“Nana,
Nana, can we use your fallen leaves to make a Halloween Scarecrow?”
eight-year-old Dani begged running up the leaf-littered dirt driveway hauling a
bright pink plastic rake in one hand and her best friend Olive in the other.
“Absolutely,
kid!” I said setting my old green lawn rake against the side of the small barn
we used for firewood. “I think that’s a
fine idea. There’s a trunk of old
clothing upstairs in the barn that you can use to dress your scarecrow and, as
you can see, we have plenty of nice dry leaves.”
The
two girls raced into the barn emerging minutes later with a pair of old red
pajamas, green knitted socks, gray gloves, and a wide brimmed orange hunting
hat.
“Grab
a pumpkin from the garden to use for his head,” I said pointing toward our
small patch of garden. “Please stay out of the cemetery,” I added, shivering as
the afternoon sun glinted off a shiny new grave stone. “There are plenty of leaves on our side of
the fence.”
Hours
later, I wiped my sudsy hands on my apron and stepped out into our spacious
back yard to watch the girls add finishing touches to their new creation. Dubbed “Monster-Hunter” by the girls because
of his bright hat and clothing, the foreboding new decoration sat comfortably
in Blair’s old green lawn chair by the mailbox holding an old hatchet in one
glove and a jaunty orange trick or treat bag in the other.
“He’s
hideous,” I said vaguely annoyed to see the creature sitting in Blair’s old
chair.
Where he used to wait
for the mail.
I shook off
that odd feeling of annoyance, glancing uneasily at that shiny grave stone
behind me. “Did you have to make him
look so . . . um . . . so evil?”
“Sure we did!
It’s almost Halloween,” Dani said.
“But why does
he smell so bad?” Olive asked.
I moved in a
little closer and detected an odor of purification that was bad enough to make
my stomach lurch at little.
“Where did
you get those leaves?” I asked a trifle shrilly.
Dani pointed
to the fence surrounding the small cemetery behind the barn. “We used those until we found those smelly red
things growing by the fence. Those
smelled REALLY bad! Olive, you don’t
think any of those smelly things got IN him do you?”
“Maybe . . . because
that’s what he smells like . . . eww gross!” she scrunched up her face and
moved away from the scarecrow.
“I’m going home now,” Olive stated backing
away from my mailbox with a scowl. “Bye.”
In a flurry
of autumn leaves, she disappeared down the path.
“I should be
going too, Nana,” Dani said sidling toward the path. “Mom will be calling me in to dinner any time
now.
“But . . .
what about your scarecrow?” I stammered as she vanished down the path at a
trot. “Don’t you want him for your
yard?”
But she was
already gone leaving me standing in my leaf littered driveway staring at a smelly,
ugly monstrosity that had no business existing.
“You used to say that about Blair.”
The whispered words floated about my head – did I say them? Or think them?
Chilled, I
wrapped an afghan from the porch around my shoulders and walked slowly over to
the bare patch of dried grass by the fence. Five dark red stinkhorns nodded
their smelly heads toward the newest grave stone perched on the other side of
the fence. I could see more of the vile
mushrooms growing willy-nilly across the mound in front of Blair’s
headstone. “Devil’s dipsticks,” Blair
had called those loathsome plants. Evil
rods pushing right up from hell surrounded by the smells of rotting things best
not thought about by sane people.
But Blair wasn’t sane . . . was he?
Once again
the whispered words floated about my head leaving me chilled and feeling slightly
ill. The putrefied stench of stink horns
followed me into the house. No matter how
many times I washed my hands, I could not rid myself of that vile odor.
Fretfully, I
tossed and turned in a clean bed that smelled vaguely of stinkhorn. In my dreams Blair ranted and raved at the
mailman for being four minutes late . . . raged over stinkhorns creeping into
our yard from the graveyard next door . . . blustered about pets walking
through our yard. Slamming to reality, I
sat bolt upright ready to see Blair standing in my doorway complaining about
trick or treaters . . .
“Little shits
. . . always looking for a handout! I’ll
give them a handout . . . I’LL GIVE THEM THE BACK OF MY HAND IF THEY BOTHER ME
AGAIN.”
“Stop it,
stop it, stop it.” I shrieked to the empty room around me. “You’re dead . . . I know you’re dead because
. . .”
Shaken, I
made my way to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. The bright moon showered hazy rays over our
yard – no over MY yard – settling on
the scarecrow by MY mailbox. The glass threatened to slip from my hand and
shatter over the wooden floor boards below.
My newest Halloween decoration had changed. Cherry red stink horns sprouted haphazardly
from the creature’s inner elbows, crotch, neck, and ankles. The drawn on evil pumpkin face appeared to
have melted into a wildly hideous caricature of my dead twin, Blair.
As I watched
in pure terror, the gruesome distortion rose from the chair and looked right at
me through the window.
My heart
skipped a beat and this time the glass did shatter to the floor below. The ghastly face moving eerily toward me
wasn’t Blair! It was . . . It was . . .
~ ~ ~
“Oh my
goodness it’s Nana!” Dani said through tears and sobs. “Why did she do it? Why is she wearing our scarecrow’s
clothes? What happened to her face?”
The child’s
mother shook her head sadly. “Nana Beth
is with Uncle Blair now.”
#fridayflash: Devil's Dipstick
