Devil's Night

Prologue

For once, it looked as though Long Pine High was fucked up in Bishop’s favor.

Gods knew they owed him one.

Sophomore year? They’d canceled the music department, just when he was getting good at classical guitar. Sure, he’d kept at the guitar on his own, but that wasn’t the point.

Just eliminating the music department? That was some serious bullshit.

The same kind of bullshit they pulled just before junior year. When somebody on the PTA got a bug up their butt about the school mascot.

As though anyone ever went Satanist over a high school mascot.

So instead of the Long Pine Green Devils, they became the Long Pine Cormorants. Which made about as much sense, far as Bishop was concerned. Weren’t any more cormorants hanging around a Bay Area suburb than there were green devils.

But Bishop’s best friend, Ans, did all the art for the school promotions. Blessing and curse of being so good at it.

Ans drew some kickass green devils. But drawing stupid birds bored him, so Bishop had to listen to him complain every time a new project came his way.

Least Bishop could do, though. Ans had listened with nothing but sympathy while Bishop bitched about losing the music department.

This time, though. Halloween. This was different.

This time, old Principal Null may have finally gotten one right.

This year, Halloween fell on a Saturday. Most natural thing in the world — the thing any school with a lick of sense would have done — would have been to hold the Halloween Dance on Halloween itself.

That would have been perfect, in its own way.

Faye, Bishop’s girlfriend of two years, she loved to dance. Just like Ans’ girl, Jewel. The dances always started around seven, and Steve Jenkins’ annual Halloween bash never really started before nine or ten.

Bishop and Ans could have danced ‘til Faye and Jewel were all breathless and happy. Perfect mood to party for a couple of hours at Steve’s place before splitting off into couples and rounding out the night with little private parties of their own.

Would have been a fine evening all around.

But the school had a football game slated for Saturday. And no way no how would they move a football game for a dance.

Sure. Logic would have said they should hold the game and then the dance. But as Ans always joked, the only logic in Long Pine High School involved anagrams.

Turned out the school couldn’t hold a dance and a game on the same night. Some kind of issue there with insurance, or overtime, or…

Truth was, Bishop tuned out during Mr. Michelson’s explanation, back during first period Calculus that morning.

He got the gist of it. The part that mattered.

And what mattered was that the dance was Friday night. Not Saturday night.

And that, well, that might work out even better.

Bishop didn’t care much about football, and neither did Ans. But Faye and Jewel were both on the cheer squad — they’d joined up sophomore year when Faye’s younger sister Gemma made the football team as a place kicker — so they never missed a game.

And while cheering wasn’t quite as good as dancing, when it came to Faye and Jewel getting breathless and happy, it came in a pretty close second. By the time the game was over, they’d be eager to change into their costumes and head out to Steve’s party.

So Halloween night projected to be pretty darn good.

And as for the night before, it might be even better.

Bishop and Ans had been friends since fifth grade, when Ans moved out here from Detroit. In Detroit, the night before Halloween was known as Devil’s Night, and got famous because people liked to set fire to abandoned houses on that night.

Ans wasn’t a firebug, but when he moved out here, he couldn’t believe Long Pine City didn’t do anything for Devil’s Night.

So naturally, Ans had wanted to start a little Devil’s Night tradition of his own. But he didn’t have any good ideas.

Bishop had suggested finding a haunted kind of place, and telling ghost stories. Ans loved it.

And for years, the two of them had done just that. Cemeteries, empty parks, all kinds of places within reach of their bikes. They’d huddle together with flashlights and try to scare the hell out of each other.

They didn’t sleep much those nights, but they had a good time.

Then Bishop and Ans had gotten old enough to start inviting girls to join in their little tradition. Some went for it. Some didn’t.

The ones that didn’t, well, they didn’t tend to stick around very long.

Faye and Jewel got into it. Even brought stories of their own to tell, which was just proof of how awesome they were.

And now, for the first time since junior high, Devil’s Night fell on a Friday.

They could dance it up for a couple of hours in the gym. Then they could head off to a nice secluded spot — Ans said he’d found the perfect place for this year — jazz each other up even more with some ghost stories. Keep at it ‘til their hearts were pounding, and they were clinging to each other…

And not one of them had to be home before three. Benefit of being seniors.

Oh, yes. Long Pine High might have been pretty fucked up, but this time that might actually work out in Bishop’s favor.

He couldn’t wait.

1

October 30

th

, just before 3:15 pm.

Auto Shop — Bishop’s best friend and his worst enemy.

Four years of Auto Shop had saved Bishop more money in car expenses than he could track.

That class was the reason he’d gotten away with paying fifty bucks for a trashed relic of a Dodge Charger from the mid-70s. He’d bought that car as a freshman, and spent two years rebuilding it before he was even legally old enough to fire it up.

By senior year, the Charger wasn’t looking pristine or anything, but it did look pretty decent. Sure, half the parts had the mismatched paint jobs of their original vehicles, but the rust was gone, the body was in good shape, and the upholstery even matched now.

Best of all, the Charger purred like jungle cat.

Bishop loved that image. Deep down, he wanted to call his sweet ride the Panther.

Unfortunately, Ans had christened it the Frankencharger back in Sophomore year, and the name stuck.

At least Ans was talking about helping with the paint job, around graduation. Something that would fit the Frankencharger theme. And with Ans planning the look, the result might be cooler than any cat theme could hope to be.

But today was one of those days when Auto Shop was Bishop’s worst enemy.

The class was only available during the seventh period slot — the last of the day — which meant that a good hour after pretty much every other senior was free and clear for Halloween weekend, Bishop was stuck in here, checking brake pads that didn’t need checking, and trying to get that smell out of the air conditioner.

Something had gotten into the system on that trip to Santa Cruz last month, and the car still smelled like a tide pool every time Bishop turned on the fan.

Couldn’t focus on that though. Didn’t want to take apart the dashboard and get caught up in tracking down odors. Not today. It was all he could do to look busy enough to not get hassled by Mr. Stevenson.

Mr. Stevenson taught this class as a kind of retirement job after some forty years of work at different garages. These days, he could let his gray hair and beard grow long — his hair was almost as long as Bishop’s, which made the old man smile — and his belly nice and round as Mr. Stevenson described it.

Bishop thought Mr. Stevenson looked like a Hell’s Angels version of Santa Claus.

And woe betide those students who thought they’d slack off in his class. Mr. Stevenson had the most creative approach to punishments. Auto Shop was full of dirty, disgusting jobs that Mr. Stevenson kept ready for anyone he caught letting more than their motor idle.

Even on a day like today, those hawk eyes of his kept darting. It was driving Bishop crazy, and the school clock seemed to go slower and slower and…

Finally the bell rang. The sweetest music.

Bishop was sending texts before he even fired up his car.

Free! (sent to Ans, Faye and Jewel)

Finally! (from Faye, who didn’t have much right to complain. Cheerleading practice was also a seventh period activity, though they didn’t meet every day.)

Smiling emoji from Jewel, and a thumbs-up from Ans.

Stay safe out there! Mr. Stevenson called as his students filed or drove out of his huge garage, as he did at the end of every class.

Bishop hopped behind the wheel. The solid thump of his door closing, the sound of completion.

He cranked the key. The Frankencharger growled to life, accompanied by Metallica’s cover of Am I Evil.

Bishop winked at himself in the rearview mirror, and peeled out.

The sad part of peeling out of Auto Shop is that it was anticlimactic. A joyous moment like that should have led to rapid use of the oak gear shift knob, and racing for a freeway or something. Maybe just hitting three yellow lights along the way. Really letting the Charger off its school-day leash.

But it was not to be. Not here.

The school driveway let out onto a side street, with a speed limit of twenty, and a cop sitting there every day. Almost hidden behind a tall hedge. Just waiting to give Bishop a ticket.

All right, maybe the mustached jerk didn’t care who he ticketed, but he’d nailed Bishop three times, and always did it with this evil smile. Last time was for twenty-three miles per hour.

Twenty-three.

Bishop refused to even learn the cop’s name, out of a small, petty sort of revenge. The better revenge was what Bishop was getting right now.

Bishop saw the jerk look up at the sound of Frankencharger’s roar. Guy was already firing up his bike. Ready to hit the siren. Ready to catch Bishop for number four.

But Bishop had a plan. Tested it in late night parking lots, just to make sure.

By the time his speedometer passed fifteen, Bishop’s foot was already off the gas. The needle reached twenty, but didn’t even shrug a hair across the line.

Twenty miles-per-hour exactly, all the way up two blocks of boring suburbia to the first stop sign. Nothing but perfectly mown lawns and happy little houses all around him. The kind with front yard tire swings hanging from the occasional elm tree, and the goofiest kind of store bought Halloween decorations.

A cavalcade of kitsch.

But when Bishop hit that stop sign, he smiled into his rearview mirror. The jerk cop was sitting way back there. Hadn’t budged an inch from his hiding spot. But from the tilt of his helmet, he was still watching Bishop.

Bishop turned the corner and punched it.

He liked to think that cop heard the Frankencharger’s roar, but sat there impotent, too far away to do anything about it.

Or maybe he fired up his bike. Gave chase. But Bishop was already turning again at the next block and killing his speed. Even if the jerk caught up to him, Bishop wouldn’t be doing anything wrong.

Heh.

Home was only another ten blocks anyway. Hardly worth the effort of driving at all, except for three key things.

First, taunting the cop. Of course. Jerk was asking for it. Hassling high school students like that. If he wanted to catch real speeders, he should have been down near the office parks that let out onto Highway 280. Those guys hit freeway speeds on city streets.

Second reason, the joy of awesome music pounding in his ears from the best car stereo Bishop could afford.

Most important of all, the sweet freedom of driving.

Yeah. These were things worth Auto Shop, worth staying every day through seventh period, even worth dealing with that jerk cop. Especially key number three.

Nothing was better than freedom.

When the ping came, Ans was almost finished with his sketch. One of his big sketchbooks, of course. Eighteen by eleven inches. Rough paper. Best to start new projects with.

He only worked with medium pencils when doing his first drafts. Not because they were best for what he was doing. No, it was because he thought best in medium pencil. A habit picked up when he was a kid, before he learned how many options a proper drawing kit would give him.

This sketch was a haunted house. Victorian. Dark sky. Overgrown grass with weeds. Huge oak in the yard with the tattered remnants of an old noose, only just visible as it danced in the wind.

Smears of clouds in the night sky, barely hiding the half-moon.

Everyone always thought of full moons as the scariest kind of moon. Ans preferred the half-moon. Like a guillotine hanging in the sky. Or the headsman’s axe, ready to come down.

The house itself, a little decrepit, but not too much. Just implications here and there. Boards on the porch, the shutters on the windows. Those were the kinds of things suggesting an inner rot in the house. Disrepair. Danger.

And in the attic window, a shadow.

Ans didn’t even know what it was a shadow of. Sometime between the initial sketch and the time he started working on his tablet, he’d make more decisions. Or, rather, the decisions would let him know what they were.

That was how drawing always felt to Ans, when it was good. Like he wasn’t making any decisions at all. He was just looking in on some other universe, and drawing what he saw there.

But the ping came, which meant it was finally a quarter past three, and Bish was done with Auto Shop.

Ans fired back a quick thumbs-up emoji, and shook himself. Reminded himself where he was.

The front bench seat of his ancient Caddy. Stereo didn’t work, the interior smelled like French fries all the time, and despite Bishop’s best efforts, it still leaked oil at a slow, steady rate. But it was roomy and comfortable. Plus, it