Halloween Decorations

It had been two months since Deputy Dani Bruce joined the Kendall County Sheriff’s Department. Dani, a woman had spent her entire life in law enforcement, had never expected to find herself in the least populated county in Maryland. Yet, she had managed to upset the right people in Baltimore City, leaving her limited employment options. She wasn’t happy to be living in the back end of nowhere, but at least she was still wearing a badge.

October was upon the Sheriff’s Department. It was a busy time, thanks to prank pulling teens and overbearing parents. Some local families were especially concerned during this season, as someone had hidden razor blades inside Reese’s cups last year. The culprit was never caught, and candy security was now a hot topic. The Sheriff, a tubby man with graying muttonchops, was holding a press conference regarding trick-or-treat safety. The other deputies were hard at work, confiscating and checking bags of fun sized chocolates at the local grocery store.

This left Dani alone in the Sheriff’s Department. She was more concerned with the report that sat open on her desk. A local metal band, Felines of Destruction, had mysteriously disappeared. The group was comprised of five members. They originated from Chestertown and were planning to play a gig in Philadelphia. Yet, they never made it. The group was last seen at a gas station on the outskirts of Kendall County. Their tour bus was found near the Delaware state line, yet the musicians were not inside. They had abandoned their expensive equipment and the vehicle they had sunk their live savings into, which did not make sense to Dani. However, there were no signs of foul play.

Dani sipped her coffee, pushing the long strands of dark hair from her eyes. Those eyes were brown and kind, far softer than one would normally find in a police officer. She flicked through the pages of the band members. There was Persian, the lead singer, who had a massive head of hair that had been dyed bright white. He was joined by a guitarist, a gangly woman with a face full of metal. Other photographs included the bassist and drummer, identical twin brothers who weighed at least three hundred pounds each. The final member was the keyboardist, a tattooed woman with a shaved head. Dani couldn’t suppress a smile at their official band poster, where the whole group posed as cats in front of a wall of fire.

The bell on the door of the Sheriff’s Department clanged. Dani looked up from her desk, surprised to see Sheryl MacDonald. Sheryl was the gorgeous redhead who worked at the MacDonald Gas’n’Go. Her family owned the establishment, and Dani had already spent a good deal of time talking to Sheryl’s father about Felines of Destruction. He remembered the band (Who wouldn’t?), but he didn’t remember much about their interaction. According to him, they bought some gas, snagged a few unhealthy snacks for the road, and pulled onto the main highway.

“Hi, Dani,” Sheryl said as she draped her arms over Dani’s desk. “I thought I might find you here.”

“Well, with everyone else on candy detail, someone had to man the phones.”

Sheryl laughed and twirled a red curl around her index finger. “Whatcha working on? You look so focused.”

“Just that band that disappeared. It’s strange. I started checking our other missing person files, and it seems like this county has its fair share. And it’s always around Halloween. I can’t believe nobody has picked up on that yet.”

“Honey, you’re the first real cop we’ve had in ages. I mean, the guys around here are used to small-town crime, not the big city stuff you used to see. I can’t imagine what it was like in Baltimore. Was it hard, policing so many people?”

Dani chuckled, slightly flustered by Sheryl’s sweet voice. “It could be. Did you know Camden Yards could fit double the population of this county at a single ballgame?”

“No shit? You must be losing your mind, here in the middle of no-and-where. Maybe I can help you with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family throws a Halloween party every year. We’re known for our decorations and adult punch. It’s the best damn haunted house on this side of the Bay. I want you to come. It’ll be a great time. Something to help you forget where you’ve ended up.”

Dani stared at Sheryl’s pretty face, somewhat surprised. “Is that why you dropped by? To invite me?”

“It is. I want you to come as my special guest. C’mon, Dani. You and I have been skirting around each other ever since you came to town. I’d like a chance to make things personal. What do you say?”

“I guess I can stop by for a little while. Where do you live?”

Sheryl reached across the desk, took a pen from Dani’s jar, and grabbed Dani’s wrist. She wrote her address on Dani’s palm. As she made the final curl of the last letter, she flashed a brilliant smile. “See you on Halloween, Deputy. Drop in around six, okay?”

“See you then, Sheryl.”

As Sheryl sauntered out of the Sheriff’s Department, Dani recorded the address on her notepad before her sweaty palms could smear Sheryl’s handwriting. The number was familiar, indicating the big house between Lynch and Still Pond, a spot Dani had driven by on patrol at least a dozen times. Dani couldn’t help feeling guarded, yet ecstatic, about the prospect of a Halloween party. She had always noticed Sheryl around town, and perhaps this was her opportunity to get to know her better.

*** 

Two nights later, the Halloween holiday had arrived. Dani didn’t feel like putting on a costume for the party, and Sheryl hadn’t mentioned needing one, so she threw on her favorite jeans and an orange sweatshirt. The air was cool and brisk, and the sky was already dark by six o’clock. Dani drove her secondhand pickup to Sheryl’s address, immediately stunned by the number of cars parked along the road.

Dani got out and followed jack-o-lantern lights up the driveway. When she got closer to the house, she saw a realistic body bag in the front yard. It was framed with gory severed limbs, foam tombstones, and skeletons hanging from the trees. It was impressive, albeit a bit gruesome. Dani knocked on the door. She could hear Rob Zombie on the speakers, laughter, and the clanking of cups. When the door opened, Sheryl greeted Dani in a suggestive devil costume. Dani gulped at the tantalizing sight.

“You made it!” Sheryl exclaimed with a brief hug. “Come in. Help yourself to the punch and feel free to look around. The whole house has been decorated. I’ll be with you in a second. My father needs some help in the kitchen. He’s at that age where he forgets things.”

Nodding, Dani entered the party. She recognized the other partygoers as people from around town. After pouring herself a cup of green punch from a cauldron, she decided to see what other decorations were on display. She saw a head in a jar in the dining room, a body hanging outside the back window, and an arm sticking out of a coffin in the hallway. There were paper bats hanging from the ceiling, orange and black twinkling lights on the walls, and fake blood spatter on the floor. It was all well done, Dani thought.

She decided to take a closer look at the head in the jar on the table. It was a woman’s face, and it was heavily pierced. Dani paused, thinking back to the guitarist from Felines of Destruction. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that was the same woman.

Dani’s heart rate doubled. Could it be?

Sweating, she went to the coffin inside the house. She lifted the lid off the arm and took a look at the body inside. The massive form was clearly the drummer, or maybe the bassist, from the band. His throat had been slit, but the body had been well preserved.

Dani tried not to panic. She decided to check the body at the window.

Sure enough, the body suspended by the neck had a mane of white hair. It was Persian, the singer of the band. His eyes were wide open, glossy and haunting, and most of his body had also been well preserved.

This can’t be happening, thought Dani. She fled to the front lawn.

Before she could reach her car, she tripped over the severed arms in on the grass. They were heavily tattooed, like the keyboardist from the band. In fact, many of the tattoos were of music notes. There was even the outline of a black cat near the bloody stump that used to be her elbow.

Dani glanced at the body bag. It was large for a person, and she couldn’t stop herself from ripping back the plastic. This revealed the face of the other twin, the bassist or the drummer, who had a hole in the center of his forehead. It was a bloody slit, probably from a knife or a hatchet.

I’ve found the band, Dani realized. They were killed to be used in a haunted house…

“Great decorations, huh?” Sheryl asked as she appeared on the lawn.

Dani, terrified, edged towards her car. “Your father told me they left the gas station.”

“They did. They made it about a half mile before they came across me. I pretended to have a flat tire. They were kind enough to stop and help me. What they didn’t know is that my brothers were waiting in the bushes for them. We MacDonalds take Halloween seriously, you know. We have to have the best decorations, and nothing beats the real thing. No one has cared about the missing people before, but I knew you would. That just won’t do.”

“You invited me here because you knew I’d investigate unless you stopped me?”

“Of course, silly! You should never have trusted a pretty girl. That’s the real cause of death here.”

As Dani turned to run, she ran directly into Sheryl’s oldest brother. He was well over six feet tall, close to two hundred and eighty pounds of pure muscle, and he had a baseball bat on his shoulder. Dani couldn’t avoid the swing of that bat. It cracked across her jaw, and she fell to the lawn with blood in her mouth.

“What do you want to do with her, sis?” Sheryl’s younger brother, an eighteen-year-old dressed as a dinosaur, asked. He had appeared from behind the parked cars, where he would have pounced on Dani if she’d made it that far.

Sheryl smiled at Dani. “We could use some more skeletons for our tree. I think we still have some acid in the basement. You know what to do.”

“Right on,” the older brother declared. “We can put her front and center next year.”

Sheryl pushed on Dani’s chin with her foot. “Yeah, I think she’ll have a pretty enough skull for that. You get to it. I need to get back to the party in case we run out of punch.”

***

On November 1st, the Sheriff would report Deputy Dani Bruce missing. The woman would never be seen in the flesh again, though her skeleton would become a crowd favorite at the MacDonald Halloween parties for years to come.