Doug reached into the box of Halloween supplies there and pulled out a ghoulish rubber mask with one bloodshot eyeball bobbling loose over the cheek. “What the hell is this all about?”

Tommy cocked the brim of his Daiwa cap and beamed. “They say that old Danner place is haunted. I just want to make sure, you know?”

Larry stared blankly. “No, I don’t know.”

“We’re gonna scare the shit out of the Millers, Goodyear,” he snapped, irritated. “Anybody ever confuse you two with nuclear scientists? Never mind. Help me get this stuff out.”

The box contained a little bit of everything: plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs, Vampire Blood, fluorescent makeup, rubber masks, and rubber hands and some rubbers that didn’t belong there at all and were quickly pocketed. There was an ax too. “That’s my coup de gracie,” Tommy said, hefting the “Red Chopper” camp hatchet with one hand. “They see me in my outfit with this thing and they’ll shit in their skivvies.”

“This is gonna be great,” Larry agreed after claiming a pitted and bloody hockey mask for his own. “I just got one question. Why did we park all the way back here? Why didn’t we just park near the gate?”

“Yeah, Tommy, how come?”

“Didn’t you two see all the cars parked back there? If that deputy should come back on patrol, he’s not gonna ask any questions about one more car, is he? Besides, if we go over the wall just up the road we can come up on the house from a different angle than they did, so they won’t see us coming.”

Fat Larry looked down the dark road and shook his head. “I don’t know, Tommy. Looks like a pretty good distance.”

“What’s a matter,” Doug laughed, “afraid you’ll walk off a few pounds?”

Tommy shot the heavy boy a withering glare. “You could always stay with the car. Is that what you want?”

“Hell no,” he ruffled. “I was just thinkin’. . . .” but he trailed off and finally let the notion die. “Screw it,” he shrugged, dismissing the chill at the back of his neck. “Let’s go get those bastards. Nobody calls me Lard-ass.”

Each of them stuffed a few Halloween goodies into their jackets; then they shut the trunk and fished the last few beers from the cooler in the backseat and started down Sykes Road on foot. Within fifty yards the T-Bird was gone, swallowed by the darkness behind them.

Larry walked a few steps behind the others, unable to keep up with them or keep his eyes off the overgrowth all around them. The moon was a spotlight in the sky, so bright and clear he could almost see Jackie Gleason’s face in it, but a bank of clouds kept upstaging it and limiting their visibility to just the road before them. The fog seemed denser as well, and glowing.

He buttoned his jacket up around his neck and kept walking.