Holiday Pass (A Halloween Story)

The taunting paper rustling sounds snare him back into wakefulness, but he won’t give in to temptation, no matter how sweet Robbie’s candies might be. Even if he cannot see her, the dorm monitor is sure to be lying in wait, lurking in the dark waiting for the boys to make a move and he cannot risk that, now that the festival is so painfully close. Every fibre in his little body is aching to be out of this place, even for a few days, to be back in his soft bed with its faded Star Wars sheet and Yoda keeping watch over him at night. Maybe Mom will allow Rusty to sleep in his room, it’s just for a few days after all, please Mommy?
Robbie and the other newbies don’t care, they’re not up for a Holiday pass anyway and they haven’t shed their stupid childish ways yet. They still think they can mess with Mrs. Halloran and get away with it. How many of them have seen the inside of a detention room yet? They don’t know what it’s like to be buried alive in that horrible cold room, with the barren whitewashed walls. You can lose your mind staring at the nothingness for days on end or trying to follow the distant sounds of the pots banging in the mess hall above. You can almost see the little boys and girls gulping down their lunch, trying to remember what day it is - maybe it’s Tuesday and they’re having mashed potatoes and meatballs swimming in sweet gravy. But you’re not one of them anymore, for you have broken the rules and you gasp in horror thinking that old Mrs. Halloran might forget about you and you’ll never see the light of day again.
There won’t be any stash of candy down there, Robbie - he’s told the little freckled boy as much, but he’s only been here for a few weeks, there’s so much he needs to learn.

The kids must be done with the sweets, the commotion in the back of the dark room has died down and only the occasional muffled giggle let’s him know some of the smaller kids that dwell in the drafty corner by the toilet door must still be awake. Mickey squeezes his eyes shut, praying sleep will deliver him of this bleak place and he’ll be free to roam the realm of dreams. Since he’s been sent to the school, all he ever dreams is home. Mom rocking baby Sue to sleep, while he and Dad watch a game on TV, the sound very very low or mother will give them hell if they wake the colicky baby. There’s no TV in this bloody place, there must be no distractions, Mrs. Halloran has decreed. The kids in her care are there for a reason.
Most of the times he dreams of Hank and Dopey, his best buddies before this. The lazy summer afternoons by the river gorging themselves on raspberries that grew out in the back of the Rossheimer place, where they were not supposed to go because the house had been deserted for years and junkies often slept there and it was dangerous. The time Dopey wet his pants when Hank pricked him with a safety pin and told him it was a junkie’s needle and he’ll get AIDS. And the trashing he got when Dopey’s Mom came by the house to complain, bringing the soiled boxers as proof. Grown-ups took everything so serious, but the next day they were best buddies with Dopey again and he paid them back with that trick he pulled when he turned pale and started screaming there’s a ghost at the window and they ran like hell and didn’t stop until they reached the ice-cream place and calmed their shaking limbs over vanilla cones. He wondered if Hank and Dopey missed him like he did or maybe they got new friends now. His heart skips a beat when he remembers the day the boys came to say good-bye, their faces all drawn, fighting back sniffles. They felt responsible for getting him into trouble, the trouble that prompted his folks to finally send him away. He’d been so mad at Mom and Dad for what they did, but deep down he understood they were tired off seeing him always up to mischief, having to pay for broken windows and the repairs to Miss Hancock’s ruined fence when their bikes ran out of control and smashed into the green picket fence, which was already rotten and they shouldn’t have to pay for that. But Mom said they should’ve known better and thank God they didn’t break their necks going down the road at that speed. That stupid fence cost him three months’ worth of pocket money. But they got their sweet revenge when they stuffed Miss Hancock’s cat in the mailbox and the crazed animal jumped on the old hag, hissing and scratching when she went down to see if there was any mail. ‘Oh, you got mail, alright!’ She knew it was them that did it, but there was no way she could prove it and if she did soil her panties that day she didn’t come fling them in Mom’s face, although she had some nasty words to say. When Mom looked at him accusingly, he answered with his most innocent little smile, shrugging his shoulders as if he barely knew the mad lady sporting a deep scratch on her ugly face. Whether she believed him or not, he’ll never know, but when the police officer showed up on their doorstep she knew it was time to send Mickey away.

The Holiday Pass stored safely in his breast pocket, the little suitcase packed and waiting on the bed, Mickey wonders if Mom is still angry at him. She couldn’t be, after all that time, it’s been more than a year now. All that screaming still rang in his years, but Mom was like that - she had this fiery temper, she’d yell and send him to his room, but all would be forgotten by diner time and she never failed to tuck him in, not even when baby Sue was screaming bloody murder when she was teething. She’d always come in and give him a hug and call him sweetheart. And tonight he’ll be in his old room and surely Mom will kiss him good night and for the next week there won’t be any Mrs. Halloran lurking in the dark and he won’t have to hold it in if he felt like going to the bathroom, cause Mom never sent him to detention, there was no white room in the basement.

The kids on the bus are all quiet, no one feels like talking, because they all long to be away from the school and the friends they have there, nice as they may be. They miss their old life and the road home is the promise of a few happy days, they’ve been dreaming about for all those months. And who knows, maybe if they’re found to be changed and good kids, maybe they’ll be allowed to stay. That’s their secret dream, the one they dare not speak aloud. Go home, never come back. Mickey checks his nails and scrubs his face again, although he has already spent like hours in the bathroom this morning, making sure he looked nice and clean. The boy sitting next to him, Darren fidgets with the shoelaces, which he never seems to get right. Mickey looks down at his own shoes and a good thing he does, for there’s a speck of dirt on the left one, that he wipes away with his finger, then shines the shoe with a bit of spit. That will do, he’s never been so neat in his life. Only on the day they sent him away, maybe, and they made him wear a white shirt and that scratchy suit he hated. He cannot wait to be home and pull an old T-shirt out of the drawers. Surely, Hank would laugh at him if he showed up in this stupid uniform.
There’s no one at the bus stop, fortunately. He did not want people to be staring and point at him - the boy who was sent away because of what happened that day in the Rossheimer place. They’ve all probably heard the story, no doubt, and they know he did something bad that day.
Mickey walks down the street, his eyes greedily taking in the Halloween decorations. The skeletons and the witches perched on the fences, grinning their toothless grins, which would have scared the daylights out of a younger Mickey, a Mickey who didn’t know of the school and the white room and the terror of lying awake in the dark, straining to hear Mrs. Halloran’s shuffled steps.

Somewhere in the distance he can hear the laughter of children already out trick-or-treating. Maybe it’s not too late. His old Vader costume must still be in the trunk. He could change into it and go find Hank and Dopey. Unless Mom needs him, that is. Not even a bag full of sweets is worth getting on Mom’s bad side again. Dad wasn’t even that mad at him, he never screamed that day. It is Mom he needs to sway. If he behaves, maybe she’ll let him stay.
As the house comes into view, Mickey stops to see where everybody is. Not many decorations this year, but the fake plastic cauldron filled with candy is right there on the porch, where it’s always been. Rusty must be locked inside, as usual. He’s a good dog, but very old and he tends to get agitated when the kids in their scary costumes come yelling in his yard.
He’d like to run all the way to the door, but that’s what old Mickey would do. Now he’s a good little boy and he walks purposefully down the gravel path and checks his suit again before ringing the bell. His face beams with anticipation, just a few seconds now. When Mom opens the door, her face melts in a smile and she turns to the toddler waddling behind her:
‘Look, Sue, there’s a little ghost at our door. Come give some candy to the scary ghost and make it go away.’
‘Mom, it’s me, it’s Mickey’, the boy screams, but she doesn’t seem to hear. She holds the cauldron for the girl to pick some candy bars, which she drops into the boy’s extended hands. Mickey let’s them drop and starts to cry.
‘I’m sorry Mom, please Mom, forgive me. I know I shouldn’t have gone in that house, I know it was a bad thing to do. I didn’t know the stairs would be rotten and I swear it doesn’t hurt anymore. See, I’m alright now, my neck is not broken anymore’.
The woman seems a bit disturbed by the little ghost that won’t budge from her doorstep and she pats him on the head.
‘Now run along dear, it will be dark soon and the spirits will take over the streets’.

I’m not a big fan of Halloween, which is mostly an imported celebration in my country, but I’ve always been fascinated with South-American festivities for the Day of the Dead. And the day before that is the day when the spirits of dead children come visit their loved ones - Dia de los Angelitos.
With so many horror writing challenges around, I’ll enter this story for the contests hosted by @calluna #Tellastorytome and @stevescoins Halloween 2018. There's still time to enter both contests so what are you waiting for?

Thanks for reading

Images: 1, 2, 3.