Slay Ride

The sounds of the night echoed through the woods. The mule’s hooves beat out a steady rhythm. The wagon creaked and squeaked slowly down the dirt path that led to Butcher’s meadow. The back of the wagon was filled with fresh-cut hay that scratched and itched and smelled as sweet as pumpkin pie. There were eight of us. Eight of us who were not laughing and cutting up at some Halloween party drinking spiked punch and dressed in funny costumes. As I looked up at a full harvest moon just rising above the trees and millions of stars winking at us from every visible corner of the sky, I realized that I liked this better. We were all remarkably quiet. Even when we did speak, it was in whispers; so I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. There was a chill in the air, and a light puff of wind persuaded Kelly to snuggle a little closer to me. Her long, strawberry blonde hair cascaded down my shoulder and her hypnotic blue eyes looked dreamily up at me. I couldn’t be happier than I was right now…

Of course, this wasn’t what we’d planned. All through high school, my best friend Dave had hosted a big Halloween party. His parents would go upstairs, and there would be a room for the dancers to writhe and get sweaty, a room for the lovers to make out in the dark, and the playroom where others would shoot pool and play ping-pong. I was getting far too good at pool and ping-pong. But this year, (our senior year!), his parents made other plans for the same night, so the party was called off. I have only been out with Kelly twice, but I hoped she wouldn’t bail like the rest of our friends that found a better party. After our last date, she gave me a long, hot kiss outside the bowling alley and said she’d love a hayride for Halloween. I was ecstatic!

I caught the yellow-white reflection of the moon in a raccoon’s eyes as he watched us pass by. Other tiny creatures scurried away leaving tiny wakes in the vegetation as they ran unseen just below. Night birds called ahead as we passed, and tiny bats made incredible aerobatic moves as they gorged on mosquitoes. Every now and then, there was a flash of fairy-like light as fireflies danced in the darkness. An owl bellowed a haunting call as he surveyed his territory.

“I can’t spend Halloween bringing my kid brother door to door collecting candy and listening to the fun being had inside by everyone else. We’ve got to come up with something!” I exclaimed as Dave and I wandered around in Mrs. Johnson’s pumpkin patch. Finally, we saw a grand pumpkin perfect for carving. We also saw something else – a weathered old wagon with a faded plywood sign “Hayrides”. We asked Mrs. Johnson about it as we laid our prize pumpkin on the table to be priced.

“Oh my, Yes!” she beamed. “Before the pumpkins really took off, we used to do a big hayride complete with a bonfire and S’Mores in Butcher’s Meadow. But kids your age all go to parties now and hayrides are too boring for you.” She said, with a heavy note of nostalgia.

“Well, our party has been cancelled. What would it take to get a hayride going again?” Let me talk to Mr. Johnson. But I think if you boys give me $20 for that fine pumpkin and help fix up the wagon and load it with hay, I think that might just cover it.

“Great!” we said in unison. When we got home, we started calling around to see who was still free and wanted to go on a hayride. Unfortunately, Mrs. Johnson was right, and we only found two other couples to join us. It would be Dave and Sara, me and Kelly, Scott and Therez, and Doug and Maria. It was a cozy group – we had all been friends through most of high school, with the exception of Maria who Doug just started dating from St. Carmel High School. She seems real nice, though.

 The trees gave way to saplings, and then suddenly, we were in the wide open of Butcher’s Meadow. The sound of the quiet changed from the close quiet of the woods to an expansive quiet that stretched across the meadow to every horizon. I let out an involuntary gasp as the full expanse of sky opened above us brimming with more stars than I’d ever seen. “Kelly, look!” as a shooting star sped off to some magical destination. As our eyes followed the path of the shooting star, we saw the fire in the distance. Mrs. Johnson already had the bonfire started. A chill wind blew across the meadow, and the fire looked incredibly inviting…

Our “free” hayride ended up being a lot of work. Dave and I helped Mr. Johnson grease the wagon’s wheels, paint it, loaded it with hay, collected firewood and rocks for the bonfire, shopped and paid for the snacks for the meadow, and still had to carve our pumpkins. We placed them out in the meadow with the kindling, machete, and other bonfire supplies to be lit when we got out there.

The candles in the pumpkins were beginning to burn out, barely flickering now and then. I was beginning to slip into a marshmallow coma. Two of them bobbed in my third cup of hot chocolate and I held a twelfth one at the end of a coat hanger in the fire to roast. A tiny green flame started at one edge of the marshmallow that turned bright yellow as soon the entire marshmallow was on fire. I pulled the flaming confection out of the fire and blew it out. I like my marshmallows well done. I blew on it a bit to cool it off, then gingerly stripped off the crusty outside, leaving the melted, gooey inside on the hanger. I stuck this back in the fire until it caught as well, and repeated the process. Kelly found it both amazing and disgusting. She tried valiantly to roast her marshmallows without letting them catch fire. But with this breeze, flare-ups were inevitable and I ended up eating most of her “burned” ones. The fire was dying, and we all started creeping closer to the flames and each other for warmth. Warm, full, and happy, it was time to head back.

My mother was particularly pleased when I told her we were going on a hayride at the Johnson’s farm instead of the usual party at Dave’s house. She said the Johnson’s were doing hayrides to Butcher’s meadow back when she was a child. She and Dad took a Johnson hayride as a date before they got married. I had to cut her off before I got stuck listening to a long, sappy story about the “good old days”. “Wasn’t that before they had television?” I asked. I knew it wasn’t, but the question did bug her enough to nip that story in the bud. “When am I supposed to pick you up tomorrow night?” she asked. She knew just how to get me back for that last remark. I hated that I was a senior in high school and still didn’t have my own car. But times are a bit tight in our household, and my part-time job washing dishes at Mario’s Italian Restaurant didn’t pay enough for me to get a car on my own. So she would be riding Kelly and I to and from the Johnson’s farm.

Kelly’s lips were soft and warm against mine. As we embraced in our hay-lined cocoon, I didn’t notice the sky full of stars, or the night sounds, or the other six people in the back of the wagon. I was lost in my own little heaven. But there were sounds – other sounds - that finally intruded into utopia. They were the sounds of bickering. I looked around and noticed that Doug was sitting upright and alert. The other couples were lost in each other as Kelly and I had been. Doug had been there too – he had Maria’s lipstick on his face. Up front, Mr. And Mrs. Johnson were arguing.

“Don’t you tell me what to do Walt Johnson!” she said.

“Don’t sass me old woman, or I’ll teach you a lesson!” said Mr. Johnson, his eyes narrow and threatening.

“Just try it!” she hissed defiantly.

With that, the rage boiled up in his face, and Mr. Johnson gave his wife a slap across the face. She looked shocked as her cheek turned red from the blow. Every one of us was watching now. Suddenly, with cat-like speed, there was a flash of metal and the blade of the machete we used to trim the kindling for the bonfire was sticking out of Mr. Johnson’s back. A tiny stream of blood ran down the tip and stained the fresh new hay bright red. Another sudden move, another flash of metal, and there was the sound of metal meeting flesh. Mr. Johnson’s body fell forward as his head rolled past our feet and out the back of the wagon. Bits of hay stuck to the wound as Mr. Johnson’s head rocked back and forth in the center of the road. We looked back to see a wild-eyed woman holding the bloodied machete.

“I warned him what would happen the next time he hit me.” Mrs. Johnson’s voice was shrill and unsteady. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Now I need to get rid of the witnesses too!”

The steel blade flashed again in the moonlight and buried itself deep in the back of Doug’s head. As he slumped forward, Therez screamed and Scott ran. Dave and Sara were gone. Maria tripped over my legs and landed in the road, face to face with Mr. Johnson. She got up screaming, and didn’t stop the whole time she ran down the road to the farm. I grabbed Kelly’s hand and started for the back of the wagon. She slipped and fell off the back of the wagon letting go of my hand. I stood frozen for a second as I watched her get up and watched Mrs. Johnson approach her with the gore-covered machete. My feet wanted desperately to run. But I couldn’t. I took two steps toward her and yanked our outstretched arm with all my might. She stumbled forward into my arms as the machete struck hard into the soft wood of the wagon. Without another look, we ran as hard as we could. My lungs burned with the cold night air. A short way down the road was the farm and help.

When I got there, in the light from the street I saw all our parents waiting. How strange.

Then I passed out.

Epilogue

 I woke up to the sounds of merriment. I heard the wagon creaking and squeaking up the road.

“She’s coming!”

“We know.” Said Mom. As the wagon rolled into the light, there was Mrs. Johnson driving the mule, and Mr. Johnson was sitting next to her holding his own head under his arm. Doug smiled and waved from the back of the wagon, with the machete still poking out of his head.

Mom spoke up. “The Johnson’s have being doing a horror hayride as long as I’ve known them. It’s their special Halloween trick. The only one who knows what’s going to happen is a confederate picked out of the group. Looks like Doug is good at keeping a secret.”

Mrs. Johnson joined in “We’ve seen so many great new tricks and props advertised on the Internet lately, Walt and I have been dying to try them out. Looks like they really do the job. I just need to tell Walt to ease up on that slap. That stung a bit in this cold weather!”

Mom continued “Your father was going to propose to me the night we went on the Johnson’s hayride. Something to do with a song called ‘Spooky’. You share your temperament with him – it took another month for him to propose and he spent two days going through that wagon full of hay to find the ring he’d left behind. Now don’t you wish you had listened to the whole story the other day?”

“So why didn’t ANYBODY tell us about this before?” I asked.

Doug’s Dad jumped in “…and ruin the surprise?! Just see if you spill the beans to the next people you know that take the ride – or if you just make sure you’re here at midnight to see them come running out of the woods.”