’s sleeping with the babysitter.

  You will never be loved.

  A monster lives under your bed.

  You’ll poke your eye out.

  Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.

  If you touch yourself, you’ll go blind.

  Your dog will be run over.

  You’ll choke on candy.

  Your father will lose his job.

  These will be the last words you’ll ever read.

  Two hours later, his hand cramping, he had finally finished writing all 200 fortunes. He sat back for a moment, proudly taking in his handiwork. He still had to slide the fortunes into the cookies, of course, but he’d always felt a man should pause now and then to examine all he had accomplished.

  It was then the phone rang. Harkness looked at the caller ID. It was that bitch from the board again, Betty Newsom. He decided to ignore the call, just as he’d ignored all the others for the past two days. He regretted ever taking the damned company public. What had seemed like a good idea at the time was now coming back to haunt him.

  Three days ago, the comptroller of his company had embezzled ninety percent of the company’s assets and fled the country. When word got out, the stock prices had plummeted, essentially making the company worthless. White Owl Fortune Cookies, Inc., the once-tiny business he’d inherited from his father, had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist.

  Yet, he couldn’t think about that now. He took a deep breath, followed by another shot of his single malt scotch, and got back to work. Thirty minutes later, it was done. All of the cookies had their new fortunes tucked safely inside. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the first of what would hopefully be many young visitors to darken his doorstep.

  Harkness carefully placed each cookie back into its plastic wrapper, sealing the plastic with a bit of hot glue. He waited a moment and then tested one. You could hardly tell it had been opened at all, and he doubted the children would look twice before ripping off the plastic and cracking open the cookie to get at the fortune inside.

  He looked at the bottle of scotch, noting he’d managed to down half the bottle. But what did that matter? He had no one to share it with. He and Marjorie had never had children, and she’d died nearly ten years ago.

  “To Marjorie,” he whispered, holding the bottle aloft in a toast before taking another long drink.

  ***

  Harkness stood anxiously by the front door, watching through the small window set into the frame as the sun slowly set over his little neighborhood. The first trick-or-treaters should be showing up soon. He had long since drained the bottle of Glenfiddich, but was still feeling a warm, pleasant buzz, which only heightened his glee at the prospect of the little bastards reading their fortunes.

  There! Hand on the door handle, he stared through the window as a black couple approached with a little boy dressed as a pirate. The boy looked to be six or seven. Harkness grabbed the plastic laundry basket he’d used to gather up all the cookies and flung open the door.

  “Happy Halloween!” he yelled, a little too enthusiastically.

  The child jumped back against his mother, who tousled his hair.
That’s what was wrong with kids today, he thought, always being coddled. In his day, parents didn’t go trick or treating with their children.

  “Twick-or-tweet,” the child said with a lisp, holding out a plastic bucket that was shaped like a pumpkin.

  Harkness withdrew one of the fortune cookies from his basket and dropped it into the kid’s bucket. He watched as it landed on a Hershey bar and slid behind a miniature bag of Skittles.

  It went like that for the next two hours until, one by one, he had given out all of the cookies. Harkness breathed a sigh of relief as he flicked off the porch light, the universal sign for “We’re all out of candy.”

  He was almost sad it was over, and that he hadn’t made more. He wished he could stick around to see the reaction of his neighbors once their little snots read the fortunes, but he had a date with his handgun. He imagined it would be quite the scandal. Man Hands out Doctored Fortune Cookies, Commits Suicide, would read the local newspaper. He chuckled at the thought.

  He walked back to the dining table, where his .357 still sat, beside the empty bottle of scotch. Opening the chamber, he once again checked the bullets. They were still there, of course. Where would they have gone? Shaking his head, he took one last look around his house before shoving the muzzle of the gun into his mouth.

  The doorbell rang, startling him, and he nearly pulled the trigger. His heart pounding, he slipped the gun from his mouth. The room around him grew dark for a moment as he stood up, and he briefly wondered if he might be dead, after all. But no: that accursed doorbell rang again, followed by pounding on the door.

  “I’m all out of cookies!” he yelled, stumbling toward the front of the house.

  Peering through the window, he saw it was a skinny, red-headed boy who was maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. He thought the boy might live in the two-story ranch house opposite his, but wasn’t sure.

  “Open up, old man!” yelled the boy, pounding his fists on the door once again.

  Harkness opened the door just a crack. Before he could say anything, however, the teenager pushed hard against the door. The frame caught Harkness in the nose, immediately bloodying it.

  “I’ll call the police, that’s what I’ll do!” Harkness threatened, wishing he hadn’t left his gun on the dining table.

  “You hurt my little brother!” shouted the boy. “You broke his arm. Why did you do that? How did you do that?”

  Harkness stared at the boy. “What do you mean?”

  “As soon as he got home, he opened that stupid fortune cookie you gave him. And then he tripped against the fireplace and broke his arm. I looked at the fortune after my mom took him to the hospital. It said, ‘You will break your arm.’ How did you know?”

  Harkness almost smiled, but stopped himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, young man.”

  It was just a coincidence. It had to be, didn’t it? The kid read the fortune, got scared, tripped, and broke his arm. A self-fulfilling prophecy! It made perfect sense.

  “You gave him the cookie.”

  “I seriously doubt the factory they came from would have included a fortune like the one you described, boy.”

  “My name isn’t ‘boy,’ old man. It’s Jeffrey. Jeffrey Newton. We’ve lived across the street from you for five years.”

  “And my name isn’t ‘old man,’” he countered. “It’s Mr. Harkness, and I’ll thank you to leave my home right now before I call the police.”

  “I’ll go,” Jeffrey said, “but I’m keeping an eye on you, Mr. Harkness. There better not be any other accidents in my neighborhood.”

  With that, the boy turned and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him. He was gone just as quickly as he’d shown up.

  The audacity! To come into his home, accuse him of such crimes, and slam the door on his way out. What was the world coming to? And then Harkness had to suppress a giggle at the thought of Jeffrey’s little brother breaking his arm. What delicious irony. His fortune really had foretold the future, in its own way.

  The doorbell rang just as he was about to walk back to the dining room table and the handgun that awaited him. Opening the door, he half expected to see the boy again. Instead, a tall brunette woman stood on his doorstep. She didn’t look happy.

  “My name is Lizzie Drummond. Did you give this to my little boy?” she asked, holding out a small piece of paper.

  He took the piece of paper from her hand. It was one of his fortunes, the one that read, “Daddy’s sleeping with the babysitter.”

  “Madame, I assure you, I did not.”

  “How did you know?” she said, not acknowledging his response. “When Joshua showed it to my husband, he turned white as a sheet. I’d suspected, but the look on his face when he read that fortune pretty much confirmed it.”

  Harkness didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. He simply stood there, staring at her. What in the world was going on?

  “Anyway, while I do appreciate finally knowing the truth,” she continued, not even giving him time to respond, “I don’t appreciate you going through my son to do it. I want you to stay away from me and Josh, and if you don’t, well, what I’ll do to you will make what I’m about to do to my husband look tame by comparison.”

  With that, the woman turned around and walked across the street.

  Once could be a coincidence, but twice? He walked with purpose to the dining room table, ignoring the gun, and carefully slipped the fortune out of one of the cookies. Cutting off a slip of paper, he wrote the first thing he could think: “You will get flowers delivered to your door in the next thirty seconds.” He slipped it inside the empty cookie and waited.

  This was insane. He knew it wouldn’t work, but quickly broke the cookie in half, removed the fortune, and read it out loud. He looked at his watch, counting down the seconds. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

  The doorbell rang, and he nearly leapt out of his chair. His heart beating wildly in his chest, he hurried to the door and flung it open. It was a florist, and he had a bouquet of black lilies in his arms.

  “Hello, sir. I have a delivery for Mr. Grimsley Harkness,” the young man said, holding out the flowers. “I’m sorry it’s so late. Normally we don’t make deliveries at this hour, but my truck broke down.”

  Harkness stared at the flowers. The fortune had worked, but who would send him black lilies? He grabbed the bouquet, not bothering to tip the delivery man, and took it back to his dining table. There was no card attached, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter who sent the flowers, because his fortunes were coming true.

  He cut another fortune-sized piece of paper from the sheet, and carefully wrote, “You will reach in your pocket and find a legally-valid cashier’s check made out in your name for $100,000,000. You will also live forever, being healthy and disease-free, and you will meet the most beautiful woman in the world, who will fall head-over-heels in love with you.” His hands were cramping by the time he was finished, having managed to fit the entire fortune on that tiny strip of paper. He read it over again, confirming that he had covered all the bases and left no margin for error.

  Harkness removed the fortune from one of the leftover cookies and inserted the one he had just written in its place, and then sealed it back into its plastic. He was about to crack it open when someone began banging on his front door. Another angry parent? He was determined to ignore it when he heard Jeffrey’s voice calling out.

  “Open up, Mr. Harkness! I know you’re in there. We need to talk.”

  He sighed, sitting the cookie beside the handgun. He was curious to know what the boy wanted, and besides, what could happen? The world was his for the taking. He pushed himself up from the table and walked back to the door.

  “It’s happening all over the neighborhood,” said Jeffrey, pushing inside the moment that Harkness opened the door. “Jordan Kessler somehow managed to poke her eye out with a Pixie stick, Jake Monahan’s dog got run over, and Chase Weaver choked and almost died on a Tootsie Roll, just like the
ir fortunes said would happen.”

  Harkness wanted to jump with glee, but instead he said, “That’s preposterous, boy! It’s all just coincidence. Now get out of here before I call the police.”

  Jeffrey folded his arms and stared straight into the older man’s eyes. “Go right ahead. I’d love to hear what they’d think about all of this.” He opened his palm, revealing a handful of fortunes he’d evidently collected from the neighborhood children.

  The old man held the boy’s gaze for nearly half a minute before looking away. He finally asked, “What do you want?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jeffrey.

  “What do you want to not tell anyone about this? Everyone wants something. What do you want?”

  Now that he wasn’t planning to kill himself, he couldn’t very well have people finding out what he’d done. He had an idea on how to fix this, if he could just get the kid to go for the bait.

  “I want my brother’s arm to not be broken. I want Jordan not to be half-blind, and I want Chase’s dog to be alive again. How’s that?”

  “I will do all of that,” Harkness lied, “but what do you want for yourself?”

  “I want you to promise never to do this, ever again.”

  “Tell you what, why don’t I surprise you? Follow me.”

  Harkness walked to the dining table, gesturing for the boy to take a seat. Jeffrey stared for a moment at the gun, finally pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite Harkness.

  Grimsley Harkness grabbed another fortune cookie, removed the plastic, and maneuvered the old fortune out from inside. He tossed it aside without looking at it, and then cut on a strip of paper and began to write. When he was done, he sealed the cookie back in its plastic wrapper and sat it in front of Jeffrey.