Ding Dong Ditch

         Edgar hated those little bastards. Kids. They roamed the streets like a pack of drunken gorillas. They rode their stupid bicycles across his lawn, the one that he tediously maintained, and put tire tracks across the beautiful green expanse. When he had moved into the neighborhood some thirty years ago, there hadn't been this many kids. At least to his recollection it had been mostly a community of older people. He liked people of an older age. Even from his thirties, he would rather have spent his time mulling over politics and religious arguments than talking about silly crap with children. All they ever wanted to talk about was cartoons, toys, and playtime. Edgar hated kids so much that a part of him refused to believe that he had ever been that damn ignorant when he was younger. His father wouldn’t have stood for the bullshit that kids got away with today. Kids seemed to walk all over their parents. But not in Edgar's time. No Sir-ee. If he misbehaved or acted like these out-of-control little devils, his father would tell him to walk out in the yard and pick out a switch. That’s what they called them in his day. He would be sent out to pick out a branch. He was always careful to never get one thinner than his thumb- otherwise the damn thing would split his skin open something awful before it broke. The rule was that his father would give him a good ole whoopin with the switch until the thing snapped in half. This made it very clear that picking a thin switch, one that had a little too much spring in it, would be ultimately a dumb ass choice. That thing would last forever and his butt would be riddled with red lines, sometimes bleeding mind you, till that cursed thing would snap in two. Always the size of his thumb he thought, as he stared out his window and dared, with his eyes, for any kids to step foot on his lawn.
         Halloween was coming up. That fucking holiday when the little bastards dressed up in costumes and terrorized the neighborhood- all while expecting candy for their troubles. His father had never believed in that silly horse shit. He was never allowed to go bang on the doors of a stranger’s house and expect candy all just because he looked like a damn fool. Then, there were also those other little bastards. They would throw toilet paper into your trees, eggs at your house and it was all supposed to be in good fun. Edgar plopped down in his armchair and thought that there was no fun in climbing the trees and pulling down toilet paper or scrubbing egg muck off your fucking windows with an aching back. That shit was for the birds.
         Edgar stared at the white plush carpet that covered the sitting room. What the fuck good was a sitting room anyhow? His wife had bitched and moaned about having her own little sitting room so she could stare out the damn window and watch the kids play. Edgar kicked his slippers off onto the carpet and grumbled. He spent today in the dumb ass sitting room making sure those same little bastards didn’t knock over his freshly planted tulips he planted in the driveway earlier this year. He was about tired of having to police his own damn yard since the god awful parents in this neighborhood decided it would be a better job for him rather than taking care of their own fucking kids.
         Edgar reached into the side pocket of his armchair and pulled out his pipe. He had never smoked in the sitting room when Ethel had been alive. She would get her knickers in a god damn bunch if she had ever seen him do that. It was always that way with her. Edgar, a grown ass man, couldn’t even sit in his own armchair, in the fucking sitting room mind you, and puff on his pipe as he read the paper.
         His lifted a match to the pipe and puffed on the stem producing a great cloud of snow white smoke from the pipe. How bout that one you nagging bitch, he thought to himself. Ethel had been dead for about a year now. He honestly found things a little more relaxing around the house without having her up his ass every five minutes to help her with this or reach up there and get her that. Bah! Sitting in his throne, a man before his lush emerald kingdom, smoking his damn pipe, made him feel a little better about the impending watch he would have tonight.
         It seemed that the older kids in the neighborhood had deemed him the grumpy old man on Walnut Lane. Well, they could kiss his wrinkled ass. If they decided to fuck with his lawn, his trees, or throw any damn eggs at his house THIS year- he was ready for them.
         Edgar looked over next to the window and saw a long metal shaft glisten in the sunlight of the afternoon. It was a Daisy 70th anniversary Red Rider BB gun that he had picked up from Ned’s Hunting Supply down the street. He had one when he was a strapping young boy and decided it would be a fitting way to keep these hoodlums off his damn lawn this Halloween. Today was the day he would get his chance to put it into action. The BB gun looked a lot like the one he had when he was younger. He used to hunt birds with it on the farm. Somewhere, in the stupid scrapbooks Ethel had worked on for hours, was a picture of him as a boy holding that BB gun next to a long row of birds he had proudly shot down from the roof. He was standing in that picture next to his dog, Ranger, and proudly showcasing his sharp shooting talents. Yup, those were the days. He wasn’t running around on a damn bicycle or playing with any dumb ass toys when he was younger. He was training to be an expert hunter like his father. Today would be the day that he dusted off those skills and put them on display for the little bastards of this neighborhood. They would never forget it.
         It occurred to Edgar that Halloween had become the biggest crock of shit holiday on the books in the past few years of his life. He was seventy-six years old and couldn’t believe, when he went into the store in fucking August, those Halloween costumes and decorations were already on the shelves for those idiots that wanted to spend their time putting that shit all over their house. Ridiculous waste of time, he thought, pulling a long drag from the pipe and blowing it into the lace covered lamp next to his armchair. Take that you hideous laced piece of shit. He had dragged his armchair all the way from the living room to this damn sitting room for a reason. This house was all his now, since Ethel had passed, and he was bound and determined to make sure that this sitting room was full aware of that. He would sit his fat, wrinkled ass in here now and smoke his pipe and nobody was going to say a damn word to him about it. No Sir-ee.
         He recalled buying the house some thirty years ago, when he had been a dashing forty-six or so. He got this place cheap. He was quite the shopper when it came to buying a house. That was a man’s job. If Ethel would have had any say in the whole damn thing they would have never taken it. But he had put his foot down and, dammit, they bought the fucking thing and that was the way it was gonna be. The son-of-a-bitch realtor had made them aware, through some misguided sense of duty, that a young boy had died in the woods behind the house by breaking his neck- falling out of a tree. Why the hell a salesman, trying to get that commission check in his greedy little pocket, would tell a potential buyer some shit like that was beyond Edgar. It was the fucking stupidest thing he ever heard of in his life. He really didn’t give a shit if there was an Indian Burial ground beneath the damn house. He liked the price and he was gonna live here, by god. Ethel had thrown a fit that she didn’t feel comfortable living near a place where a child had died, yak, yak yak… typical woman bullshit. Edgar told her that he wasn’t going to bother them much since he was DEAD and to shut the hell up about it. They moved in about a month after, when the mortgage finally closed, and that was that. Edgar had made the decision and she was gonna deal with it- plain and simple. As a consolation prize, the pain in the ass woman had gotten her sitting room. Hooray for her. Yet, here he sat smoking his pipe. So who won in the end, Ethel, who won in the end? Edgar chuckled a little at the last thought.
         To Edgar marriage was just one of those mysteries of humanity. When you first got together you were so much in love that it dulled your damn senses and made you an idiot enough to get married in the first place. But as the years rolled by you began to compile a list of things that the other person did that you absolutely couldn’t fucking stand. The older you got, and the more years you got underneath your belt, the more those things grinded and grinded at you until you felt like you were gonna explode if you had to go through one more day of that bullshit. By the time you decided that you couldn’t stand them, you were just too old and to invested to pack your bags and get the fuck on with your life. It was kind of like the stock market, sometimes you put all your money in a shitty stock and lost your ass. But you kept that money right there hoping that one day the fucking thing would take off and you’d be rich. Funny thing is that hardly ever happened in life, stocks, or a god damn marriage.
         Edgar had decided that the lawn was going to be his last stand. Custard had his and now Edgar Oliver would have his too. Those kids weren’t going to mess around with him this year. It they laid foot on his lawn, he was going to put a couple holes in their ass with the BB gun waiting by the window. Then, as they went limping down the street grabbing their ass cheeks, we would see who was going to have the last laugh. Edgar chuckled again and puffed on his pipe with delight. We would see indeed.

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         Night had crept up on Edgar as he awoke in the armchair, staring out the window at his front yard. The day had gotten away from him. That was ok since he was anxiously waiting on the evening to get here anyway. That was when the little bastards would start their mischief. Yup, tonight was when he was gonna teach those kids a lesson they would never forget. It was Halloween and he saw parents outside his window dragging their kids down the street with their sacks full of candy. It appeared to him that some of the parents pulled their kids arms leading them away from his front door step. They must have been the smart ones. He never turned his lights on- the universal welcome mat for those little bastards to knock on the door and get their candy. He wasn’t participating in that horse shit.
         Halloween used to be called All Hallow’s Eve, Edgar thought. People would decorate their houses with scary junk and dress up as ghost and goblins to scare away the bad spirits that they believed roamed the streets that night. He didn’t believe in that superstitious malarky. He never banged his damn pots and pans on New Years either. That supposedly scared away all the bad spirits in preparation of a new year. Again- horse shit. He normally sat in his armchair, when it was still in the living room, drank a glass of Jack Daniels and passed out before the damn ball dropped on Times Square on the television. He thought to himself that if all that pots and pans shit actually worked, then Dick Clark, that smug prick, would have been driven right the hell off his TV set. He couldn’t think of anyone more horrific than that evil son-of-a-bitch that would need to be exorcised out of existence.
         A knock broke the silence of Edgar’s sitting room and he glared at the door with a look of disgust. Apparently the lights not being on on his porch wasn’t enough of a signal for some bold bastard that he wasn’t interested in their little moron parade outside. He would take care of this- quick, fast, and in a hurry. Edgar rose from his armchair and lumbered over to the door- to give whoever the hell it was a piece of his mind.
         Edgar flung open the door with a fury and yelled into his front yard.
         “GET THE F-”, he stopped in mid sentence. There was no one on his porch. Dammit. Those little bastard had got him.
         There was a game that they liked to play on him from time to time. They called it Ding-Dong-Ditch. Stupidest fucking thing he had ever heard of in his life. They would knock on his door and then run off and hide. He would hobble his old ass over to the door, open it up, and there wouldn’t be anyone there. Somewhere in the bushes those little bastards would laugh at him. They were doing it right now. Edgar slammed the door with enough force to rattle a picture of a 57 Chevy Bel-Air, his first car, right off the wall. He didn’t bother to pick it up.
         “You little fucking devils.”, Edgar muttered to himself.
         Edgar walked back over to his armchair and put his hands on the arm rests, ready to sit right back down, when the door responded with another knock. He angrily ran back to the door and flung it open again with a vicious motion. Nothing. Edgar stared off into the night with a look of scorn on his well-lined face.
         “Ok then… ok.”, Edgar scowled, slamming the door a second time.
         Edgar marched over, a soldier preparing for war, to his Daisy BB gun and picked it up from next to the window. He had this little diddy all planned out already. Come and get it, you little pricks. He turned and pounded his feet up the stairs like Godzilla crushing the city beneath his monstrous feet. He would make his way to the top floor and have a clear view of his lawn. He had already left the window open upstairs. Preparation was the key to victory. As soon as he saw one of those bastard fleeing the screen of the crime- he would give him a dose of justice. Right in the ass.
         Edgar walked over to the window and knelt down painfully. His knees popped with old age as he positioned himself for battle. He was a world-class sniper ready to pick off the head of some uppity foreign nation. The next kid that ran from his house was going to be the shining example of why you shouldn’t fuck with Edgar Oliver. No Sir-ee.
         Edgar waited. He was as patient as he could knowing that it would all be worth it- in time. He had wanted this moment for a long time. Now here it was gift wrapped and waiting under the tree.
         Edgar heard another knock from below and knew that the game had started. Below him a young boy, he guess about 12 years old, was running from his porch. He heard the subtle giggling of the boy as he ran. He was mocking Edgar. Oh, but not for long. Edgar Oliver was not a man to be mocked- he was to be feared. Edgar nestled the BB gun against the frame of the window and zeroed in on his target. The boy was about half way across his lawn when he began pulling the trigger.
         Pop! Pop! Pop!
         Edgar fired three shots with a grin of satisfaction on his face. He had pumped the fucking gun as much as he could manage and it showed. The boy got hit as planned- three shots- right in the ass. He fell to the lawn with a scream and started bawling. Two of his friends came bolting out of the bushes to help the fallen solider, grabbing him underneath his arms. Edgar tried to hide behind the side of the window, so no one’s parents would see him. The last thing he needed was the damn cops showing up and ruining his enjoyment. He began to laugh. Edgar laughed so hard that tears began to roll down his eyes. He watched with a smile as the other two boys pulled their friend off the battlefield. He was screaming his lungs out and grabbing his ass. It was the perfect little picture that Edgar has envisioned. He had taken his medicine. Edgar considered handing out some more western justice to the boy’s friends, but decided that sometimes an example was all you needed. Edgar was certain his lawn would be off limits to these little bastards by word of mouth. The old man’s reputation had just graduated from the grumpy old man on Walnut Lane to the old man that you shouldn’t fuck with. That crown fit his head a little better he thought.
         Edgar crept away from the window and slowly got to his feet. His face contorted a little from the pain of standing again but he felt so good that it hardly bothered him. His laughter was oh-so precious. He knew that this moment of grandeur was something he would be savoring, like a medium-rare ribeye steak, when he smoked his pipe in the damn sitting room for days to come.
         Edgar reached the top of the stairs with a smile and the BB gun in his hand. He would need to put it somewhere that it couldn’t be found just in case the damn cops did show up. If that happened he would play the part of the silly old man that loved children. Most people fell for that bit. He was sure that his plans would go off without a hitch. He was a smart old man.
         Edgar continued to chuckle his way down the stairs until his moment of pleasure was ruined by a single sound.
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
         Edgar’s face changed immediately from an expression of pure delight into a look of hatred. He was sure there couldn’t be anyone knocking on his fucking door and ruining his moment could there? Had those damn kids not learned a thing or two tonight?
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!
         There it was again. This was the last straw. Edgar moved his legs furiously down the steps and waited at the foot of the staircase. It had sounded like the knock had come from the back door this time. Those little fuckers had him surrounded.
         “Alright, you son of a bitch! I’m coming!! And I’ve sure as hell got something for you!”, Edgar growled.
         He began to pump the BB gun rapidly. He was gonna shoot this one right in the balls. That’s right. If they wouldn’t learn the easy way- he would show them the hard way. The clack-clack sound of the BB gun being pumped dwelled in the silence of the house as he made his way to the back door.
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!!
         Louder this time. These bastard had some balls. That was for sure. But not for long. No Sir-ee, not for long.
         Edgar made his way to the back door. He didn’t have a fancy all-glass back door like most people. He liked his privacy and that was the way he had always had it. The blinds on the back door were down. It occurred to him that this was a great thing. He would catch that bastard off guard and pop him right in the balls with a BB. Edgar grinned as he thought about the look on that kid’s face.
         Edgar reached the brass door knob and flung open the door. He pulled the BB gun up to rest on his shoulder and fixed his eyes right in the line of the aim. Suddenly, Edgar froze in his tracks. He felt his arms begin to shake under the weight of the BB gun- but he kept it raised. It gave him a false sense of security.
         On the other side of the entry way there stood a boy. But something was very wrong with this picture. The boy looked like he might have been about 10 years old, but his clothes looked very old and dirty. Edgar thought he looked as if he had just climbed up out of the dirt- the thought made him shudder. His skin was a gray color and the eyes were completely missing from his head. The boy turned his head up to meet with Edgar’s gaze and his head flopped about as if his neck was broken.
         “Trick or Treat, Mr. Oliver.”, the boy said in a quiet voice- almost like whisper.
         Holy fuck! His eyes are gone!
         Edgar stood planted in his tracks. He tried to pull the trigger of the BB gun and his finger wouldn’t get the job done. His eyes remained wide and his legs began to match the rhythm of his shaking arms. His bladder constricted as if to remind him that he should have gone to the bathroom a long time ago.
         “You’re not a very nice man. So, tonight, I think you’re going to get a trick.”, the boy continued.
         Edgar screamed. It didn’t sound like a war cry or anything that should have came out of a man’s mouth. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time in his life that he had done that. He firmly yanked the trigger on his BB gun and the gun spat out a BB into the ghastly boy in front of him. He watched in horror as the BB shot straight through the boy’s head with a PUFF sort of sound and went right out the back of his skull. Dirt seemed to jump off the hole where the BB exiting the back of his head. Edgar dropped the gun in disbelief, slammed the door and made a desperate dash for the front door of his house. He had to get the hell out of here.
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
         Edgar’s feet stopped before the sound registered to his brain. That had came from the fucking front door. Edgar looked back and forth from the dark outline of the back door to the dimly lit surface of the front door. He had to get the hell out of his house. He knew that for sure. He had to get out of here. Edgar’s head spun in a tornado of thoughts. Had he really just seen the boy that died in the woods behind his home? Had that little bastard crawled out of the woods and came after him? Edgar looked at the smoke hanging in the sitting room to his left and thought about Ethel. Maybe that bitch had sent the boy after him for smoking in her fucking pristine sitting room. That sounded like exactly like something that conniving woman would do. But, maybe those damn kids had dressed up in a seriously well-done costume and set out to scare the shit out of the old man. His mind clung desperately to the later and decided that this was all a game to scare him for shooting that damn kid in the ass. It had to be. That was the only logical explanation for this. He wasn’t going crazy. He didn’t believe in ghost and all that silly shit. A little voice in his head reminded him that it was Halloween. Maybe he should have put up the fucking decorations to scare away the ghosts and ghouls… roaming the streets… looking for grumpy old men to pluck the eyeballs out of.
         “Oh, that’s complete horse shit, Edgar. These kids are just fucking with you! Pull it together.”, Edgar said to himself. The sound of his own voice made him jump in the now silent house.
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
         Edgar glared at the front door with absolute horror. That boy, or that thing, was on the other side. He was sure of it. He made up his mind that the only way out of this predicament was the back door. He would wait for the next knock and take off at whichever door was on the other side of the house. That fucking boy couldn't be at both of them. He decided that was a plan. He waited. He was a smart man.
         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!
         That was the front door again- louder. HA! He would trick whoever, or whatever the hell, that was. He would come out the winner in this little game. He wasn’t about to be outsmarted by some little asshole that had determined it was a gay old time to mess with the old man. He would run out the back door, pick up his BB gun, and flank the little fucker by going around the ride of the house. Then, he would let him have it.
         Edgar made a break for the back door and flung it open, bursting out onto the back porch stoop. He knelt down, knees popping like firecrackers, to pick up the BB gun from it’s resting place on the grass. He felt the cold metal of the BB gun’s barrel in his hand and lifted his head up to survey the backyard for his attack route. His eyes became impossibly large and the scream in his throat was stopped short by the ice cold grip that grabbed it tightly. The dead boy had gotten a hold of his neck and was staring right into his face. Edgar could swear that deep in the blackened sockets, where his eyes should have been, he saw things moving. The dead boy’s breath smelled like rotting flesh, dirt, and something old- something very, very old.
         “We’re going to play now, Mr. Oliver.”, the dead boy whispered with his terrible breath into Edgar’s face- now growing more and more purple.
         The last thing that Edgar remembered was the rows of rotting teeth as the boy leaned forward to gnash the wide eyes out of his head.

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         KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
         The little girl stared at the dark front door in confusion, she was dressed like a lady bug with a bag full of candy in her hand. She had knocked on the old man’s door a few times now and wondered why he wasn’t coming yet to give her any candy.
         “Suzy!!”, a woman yelled from the street.
         The little girl shrugged her shoulders at the door and turned to the sound of her mother’s voice. She was sure she had heard someone inside- but maybe she had been wrong. She walked down the driveway, past the pretty tulips, and strolled slowly over to her mother’s side.
         Her mother had been standing and talking to another lady that lived in the neighborhood for what seemed like forever. Suzy had simply gotten bored and the old man’s house was the closest house to where they had stopped. She knew his lights weren’t on or anything, which her mother had told her was the signal, but she figured she’d try anyways.
         “Well, alright, Beth. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can talk arranging about the PTA meeting next week. See ya!”, the woman who called Suzy said.
         “No trouble. You better keep an eye on Suzy! She’s a sneaky one.”, the woman named Beth laughed.
         Suzy’s mother turned down to look at her daughter.
         “I tell you, Suzy. I look away for five minutes and there you go, huh?”, she said with a smile.
         “I was just seeing if Mr. Oliver was home.”, Suzy said to her mom, “He wasn’t.”
         Suzy’s mom looked from her daughter to Mr. Oliver’s house. He really did have a great lawn, he was always out working on it on the cooler days. The lights in his house were all off, but upstairs- the drapes fluttered out of an open window. Mr. Oliver never had his lights on for Halloween and he never decorated. Too bad he is such an asshole, she thought.
         “Well, let’s go see how much more candy we can get you, alright?” Suzy’s mom chuckled.
         “Ok, Mom!”
         The two walked further down the street and left the darkness of Mr. Oliver’s house to the watchful eye of the night. The beautiful, green yard, with its lush row of tulips next to the driveway, was as silent as death.