Halloween Series 2022

This is the first of my Halloween series, and in the description will be the title for each one, but no description. We wouldn't want to give away anything from the story, now would we? 

Coming Home 

“There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

 * * *

Logan drove through the small town seeing how half of the storefronts were boarded up, knowing it could be a lonely, isolated place for someone like him. But he knew there were ways around it, the internet providing the best means of finding other men, who were in want of male companionship. And if he were lucky, he might find that farmer or trucker or one of the local businessmen, who wanted more than a good fucking. He had no illusions of what life would be like in the area, for he had grown up here. After high school, there had been college at State, then a life in Atlanta, then a move to Raleigh. He was thirty-five years old and now had his own business, doing web design and graphics. He could work anywhere with an internet connection, and even here in Jasper, population of less than four thousand, he would have no problem running his business.

Passing the last official block of the small downtown, Logan drove out to Cemetery Road, veering onto it as it angled off and climbed up the hill. At the top, he drove past the old cemetery seeing it had not been tended to in some time, grass and weeds grown up around the old tombstones. He slowed as he came to the section of the road that curved sharply one way then the next. It was all familiar to him despite the years that had passed since his last visit. It surprised him to think how long it had been, eleven years now, since he had been to his Great Aunt Scarlett’s place. Aunt Scarlett had been seventy-six the last time he had seen her. He had been seventeen, just graduated from high school, all set to leave for college in the fall. He had meant to visit her, but each trip home was rushed, and he never made the time. Over the years his mother would tell him of gatherings at Aunt Scarlett’s, then of her having health issues, of having to have someone stay with her at night, then fulltime. Two years ago, the sad news she was going to a facility and after four months, the call to come home for her funeral.

Two months ago, his mother called silently crying about how the family had decided to sell her place. Logan knew Aunt Scarlett meant a lot to his mother; her own mother having passed away years ago. He heard her complain about the family would take whatever they could get for it, and it wouldn’t be much, for no one would want to live out in those woods. It was too isolated, even for folks of the region, and no one around Jasper would want that rolling wooded property. At the time Logan had listened then tried to get his mother to understand things like this happened all the time. Then he suggested they buy it, use it as a guest house for when one of his sisters came home with their SUVs full of kids.

OH, no, I could never put them out there in that house, in those woods.

How his mother had said it sounded like an omen and he had asked what she meant by it. She had replied with her usual oh, nothing, forget I said anything. 

A few nights later, she called again, this time obviously in tears. He remembered how upset she had been, struggling to tell him why she called, and he knowing it had to be about Aunt Scarlett’s place.

A man from Evergreen is buying the place to get the lumber. He’s going to clear cut it then put the place back on the market.

Logan had listened thinking how crass it had been. But it happened all the time, the lumber more valuable than the land. It was why there were no virgin forests in the entire state, not even Aunt Scarlett’s property. He knew it had been cleared by the first of the family to settle in the region. Most family property had been used for farming, and that within town for family businesses, such as the old feed and seed store and the small diner that had been sold to another family back in the 1950’s.

He had tried to picture it, Aunt Scarlett’s house sitting in the open surrounded by nothing but stumps and eroding ground. It troubled him more than he could admit to his mother. The next morning, he made some phone calls. By the end of the day, he had made the highest bid and a guarantee of sale. It was crazy, in so many ways, but he was going to sell his home in Raleigh, pack up his business and personal life and move to Aunt Scarlett’s house, making it his own.

Logan pulled into the drive, a two-rut dirt path with grass growing along its center. Logan’s BMW sat low, so he drove slowly along the drive as it curved down the hill through a dense tree canopy until he came to the small clearing that sat at the front of the house. The house was a story and half, two small bedrooms tucked under the gabled roof, and it had a porch across the front that projected out into the clearing. The house itself was tucked into the trees as if seeking their shelter and protection. Along the back a screen porch that was over seven feet above grade and accessed from within by having to go through the narrow galley kitchen and through the small laundry room.

Logan entered the front door and looked around the room, his furniture mixed with the few pieces that had belonged to Aunt Scarlett, pieces other family members had not wanted. Logan knew they got the best pieces, the one-hundred-fifty-year-old dining set, the sofa and side chairs from the living room, and Aunt Scarlett’s personal bedroom furniture, a wedding present for the newlyweds from her in-laws. But there remained a great deal of furniture. A writing desk in the living room that still held personal correspondence from over the years, a side table Uncle Dart had brought back from Japan when he left the Navy, and in the downstairs bedroom and one upstairs bedroom still had all their furniture. His mid-century furniture seemed to fit within the room in some odd fashion, as if the house was only allowing the next age to finally take up occupancy after such a long time.

Over the next two weeks, Logan went room to room, hanging photographs and artwork where walls had been left bare and resetting the photographs and paintings left in place. The painting from France done by an artist who lived in the 1800s was his favorite, and he hung it in the dining room visible from the living room over the dining table. A delivery van came to the house nearly every day dropping off boxes of new dinnerware, bed linens, rugs, and the other things he would need such as a new mop, pails, and an iron, knowing a laundry service in the countryside would be hard to find.

It was a Friday evening, still light out but cloudy and gray. A drizzling rain had started slowly filling the low areas in the drive. Logan had gone to the desk thinking he would tackle its contents. He was going to pull out Aunt Scarlett’s things replacing them with his own. He had purchased nice boxes for the safe keeping of her correspondence and personal papers. The whole weekend was set aside for this one endeavor for he intended to read every letter he found stuffed in one of the drawers. It would be a way to know the small framed energetic woman he remembered from his youth. The one who sang in the kitchen while she cooked and told tall tales of her life with Uncle Dart and after his passing when only thirty-eight, taller tales of young lovers that were scandalous to his mother and her siblings.

Logan had just sat when he heard a vehicle pull up out front. He climbed to his feet and leaned over the sofa to look out. He was surprised to see an old Chevrolet pickup in the drive. It was an antique, a model from the time when fenders curved over the front and rear wheels and the radiator stood tall between them. The headlights stuck out from the sides, hovering over the front fenders and a board was secured around the bed to give it greater depth. It was dark green with black fenders and chrome hubcaps floating in the center of black wheels, and despite its age, looked brand new.

The driver’s door swung open, and a young man climbed out. He wore a blue buttoned shirt with long sleeves and dark gray pants. At the neck, a white t-shirt peeked out. Despite the distance, Logan knew the man was attractive. He headed to the front door to see what this visitor wanted. As he turned in the key to unlock it, he heard footsteps cross the porch, so he wasn’t surprised to see him at the door when he swung it open. Through the screen door he sized him up. Not as tall as his five eleven, but there was a lean build, and short dark hair and dark skin of someone who worked outdoors.

“Can I help you?” Logan asked.

“Hey, I was in the area and…I’m Harold, Harold Graham. My family was from these parts, and I knew Scarlett. I just wanted to come and give my condolences and, well, see if you needed anything,” and he took a step closer to the screen door, so close Logan could see the green eyes, “anything at all.”

“You knew Aunt Scarlett?”

“Yeah, for a long time.”

Logan was amused by Harold’s reply, knowing he couldn’t have known her too long for the guy was obviously younger than he.

“Come in. I’d like to hear how you knew her.”

Logan moved to the side as Harold swung the screen door out and stepped over the threshold.

“That is a nice truck. What year is that?” asked Logan.

“Forty-one.”

“How did you get it?”

“It’s been in the family since new.”

“Wow. I’ve heard stories of vehicles getting passed down generation to generation but at most two or three, that one must have gone through-“

Harold interrupted, whistling aloud as he gazed around the living room.

“I guess the room looks a lot different with my stuff in it.”

“Nah, that isn’t surprising, but I’m surprised to see her writing desk still here. No one knew its real value. Looks like you were about to go through it.”

“I am for I want to box up her letters for safe keeping. I plan on spending the whole weekend going through it for I want to read every letter. See what people were writing to Aunt Scarlett.”

“It could be scandalous,” said Harold looking at Logan with a smile.

“I think I can handle it. I know she lived a very carefree life.”

“That she did. I do miss her,” Harold uttered as he moved to the doorway to the dining room. “And this is still here! Oh, I’m glad. It belongs in this house. Just look at it. Oh, Adolphe-Felix, you genius.”

“You know the artist?”

“Oh, of course.”

Logan was intrigued by Harold. Not only was he attracted to him, but he was curious how he seemed to know so much about Aunt Scarlett.

“Can I get you something to drink. I don’t have much in the way of soda or tea, but I’ve got a couple bottles of red wine and a nice bourbon.”

“Red wine? That would be nice. Scarlett loved red wine and…”

Harold didn’t finish and Logan started to ask, so curious about what Harold knew.

“Have a seat and I’ll be right back,” said Logan moving past him into the dining room, then through the double-swinging door into the kitchen.

The grandfather clock in the hall struck eleven and Logan was shocked to realize how late it had become. After the first bottle of wine and hearing stories about his aunt, he had prepared a simple dinner, sauteed vegetables tossed with olive oil over pasta with a little cheese and pepper. And another bottle of wine.

They were back in the living room, both on the sofa sitting just apart as Harold told of the time his aunt had chased off a couple of men with her shotgun, a gun Logan knew still resided in the closet under the stair. He had laughed at Harold’s ability to weave a story, sure he had to be embellishing, exaggerating a few details. But he could see Aunt Scarlett doing everything Harold claimed.

“You know so many worried she would be lonely out here after Dart died. Tragic what happened, but she knew how to live, to take advantage of every opportunity.”

“She was certainly happy every time I saw her.”

“That she was,” said Harold in a hushed whisper. The room grew silent, the first time all night. Logan tried to think of something else to ask, knowing Harold was skipping over so much, and he didn’t want the night to end. A few hours ago, he didn’t know Harold existed and now he didn’t want him to leave.

“What about you? Will you be happy out here?” asked Harold.

Logan was surprised Harold suddenly was asking about him, and in such a serious tone.

“I think I’ll be fine. With the internet I’ll be able to work from home and…”

“I don’t care about your work. I want to know about you. Do you have a lover? A partner?”

Logan caught how Harold asked, wondering if his aunt had talked about how he was gay and had moved away to have a life.

“Did she tell you about me?”

“Nah, not about that. She didn’t need to. I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“Yeah.”

Logan leaned back and finished his glass of wine, setting the empty glass on the side table. He looked across at Harold, feeling so drawn toward him he didn’t feel himself.

“You got gaydar or something?” Logan asked, feeling bold, wanting to push Harold a bit. But he saw Harold was undisturbed.

“Gaydar? I guess you can call it that.”

“Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“Have you ever?”

“A man of the world has to take what is offered. Don’t you think?”

“And you’re a man of the world?”

Harold laughed, good naturedly, then set his empty wine glass down on the coffee. Instead of sitting back, he turned to Logan still leaning forward.

“Logan, would you like to find out?”

Logan smiled, feeling slightly drunk and his inhibitions lower than normal. Yes, he wanted to find out. He wanted to find out what was beneath the clothes that looked seventy-five years old, a real retro look some back in Raleigh would have loved. He wanted to touch him, to feel the masculine nature of him. To kiss the lips that were not too thick or too thin, and had the slightest curvature, and when Harold smiled, dimples framed them.

“I assume you have Scarlett’s room as your own?” said Harold coming to his feet and holding out a hand.

“Yes,” Logan replied reaching up taking the hand letting Harold pull him to his feet.

Logan left the bedroom lights off, but the door open illuminating the room by the hall light. He moved to the side of his bed and turned to face Harold who stood so close he sensed the heat of his body. He reached out, a hand to the back of the neck and pulled Harold toward him as he closed the distance until their lips met.

Then Logan found himself on his back, naked, cock getting hard. Harold was moving over him, every touch a caress, a stroke of his desires and lusts. Lips touched his neck, then pressed against his own. Passionate, gentle, unhurried, as if they had all the time in the world. Harold kissed him along his jaw, down his neck to his chest. Lips then tongue manipulated one nipple then the other. Then they moved down his torso, moving around his navel, down to his cock. The tongue dragged down its growing length, then lips circled the head and pushed slowly down its length. Logan shivered with the mouth engulfing his cock.

Harold sucked his cock, the mouth moving up and down until he was rock hard. Then the mouth moved to his loose sac. Logan moaned as he felt the tongue move his nuts around, then the mouth draw them into it, sucking and tugging until he shivered. Then the mouth moved down as hands gently pushed his legs apart. Again, it was tongue and lips touching him, stroking his arousal until he spread his legs as far apart as he could inviting Harold to do anything he wanted.

A finger raked over his opening, slick from its oral ministrations. It sank painlessly into him and seemed to bore into his depths.

Then Harold was lying next to him, a hand cupping the back of his neck pulling his head up enough for them to kiss. Logan felt the other hand move between his legs then fingers ease into his hole. Slowly he stretched to accommodate them as they pushed into him, twisting, and turning, working him until loose. Until he wanted to be fucked. Until he wanted to feel Harold’s cock inside him.

“Harold; fuck me,” Logan uttered.

Harold was between his legs, and he lifted them to rest on each narrow shoulder. Harold moved over him folding him half. His ass angled up and he felt Harold’s hard cock touch him, then slowly penetrate him, sinking deeper and deeper as Harold moved over him.

Logan clutched at the bed as Harold began to fuck, to sink into his hole all the way. The fullness of the penetration made his own cock flex and drool on his stomach. Harold moved with a steady rhythm, letting Logan’s arousal build. Build until his own cock ached for release as it moved slickly over his stomach.

“I’m going to come,” Logan uttered as he felt his body responding to his aroused state. The tightening of muscle and every touch inflaming his desire and lust. “Fuck me harder…harder,” he uttered as Harold shifted over him, pinned his legs to his chest and began to fuck as he desired. A furious pace, cock banging his insides until he saw stars. He cried out as his cock flexed, then sprayed his chest and stomach with cum.

Harold shoved into his depths and shuddered with release. As his cock dribbled out the last of his load, Harold slow fucked him, working cock through this messy leaking hole. Then Harold fell to his side and snuggled up close.

“That was…” uttered Logan.

“It was nice and pleasurable. That is what it was,” Harold whispered. “Now go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a new day.”

Logan woke to the grandfather clock chiming. How many times he had no idea but a look at his watch and he was shocked to see it was ten in the morning. Light filtered around the curtain giving the white room a soft glow and he stretched then felt the side of the bed finding it empty. He climbed out of bed and pulled the curtain back, unworried anyone would be out front to see him naked at the window. He had to know if Harold was gone, and he sighed at the site of his car sitting out front alone.

A one-night stand, even in the country, he thought, amused by the idea of it being his first sex since moving. He showered and dressed, a t-shirt and his favorite old jeans, then went to the kitchen to make coffee.

On the screen porch, he looked down into the shadowy understory of the woods as he sipped the coffee. He had played out his scenarios on why Harold snuck off sometime early that morning and was now thinking of his aunt living here alone. He remembered times his mother had called in a panic, his aunt’s Chrysler out front but her nowhere to be found, only to turn up hours later. It was always a hike down in the woods his aunt told everyone, then telling them to stop worrying about her. Logan remembered his aunt talking of the spring at the back of the original property, then the old Graham place beyond that was now part of it. He remembered the old deed showed the two properties and how the Graham place was isolated from any road. Aunt Scarlett had told of the county reworking the roads in the 1950s and a big change in this area was the straightening of Cemetery Road, leaving the old Graham place without access. It never mattered for his family ended up with the property a few years later. He slipped on his new boots, finished his coffee, descended the steps to the backyard and headed down the hill.

It seemed so far from the house, but he knew it had been due to the difficulty of navigating the understory brush until at the bottom of the hill. It was open under the tall trees with fern and mushrooms and moss and a groundcover he didn’t know the name. It looked like a place in a fairy tale. The mushrooms were vibrant yellow and red, and white with dark grey undersides. The ferns seemed to glow in the dim light beneath the trees and the moss and groundcover seemed to invite him to just lay down and relax in this old land. He moved slowly across the area until he came to the spring, its bottom a pure white sand. He saw something dart from view in the shallow clear water and he squatted and felt the coldness of it.

Standing to his feet, Logan looked up the other side wondering how far it was to the old Graham section of his property. He stepped over the spring and headed up the gently sloping grade, wondering how often Aunt Scarlett had done the same.

He came to an old wooden fence, most of it missing or fallen to the ground, and he stepped across knowing it was the human line demarking a property line from long ago. He moved through the trees feeling the muscles in his legs exerting themselves as he climbed to the top of the next hill. He finally came to a place where two old oak trees spread branches out wide, covering a large around leaving the ground beneath nearly clean of other growth. Between them was a grid of brick piers and he knew it would have been the house site. He walked through the piers noting a few were over three feet high and he tried to picture a house perched that high off the ground. He moved across and around some old azaleas that were overgrown until he found himself in a small clearing. Wildflowers and tall grasses covered the area that was about the size of his front yard. A bird flew down into it, then just as quickly rose back in the air with something in its beak.

Logan scanned the trees until he saw to his far right a barn sitting among them. He moved around the clearing, not wanting to wade through the tall grasses where he couldn’t see the ground, until he came to the barn. He was surprised to see it looked in fair condition, the large doors on front still in place. He slid the heavy iron bolt to the side and tugged on one door, then the other finally able to knock down the bushes and saplings trying to grow next to it and get it open wide enough for him to slip inside.

Except for the patch of light through the door, the interior was dark. Logan pulled out his cellphone and turned on the flashlight. He shined it the right and saw a couple of implements for a tractor. A few steps further in, shining the light along the right, he saw an old tractor tire, then a large metal ring made of flat metal about three inches in width. He aimed his phone to the back of the barn and saw a couple of barrels, some metal parts rusting on the dirt floor, and a two-man saw wedge into the wall framing. Turning to his left he saw a truck under a tattered mildewed white tarp.

Logan stood at the front of it, seeing the passenger side fender but the other side was obviously missing that one. He tried to pull the tarp from the front of the truck. But it came away in pieces, tearing easily with every pull. He worked with his free hand to get the tarp off the truck, and once most of it was exposed stepped back to see what kind of truck he had stashed away in the old barn.

He recognized it. It was a Chevrolet like the one Harold had drove up in, but this one was in bad shape. The driver’s side had damage. The fender was missing, and the front wheel was twisted back, nearly torn from the truck. The windshield was broken, the spiderweb pattern taking up the entire driver’s side. Then he noticed the faded paint showed the main body had been a dark green and the fenders black.

“What are the odds?” Logan uttered aloud wondering about Harold having a truck the same color. He walked around it, seeing the bed was banged up at the cab as if something slammed into it, no doubt in the wreck. On the passenger side he pulled open the door and saw the seat was rotten but still showed the stains where someone bled on it on the driver’s side. The steering wheel was warped, and Logan knew it had been a bad wreck.

The barn doors secured; Logan made his way home. He would shower and change, then eat a late lunch, probably a turkey sandwich, then he would finally get to the desk.

An empty beer bottle sat on the floor next to Logan’s chair. On the desk two stacks of letters. The ones he had read to his left and the ones to be read on his right. There had been correspondence with friends in Paris, and closer to home, in Atlanta and Miami. They had replied about Dart being overseas in the Navy and how good it was to know she kept herself busy at home. Then there were letters referring to their time together, living in the house with family coming over on weekends for cookouts and birthday parties.

Logan read responses to her confessions about wanting children but Dart and her unable to have them, and how she tried to make her nieces and nephews fill that void. Dart took her traveling, made life an adventure, trying to compensate for the lack of children, and in one letter from her friend in Paris was a response to a confession about being so happy with Dart, she wondered if children would have ruined it. There had been so much in the replies to Aunt Scarlett’s letters, he began to get a real picture of the person. Not some Great Aunt that had to fit some stereotype, but the woman who lived and breathed within the walls of the house he now sat.

Then there were the letters about his Uncle Dart’s death, an accident on the river. He had fallen overboard and drowned. No one could figure how he had gone overboard or how someone who was such a good swimmer could drown, but it had happened, everyone had written with their speculations as a way of trying to explain it.

Logan picked up the next letter seeing it was from the friend in Paris, dated two years after Uncle Dart’s death.

Dearest Scarlett, 

You naughty girl. I relished every word of your last letter. It was a surprise at first, but you know you’re still young and desirable, and you should find happiness wherever you can get it. Damn what the neighbors or those in church would say. They’re just jealous and resentful of anyone living life. I must confess I’m jealous, just a little. I have my Berne and Gael and that delicious baker from down the street, a young morsel named Olivier. Such a sweet innocent looking boy, but oh the stories I could tell. I’ll not put them in writing, so you must come see me soon and we’ll compare notes. 

As to your little tryst, that Harold boy sounds absolutely delightful. You must write me and tell me more. I love that he showed up in an old truck and had you in bed that first night. Oh, my dear, do not let anyone deny you this pleasure. It is all we can expect in life, and we must take it when we can get it. 

Logan held the letter in shaking hands, thinking it was insane that Aunt Scarlett’s lover had been someone named Harold and he too had driven an old truck. What was he? A ghost? Then he considered the truck back in the barn, how it was the same model of truck, even the same color.

It was impossible. He didn’t believe in ghosts. He finished the letter, then searched out the others from Paris, for this is the friend his aunt truly confided. He read them, rushing over the pleasantries looking for the sections referring to Aunt Scarlett’s lover, the young man named Harold in an old ’41 Chevrolet pickup that was a pretty dark green over black.

It was dusk, another day coming to an end, and the desk lay in disarray. Only one box had been filled with old letters, the others scattered over the top or still in one of the drawers. Logan sat on the sofa drinking another beer, trying to make sense of it all.

He finished the beer and sat the empty bottle on the coffee table. He sat back telling himself it was all some coincidence, that there was no way Harold was the same person that visited his aunt. But the truck in the barn kept coming to him. It was vivid how he pictured the old-battered truck illuminated in the light from his cellphone.

A vehicle drove up and he climbed to his feet and went to the door knowing who had arrived. He swung open the wood door and pushed the screen door open standing just past the threshold. Harold stood at the bottom of the steps and was dressed the same as the night before. Out past his BMW sat the shiny 1941 Chevrolet pickup.

“You found the letters?” Harold asked, but it felt more like a statement of fact.

“Yes. Was it you? Were you really the one?”

Harold looked up, then back at Logan.

“Yes. I came to her when she needed me. You can’t know the loneliness of a woman left alone. I couldn’t bare it.”

“What about me? Why come to me?”

“I knew you needed me. You are in a lonely place, Logan, and a person can get so isolated they forget themselves.”

“Is that your truck? Back in the barn?”

“You found it, I see,” Harold replied, kicking at the ground. “Yeah, that is a version of it”

“You died in that wreck,” Logan stated, everything becoming clear.

“Yes…then I found myself coming here, first for Scarlett, and now for you.”

Logan looked down at Harold standing in the light cast out the door. The shining eyes and the lean body that had given him such pleasure. He pushed the screen door further around so he could move to the side.

“You want a beer?” Logan asked as he waited for Harold to come in.