Halloween Grave

John Hoskins hated his life at the moment. He was driving his old beat-up Ford on the dirt road towards his way to San Marlo. He had all the irritation in the world boiling up inside him. The reason was he was working on a holiday. Halloween. As a child, Halloween was his favorite day, just like every other kid. It was the one day of the year where plain old John could transform into whatever he wanted. He could be Batman, fighting crime in Gotham, brandishing his cape, and pretending his rusty little bike was Bat Mobile. Or he could be a vampire, his plastic fangs protruding out of his little, red mouth. The cape his mother made of an old curtain, hiding him in the shadows.

I need no cape to hide me in the shadows anymore, John thought as the trees by the side of the road were casting late evening shadows on his car. John Hoskins was already invisible. He made sure of that. Twenty-four-year-old John was not where he dreamed he would be at that point in his life.

Five years ago, when he was writing an assignment for his journalism class in his dingy dorm room, he thought he would be the most brilliant journalist the world had ever seen. He could easily see himself in the CNN office wearing an Armani suit, smiling charmingly at the camera, as millions of viewers sit in front of their screens, listening to every word he said. Women would want him and men would want to be him. Now in his car, on the way to San Marlo, twenty-four-year-old John chuckled without humor, remembering that nineteen-year-old John had believed that image with his heart and soul. He laughed, the interior of the old Ford echoing with his laughter. He had a mental conversation with his past self. The naïve self.

Oh, I will tell you where you would be, you little shit. Five years into the future, you will drive a car that would do better in the scrap market than on the road. You will live in an apartment that was more of a trailer than an apartment. You will work for a dreadful newspaper whose editor will send you to this shitty town on a fucking holiday to cover a ghost story about a crappy monster.

Weirdly, the outburst had helped to lessen his frustration with the day. In a few moments, he was on the outskirts of little San Marlo.

Now where is this fucking gravestone I’m supposed to report about, he mused, beating his fingers on the steering wheel. The sun had already set. It was a full moon day, so there were no stars to see. There was a lot of excitement among conspiratorial theorists and supernatural enthusiasts for the past few days about this Halloween. This year, Halloween came on a full moon day and that was not it. It was also the Blood moon. Scientists, as usual, said this was a natural phenomenon about which simple changes in the atmosphere can explain.

But the truth was seldom as enticing and exciting as the belief. Most of the people in the world were now believing that this was one night in a century on which the most dangerous of the spirits could walk the earth. This night was going to be very spooky and fearsome according to certain conspiratorial websites. John thought this was all bullshit. There were only a few things that could frighten him, and they were not invisible spirits and ghosts that walked the earth on a single night. His actual fear was being stuck in this dead-end job for the next thirty years of his life, glasses making his eyes shrunken and puffy, his stomach protruding from his pants imitating the baby bump of a six months pregnant woman.

He shook his head wildly ridding himself of the fearful image and focused on the road ahead. His life was crappy enough. He didn’t need a car wreck to add to it. After driving for another five minutes, he stopped the car. Rolling down the windows, he looked at the blinking board of the bar ‘The Drink’.

What an innovative name, John thought, his lips pulling into a sarcastic grin. He pulled over into the parking space. He killed the engine and stepped out of the car. He stretched his hands and legs like a lazy cat just out of a nap. The cool air brushed past him, lowering his anger by a notch. Half of his anger was because of the long drive from Boston during which he couldn’t stretch his long legs. Now that he was out of the confines of the car, he seized to feel strangled. He felt human again.

The prospect of getting a warm drink into his cold body also increased his mood considerably. If he was going to work on a holiday, he was going to work with the buzz of booze. At least then, he wouldn’t have enough sense to feel like a pathetic loser on top of being the reporter of a pathetic newspaper.

He strolled towards the bar, his hands in his jeans pocket. He was a light traveler, just like his father. His old man. Wherever he went, he could travel with all the stuff he needed in his jacket and jeans pockets. When he traveled to California, he shunned the two bags John’s mother had packed for a single rucksack. He passed on this superpower to John, who had only his cell phone, a recorder, a pen, and a pocket notebook on him.

He stepped into the bar.