Dear Reader:
Strange things happen on Halloween; and I know a guy who knows a guy who swears this is a true story...
I suppose it happened just after I left the Shamrock at about eleven o'clock. I decided to walk home through the cemetery beside my apartment. It takes fifteen minutes less to walk through it than to walk around it, and I was just drunk enough not to care about the night watchman and his big ugly dog. In any case, there I was stumbling along, being careful not to tread on any graves and to avoid tripping over fallen headstones—just generally concentrating on getting home.
It was October 31—Hallowe'en. The night was bright, with only a scattering of cloud cover obscuring the high-riding full moon and a sharp silver-cold wind rustling the dead leaves in the branches and dancing with those already on the browning grass. The monuments were eerily silhouetted against the moonlight refracted by an unusual, gathering ground fog. I inhaled a lung full of the moist autumn air, shook off the impression of alienation engendered by the somewhat stagy scene, turned my sport jacket collar up against the crisp wind and moved on. Two steps later I was flat on my face in an open grave.
My first reaction was shock. My second reaction was embarrassment. But when the absurdity of the situation struck home, I began to snicker and I was still chuckling as a small hand held out a tiny tankard of ale to me. I said, "thank you," took a long pull and began rising to my knees, wiping the muck from my eyes.
A tankard of ale? What kind of person waits around in open graves to pass out mugs of beer to strange mugs who drop in unannounced?
When I'd gained my balance and had my knees under me, I peered into the darkness and found myself eye to eye with a gnarled little man at least a century older than anyone I'd ever seen before. He was dressed in a Kerry green leather jerkin and doeskin hose with a rakish yellow feathered cap on his squat, bearded head. His enormous, maverick, dun-brown eyebrows had two keen, twinkling, deeper-than-time eyes hanging directly beneath them, peering into mine. I was stunned into near sobriety.
"Ere, have another sip, lad. You've ad a nasty spill."
"Jesus, what is that stuff," I rasped?
"That, me boyo, is mead. Got a nice burn to it, eh?"
...So, anyway, this guy says he had to go with this Gnome on a quest to save the Fairies from their evil King and the only way he could do it was to make love to dozens of beautiful fairy girls and...
You think he was kidding me? Yeah, you're right. He didn't really fall into an open grave on Hallowe'en, did he? Boy do I feel like a dope!
Anyway, the air out there is turning crisp again and the moon is looking fuller and the clouds are scudding with a more malevolent mien. Summer has exhausted its last warm breath and now it's time for the year to turn its darker face to us. But to keep us from succumbing, unprepared, to the hoary hand of horror, we offer this, the 10th Anniversary Issue of Writer's Cramp's Hallowe'en Special and we've delivered a treat. This is a sampling of the best, most creative and easily the favorites of both our readers and our authors from the past ten years.
Dip your apples in the hot caramel, pop that candied corn and whistle past the graveyard as you settle in to enjoy another Hallowe'en Treasure from Writer's Cramp.
As always, Enjoy.
Sincerely,
Robert G Liberty
Publishing Editor
Writer’s Cramp Online Magazine
