Allhallow's Eve: (Richard Laymon Horror Classic) by Richard Laymon Page A

hands clutching his back as his ass jerked up and down. She writhed, gasping and moaning.
    Eric stopped at the foot of the bed. He gripped the knife so tightly that his hand ached.
    Such awful sounds. Flesh pounding flesh. Wet, sticky noises. Grunts like wallowing pigs.
    ‘Bastard,’ he muttered.
    ‘Eric?’ gasped his mother. ‘Oh my God!’ Her hands pushed at Sam but he clung to her. ‘No!’ she cried.
    Sam’s body stiffened and jerked.
    He quickly rolled off.
    Mom squirmed over the sheet. Reaching down beside the bed, she picked up her nightgown. She pressed it to her body, sat up, and turned on the bedside lamp.
    ‘ Eric! Put down that knife!’
    ‘He’s not my dad,’ Eric said.
    ‘Put down that knife!’
    He slashed the palm of his left hand. Blood spilled from the slit.
    Mom screamed.
    Sam lunged off the bed at him, smashing the knife from his hand and throwing him backward to the floor.

18
     
    They spent nearly two hours at Emergency, most of it waiting because an eighteen-wheeler rear-ended a passenger car out on the highway. Eric sat beside Cynthia, mute and staring.
    When they finally got back to the house and put him to bed, Cynthia suggested that Sam go home.
    ‘Eric’s so upset,’ she said. ‘Maybe … I don’t know … Maybe you’d better not stay tonight.’
    ‘He’s asleep now.’
    ‘Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t.’
    ‘If you want me to leave, I will. But I don’t think it’d be smart to reward Eric, that way. You’d be letting him win, teaching him that it works to bust in on people, mutilate himself, slash tires …’
    ‘I guess you’re right,’ she admitted.
    They went to bed, then. For a long time, Sam couldn’t sleep. He lay beside Cynthia, staring into the darkness, knowing that she was also awake. They didn’t talk or touch. When Sam finally fell asleep, he dreamed he was awake.
    He dreamed that Eric stood at the foot of the bed, knife ready. He was safe as long as Eric thought he was sleeping. But a heavy, bloated spider was scurryingdown the wall. In seconds, it would creep onto Sam’s face. He wondered, vaguely, how he could see the spider so well with his eyes shut.
    They’re open!
    With a sudden grin, Eric dived onto him. The blade plunged into his stomach, stiff and cold.
    He sat up, grabbing his stomach, gasping.
    For a long time after that, he lay awake. He didn’t want to fall asleep if it meant returning to the dream. So he kept his eyes open, and tried to think of something pleasant.
    His thoughts drifted to Melodie Caine.
    They were in the motel office, and she wore her white sweater and kilts. Sam shut his eyes to see her more clearly.
    ‘If I’m supposed to be your deputy,’ she said, ‘I need a badge.’
    He held it out to her.
    ‘No, you have to pin it on me or it’s not official.’
    He tried to pin the badge to her sweater, his fingers trembling against her breast.
    ‘Don’t be nervous,’ she whispered. She jumped and said ‘Ouch!’ as he stuck her.
    ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ She lifted her sweater over her full, milk-white breasts. A spot of blood shimmered above the nipple. ‘You’d better kiss it and make it well.’
    He pressed his lips to the wound, tasting the warm salty blood. Then her nipple was in his mouth. His teeth teased the springy column of flesh; his tongue flicked and circled.
    ‘Oh Sam,’ she gasped. ‘Oh Sam, I love you.’

19
     
    Half an hour before classes began, the first floor hallway of the main building was nearly deserted. Eric stopped in front of the door marked MR DOONS, VICE PRINCIPAL. He glanced both ways. Nobody was nearby or watching. He crouched, slid an envelope under the door, and walked away.
    Upstairs, he passed a couple of girls standing at an open locker. They paid him no attention. He walked by an open classroom.
    What if Miss Major’s door was open?
    As he approached it, his heart started to pound, sending throbs of pain into his wounded hand.
    Her door was shut.
    He