The Detour
The distorted discoloured face scowled at Josh from atop its stony plinth, its drooping mouth making it look as though it had suffered a stroke. Despite his predicament, he smiled. As carved pumpkins go, it was a sorry excuse for one. The Biblical rain had extinguished its inner glow, but that wasn’t its real problem. It wasn’t even orange, and it wasn’t round. It was the hunchback of Pumpkin Dame. Josh felt a brief pang of guilt at his cruel dismissal of the deformed squash. Maybe some poor child had had to make do with one they’d found rotting in a field, their single parent mother not having enough money to waste on a perfect specimen from her local supermarket. He laughed aloud as his mind concocted an image of a young mum with no money doing her best to bring up her child, the exhaustion at battling life’s unfairness betrayed in her eyes, though not enough to diminish her prettiness. He wouldn’t even have spotted the defective vegetable had the asphalt directly ahead not been consumed by a torrent of rushing water, the deepness of which was a mystery. Orcs had already succumbed to its unstoppable force. Through the deluge, he could make out their dark spindly arms reaching out in vain from the black turmoil. There was no way he was attempting to drive through something which had the power to sweep away tree branches.
It had been a long time since he had passed any side roads, a long time and a long way for him to drive back. And the rain was getting heavier, becoming Biblical plus, as if multiple gods bathed at the same time and now had all simultaneously pulled out their bath plugs. It wasn’t rain he could see through his windscreen; it was Niagara Falls. A thought occurred to him. The pumpkin on the plinth. It must signal something, even if only the entrance to a house. Maybe a tiny spartan cottage kept in pristine condition by that attractive single mother. How could she refuse a weary traveller seeking temporary protection from the storm? Josh consulted his satnav, zooming in on his position. The bright screen showed the plinth wasn’t at the entrance to a house, it was a minor road which curved north and then east before eventually re-joining the one he was currently stationary on. Ahead, the river grew in magnitude and ferocity, its troubled waters creeping ever closer to his car. He put the vehicle into reverse, then turned it toward the pumpkin. As he inched forward, a tree-shrouded opening barely wider than the car revealed itself. Josh followed this rutted track with aspirations to be a real road as it climbed upward, weaving through a blacked-out world. He silently prayed he didn’t meet anything coming in the opposite direction as the narrow lane convulsed upward, its twists and turns making even full beam ineffective; all his headlights could illuminate ahead was one black canvas after another.
Only the fact he was taking it cautiously prevented Josh from emerging from a blind corner and driving straight into another river dissecting his way forward. He hit the brakes. The car aquaplaned for a bum-clenching couple of feet before it sloshed to a stop just short of the blockade. Through the rage of rainfall bouncing off his windscreen, Josh could make out the water in front was behaving in an orderly fashion. Not a flood. A ford. One which was still too deep for Josh’s liking. But where there’s a ford there’s usually a … yup, Josh spotted it. A narrow stone footbridge to one side of the ford. Beside the bridge was a sign – Ere’ton. Not only that, a hundred metres or so beyond, and making a valiant attempt to fend off the oppressive darkness, was the faintest of yellow lights. Potential sanctuary. Josh made an executive decision. He manoeuvred the car into a grassy lay-by, pulled his jacket over his head, and sprinted toward the beckoning light.
As he splashed his way along the road, he became aware he was running along a street lined by silhouetted houses. He’d entered a village whose buildings were in complete darkness. A power cut, he pondered. But there was that solitary light ahead. Maybe their own generator. White light blinded Josh, and then the world was black once again; a flash of sheet lightning so brief that all he could see in the darkroom in his head was an imprint of his immediate surroundings – the sharp outline of a building in front of which two huge black hounds paced, their teeth bared but their mouths making no noise. That and a sign featuring the name of the house. It happened so quickly Josh wasn’t completely sure of what he’d seen. He quickened his pace.
‘Re-sult,’ he exclaimed with relief when he reached the protection of the light, a Victorian street lantern, and read the words illuminated on the curved white arch from which it projected. The Ere’Ton Inn. He turned an iron ring handle on the inn’s door and stepped inside.
The inn was more over-sized nook than country pub. It consisted of a wooden pew which ran the length of one wall. A table with three Windsor chairs spanned the length of the pew, while a fireplace, unlit, with a copper chimney hood monopolised the far wall. Opposite the seating area was the bar. The petit pub had one customer, a small, wiry man in his fifties with a Bulldog pipe clenched between his lips, also unlit. On the table in front of him lay a sheaf of blank paper on a clipboard. Behind the bar, a bald-headed man in an olive tweed waistcoat over a crisp white shirt ran his towel-covered fist around the inside of a dimpled pint glass.
‘We’re not open,’ the bartender muttered on seeing Josh.
‘Oh, come on,’ Josh attempted a charming smile. ‘It’s monsooning it down out there. I’m sort of trapped … and a bit lost.’
‘I’m sure you can find your way to the main road.’ The bartender remained unmoved by Josh’s plea. ‘It’s not safe up here, not tonight … in this weather.’
‘I’m not sure it’s safe going back out there,’ Josh said, jerking his thumb at the door. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw two devil dogs outside, what was it, The Unstables.’
‘What did you just call it?’ The barman’s eyes narrowed.
‘Sorry, just a little joke,’ Josh smiled weakly, ‘You know with it being Halloween. I know it’s probably The Stables, but for a second, during the lightning, it just looked like it said The Unstables. My imagination playing tricks.’
The barman’s eyes flicked toward the man with the pipe and back. His chest deflated. ‘It is a horrible night. I suppose you better stay. What can I get you?’
‘Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.’ Josh rubbed his hands together. ‘Something cool and local would be perfect.’ He hung his soggy coat from a hook over the fireplace and indicated one of the Windsor chairs. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked pipe man, who nodded his acquiescence. The man picked up the board with the paper and extracted a pencil from the breast pocket of his jacket.
‘Do you mind?’ the man asked, aiming the pencil at a spot somewhere behind Josh’s head. Josh twisted around to see a row of sketched portraits decorating the wall above the optics, many of which were fading to the point it was difficult to make out any facial details.
‘Freddy likes to draw customers,’ the bartender explained. ‘It’s a tradition. We don’t get much passing trade up here; it’s been a while since he’s had the opportunity. Some of the older ones need replacing.’
‘In that case, no problem,’ Josh replied. ‘It would be sort of cool being immortalised in an inn nobody knows about.’
‘Good. That’s that then,’ the bartender said, appearing more relaxed as he slammed the gleaming pint pot down on the counter. Freddy’s face lit up as if he’d just found out he’d won the lottery. The pencil in his hand swirled across the paper. ‘You know,’ continued the bartender. ‘You weren’t wrong about that house. It is called The Stables. But every year when darkness descends on All Hallows Eve, the name changes. For one night, and one night only, it becomes The Unstables. You see, everything sort of gets turned on its head up here on this night.’
‘You’re messing with me.’ Josh laughed. ‘The townie straying into a village in the middle of nowhere. Fair game, eh?’ He raised his pint. ‘Carry on. What else have you got?’
The bartender let out a brief, sharp laugh. ‘Those weren’t dogs you saw outside the house. They were the Hunts, normally you wouldn’t find a nicer couple, but tonight…’
‘R-i-g-h-t,’ Josh said slowly. ‘I had a lucky escape then. What might have I encountered had I continued through the village? Monster Mansion? Terror Tower?’
‘No, we don’t have any of those,’ the bartender chortled. ‘But you would have passed Corpse Mill, Hell Farm, Potty Barn, and Witchcraft Cottage before arriving at the Undead End Estate.’
‘Haha! Very good,’ Josh laughed. ‘Let me guess. Every other day of the year, Hell Farm is normally Hall Farm. Corpse Mill must be Copse Mill. Potty Barn is, let me see … Potters Barn. Witchcraft House, Whitcraft House, and the Undead End Estate is Dead End Estate.’
‘Not bad. Not bad at all,’ the bartender voiced his approval. ‘You guessed three right. It’s Hill Farm and Whitcroft House usually.’
‘And what happens? The owners of each take on a character that reflects the Halloween name of their house?’
‘Something like that.’ The bartender confirmed.
Behind Josh, the scratching of lead on paper stopped. ‘Finished,’ Freddy announced.
Josh spun around. ‘So where do you live, Freddy? What’s your Halloween alter ego?’ he asked as the man showed him the portrait. He expected a caricature version of himself. What he was presented with was an almost exact replica of the face he saw looking back at him from the mirror every day.
‘Freddy lives at The Forge,’ the bartender said.
‘Ah,’ Josh nodded, the penny dropping at the punchline he now saw coming. ‘Of course. Freddy the Forger. Don’t tell me, he replicates things. In this case, me.’ Josh waved his pint at the drawing. ‘That’s excellent. Very realistic.’
‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ The bartender said, just as the front door was flung open.
Josh swivelled in his seat to see who the new customer was. Another local come to amuse themselves at the expense of the stranger no doubt. The newcomer was drenched. He removed the coat he held ineffectively over his head, shook it, and hung it from the back of the door, then turned around and stared straight at Josh. Josh just had enough time to register he was looking at himself before he felt the garrotte slice deep into his neck and his world turned forever black.
