The Halloween Tree

Sssssswooommmmmmm!

"Please," whimpered Ralph-the-Mummy.

Ssssssssttttt! The scythe zippered Hackles Nibley's spine, ripping his costume in a long tear, knocking his own small scythe free of his hands.

"Beasts!"

And the harvest wheat, flailed up, spun round on the wind, shrieking its souls, all those who had died in the past twelve months, rained to earth. And falling, touching, the heads of wheat were turned to asses, chickens, snakes which scurried, cackled, brayed; were turned to dogs and cats and cows that barked, cried, bawled. But all were miniature. All were tiny, small, no bigger than worms, no bigger than toes, no bigger than the sliced-off tip of a nose. By the hundreds and thousands the wheat heads snowed up in scatters and fell down as spiders which could not shout or beg or weep for mercy, but which, soundless, raced over the grass, poured over the boys. A hundred centipedes tip-toed on Ralph's spine. Two hundred leeches clung to Hackles Nibley's scythe until with a nightmare gasp he raved and shook them off.

Everywhere fell black widows and tiny boa constrictors.

"For your sins! Your sins! Take that! And this!" bellowed the voice in the whistling sky.

The scythe flashed. The wind, cut, fell in bright thunders. The wheat churned and gave up a million heads. Heads fell. Sinners hit like rocks. And, hitting, were turned to frogs and toads and multitudes of scaly warts with legs and jellyfish which stank in the light.

"I'll be good!" prayed Tom Skelton.

"Lemme live!" added Henry-Hank.

All of this said very loudly, for the scythe was making a dreadful roar. It was like an ocean wave falling down out of the sky, cleaning a beach, and running away up to cut more clouds. Even the clouds seemed to be whispering out swift and more fervent prayers for their own fates. Not me! not me!

"For all the evil you ever did!" said Samhain.

And the scythe cut and the souls were harvested and fell in blind newts and awful bedbugs and dreadful cockroaches to scuttle, limp, creep, scrabble.

"My gosh, he's a bug maker."

"Flea squasher!"

"Snake grinder-outer!"

"Roach transformer!"

"Fly keeper!"

"No! Samhain! October God. God of the Dead!"

Samhain stomped a great foot which tread a thousand bugs in the grass, trompled ten thousand tiny soul-beasts in the dust.

"I think," said Tom, "it's time we--"

"Ran?" suggested Ralph, not offhand.

"Shall we take a vote?"

The scythe hissed. Samhain boomed.

"Vote, heck!" said Moundshroud.

All jumped up.

"You there!" thundered the voice above them. "Come back!"

"No, sir, thanks," said one and then another.

And put right foot after left.

"I figure," said Ralph, panting, leaping, tears on his cheeks. "I been pretty good most of my life. I don't deserve to die."