“No, I don’t think so,” Doug smiled between hits on the joint as he put his feet up on the dash. “I’ll just stay in here. Thanks anyway.”

“Chickenshit.”

“I think I know why Larry held off,” Tommy decided. “He didn’t want to screw Miller up and make them chicken out of the bet. Isn’t that right, Larry?”

“Uh . . . yeah.”

“After all, fifty bucks is fifty bucks, right? Who knows, we may have enough left over to pay your brother back for the beer. Maybe.”

“Hey, Tommy,” Doug wheezed through another drag. “What makes you think we’ll win the bet?”

Tommy gave them a gap-toothed grin. “Old son, I’d just about say that money is in the bag.”

“Uh oh,” Doug said, climbing out of the car and suddenly interested, “I’d say the boy’s got something up his sleeve.”

Tommy opened his jacket sleeve and peered inside. “I don’t see anything. . . .”

“Quit jackin’, Tommy. What’ve you got in mind?”

The oily grin spread even further. He slid off the hood and sauntered to the back of the car, taking his time until the others followed behind. Then he popped the trunk open. “Who’s for big fun?” he asked, swinging it wide.

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.”