Billy had just stepped on the porch of the abandoned house and put his face to the window when he noticed the eyes peering through the glass at him.
Billy McFadden shit his pants.
His friends called him McFatty or McFat-Ass. He was only kind of chubby, but that’s what friends are for. It was Halloween, and he along with the others had accepted the challenge: go up to the old Farnsworth house and simply look into the window. That was it. That was enough.
Billy ran from the window, tripping over a slightly detached board on the rickety porch -- causing the shit to really smoosh down his pants and be flung out his left pant leg onto his friends as he frantically ran by. They would have been howling with laughter had they not been splattered with Billy’s pungent poo-juice, but instead they were just standing there, staring at each other in disbelief at what just happened.
“Holy shit!” Barry yelled, slinging the smelly slop off his shoes.
“It aint holy!” exclaimed James as he gagged from the smell.
“That lard-ass is going to pay for this!” Ed sputtered, having gotten a splash on his face.
“I’m going the hell home,” said Barry as he wiped his hands on the unkempt lawn’s grass.
“You can’t,” said Ed. “We all have to do it. Can’t chicken out -- not now. Ole McFat-Ass would win.”
The others, accepting this reasoning, would now one by one approach the window. They had no idea Billy actually saw something. Ed was the first to go. In a huff, he quickly walked up the three steps of the porch, stepped over the now even more displaced board and stared into the window. His breath slightly fogged up the glass, so he wiped it away with his shit-stained sleeve which left a thin, crescent-shaped smelly smear.
This time there were no eyes. Instead, a pair of huge hands crashed through the glass and grabbed Ed by the ears and stripped him off his feet into the house.
“That’s it. I’m out!” screamed Barry, running down the street toward his home.
James stood there -- stood there frozen -- and looked at the broken window.
“I’ve got to help Ed,” he almost whispered to himself. His words seemed to hang in the chill air as he slowly walked across the scruffy lawn of the old Farnsworth house. In the silence of the night, he heard nothing save for his footsteps on the sparce, crunchy, dead grass as he neared the porch. No screams, no cries for help -- only silence.
James stopped just shy of the first step and listened. Still no sounds coming from inside the house. It seemed worse hearing nothing it seemed so final. He took the first step and stopped again. It was late, he thought, trick or treat ended hours ago. No one would have come here, especially to go inside and just wait. He took the next two steps. He was now on the porch, stopping again just in front of the wonky board. Still silence. He carefully stepped over the board and approached the window, making sure to not get too close. He looked into the dark living room and saw nothing. He had to find Ed, he thought, fight the fear and just find Ed. James slowly stepped through the broken bay window and took a better look.
It was in the corner.
He saw it.
James saw two huge hands resting on the floor. They were connected to two spindly arms, like pipe-cleaners. And they were connected to a beachball-like body. There was no neck, just a bald, fat, round head with tiny ears and round eyes and a small oval of a mouth. It was just looking at him like a spider does. If James hadn’t seen what it did -- knew what it could do, he would have almost laughed at its comical shape.
No sign of Ed. James started to back out of the window and the thing stood up. It had very long legs -- too long. And they were just as spindly as the arms. James was surprised the body could even support the weight of those enormous hands, let alone wield them so quickly and violently as it had.
“Can you speak?” James stammered as he straddled the window frame. It said nothing. It just stared.
James then noticed a slight movement at the entrance to the living room. A huge shape moved away from the opening, and what had been complete darkness at that entrance was now only dim shadow. The mammoth shape approached the almost comical figure in the corner and picked it up, cradling it like a baby. The kid hadn’t snatched Ed, it was the freak’s mother, James thought. He edged his body a little more through the window. She had taken Ed further into the house and done something horrible to him. She was protecting it -- the baby.
James had never moved more slowly as he smoothly and nonthreateningly slid his body all the way through the window. The mother and child simply watched, both with those spider-like stares.
James was finally back out on the porch. A breeze was blowing and he noticed it had gotten colder. The nervous sweat on the back of his neck felt like a thin sheet of ice. The mother shifted the baby to one arm and slowly, cautiously, reached out with the other from where she stood at the back of living room and gently closed the curtains one side at a time.
Why did the mother not snatch him James wondered as he dashed from the porch, crazy-stumbling over the jutting board and almost wiping out face-first on the steps. It must be because I didn’t frighten the creepy thing, he thought as he ran down the street. Had it freaked out, I would be dead. Ed was pissed, that’s why he got…
James stopped that line of thought. Ed’s fine, he reassured himself, just stuffed away somewhere in the house, probably in some kind of time-out. That huge thing is a mother after all, she wouldn’t have killed him. James stopped running and looked back. It didn’t feel so cold now even though he could easily see his breath. The street was deserted no lights were on in the houses. He could faintly smell the woody smoke from someone’s fireplace. Did the others just go home and forget it all? he asked himself. Surely someone told their parents and they called the cops. It’s been enough time for someone to show up.
James briefly entertained the idea of going to one of the houses and getting help, but who, he thought, would believe this? All that would happen, he decided, is he would probably get arrested, possibly for murder. He finally said it to himself -- murder. No, he would have to go back alone. He had to get Ed. They had been in enough trouble in the past with the police anyway, no need to get them involved. They surely would arrest him after they found Ed…
James started running in the direction of the house. “To hell with that thing and its messed-up freak baby,” he muttered aloud, mustering up courage as he neared the house.
When James reached the porch, he approached the window without fear this time. He stepped through into the dark room and looked around.
He saw Ed.
He was in the corner.
Ed was sitting with his legs folded up, his arms around his knees, slowly rocking back and forth.
“Ed!” James yelled, “You’re OK!”
Ed didn’t respond, he just continued slowly rocking back and forth, staring at the floor.
“Ed?” James said as he skidded on his knees up to him, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
James quickly looked around, no sign of the freak family. “Let’s get you out of here, buddy. C’mon, stand up, Ed. That’s it, let’s go home.”
With James’ help, Ed slowly stood. He walked unsteadily, like he had just gotten out of the dentist after having wisdom teeth pulled. James kept his arm around Ed’s waist to steady him, tightly gripping his belt in case Ed collapsed. This time James used the door to leave. When they got to the edge of the porch, there stood the freak baby on the lawn. It reached out its huge hands as if for James to give back its play toy. James instinctively shook his head and said, “Not yours. Mine.” The freak baby held out its hands even more insistently, and its small, oval of a mouth widened and an almost imperceptible, high-pitched whine emanated from its throat.
James quickly glanced back at the doorway to make sure the mother was not sneaking up on them. When he turned his head back, he saw the freak baby slowly, unsteadily, walking toward him. James sat Ed on the steps and wrenched the loose board from the porch and swung it back and forth to keep the freak baby away. It seemed to not know how to negotiate itself past the swinging board and in frustration began whining louder and louder, surely alerting its mother.
James knew he couldn’t fight her, so he struck the freak baby’s enormous hands with the board, dropped it and hoisted Ed over his shoulder. He ran past the freak baby and reached the edge of the lawn when an even more gigantic set of hands grabbed him by the shoulders. He dropped Ed as the mother spun him around and looked him in the eye. She then looked at Ed. It was as if she suddenly understood that Ed belonged to James. His play toy. She let go of James and walked to her baby. She swatted the thing on its spindly thighs and hoisted it over her shoulder and went back inside, gently closing the door behind her. James stood for a few moments just breathing, staring at the house. Suddenly, he picked up Ed and put him in a fireman’s carry and began walking toward Ed’s home. After about twenty yards, James had to put Ed down and rest.
As James resumed carrying Ed home, he heard something coming up behind them. Startled, he turned to look. It was only Billy and Barry. They hurried up to James and Ed.
“Is he OK?” asked Billy.
“Surprised to see you here, McShitty-pants,” James sneered as he knighted Billy with his new moniker.
“I had to go home and clean up, give me a break, asshole,” Billy said.
“I got scared,” Barry admitted sheepishly, “I bailed, man. Sorry. But I came back,” he said, looking for some kind of forgiveness.
“No blame man, we just have to get Ed home,” James said looking at both of them.
They got Ed home and James explained everything to his parents. His mom and dad took Ed to the E.R. and from there he never went back home. Ed never spoke again after that night. First it was to the regular hospital, then extended care, and finally to an institution. Before Ed committed suicide, James, Barry and Billy only got to visit him once. During their visit, Ed just sat and stared at the floor. He was curled up in the corner the way James had found him in the old Farnsworth house, gently rocking back and forth. James couldn’t help but notice Ed’s spider-like gaze.
The old Farnsworth house was bulldozed over soon after it had been extensively searched. The only odd thing they found was a tunnel dug in the basement that connected to a cave. It turned out just to be a makeshift air-conditioning system the original owner had made. The authorities never really believed James, Barry and Billy’s story, but the city did have the hole filled in with concrete and a steel plate put over it. And that was that. The city just turned the plot into an easement. James called the spot Ed Park.
James visited Ed Park often, usually at night. The visits became fewer when he found a job after high school as a part-time line cook in an all-night diner over in the next town. Even less when he got full-time, got married and moved there, but he always made it back on Halloween.
About John D. Connelley: John D. Connelley writes horror stories late at night while drinking coffee.
