The Disappearer
by Consatnce Gelvin

Back then: it was the autumn-time when fog smothered Hollow Falls, when leaves crunched underfoot; the time of the wild flowers' wilt and dryness.  It was the colding time when bitter winds stung his eyes causing tears to stream down his cheeks.  He liked fall best, though school-going pained him.  The school kids taunted him for saying Halloween was better'n Christmas.

That he'd been born the day of the first frost, fifteen years earlier was all he knew of his birthing.  He couldn't remember his mother, had never seen her picture; his father forbade him to ask after her.

He'd forced himself to go to school that day.  After his long walk, he felt flushed and sleepy in the overheated classrooms.

Paul Stolns grabbed him when he walked by.  "Hey, Win-nie, your old man say you can come?  Won't be much of a party less'n you're there."

Tiny Thompson made a funny sound like he was choking on his own tongue; his shoulders shook.   Winnie--how he hated the girly nickname--couldn't tell if Tiny was laughing or crying.  He could never tell exactly what they were saying to him, or what he should say back.  Paul scowled and elbowed Tiny in the ribs.

"Well, might could sneak on over..."  Sneak over, if they only knew the truth he was telling.  "...and stop by your place for a spell."

"Wear a costume and--"

"We're going tricks 'r treating?"

Tiny snorted, but changed it into a cough when Paul glared at him.

"Nah.  But what's Halloween without costumes?  Right, Tiny?"

"Right, Paul."

He couldn't believe his good luck.  And here he'd thought they didn't like him.

Lurking in the alley ways
of your neighborhood,
Dis-appear-er will getcha
if you're not good.

How many kids will he get?
One, two, three, four, five...

(Hollow Falls' jump rope chant)

Twelve years later:  Fall-time again, and the excited feelings grew, danced in him.  Though he'd vowed that last time would truly be his last, he knew he couldn't stop.  For he'd seen her.  The next one.

For now he was The Disappearer, but nobody knew it.  He'd whisper it to himself, when he was busy being invisible.  Funny, he thought, you always read how friendly small towns are, how everyone knows everyone else's business.  He smiled.

"Your Mom gonna let you go trick or treating?"  Fonda Kay asked.

Jody squinted into the distance.  "She's thinking about it.  My Dad said to let us go, called her a nervous Nellie.  Yours?"

Fonda Kay stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk, and the clasp on her rusty lunch box popped open, scattering bread crusts.  Think of this ole lunch box as an antique, her mamma had told her.  I was so prideful when your Grandmamma Jones bought it for me, blah, blah, blah.  Fonda Kay glanced at Jody's insulated Soup'r Sak, then squatted, grabbed her box.  "She don't care one way or the other, except she gets riled when I start talking about costumes.  No way I wanna be a ghost again this year."  Fonda Kay's cheeks reddened remembering how she'd been teased because of the stains on last year's sheet.  Good enough for a damn costume, her mamma'd said.  Jody'd worn a store-bought costume of shimmery cloth. and a tiara like Miss America's.

"Mama said the PTO's thinkin' of banning trick or treating," Jody said.

"Say what?  You can't ban trick or treating--"

"That's what Dad said.  Said we shouldn't let whoever took Brittany decide what we can and can't do.  Said he was man enough to protect his kids. Said it might'a been purely co-in, coinci--"

"Coincidental."  Fonda Kay looked toward the ramshackle cottage she called home, wondering if she'd see her mamma asleep on the porch swing, whiskey cushioning the broken slats.  Or the welcome sight of their pickup being gone, though that meant there'd be hell to pay later.  All quiet.  She breathed deeply.  For courage.  For in her mind's eye she'd been imagining herself all decked out..."I been meaning to ask you.  Uh, since you get a new costume every year and all..."

It was about this time last year, he remembered, when it hit the news.  The uppity people in this town oughta thank me for making everbody famous.  Slim Sanders down to the gas station even got himself interviewed for the Jessie Savage Show.  And now this outlawing tricks 'r treating nonsense, like that would matter.  All 'cause that Brittany brat thought she was so much better'n me.  The memory of how he'd yanked the tail of her fancy schmanzy kitty cat costume sent a shivery tingle through him, like it always did.  "Do you mind?"  She'd asked all hoity toity then, "The Tamblyns are waiting for me to go trick or treating.  They'll be mad when I tell 'em you..."  Odd how it took a little rich bitch to disappear before they took notice.  And here Reebie'd been ever bit her equal.  At the thought of Reebie he felt something he thought must be akin to sadness, though he couldn't say for sure.

(Rough draft of an article for Memphis Today's 'Tennessee Talk' column by Deborah Devers:)

Hollow Falls was the town time forgot.  But now, resuscitated by tourist traffic, it boasts an old hotel gentrified into a bed and breakfast, the Falls Home-style Café that sports new awnings and tubs of geraniums, and a Brew-ha-ha that serves steaming espressos. But, like jaded Hollywood celebrities, Falls' denizens seem shellshocked by what they refer to as: The Media.  The small village has been deluged with reporters, television crews, tabloid investigators, and the merely curious to see The Town That Wants to Ban Trick or Treating.

Two Halloweens ago Reebie Taylor, referred to as variously:  "a newcomer," "an outsider," and "trailer trash" was last seen with "an adult-sized person in a scarecrow costume and pantyhose mask.  Talk swirled up," according to farmer Jeremiah "Bullfrog" Epps, "when, not more 'n six months later, her Daddy up and put a bullet through his head.  Couldn't help but wonder if he done himself in because of guilt or something.  Maybe he was molesting her or some such.  But then one year later on All Hallow's Eve when Brittany Brewington gone missing, then people started wondering exactly what was goin' on around Holler Falls."

So Priscilla "Cilla" Lacey-Farmer, a transplanted Texan, mother of three, and a "stay-at-home Mom and proud of it" decided to...

Cilla Farmer (no one called her Lacey-Farmer except her husband, and the second grade teacher rumored to be a feminist) flung herself on her couch, kicked off a loafer that skidded across her coffee table knocking over the wedding photo of her and Gregory who everybody else called Skeeter.  Jody glanced at her nervously.  Ever since Cilla took over the Stop Trick or Treating thing, she'd seemed...different...kind of like the moms on t.v.

"Baby Girl, what a day I've had."

Funny, Jody'd always wanted a New Yorky-type television mom until she got one.  The old Mom would have asked about her day.

"I got ten signatures, but it was like pulling teeth.  You know, the Herald said that with both Brittany and that little Rhea, Reeba--what?  Reebie, right.  Anyway, the article said it had to have been somebody the girls trusted.  Which means someone around here--"

"Mo...o...m.  You told me. Don't trust anybody.  Fonda Kay's Mom told her the girls were prob'ly sold into white slavery.  What's--"

"Karen Franklin's talking trash; she was probably dr--.  Don't you pay any nevermind to anything that woman says.  And if you keep listening to her, I'm going to ban not only trick or treating, but Little Miss Fonda Kay Frank--"

"That's not fair!"  Jody noticed the far-away look in her mother's eyes, like she was watching a movie only she can see.

"Just knowing it could be somebody I talk to, or sing with at church, or...it really makes me notice how strange some of the people around here are.  When I asked Taylor Smits to sign the petition, he acted like he'd never heard of it--now how is that possible?  Then I decided to kill two birds with one stone, so at the Holler Stop I asked Merwyn to sign, and he mumbled something about how he 'don't have no offspring' like you have to be a parent to object to the town's kids being abducted or w-worse.  I swear, sometimes I wonder how I didn't go stark raving crazy the day your father brought me to this backward hole..." Full of the ignorant, the unwashed, and the uncouth, Jody finished mentally for her.  She was relieved; this was the Mom she knew.

The man behind the counter cleared his throat.  "So you gonna brave the big, bad Halloween boogie man--The Disappearer guy--and go tricks 'r treating?"

Fonda Kay stopped cold.  She couldn't believe he was talking to her.  He'd never said more than five words to her all the times she'd been at the Holler Stop.

"Don't know.  My Mom don't care if I do.  But the PTO Carnival don't sound like much fun.  There'll be booths in the gym, and a spooky house set up in the boys' locker room, but what I like about Halloween is going outside, seeing all the jack o' lanterns glowing in the windows and..."

For a while now he'd noticed how pretty she was getting.  How her legs weren't so coltish-looking anymore; how her hair had grown out from the "butcher job"--as she'd described it to her smart aleck friend--and now waved thick to her shoulders.  "I liked it when folks'd dress in costumes when they'd give you their treats.  But I wouldn't never take those little boxes of raisins some--"

She tossed her head back and whinnied a laugh.  "Me neither.  My friend Jody's Mom gives out raisins, and only lets her kids have one piece of candy a day.  Says they get too much of a sugar rush."

"That's no fun.  I used to rush home, and divvy up my haul into a pile of chocolate bars, one of suckers--"

"Me, too.  I didn't know anybody else did that."

"An indoor carnival just ain't the same.  It'll smell like old gym shoes in there..."

She laughed again, and his body thrummed at the sound.

"...instead of that fireplace smell from the leaf bonfires."

She looked at him for the first time, though she'd seen him almost daily after school.  Not bad looking, she thought, if he'd shave and stand up straight, maybe wear a tuxedo like the guys in movies did, which she and mamma just loved.  Not even serious old--twenties maybe--but too young for mamma.  Fonda Kay remembered what mamma always said:  Slim pickin's 'round these parts--before she'd drive to Memphis for "adult company."  "Maybe find you another stepdaddy, how would that strike you?"

"No, Mamma, we're doin' okay, just the two of us.  After Ray left, you said we didn't need any no-count guy loungin' around.  Remember?"  Fonda Kay's heartbeat picked up speed.  What if someone just like Ray lived with them?  What if he would try to...  "You said we don't need no help bein' poor; we can be poor on our own, remember?"

Mamma laughed.  "Who said anything about gettin' another Ray?  You can love a rich man good as a poor man, like Grandmamma Jones'd say."

"What you daydreamin' about, girl?"

Fonda Kay started.  "Sorry.  Nothing, just--"

"So what you gonna be for Halloween?  Even if you go to a stupid carnival you're gonna have to dress up.  Why, with your hair you could go as a movie star, Marilyn Mon-roe, or--"

"How 'bout a ghost in a nasty old sheet?  That's what I was last year, and the year before I found this Lone Ranger mask in a dumpster and wore it with a cowboy shirt.  My Mom don't have any truck with what she calls the lah-di-dah foolishness in my head."

He looked at her closely.  "Sody pop?"  He put one hand over the other to stop its trembling.

"Thanks, no.  Penny candy all's I got money for."

"My treat.  My Pa was kinda like that, too.  Wouldn't hardly talk to his customers when he ran the place.  Never wanted me to mix much with the town folk.  Always said they was makin' fun of us."  He grimaced, and looked over at the cans and maps and film and disposable cameras all jumbled together on the dusty shelves.  "Turns out he was right."  Careful, don't get her scared.  He'd scared Reebie, and that's why things turned out so bad.  Brittany'd made him mad, and that's why he'd had to...  Fonda Kay, what a pretty name, he'd taken to saying her name--sounded just like a poem, it did --to himself.

Fonda Kay shifted from foot to foot.  She took a tiny sip of her soda; looked bashful when her lips stuck to the top.

Quick, say something, don't let her go.  "My aunt, lived down by Naw-lins--crazy cajun she was, too--anyway, she left a passel of Mardi Gras costumes stored up to her lake place.  One of 'em I can just picture you in:  a butterfly.  It's one of those shiny little bathing suit-things ballet girls wear--"

"A leotard."

"A leo-tard, yeah.  What makes it so nice is its got these big shiny wings made with glittery fabric and...  "

Fonda Kay placed some saltines on a napkin beside her bowl of chicken noodle soup.  She poured water into a jam glass--she liked things pretty when she ate; soup didn't taste as good when you ate from the pan.  She turned the television way down low, and tried not to get all scary about being home alone.  The wind whoo...oo'ed around the corners of the house, scattering the thick carpet of leaves.  Earlier, she'd jumped in a pile, though Jody'd called her a little kid.

She jerked when she heard a door tha-wump!--just the storage shed, yes, that was it, nothing more.  But there's a man around, everybody says so, who takes little girls.  The Disappearer, they call him.  When she heard the name she always imagined a big eraser rubbing over someone and--whoosh--they were gone.  She shivered.  And mamma said he probably done wrong things to them.  Mamma looked like she was about to tune up and cry when she warned her not to ever, never, let a man touch her private areas unless he loved her truly.  When Fonda Kay heard that, she had to pitch herself so she wouldn't cry; she was afraid her mamma'd ask her why she was bawling.

She heard the Collins' mutt howling.  Who, what, was he barking at?  What if...no, stop, just stop it, she told herself.  Think about something happy, anything.  She closed her eyes and imagined herself sashaying into the carnival.  It'd get real quiet and everybody'd stop to look at her.  Maybe even Jennifer who'd told Jody her Mom said it'd be a "cold day in hell" before she'd let Jennifer play with "the likes of that Franklin girl."   Maybe the shiny rhinestones of the butterfly wings would glint off the lights, maybe people would think she'd been a princess all along and they hadn't known it.  She reached for the phone to call Jody, but remembered.  She couldn't tell anybody, so she could surprise 'em.  She'd promised, and besides, it was their special secret.

Tiny Thompson ignored him, and spoke into one of those new-fangled fold-up telephones.  "Say what?  No way.  Say you're kidding me.  No!  What?  Tell me you're--do you have any Polaroid 600 film?"

It was only when Tiny waved a ham-hock sized hand in the direction of the film and instant cameras that Merwyn realized he was talking to him.

"Look, I don't have time for this crap.  Ready by c-o-b   tomorrow.  Tomorrow."  He snapped the phone's sections together, looked over at him.  "Jesus, what was I thinking?  Like you'd have Polaroid film.  Duh."

"Mebbe one a these little disposer--uh, dispos--"

"Disposable?  Spit it out, Winnie, my man."

Tiny gave one shoulder a slap that set Merwyn's teeth rattling in his head.  Does Tiny even remember? he thought.  And if he does, does he care?  Merwyn felt a familiar shamed blush creep up his neck, onto his cheeks.

"So, Winnie, The Media," Tiny made a little squiggly motion with his index fingers, "interview you yet?  A real insider's look at the Halloween goin' on's?  We could tell the suckas some things, huh?  'Bout puttin' on a major Halloween blow-out?

He does remember, Merwyn thought.  A surge of hatred, sharp as an icicle, pierced him.

"Yeah, guess we rightly could."

"Say what?  Always were a mush mouth.  No offense.  Anyhoo, better make sure you have an alibi for the Big Night tomorrow, just in case another young 'un gets snatched, the Good Lord forbid.  When the cops interviewed me last year--they in-terro-gate you?  Yeah?  Miracle you ain't in the slammer."

He felt his knees go weak; he felt faint.  He knows, he thought, he...  Then he looked again at Tiny's jowly face, his flushed, drunk-looking grin.  Nah, he thinks he's funning me.

"Anyhoo, I'm goin' out, shake down some elk, first of the season, that'll be me.  The Old Lady's taking the kids to the carnival, but I said, "Screw that.  I need some 'alone time,' you believe that?  Alone time, I love it!  Anyhoo, like I was tellin' Skeeter: the po-lice, the media hotshots, think they can mosey in here and treat us like we're a buncha country bumpkins.  I, for one, don't think anything's gonna happen; whoever done this would hafta be a goddamned idiot to pull something again.  So I'm goin' to..."

A beautiful, terrible plan burst into his mind, fully formed and perfect in its simplicity.

Tiny rattled on and on, chortled at his own jokes, then bought a pack of gum and slapped down a buck with a, "Keep the change" like he was some big high roller.

Halloween Night, twelve years ago:  He'd hated to ruin his biggest pumpkin, but there was no way around it.  He'd cut out a big circle on the bottom and extra-big triangles for the eyes.  He slipped it over his head and his nostrils filled with the astringent smell of the pumpkin's stringy pulp.  This was such a good idea.  If he came as a jack 'o lantern he could just wear his regular clothes, plus, it'd be easy to hide the pumpkin down to the barn.

Pa just grunted, didn't even raise his head when he told him he was going to check on Old Heffie who'd been looking puny.  Merwyn ran to where the pumpkin was hidden, a funny, laughy feeling of happiness coursing through him.  His first party.  And Paul Stolns' at that.  Maybe there'd be girls there, maybe LisaJo Perry, maybe she'd even talk to him since, after all, he was at this party, he'd been invited and everything.

When he'd first walked in, he couldn't see too clear 'cause the eyes of the jack 'o lantern were big, but not big enough. Strange-lookin' costumes, was the first thought that popped into his mind.  He squinted through the triangles: why, everbody's wearin' the same thing--overalls and flannel shirts, with their hair greased into cowlicks.

Tiny had to tell him.  That's what he always remembered when he thought about that night; he hadn't even been able to figure it out himself.

"Hey, Winnie, you a jack o' lantern man?  Cool.  Hey, you like our costumes?

"Don't look much like costumes to me."  He removed the pumpkin to get a better look.

"You don't say?"  Tiny giggled like a girl, and a fine cloud of spittle sprayed over Merwyn's face.  "Well, they look like costumes to us.  We decided to come as you..."

He couldn't remember anything else that was said, or how he'd got home, or if Pa asked why he'd been so long down to the barn.  All he remembered was their faces, their mouths open, their laughter a roar.

Halloween Night:  The wind came up, howling down the pass, stripping the last leaves off the trees, picking up bits of gravel and dirt and flinging them in the faces of the townsfolk as they hurried to the carnival.  Jody wanted to wait for Fonda Kay, but she just had to check out the Fortune Teller booth.  Mrs. Skiffington was a gypsy with big hoop earrings, and a scarf over her hair and everything.

"Jason Lee!  I'm not going to tell you again.  Leave that crepe paper alone."  Cilla looked around happily at the bustle of the booths and the people.  It's come together real nice, she thought.  Her gaze darted to the door; that reporter had said he wanted to do a live remote, her first interview--imagine that.  Her, on t.v.

Tina Thompson hurried in wearing sunglasses, said she had an eye infection, couldn't take them off.  The bruise under her left eye pulsed, felt tender to the touch.  Why did she always have to go and make Tiny mad?  She should have known he couldn't be begged into coming tonight, even if T.J. wanted to race with him in the father/son three-legged race.  She vowed to try and think the way Tiny did, to anticipate his moods.

Merwyn heard the noise and the laughter pulsing from the school.  Hurry, he thought.  Hurry.  He had work to do.  He thought back, but his remembering didn't bring him any thrill, didn't warm his heart.  Even knowing that he'd had experiences that none of these smug bastards ever would, that he was special because of them and they didn't even know it, even that didn't help.

He only done it 'cause of The Plan, and it was only The Plan that gave him those tingly feelings, the ones he'd had before, with the other girls.  He hadn't wanted to see her face all screwed up, scared and crying, so he just snuck up from behind.  She'd been holding up the wings and ooh-ing and ah-ing, and she never knew what hit her.  From butterfly wings to angel wings, he thought, and that gave him comfort.

He went around Crocker's Forrest way, didn't see anybody, no trick or treaters out.  He smiled slightly.  Parents actually ended up makin' things easier for me, the fools.  No need for a costume, no need for nothing.  Panting from the weight of her, he was careful to walk under the trees' protective branches, to scurry into the shadows, to listen for the cars on the gravel road, to be unseen for, after all, he was The Disappearer.  Just like on that t.v. show he seen at his aunt's about the magic guy.  Now you see her, now you don't.  That was him.

He turned onto the curved driveway, saw the mailbox shaped like a cow, the big house--what had Tiny called it?--his trophy house, that was it.  The barn, never used--"I'm a gentleman farmer" Tiny would boast--swam in the solitary cone of light from the porch.

Gently, he propped her against the far wall, carefully tied the scarf around her neck to hide the bruises.  He couldn't look too long at her face, all swelled out and purple.  He'd wanted to dress her in the butterfly outfit, but couldn't, maybe somebody would remember his aunt and the costumes she'd had.  He'd wanted to touch her, imagine her alive, asking him to touch her.  But he didn't, it was different with this one.  He'd always noticed what a sad one she was.  Like he'd been.

"Falls' Business Owner Maintains Innocence" the Hollow Falls Herald headline read."Terrance 'Tiny' Thompson, 29, wept yesterday when he was arraigned for..."

Consatnce Gelvin has placed in several writing contests including: Arizona Authors League Short Story Contest, Writers West, MileHiCon 30, Garden State Horror Writers, and the 1998 and 1999 Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition. Her play: "Mental Health and Other Myths" was produced by Love Creek Productions in New York City the end of October. Her first novel No Reason to Lie will be published by Hard Shell Word Factory in 2001.