A Halloween Heart: A Romantic Holiday Story Read online

“It’s just, kind of hard to stay on script when every corner there’s a new – aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!”

  I scream louder than ever, turning and racing past Greg, shoving him in front of me hysterical B-movie horror movie actress style as a giant knight in shining armor squeaks its way out of the parlor and into the hallway where we’re standing.

  “That’s it!” I shout, kicking the knight’s rubber shin as I completely lose it. “I’ll refund your money myself, Greg, but… I can’t go on with this tour.”

  “Why not?” he asks, curiously inspecting the robotic knight as if trying to figure out how it works.

  “Why not? It’s… it’s… completely unprofessional, that’s why not. I can’t keep squealing and running into your arms every time one of my boss’s new inventions leaps out from a closet or cupboard.”

  “Look, Gemma, here…” He is pointing to the knight’s back. A small circuit board is blinking green and red as, without warning, the knight turns and returns to its place in the dusty hallway.

  “It must be on a sensor like the barking doorway, or the closet skeleton,” he explains.

  “I don’t care if NASA themselves designed that thing, Greg. Look at me; I’m a nervous wreck! I’m one animatronic spider away from hyperventilating!”

  He’s openly laughing at me now. “This is cheap parlor trick stuff, Gemma. Tell me you’re not genuinely scared.”

  “Of course I am!” I insist, backing away from him and setting off the dang robotic knight again.

  I literally kick him back into the hallway.

  Greg makes a face and gently pulls me farther into the hallway. “Come on,” he urges, face looking boyish in the dim light of Slaughter Manor. “Let’s keep going. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun? Fun?!? How do you figure?”

  “Well, think about it Gemma. It’ll be like we’re both on the tour for the very first time.”

  I shake my head. “Just one problem with that theory, Greg; I hate these kinds of things.”

  “But you work for a Ghost Tour company. How can you hate them?”

  “I don’t hate giving them,” I explain. “I hate… being on them. At least when I’m giving them I know what to expect. Usually. But this? This is a nightmare for me!”

  He laughs some more and asks, “But isn’t that the fun? Isn’t that what your guests pay for? The unexpected? The uncertain?”

  “You tell me, Greg. Is that why you’re here?”

  He pauses and meets my eyes; shrugs. “Partly.”

  He leaves it at that. I sigh and say, “Fine, whatever, but I’m not giving this tour anymore. We’re going through this house together and the minute we’re back outside, I’m taking you straight back to the office and giving you a cash payout for your tour. Fair enough?”

  He seems downright pleased and nods, grabbing my hand excitedly as he pulls me up the creaky stairs to the second landing.

  We scream and flinch our way through flying ghosts, creaking stairs, and fleeting electronic apparitions until at last we reach the stairs to the fourth floor.

  There is flickering light at the top of the landing, in Jebediah’s old study. A brighter light than what the fake candles on the walls generally offer.

  “I dunno about this,” I sigh, following him up step by step, heart pounding, senses on high alert. “My heart can’t take much more.”

  “It’s okay,” he whispers, leaning in as we pause on the fourth step. “I have it on good authority that the worst scares are already behind us.”

  I look at him, curiously, but he’s already sprinting up the stairs.

  “Greg,” I call after him, but he’s just out of sight at the top of the landing.

  I reach the last stair and blink my eyes, not quite believing what I’m seeing.

  The floors are cleaned, polished even. There is a new highboy table along one refurbished wall, heaped with “Frightening Footsteps” coffee mugs and pitchers of cider and cocoa handy.

  “What is all this?” I ask, tiptoeing onto the shiny new floors.

  Instead of answering me, Greg stands next to a table for two, one of several scattered across the polished hardwood floor.

  There are fall flowers sticking out of a small, carved jack-o-lantern and a place setting for two, featuring placemats shaped like fall leaves and napkin rings shaped like witch’s cauldrons.

  I sit and suddenly two guys about Greg’s age in black T-shirts and matching jeans sidle up to the table with glasses and plates at the ready.

  As Greg sits the table suddenly fills with petit fours and tarts, crackers and cheese, cookies and cocoa.

  “Is there a hidden camera around here somewhere?” I ask, leaning across a flickering votive candle.

  Greg smirks and says, “Happy Halloween, Gemma.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Allow me to formally introduce myself,” he says, reaching a long hand across the table. I take it and he says, “I’m Greg Asher, of Asher’s Entertainment.”

  For emphasis he points to the white lettering on the black shirts of his assistants, who stand outside of Jebedia’s old closet, now converted into a service kitchen.

  Their shirts say “Asher’s Entertainment” in big, bold white letters, each one dripping bright red blood.

  “We specialize in haunted houses, carnivals, fairs and… ghost tours,” Greg explains.

  “What do you do, exactly?” I ask, biting into the most heavenly pumpkin tart I’ve ever tasted.

  “We spruce them up, modernize them, bring them into the 21st century, basically.”

  “So that’s what this is all about?” I ask, somewhat… disappointed.

  There’s no reason for it, I just kind of got a warm and tingly feeling in my belly when he wished me “Happy Halloween” across a candlelit table for two. It sounded so… personal. Now I get it; it was all professional. Right from the start.

  He seems to get the hint and says, “Well, not all of it. But, yes, we just opened a regional branch up the road in Market Square and your boss hired us to help with your little Ghost Tour here.”

  “Why am I just hearing about it now?” I ask, sipping cocoa to die for to wash down the last of my orgasmic tart.

  Greg winks and says, “Well, your boss told us if we could frighten you, we’d get the job. So… did it work?”

  “I’ll say,” I gush, and it’s not just the sugar rush and caffeine high talking. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

  “Good enough,” he smiles, nodding to his two staff members. “It worked, guys. Your hard work is done. Now, why don’t you two take off and enjoy Halloween with your families.”

  They look at each other hopefully, like kids just told they could open their presents on Christmas Eve instead of the next morning.

  “But, what about the cleanup sir?” one of them asks.

  He shakes his head and says, “You guys did all this in 24-hours and haven’t had a break, so… the least I can do is clean up my own mess, right?”

  Without another word the two wish us goodnight and basically trip over themselves running down the stairs.

  The last thing we hear is the electronic dog barking on their way out.

  “How did you guys do all this overnight, Greg? I mean, I just gave the exact same tour last night.”

  “Well, a lot of its smoke and mirrors. The floor we’re sitting on? Temporary. When your boss makes it official, we’ll have to keep a few houses off the tour, one at a time, until they’re all tricked out with the bells and whistles you seem to have enjoyed so much tonight.”

  I smirk. “I don’t think ‘enjoyed’ is quite the right word, but… I see what you mean.”

  We grow quiet as the house stills and settles itself.

  We both nibble at the snacks, and drink ourselves into a sugar coma.

  The room is so warm and cozy, and Greg’s smile intoxicating.

  “Do you like the food?” he asks after a few moments of silence.

  “Now the food? Th
e food is enjoyable!”

  “We’ve been toying with adding a new dimension to your tour, you know, kind of a seasonal thing where we’d make one room in each haunted house a kind of ‘festive feature.’ Drinks, chairs, light snacks, just to extend the tour, add some value and generally make it more festive.”

  “What, for folks who don’t believe in ghosts?”

  I give him a knowing glance.

  “Exactly. Also, for the locals who live here year round. They might come once for the actual tour, but come again every few months for the food. Or have an extra reason to bring along some out of town friends, or drag along the kids on their birthdays, that kind of thing.”

  “I like your way of thinking,” I sigh. “And I wouldn’t mind being able to take a load off after each speech, you know?”

  He avoids my eyes, hems and haws and says, “Well, Gemma, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Asher Entertainment is growing. We’re understaffed here locally and, well, we’ve been looking for someone to consult on the tours themselves. I can’t do it all myself and I’m not quite the expert you are. We were hoping, well… to hire you away from Frightening Footsteps.”

  My heart leaps like it did with the barking dog speaker, the zooming skeleton or the