Halloween fell on a dark and stormy Wednesday, that year, which was convenient for all the things that went bump in the night. The chintzy plastic parts of Halloween, the candy corn and children’s laughter, the sticky fake blood and polyester spiderwebs – they didn’t get in the way of the real hauntings. The miniature witches and candy-munching goblins ran wild all weekend, the adults got drunk on strange green cocktails adorned with floating eyeballs, and then the working week began: for most of the world, Halloween was over.
The things that went bump in the night, however, weren’t bound by anything as tedious as a Monday morning alarm clock – All Hallows Eve happened when it happened, and it was the most important night of the year, for any dead or undead entity. If you listened to the Old Ones, those spirits who had been dead for centuries, yet had chosen to remain on this Earth, you would hear much said, as the leaves turned gold and crunched underfoot, regarding the slovenly nature of the living, when it came to Halloween.
“Think we can just reschedule, don’t they?” was the opening battle-cry of a shrivelled old witch, with beady black eyes and long sharp fingers, who had been drowned for occult sins in the middle-ages. It wasn’t necessarily true that a witch would float – this one hadn’t; England is a sodding cold country, and if you go around chucking yourself into frozen lakes just to learn how to float, all so you can impress the pretentious witches with their designer black cats, well, then you’re a bit of a prat, in Bertha’s eyes. So, she’d sunk like a stone, and as a result, she had to endure an eternity of elitist witch cliques who only let you sit with them if you’d been fished out of the lake and dishonourably burned, or at least hung. Sinking Witches are Uncool Bitches was one of the t-shirt slogans they liked to taunt her with. As such, Bertha’s life, and afterlife alike, had been vastly disagreeable – there was much to complain about, but Halloween was always her favourite subject.
“Just reschedule it, they say!” she went on, knitting needles clicking away, seven hundred fresh earthworms being transformed into a moistly gruesome scarf, “They honestly bleedin’ think their office job’s harder to work round than the one and only time a year the veil between the worlds is thin enough for us to pop over there and ‘ave a walk about, see what’s what, chat to people – it ain’t asking much, is it, for Halloween t’be on Halloween? Still, suits me well enough this year. Told you ‘bout my grandson, didn’t I? Oh shut up, ‘course he ain’t my direct grandson, I’ve lost count – anyway, he’s an ‘orrible little blighter wot knocked up a girl just because ‘e don’t like the feelin’ of a rubbery wotsit on his willy, an’ the last time I saw him he had a million ‘n one excuses for goin’ round actin’ like the proud daddy, but he ain’t payin’ a pennyto that girl, and why d’you think I’m sittin’ here knittin’ with earthworms, eh? That boy thinks a condom feels slimy, wait ‘til he gets a load o’ this! Now, since they’ve gone ‘n buggered up Halloween – livin’ can’t deal with it on a Wednesday, ooh nooo – well, he ain’t goin’ to be expectin’ a suspiciously evil visitation that day, when the veil’s thin, an’ I can shoot right through to ‘is doorstep. ‘Course, I’ll be poppin’ round in somethin’ a bit less comfortable than this old skin – and let it be known I don’t get no creepy satisfaction from seducing me own grandson, let – it – be – known, but I ain’t goin’ as far as the sex anyhow. Minute he’s ‘alf nekkid, I’m wrappin’ his neck in a wormy scarf, ‘n there won’t be no removin’ that thing for the next week.”
Beaming toothlessly, she flipped her needles round, and began knitting back across the row of earthworms, producing a cacophony of clicks and squelches that balanced perilously between disgusting and satisfying. “Good ‘n rotten by then,” she muttered. “Nice hot rotten earthworms, guts all fallin’ out ‘n dribbling down ‘is back… Now that’s what Halloween is for, in’t it, not them bleedin’ Yankee sweets wot look like decayin’ orange teeth. Halloween is for the dead, not for children!” She frowned, and amended, “’less they’m dead, o’course. Dead children – them’s the real spirit of Halloween…”
Bertha’s point, somewhat lost amidst wormy vengeance schemes, was that since Paganism had given way to Christianity, the true meaning of Halloween had been slowly forgotten. Forgotten by some…but not all.
On the other side of that rippling, translucent veil, in the land of the living, there were a few who still followed the Old Ways.
Lacey was one of them. The weekend before Halloween had been crisp and cold, the night air scented with dry crunching leaves, burnt marshmallows and campfire smoke. She had dressed up as the lead actress from iZombie, and spent the night in a friend’s garden, surrounded by toilet paper mummies, superheroes, and even, with more imagination than taste, a ‘haunted tampon’. They’d roasted endless marshmallows over a pit of flickering flames, fire and shadows dancing across their faces, and they told ghost stories that got less spooky and more pornographic as the night wore on, and the steaming mugs of mulled cider were swallowed down.
Halloween parties were fun, but Lacey never forgot the true meaning of All Hallows Eve. For Lacey, and all others who had walked the same unfortunate path in life, it was hard to ignore death – it had entered her life so soon, Lacey barely remembered a time before its shadow fell across her world. Her mother had died when she was just eleven – it had been the sixth of September, the day she started secondary school. Her mum had insisted, with embarrassing pride, on taking photos that morning of Lacey in her too big, overly starched, itchy school uniform, with a proper new blazer now she was at Big School, then it was into the car and away they went. As Lacey shuffled nervously towards the imposing burgundy gates, she turned back to watch her mother drive away, and that spectacularly ordinary moment was to be the last time she would ever see her alive. Half an hour later, as her mother drove up the motorway to work, no doubt still singing along to Joni Mitchell, tapping her blue painted nails cheerily on the worn steering wheel, a truck-driver had a heart attack at the wheel. His enormous vehicle swung wildly across the road, a juggernaut of unstoppable tyres and sparking metal, obliterating that small, rattly blue Punto, with Lacey’s mother inside it.
After the funeral, Lacey’s dad mostly got drunk, but Lacey was only eleven – alcoholism wasn’t really a feasible coping strategy. When she finally went back to school, already a freakshow to this herd of new faces, The Kid With The Dead Mum, she sat alone and silent for two days, before the weird girl in the corner, with her purple hair and silver bat ear-studs, crept over to talk to her. The other kids didn’t know what to say about a dead mum, but the strange girl, Faye, seemed respectfully fascinated by death. They sat together in the damp grass one lunch hour, and when Lacey started crying, Faye took her hand, and in a fervent whisper, told Lacey that death wasn’t really the end. Better still, she said, just one month away, it was Halloween, and that wasn’t just a holiday for kids in costumes, not if you paid attention – not if you did it right. On Halloween, Faye whispered, the world of the living, and the realm of the dead came together, just for one night, and sometimes, just sometimes, the dead could return – slipping through the unseen veil to visit the loved ones they’d been so cruelly parted from.
Faye’s whispered words dried Lacey’s tears in an instant. Those words became the hope she clutched to her heart like a rosary, for sometimes was so, so much better than never…
She counted down the days, that October, and on the night of Halloween, Lacey sat on her own front doorstep, in the crisp, sparkling cold, wearing a witch’s hat and clutching a box of cheap chocolates, just to look like a normal kid, on Halloween…not that it mattered – her dad was too drunk to care, even to notice her strange moonlit vigil.
She sat on the cold doorstep ‘til almost midnight, blowing on her icy fingers, tears prickling in her eyes as the hours slipped by, and still her mum wouldn’t, or couldn’t, come back. Her toes froze solid – her bum went numb. The chocolates tasted worse and worse as she picked at them, cheap caramel mingling with the salt of her tears. Shivering and tear-streaked, she was ready to admit defeat, go inside and sob herself to sleep once more, when there was a gust of wind whistling through the oak trees that lined her road, and it carried a perfume so familiar it brought an ache of longing to her throat. It was the smell of a thousand childhood nights, the smell of hugs and cosy evenings, the smell of her mother’s perfume, and she peered into the darkness, eyes wide, chocolates scattering at her feet in a glittering rain of coloured foil. But instead of the familiar spectre she longed for, it was a small, scruffy dog who came scrabbling up the path, its eyes as wide as her own. It threw itself into her lap, whimpering and shivering, scared by the fireworks and the laughing goblin-children.
The dog had no collar, no name to go by, but as the little creature licked her tears away, wriggling closer for warmth, he seemed so small and scared, her own despair was temporarily eclipsed. Lacey brought the trembling puppy into the warm, and dubbed her Halloween visitor Spook, before serving him a decidedly well-received sausage sandwich. He was so small, so lost and so cold – her mother clearly wasn’t coming, and Spook seemed every bit as alone and frightened as Lacey was. She snuck him upstairs to her bedroom, laying down a bowl of water in the corner, and that night she slept with Spook curled into a warm, comforting ball against her chest. For the first time in so many weeks, she hadn’t gone to sleep crying. When her dad woke the next morning, she could conceal Spook’s presence no longer, but he was too hungover to go out knocking on doors, trying to discover who, if anyone, owned or cared about Spook. It would be good for Lacey to have a pet, he concluded, over a nauseous glass of Alka-Seltzer. The dog was something to love. Something to distract her…
So that was that – Spook lived with them ever since that first Halloween, growing from a small, hesitant bundle of fluff into a bounding, overzealous canine with a big gruff bark, a shaggy beard, and a tail that broke endless teacups – Lacey loved him fiercely.
As Spook grew up, Lacey did too, and every Halloween remained marked by the celebration of Spook’s sort-of-birthday – the day he’d become her gruff and scruffy personal saviour, leading her out of those dark, lonely days, and when Lacey left home, Spook came too, as much a part of her life now as her own reflection in the mirror. They were Lacey-and-Spook, inseparable.
But even though Spook was a magical Halloween dog, he was still a dog, and dogs don’t live forever. He’d started to get old, and slow, traded in tug-of-war for naps on the rug, naps that got longer and deeper, until that inevitable summer day when Spook took a nap so long and deep his body turned cold and stiff, and never would he wake up again.
As the summer of Spook’s death faded into the wind-howling auburn days of October, for the first time in thirteen years, Lacey didn’t look forward to Halloween. It was coldly, permanently altered, no longer Spook’s sort-of-birthday, that joyous occasion that had haphazardly plastered over the loss of her mother – given her something to live for again. This black, Spook-less year, she felt like that same frightened child on the doorstep, frozen fingers crossed for luck, waiting in hopeless hope for the dead to rise. If it was possible, this year might be even worse, because she was an adult now, and adults didn’t believe in magic, didn’t sit out in misty Halloween midnights, wishing for the dead to wander home beneath a golden harvest moon. Worst of all, adults didn’t have the luxury of a death wreathed in magic and mystery, a loved one here today, gone tomorrow, leaving nothing but a dignified tombstone: on the day Spook slipped away, Lacey had touched his cold, lifeless body, had watched two vets wrestle his large form inelegantly away, to be tossed into a cremation fire with the lonesome, used-up corpses of so many other pets. It had been a piteous sight, yet she had felt no compunction to linger with Spook’s body – one glance, one touch, told her there was no part of him left in that cold, hard body. That had been the moment she knew – there was no coming back, was there? Not on Halloween – not ever. How could there be?
There could never be a coming back…not from that.
On Halloween Wednesday, Lacey baked an apple cake, and heated the mulled cider left over from the party. She dressed half-heartedly in a cheap black cape, and gave sweets to precisely two groups of trick or treaters, which hardly seemed to justify the time she’d spent carving the pumpkin that sat glowing warmly outside her front door, the single, lingering vestige of the love she’d had for Halloween, when it had still been Spook’s anniversary.
It was precisely eleven minutes past eleven when the doorbell rang for a third time, and Lacey almost ignored it. It couldn’t be kids, not at this hour – most likely ghastly teenagers, who would egg her house if she didn’t hand over chocolates, maybe even money… But the jack-o-lantern was still outside – she had to bring it in before she went to bed, to dissuade any other late night lurkers. Lacey stumped to the door in slippers and a scowl, ready to send the lot of them packing, but instead of a rabble of ratty-haired delinquents in sticky fake blood, on her doorstep stood just a single figure, dressed all in black, his back turned as he gazed into the night. He was tall, with long dark hair, and as she opened the door he turned around, and smiled at her. His eyes were the warmest shade of brown, and he was so ridiculously good looking she immediately forgot what she was supposed to be angry about.
“Uhh…hi…” she said, scrutinising his face with a slight frown. Despite his beauty, something about him seemed…off, but quite how, she struggled to define. Was it the fact his age was impossible to guess? He only looked twenty-three, her own age, but his warm brown eyes were somehow wiser, sharper, and he was too elegantly dressed, too immaculately groomed, standing there so politely his posture was nearly rigid. Was he an overzealous Jehova’s Witness, wandering late to warn people of the evils of Halloween – the tragic plight to befall all those who mocked the Devil?
“Hello!” the boy announced, abruptly animating, his stiffly polite demeanour evaporating utterly as he peered rather too eagerly over her left shoulder, and deduced aloud, “Apple cake! Cider!” He paused, head tilted, then added, as a statement, not a question, “Nobody else is here.” Returning his gaze to Lacey, he smiled that warm smile again, and said, “A cake isn’t a thing for one person. Can I come in?”
Oh hell. He’s really fucking weird, Lacey thought, with an internal eye-roll. Typical. Why are the hot ones always so weird?
“Why are you…here?” she asked, aloud. At these words, his face fell – he suddenly looked so painfully dejected she found herself adding in haste, “I’m sorry, I just meant…are you…selling something, or do you need…directions, maybe?”
“Ohhh!” he breathed, beaming again, and nodding vigorously, as though they’d stumbled at last onto a patch of common ground. “Lost – yes! I am lost, and umm…my hotel, had a…a problem, so now I’m here to…to throw myself upon your mercy!” By the end of this speech, his brown eyes were shining with pride, and he looked as though he was expecting a round of applause, or possibly a pat on the head – his words seemed memorised, but why?
“Do you…have a name?” Lacey asked, dubiously.
“Person,” he said, smiling widely. “I am Mr Person.”
Oh god, Lacey thought, chewing her lip, He’s not just weird, is he? He’s literally insane. There is a madman on my doorstep, and I just want to go to bed! How do I get rid of—
“Pearson,” the boy corrected, enunciating it clearly. “I mean, Mr Pearson. And I have a first name too. That one’s Ralph. Now you’ve got both of my names, would you like to shake my hand?”
She hesitated, sighed, and seeing no other course of action, held out her right hand. Ralph held out his left, looked confused, twisted it around to shake hers, and gave her such a rapid and enthusiastic handshake she nearly fell right out of the doorway.
“I won that one!” he declared, grinning a bright white smile.
There was an increasingly awkward silence, and Ralph tilted his head, apparently thinking. Then, he began scratching his neck in a manner Lacey had never seen a human adopt. His fingers were curved into one tight hook, and rather than scratching slowly up and down, he attacked his skin in a rapid-fire fit of downwards itching. As he did so, his eyes half-closed with bliss…and when he was finished, he shook himself all over in a violent spasm, beaming contentedly, the tip of his tongue showing between his gleaming teeth. Lacey’s eyes widened.
“Oh shit…” she whispered. “I think… I think I know why you’re here. Ralph…would you like to come in?”
Her visitor nodded immediately, breaking into an ecstatic grin, then he barged past her, and shot into the house with delighted cries of,
“Apple cake! Cider! My sofa!”
By the time she’d picked up the jack o lantern and followed him in, he’d taken off his shoes, scarf and coat, leaving them in a haphazard trail down the hallway, and was lying on his back on the living room carpet, performing something that looked like an excessively wriggly attempt at making a snow angel. Seeing her staring, he froze, eyes wide and nervous, then he leapt to his feet, clearing his throat and straightening his black t-shirt. It had a picture of a cartoon squirrel on the front.
“Do you want—I mean, would you like some cake?” she asked, awkwardly. It seemed so silly to be at a loss for how to behave – this floor-wriggling madman was undeniably Spook, her lifelong friend, but he’d never been able to speak before, and the idea of rubbing his belly now seemed decidedly wrong. Hinting at the firmer ground of the day they’d first met, she added, “You don’t have to have cake – would you prefer a sausage sandwich?”
“A…sausage sandwich?” he repeated, eyes wide with faux innocence. “That is a decidedly odd thing to offer a visiting human guest. So, no – I would prefer a piece of cake. With cutlery. And also…a glass of cider.”
He gave her a dignified nod, and sat down on the sofa, hands neatly clasped in his lap. Lacey frowned, suddenly unsure – he looked so human again…and he didn’t even want the sausages! Spook had never turned down a sausage in his life. Had she been right first time? Had she just welcomed a wandering lunatic into her house? And which one of them was crazier anyway – him, or the girl who’d just ushered in a doorstep weirdo, believing him to be her reincarnated pet? Shaking her head, she left the room, and at a loss for anything else to do, returned with a tray bearing two mugs of hot cider, and two pieces of cake, with cutlery, as requested. Ralph had his eyes closed, and was indulgently rubbing his cheek against the fabric of the sofa, inhaling deeply. She cleared her throat, and he sat bolt upright, eyes fixed on the food, expression rapturous.
The second she gave him his slice of cake, he impaled it with the fork, which was pointing downwards out of his clenched fist in the manner of a stab-happy murderer. He picked up his knife in the same way, and began a hasty carving job that left him with two misshapen lumps and a lot of crumbs. He glanced up at Lacey in bemusement. Smiling slightly, she pointedly laid down her cutlery, and picked up her own piece of cake, informing him,
“You can eat cake with your hands, so long as there isn’t custard on it.”
“Really?” he demanded, his gaze flicking eagerly between Lacey and the mutilated cake.
She nodded, and took a demonstrative bite. Ralph hesitated for less than a second, then snatched up the biggest lump of cake, and began devouring it as though he’d been starved for a month. Everything on his plate vanished at a speed that seemed physically impossible, followed by licking up the crumbs, wiping his mouth with both hands, and having an aggressive go at the cider. There was rather a lot of spillage, even more slurping, and then it was all gone.
“Wow,” he said, reclining in his seat. “Why have I never had cake before? Never! No cake! And why did I always have to drink water? I tried coffee, actually, on my way here – that, frankly, was horrible. But cider is very agreeable. I feel…floaty…”
“Where have you…travelled from?” Lacey asked, still attempting to ascertain who – or what – she had welcomed into her house.
“Not far,” he said, raising his right hand to his face as though to curiously study it, and wriggling his fingers around. “Not far…but they journey was somewhat trying.” He giggled – “Aren’t thumbs amazing? If you had no thumb, all the others would just be wiggly sticks for picking your nose with. Thumbs are the true masterpiece. But humans always discredit them, don’t they? They say fingers and thumbs, as though the thumb were a mere afterthought – a lesser creation. I feel quite perturbed, on behalf of thumbs everywhere…”
There was something of a silence following this bizarre musing. Lacey asked,
“Will you be staying here long? I mean…locally?”
“No…” said the boy, putting down his hand, and meeting her gaze. He looked regretful. “I can’t do that…staying. I only have tonight…and now I appear to be drunk. That’s a little unfortunate. It’s not the first time I’ve been drunk though, I’ll have you know – I was always fond of spilled beer. And I suppose it isn’t terrible, to be drunk tonight – lots of people travelling this way were more keen on getting drunk than they were on making their visitations, which I think is sad…but I suppose not everybody has someone they love…” He sighed, asking, “Am I talking too much? Is it rude? It probably is. You haven’t shouted at me yet though, or hit me with a newspaper, so maybe I’m not being a terrible bore. I really do enjoy talking, you know. So many words! Appendix, for example. Chicken soup. Camembert. Episiotomy. Fig…”
“Ralph… You are who I think you are, aren’t you?”
He blinked, tilted his head, and frowned.
“I am a polite gentleman caller,” he said loftily. “I am here to engage you in highbrow conversation, wherein I may enquire as to the status of your present happiness.” A hint of suspicion entering his voice, he asked, “Why? Who do you think I am?”
Possibly an escaped lunatic, or a very, very weird dream, Lacey just about stopped herself from saying.
Choosing her words carefully, she said,
“This…may sound crazy, Ralph, but it’s Halloween. And maybe that means pumpkins and skeletons and chocolate to most people, but to me, Halloween is special. It always has been. And somebody I loved, very, very much, he…died, this summer. So I was wondering…if you might be him. You look so very different, but you seem…like him?”
“Was he a good person?” Ralph asked eagerly, leaning towards her. “Was he very good? Do you miss him?”
“He was the absolute goodest,” she said, with a smile, though her eyes stung with the threat of tears. “I miss him more than I can say. I miss him like hell. So…Ralph, if you’re really him…why don’t you look like him, right now?”
Ralph’s face fell, and he moaned,
“Aren’t I good, as a person? Am I doing it wrong?! Does it make you even more sad?”
“No! Oh my god, Spoo—Ralph, not at all! I just mean…I miss the person I knew. I miss…Spook. But was your name always Ralph, really? Who named you?”
Ralph was beaming widely, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his teeth, his whole body wobbling hyperactively in his chair as though he was wagging a tail that couldn’t be seen.
“Ahh, so many words!” he exclaimed, in visible bliss, “We’re truly conversing now, are we not! This is fantastic, this is exactly what I wanted! I shall tell you everything.” He ran both hands through his long dark hair, and shook himself all over, then he shuffled up to the sofa towards Lacey’s armchair.
“I named myself Rowf,” he said, smiling, “When I was very young. R – O – W – F – Rowf. My siblings had names that aren’t transferable to the human tongue, in the main, but the only one I really got along with was Gurr. The humans, where I was born, they called me Runt. I didn’t find out what that meant until all my siblings were taken away, and then my mother was taken away, and I was left in the garden, in a leaky kennel, with a dirty stone floor, and it was cold, and I was lonely, and I felt like Rowf shouldn’t be my name anymore, it should be Woooo, because that’s all I ever said. And the world got colder, and I got sadder, and at last came that fateful night that I finally met you. There were bangs, bangs in the sky, awful lurid explosions as though the moon itself was filled with hate, and the midnight sky was tearing itself in two, and there were children’s voices screaming and howling in the streets, and it was the end, I thought it was the end of the world!
“I was so scared I wriggled out of my awful collar, and then I ran away under the scratchy wire on the gate. It cut my head, but I didn’t stop – I ran and ran, and there were blinding lights and roaring engines all ploughing towards me, and I thought I was in hell, that I had somehow found hell and I didn’t know why I deserved it. But after an eternity of hell, she…found me. The woman rescued me. And after that—”
“Wait – what?” Lacey interrupted, “What woman? I was only eleven, Spoo—sorry, Rowf – there was no woman. You were all alo—”
“It is most rude,” Rowf intoned, with dignity, “To elbow into the conversational flow of another person. Must I teach you the art of polite dialogue whilst I am so new to it myself, or may I continue?”
Lacey bit back a grin, and gestured for him to go on.
“There was a woman. She was wearing a pink dress, and a big soft cardigan, and her hair was precisely the same shade of blonde as yours. I was scared, and my head was all bloody, and as she picked me up and held me, suddenly I was warm. I hadn’t felt warmth in so long, I’d forgotten the word…I’d been alone, with nothing to say but woooo…I tried to tell her that I wanted to stay with her, forever, that the world was hell, and I was in it, so please, wherever you’re going, will you take me too? And…the odd thing was, I think she actually understood me…or maybe she was just the first human who’d ever tried.
“She sat down with me, beneath a big, old oak, and all the explosions, the screaming children, they went quiet, as though we’d stepped somehow into our own private realm. She told me about the noise, the hell – it was just Halloween, which meant the night when the living and the dead could come together, if they only knew what they were doing. It meant that I had a choice to make – I could go with her, just as I’d asked, if that was truly my desire. We would go together into the dead world, where it’s peaceful, and always warm, and I’d be looked after, she said, by her, and by my own people – my ancestors. I’d be loved. Loved! I had that choice…and yet, she insisted I shouldn’t take it – not now, not tonight. She knew I was scared, and sad, and that I’d had enough of this world, but even so, I was too young. I didn’t even know what happiness felt like, and it would be such a waste to leave, she said, without finding out. So there was another choice, for me – another way out of this hell. Another way to know happiness, and even love… The woman was about to visit somebody she loved dearly, someone who was waiting for her, just up the street, but she said that visiting made her sad – it made her feel useless, because she couldn’t help. She was only a ghost, barely there, and with so little time. So…”
Rowf hesitated, chewing his lip. He went on softly,
“So the woman asked that I go in her place. She gave me a job to do, an important one. I had to look after someone, someone who was sad, just like I was, and young, and alone, just like me. We were going to be friends, she said, and I’d never had a friend before, except Gurr, and once he’d pissed right in my face, on purpose, which to my mind is not a desirable quality in a friend. I wanted a better friend. And then there was the concept of this thing she called ‘love’…it gave me memories, faded, but…still there. I remembered my mother. I remembered warmth… And I burrowed deeper into the woman’s soft cardigan, wondering what to do. She kept on talking to me – I liked her voice. No one had talked to me in so long. I didn’t want to leave her, to go back into the unknown…but I think the thing that persuaded me, in the end, was when she told me I could always find her again – I could always go into the dead world, any time – the peaceful place was always waiting, and so would she be; I didn’t need to race there. There would be warmth and love in death, but there was nothing to lose, in being a bit curious about living – about having friends.
“I thought about it, and all in all, it sounded like a job I could do… So, at last, I agreed. The woman carried me towards a house, where a little girl was shivering on a doorstep. She watched that girl for a while – I heard her whisper, ‘I love you’, and this time I knew she wasn’t talking to me. She was saying it to the little girl. Then she kissed me on the head and let me go. As you’ve likely deduced, the little girl on the doorstep was you. And that is how we met.” Rowf smiled, inclining his head, and telling Lacey, “This is an appropriate ebb in the dialogue. You may now speak your piece.”
Lacey swallowed the lump in her throat, and choked out,
“You…you saw my mum? It was her who sent you to me…honestly? I smelled her perfume, Rowf, that night, just before you appeared! All these years I thought I must have imagined it, but…she was really there? Watching me? Rowf, if she came back, why have I never seen her on Halloween? Why doesn’t she come to see me if she can do it, why—” Her voice broke, and she fumbled in her pocket for a tissue. Rowf solemnly reached out, and took her hand. He held it for a moment, then he raised it to his face, and gave it a long, slow lick. Lacey grimaced, and he mumbled an apology, wiping off the saliva.
“Most spirits come only once,” he said softly. “They move on… They go somewhere better, somewhere they can be with their own kind, with their ancestors and loved ones. It isn’t fun for them to stay on Earth, forever on the outside. That night was her one chance to see you, but she knew it wouldn’t help. You didn’t need a goodbye – what would be the point? Lacey, not all humans can even see ghosts; she might not have been able to break through to you at all, and even if she could, goodbye is just a word; she knew it wouldn’t change the emptiness, all the years you’d have to travel through alone, all the growing up you’d have to do without her. She wanted to give you a hello, instead – somebody who would still be there in the morning…and for all the mornings after that. So she…she gave her one visit to me…” He looked anxious, asking quietly, “Was that alright? Was I alright? Was I good enough?”
Lacey nodded through her tears, and Rowf gave up on his pretence of humanity, moving to sit on the floor, his head resting against her thigh. She laugh-choked, shuffling onto the floor next to him, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He clumsily hugged her back, snuffling in her ear and giving her neck a lick. Once she’d composed herself, Lacey asked,
“Is this why…you came back as a human, tonight? So you could tell me all this?”
Rowf pulled away, looking thoughtful. Eventually he said,
“Well…not really. I mostly wanted to give you a better goodbye. We’ve known each other for fifteen years, but we’ve never had a conversation, and I wanted to rectify that. Rectify. That’s another good word, isn’t it? I like words. I talk to myself a lot now. When you’re dead, you can do and be and experience all sorts of things. So I mostly be a human now, and why shouldn’t I? Dogs were never very nice to me. You were my best friend, and I always felt like an honorary person, really. So now I’m a real one, and I understand all sorts of things, like Netflix and crosswords, sarcasm and onesies and rude gestures. I daresay I’ll get bored with human experiences in the end though, so I plan to become a Mantis Shrimp next – they see in an unbelievable array of colours, so they say; I’m keen to experience that….” He trailed off, head tilted, lost in thought, then snapped back to the present, and continued, “I have a multitude of reasons to be here as a person, Lacey, but please let’s converse before we discuss business – let’s really do it properly! I think we should begin with some reminiscing, because everybody likes nostalgia, and it’s even better for us! The power of speech is, after all, new to me, so you only have half the story about a lot of events in our life. For example, in late 2007, you unjustly walloped me on the arse for barking at 4am.” He looked rather stern on this matter. “Now, the thing I could never tell you is that I had just smelled a badger in the garden! A GREAT BIG BADGER!” His eyes were alight with sudden enthusiasm as he recounted, “I wanted to KILL IT! It deserved to DIE! It had been in my garden, and— alright, our garden, I suppose, but patrolling it was my job, and badgers are beastly and smelly and flea-ridden and ill-mannered! So that is that – would you now like to apologise for angrily smearing my good name as Dog of the House?”
Lacey bit her lip, and tried not to laugh – he was clearly very serious about this, and seemed to have borne this grudge for well over a decade.
“I’m truly sorry,” she told him. “I don’t remember that specific night, but you did used to bark at a lot of stuff that made no sense, before you went deaf…”
“Deaf?” he repeated, cocking his head with a frown. “Really? Was I really? I always assumed that my mature status as long-standing House Hound had simply dissuaded all the riff-raff that used to plague us – those disgusting cats and presumptuous postmen and all the rude thunderstorms; my battles had been bravely fought, and they all seemed to have politely retreated… Although, I will say, since I died my ears are surprisingly acute – even these Person ones…” He raised his right hand, and clicked his fingers around his head, smiling in satisfaction, then conceding, “Perhaps I was a little deaf… But anyway, I have another memory, and this one is a happy one…mostly. One of my favourite memories of us together – which, really, is my whole life – was the time we were walking in the woods, in autumn. The leaves were squishing down into the mud like old cornflakes, & the rain splattered on the leaves, and the trees dribbled onto my fur, and all the squirrels went splish as they ran, and the whole damp, beautiful world smelled amazing – your ears may be tolerable, but your inability to smellis simply depressing, you poor, poor things. You know nothing at all!” He regarded her with pity, then waved it away, going on, “I digress – I am merely setting the scene; essentially, the trees were dripping and the mud was deep and wet and aromatic, and it was a lovely day. And just then, in the middle of the woods, you led me into a thicket, and you took a piss on the floor, just like it ought to be done! It was a breakthrough! It was a marvel! I was finally training you! I felt as though we were speaking the same language at last – we were bonding!” He beamed widely, then frowned, adding, “I was a little disappointed that you didn’t let me sniff it properly afterwards – that was like baking me a cake then not letting me lick the icing…”
“Oh god, Spook!” Lacey groaned, burying her face in her hands, “That is so gross!”
“No it’s not – it’s educational. If you could smell anything at all, you would know that urine has many tales to tell – I know your sex, your age, what you’ve been eating, what mood you’re in, how healthy you are, and much much more; urine is a fine thing to read like a book! Humans are such a peculiar species, flushing it all down the toilet; if you were remotely civilised you’d be taking a stroll around your property at least once a week to leave your mark. I mean really, people put welcome mats outside their houses but don’t even piss on them! How am I ever supposed to know whose house I’m entering, without a bit of piss on the matt?”
Lacey was lost for words at this dubious jewel of dog logic. In the end, she dodged the subject completely, and asked,
“Are you…ok though, being dead? Is it warm and peaceful, like my mum said it would be?”
Rowf barked a laugh, his eyes shining. “Yes. It’s warm, and it’s peaceful, if you want it to be. But I don’t want that, not yet – I was stiff and creaky and tired for years, and the last time I slept, I died – why would I want to do any more sleeping or resting? I suppose it’s different, if you die being mauled by a bear or something, you probably do need a few years of rest and relaxation in the afterlife, but my canine existence was peaceful enough, in its latter stages. As such, I’ve been on adventures, ever since I died! I lingered here a few days, to be with you, but in the end I realised it was just frustrating for both of us – you were sad, and I couldn’t help, and I was newly dead and very confused about it all, so reluctantly, I took my leave. And once I was acclimatised to my new existence, I decided to utilise my free time until Halloween, and experiment with reshaping my soul into all sorts of creatures. Lacey, the things I have seen! I have flown as an eagle, and swum as a fish. I have splodged as an octopus, and bounced as a flea. I’ve even taken the form of extinct creatures, mythological creatures – I’ve roared as a dinosaur and swooped as a dragon, all unseen by the living world! Death has been a grand adventure, but…look, Lacey,” he said, swivelling on the floor to face her, and watching her intently with those earnest brown eyes. “This isn’t about me, not really – my life is over, and that’s alright, I don’t have any complaints – you gave me a beautiful life, it was long, and I loved you every second of it…possibly apart from that night – aforementioned – when you wrongly walloped my backside with a newspaper…but I don’t bear grudges…much.”
He winked, and she laughed – they both knew it was a lie; he’d clearly stewed over the Wrongful Newspaper for the majority of his life.
“Now my life on Earth is over, I’m having so many more adventures – I understand so many things, things that you’ll understand too, someday, when we’re together again…and I look forward to that day – I think about it a lot…I think it’ll be a bit like now, but even more beautiful.” He smiled warmly. “But Lacey, I don’t want you to look forward to it, that day, not in the way I know you do now – missing me, missing your mother, feeling as though everyone you ever loved is in beyond the veil, and maybe you should be too. I don’t want you to feel that way, not ever…and this might be the only chance I get to help you…so I’m going to.”
He beamed, and Lacey blew her nose, asking thickly,
“How? Spoo—I’m sorry, Rowf – how can you ever change this? I loved you, and I loved her, and now that you’re gone too it’s like I’m losing her all over again! I have no one who understands, none of my friends have lost their mums – no one understands what you meant to me, what you did for me! I don’t know how you, or anyone, can ever change that. Can’t you stay, Rowf? Can’t you find some way to just…just stay, like this, or like a dog again, or like…like a…a something – anything?”
Rowf leaned forwards, and gave her a hug, licking the tears from her cheek, then muttering, “Sorry, force of habit, bit rude now…”
Lacey sobbed all the harder. When her tears finally dried and they broke apart, Rowf was smiling. He took her hand, and, managing to remember not to lick it, told her,
“I’m going to give you exactly what you need, Lacey. I can’t stay, not in any form you’ll be able to see, or hear…much as I wish I could. But you said it exactly – you need somebody. Somebody who can understand, somebody who can help, just like your mother did when she gave you me. And that means it’s my turn now, so that is exactly what I’m about to do!” His body was subtly wobbling from side to side again, wagged by an unseen, excitable tail. Lacey glanced towards the front door, asking a little fearfully,
“Who are you going to give me? Rowf…I’m not ready for another dog – I still miss you too much!”
“Not a dog,” he said, with visible pride. “I think you need somebody who can talk back, this time – which is, of course, one reason for my choosing a human form tonight, beyond the pleasure of our little reminiscence. No – your somebody is not a dog; I’ve found you a person! A real live whole person, young and fit and very unlikely to die for many many decades! Did I do well? Was I good?”
Lacey laughed through a fresh flow of tears, telling him, “You’re always, always good, Rowf. The very goodest. But…who the hell is this person? Are they about to come barging through the door? I’m in my dressing gown! And where the hell did you find them? Who are they?”
“Ahh, so many questions!” Rowf exclaimed, beaming. “That’s good, that’s very very good. I sense excitement. Intrigue. Another excellent word. To answer them all, no, your person is, I’m afraid, not waiting outside with a ribbon on his head, much as I liked that idea very much, and would have, under ideal conditions, have arranged it. The dead, unfortunately, aren’t allowed to interfere with the living to such a huge degree, so your person…is someone you’ll have to befriend yourself. But I promise it will be easy. Are you ready to hear the plan?” He waited in eager silence, and Lacey frowned, slowly deducing,
“He’s…human, and…he’s a he? Is this…meant to be a boyfriend? Rowf, am I right in assuming that you’re setting me up on a blind date, and the guy…doesn’t even know it? Oh my god, what are you doing to me?!”
Rowf pulled a face, and flapped his hands demonstratively up and down his human form.
“Not a blind date,” he said, with great satisfaction. “You’ve already seen him – he looks exactly like I do right now, and I do believe you find me pleasing to the eye, taking his form, do you not?”
Lacey blushed slightly, conceding, “Uhh…yes. If you weren’t really a dog, and you hadn’t watched me peeing about a thousand times, I would probably be trying to seduce you…”
Rowf rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. “Humans and their toilet shame – so silly… I’m glad you like me…or him…or us – you know what I mean. I thought he was your type, as the people say. And I’ve been researching him thoroughly, for a number of weeks. Unseen, unheard, I slunk in my many forms around his workplace and home, and I find him a thoroughly eligible specimen. He likes all the Netflix shows you do, argues politics from the correct direction – in your terms; I personally think it’s all deeply tedious, but there you go – he has his own dog, and treats her exceptionally well, which speaks volumes, and above all, Lacey, he is going to understand you. He – Alex, actually, that’s his name – lost his father to cancer at the age of eleven. He still misses him, but he knows how to carry on living…and I think he can teach you to do the same. Also, his mother is still alive, and is exceptionally nice – she’ll like you a lot, I know she will, and the feeling will be mutual. Oh, and his current dog is only two years old; he lost his childhood dog just before that, so he’ll even understand how you feel about me. I think he’s perfect! Is that right? Is that acceptable…and good?”
Lacey laughed. “On paper, he sounds absolutely perfect, Rowf. But…I’m assuming this guy has literally no idea I even exist? What if he doesn’t like me?”
Rowf gave her a sly smile. “He does like you. I happen to have friends, on the other side, and one of them is a very old, very powerful witch named Bertha. She likes to keep her eye on things, even now. And she has the power to override a lot of the rules, about the living, and the dead, which is most helpful – when it comes to technology, she is admirably advanced for a woman in her five-hundreds. Do you remember that dating profile you haven’t looked at since the week I died?”
Lacey’s hand flew to her mouth – “Oh…my god… You— You messed with my dating profile? What the fuck did you do, Rowf?! What did you upload?!”
His eyebrows shot up in an expression of injured innocence. “Nothing! I uploaded nothing – I did nothing terrible! I know you humans get all funny about your naked pictures. We just logged you in, to make you look like an active user again, and then we made sure it showed your profile to Alex as soon as he logged in yesterday…which he found himself inexplicably compelled to do. And when he saw your profile, he liked it! He clicked the button! He was too shy to message you, unfortunately, but there we go, I can’t do all the work for you. However, I can tell you that he spent yesterday watching iZombie for the fifth time, just like you did for your Halloween costume, and he was eating super spicy noodles as a themed food accompaniment, so I think you should mention that programme, and your shared love for it, when you message him, then perhaps invite him out for something spicy. Oh, and tell him how nice his hair is – he spends a lot of time fiddling with it in the mirror; it is clearly a point of pride. He’ll like that. And don’t let on that you know this, or he’ll think you’re a stalker, but he works in that old black and white pub in town, meaning he is conveniently located for dates, sex, and all the other things humans like to do to each other. And that is all I’m going to tell you. Well, except to say that…Lacey, I think he’s your person – maybe even your forever person. Be kind to him. And to his dog. I won’t tell you her name, in case you say it by accident and have to pretend to be psychic for the rest of your life. Because I think he might be the rest of your life…or at least enough of it to make you happy again, which is all I want. All I want. This is everything I’ve been working on, since I died…more or less – I did mention my dragony adventures; a dog has to blow off steam somehow, no pun intended. But most of my time has been spent vetting candidates for—” he abruptly broke off, and shuddered violently, repeating in a worried mutter, “Vetting. Vets. Ugh!” His glazed, horrified eyes finally returned to focus, and he forced a smile, saying, “Sorry, bad memories. Thermometers – I’m sure you know what I mean. Why in god’s name do they have to do that with the thermometer?!”
He shuddered again, shook himself, and continued determinedly,
“Anyway, what I was saying, is I have taken into consideration quite a few people on my hunt, so I assure you, this person is of a very fine vintage, and will suit you most excellently. And after that, I think you’ll be happy.”
There was a long, amicable silence, as Lacey tried to absorb the bizarre notion of her dead dog spending several months of his afterlife acting as her personal dating consultant, aided by some terrifying long-dead witch, who had apparently been snooping through her computer deliberating – with her dog – over the vital matter of whether to upload one of her nudes to OkCupid…
“Thank you,” she said, in the end. What else could she possibly say? Spook had clearly tried. “You’ve done a lot of work…and he does sound, and look, amazing. But honestly, Rowf, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. This is all so, so mad, I’m kind of afraid that I’m dreaming, or having a really weird cider-induced trip, and I really can’t take any more hits from life right now. So if this is still real in the morning, maybe I’ll let myself hope. Whatever happens though, thank you, Rowf. Thank you for all of this. I know you think giving me a new person is the most important thing, but for me the most important thing is this, here, now – being with you again. So…thank you, for coming back…and being here…and talking to me? I’ll always miss you as a dog, but…I love this version of you, too…”
“Good,” said Rowf, smiling. “You’ll get to keep it forever, really, this person…just with somebody else inside it. I simply thought it might warm the pot, so to speak, if you first met this body with a friend inside it. I think it’ll be love at first sight, when he sees you, so make sure your hair’s nice. Leave it down – he liked that picture the most.” Rowf lifted her hand, and gave it the tiniest, most polite little lick with the very tip of his tongue. When he glanced up, he looked regretful.
“I have to go now,” he said quietly. “It was Bertha, the witch, who got me here like this – solid, visible, tangible…but even she can’t work miracles. I deliver the message, then I leave – that was the deal.”
Lacey’s eyes filled with tears again, and he hurriedly went on, “But it’s not all bad news, and it’s not forever! Lacey, I’m not moving on – not yet; I need to see how things turn out, I need to know if I did my job properly. I want to see you happy, with your brand new person. And that means…I’ll still be here, on Earth, next Halloween. Maybe even the one after that. And I will do everything in my power to visit you. Can you live with that?”
She laughed through her tears, and buried her face in his neck again, hugging him tight as she choked out, “Thank you… Thank you so much, Rowf. I love you…”
“You can call me Spook, if you like,” he said softly, and she could hear him smiling. “You gave me that name – it’s who I am to you. I’d like it if you still thought of me as Spook. My human body deserved a mostly-human name, just for tonight, but I will always be Spook at heart…”
“Spook,” she repeated, and dissolved into floods of tears.
“You’re not making this easy,” he said sadly. “Leaving, I mean…”
“They’re happy tears…” she whispered. “Mostly…”
“You’re going to show me out of the house, like a polite human guest, and then you are going to go directly to your computer, and look at the dating site. Alex, remember. You’ll recognise him. He’s your Halloween person now, Lacey. Focus on him, not on missing me. Oh, and next Halloween, expect the unexpected – I could show up as anyone, remember…or anything. Including a dragon. I did like that one…”
Lacey laughed, and Spook pried her from around his neck, then he stood up, and pulled her to her feet. She took in his warm, dark eyes, his beautiful face and kind expression one last time, and turned to lead the way the door.
“I love you, Lacey” said Spook. “So much.”
She spun back to smile at him, but to her horror realised his solidity was leeching rapidly away, patches of wallpaper blurrily visible through his torso.
“Spook! Do you promise to come back?”
“I dog promise,” he insisted. “Dog promises are never broken.”
“I love you…” was the last thing she managed to say, before he disappeared completely.
After spending fifteen minutes sobbing incoherently on the carpet, Lacey shakily fetched the last of the mulled cider, and shuffled over to the computer, clutching the warmth of her mug tightly. When she got to the dating site, there were a lot of new faces – Spook’s creepy witch accomplice seemed to have caused the algorithm to go haywire, and Lacey was now flavour of the month. But finally, after seemingly endless scrolling, she found that familiar face.
“Spook…”, she whispered, pressing her fingers to the screen, brushing them across the beautiful boy in the photograph. “Spook…”
“Alex,” came a rippling whisper from behind her, and she jumped out of her skin.
“Are you still here?!” she exclaimed.
“No…” said the whisper.
Lacey laughed, and the whisper explained,
“I’m still fading through the veil…I’m surprised you can even hear me. Just look at his profile, Lacey. Get to know him. Because now I’m really g…”
The whisper faded to nothing.
Lacey told Spook how much she loved him anyway, in case he was still there, through the veil now, silent again, intangible…but apparently getting up to god knows what regardless.
She wiped her eyes, smiled, and clicked on the profile: it was time to meet her new Halloween person.
As she did so, somewhere, far far away, deep in the darkness of the night, came a blood-curdling scream, as a young man’s sexual conquest draped an earthworm scarf around his neck, adorned with a never-fail, week-long stickability curse.
The real Halloween was in full swing.
The Putrescent Vein 