Halloween 2023

It is a cold, windy evening. You shiver and snuggle into your warm coat as a few falling leaves from the surrounding trees pass you by. The wind caresses the cornfields to your right, singing an eerie song that heralds the night. Alongside the rush of air, you hear the sound of church tower bells chiming a full hour and the rumble of your wagon’s wooden tyres. The horse pulling the cart snorts and you hear the clatter of its hoofs on the flat, earthy path covered with pebbles.

Every now and then you pass shabby huts, ruins of former buildings and dilapidated houses, the number of which increases steadily as you get closer to your destination – Archdorf. You are a merchant and are already looking forward to the payoff when you can exchange your goods for money right away. It has taken you a day’s journey to get to this place, but now, at a small crossroads, you finally make your way inside the village, where you are about to meet your customer. While you are still thinking about investing the money you have earned in goods from Archdorf and selling them in your homeland, the last pale shining chromastars in the sky pass the border of the horizon, leaving only a pitch-dark, cold night behind. It’s a good thing you remembered to light a small chromalamp on your wagon, but you won’t need it for long, because inside the village, chromalanterns light up the main road you’re driving on.

You are jolted out of your thoughts when the tyres bump over a large stone and you rub your butt, which hurts slightly from the rumbling. You have been sitting on the not exactly soft wooden bench of your wagon all day and now this. Now you feel the pulling in your back again, which comes from the long journey in a sitting position and which you have successfully ignored until now, and you sigh. I’m almost there. You cheer yourself up in your thoughts and your mood lifts a little. Just think of the money… With the money you’ve earned, your family, who are waiting for you at home, could buy a few days’ food again. The thought of your loved ones warms your heart and you smile while thinking of a funny event with them that happened two days ago.

When you are only a few metres away from your destination, a goods shed in the eastern part of the village, you notice some shady characters around you in the darker alleys and you notice that there are only a few people left on the main street. You remember that you are now in Archdorf, a village with a fairly high crime rate, of which you read reports of crimes in the newspaper from time to time, and you look more closely. To your left, in an alley about five metres away from you, there seems to be a drug deal going on, while to your right, three men in rags smoke their cigarettes and watch you. You have already been robbed once and only escaped with your life because a couple of knights happened to cross your path and took care of the robbers. Your instinct tells you that these men might also be after your goods, but you dismiss the idea because you are in the middle of the village, on the lit main street, where there are still some villagers on the way who could call for help. But since you can never be too careful, you put your hand on the dagger you carry at your belt and let it rest there. You can’t be easily frightened and you don’t think too much over potential situations, but you don’t want to take any risks for your family, who are waiting for your return and depend on you. Your wagon passes the dangerous spot with the three men and after a few more metres without incident you breathe out in relief. You can already see the wooden goods barn and stop your horse, whose hooves clatter on the now stone-paved path, in front of the building.

As you climb from the wooden bench, your face contorted in pain, you hear footsteps from inside the barn and the doors are being opened. Chroma light from inside the warehouse illuminates the area around you and your wagon, taking over the job of a flickering old chroma streetlight that eventually fails completely. You are greeted with a gruff but familiar voice. “Well at last, you old sock, made it to your destination for once. We thought you’d been mugged again, haha”. Two men emerge from the barn, the older of the two rushing to shake your hand while the younger goes to the back of your wagon and uncovers the tarp. He takes a good look at your goods and nods. “Everything seems to be there, father.” The older man laughs and taps you vigorously on the shoulder, then offers you a cigarette. You accept it and he gives you a light while he lights one for himself. The merchant from Archdorf starts a conversation with you and you begin to exchange ideas, meanwhile the son begins to clear the goods out of your cart. You have known the old man for ages, you often trade with each other as he often comes to your hometown. You, on the other hand, are not so often in Archdorf, as you try to avoid it because your family worries about you whenever you tell them that you have to go to this dodgy village. The aging merchant named Buck Sullivan proudly tells you how his son is getting more and more involved in the business and will soon take it over. He himself would soon stop travelling and only do business locally before finally retiring.

Some time later, your cart is emptied and you negotiate the financial aspects. Buck, as always, gets very serious and negotiates hard, but you manage to get a good sum and are satisfied. Once the deal is done, the old man becomes friendly again and offers you a place to sleep at his house for the night. Gratefully you decline his offer, for you see the look in the son’s eyes, who obviously does not trust you. You don’t want to bring trouble into the father-son relationship and you don’t intend to be in the old man’s debt ever again. You remember how he rescued you from a financial emergency with a deal he didn’t have to make. After that, he teased you about it at every opportunity until you were finally able to pay off the debt years later. Since then, you feel uncomfortable accepting help from others.

The merchant from Archdorf looks thoughtful, looking first at you, then at the street to his right and left. In the meantime, his son turns off the chromalamps in the goods barn and closes the doors before locking them. Impatiently, he joins you and urges his father to go home. He puts out his third cigarette on the floor and puts his hand on your shoulder. “All right, stubborn one, you go to the inn, but be careful on the way. Remember, today is Halloween.” You give him a smile and nod before giving him an answer. “I’ll be fine, it’s not my first time in Archdorf and Halloween is just a night like any other. See you soon old man, take care!” Tired but refreshed by the long conversation with Buck, whom you actually consider an old friend, you climb back onto the wooden bench of your wagon. You wonder when you will meet him next as he bids you farewell with a warning. “Remember, they never caught him. Take care.” You exchange glances with him briefly and the seriousness is written all over his face. Then he turns away and heads home with his son leading the way with a chromalantern in his hand. You watch the two of them and soon they are out of sight. You decide to set off as well and turn your cart around. Your next destination is now a stable back at the entrance to the village, where you can store your horse and cart for the night in exchange for money.

By now the main road is deserted and only the wind and the clatter of hooves on the stone floor can be heard. It must be close to midnight by now and your eyes are almost closed. You have been travelling since the first chromastars appeared in the sky. Your horse also hangs its head and only moves forward slowly and reluctantly. In the stillness of the night you think of the old trader’s words again. Halloween. A night that every inhabitant of Archdorf is afraid of. You have read newspaper reports about it often enough. In this village, children don’t go trick-or-treating and everyone who doesn’t have to go outside spends the night behind closed doors in their own homes. You know why. People always disappear in Archdorf on Halloween. Many of them are only found again in the days that follow. Dead. According to reports, most of them were victims of torture and some were so disfigured that they could not be identified. There was no pattern to this, the victims were killed in a variety of ways and seem to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The perpetrator or perpetrators were never caught. It is also not known whether it is always the same criminals or different ones.

Suddenly a woman’s scream shatters the nightly silence. You look around but cannot see the source anywhere. Your gaze turns serious and you remember that Archdorf is a village where crime is the order of the day. The presence of the knights is meagre, much of the village is mired in poverty and almost in every dark corner you find drug dealers offering you substances with devastating effects. Poverty drives people either to addiction or to criminality, with addiction ultimately leading to crime as well due to the lack of money underneath the addiction. You know Archdorf is dangerous, but you think you have to be on your guard anyway, be it Halloween or not. Two years ago you wouldn’t have thought of coming here at this time, but since there were no murders on Halloween last year, you feel safer and think, like other people, that the incidents are now history. Something must have happened to the killers to make them stop. Still, there was drama at your house when you told your family that you would be in Archdorf for Halloween.

Lost in thought, you reach the stable. It begins to drizzle lightly and you stop your horse. A carriage appears before you from the stable with two horses harnessed and a coachman whose face is hidden under his hood. He seems to be in a hurry, turns to you briefly, mumbles something unintelligible and then urges his horses into a faster pace. It seems strange to set off at this hour and you look after the carriage. Frowning, you think it might be a robbery and hope fervently that your horse and cart will still be here the next day and you can make your way home.

With a slightly bad feeling, you get off your cart and lead your horse into the stable. The building is very spacious, you hear contented snorting from some of the stalls and the sound of teeth nibbling on hay. As soon as you enter with your four-legged companion, to which the cart is still attached, a stable boy approaches you. He asks you if you want to put your horse here for the night, you smile at him and nod, and both of you start unhitching the horse from the cart. As soon as the harness is off, you take your horse by the halter and tie it up in one of the free stalls. The animal snorts and starts eating hay while the stable boy parks your cart in a free corner. You pat your four-legged partner on the neck in goodwill and go to the young man to pay him. Without thinking you allow yourself a joke as you dig the money out of your pocket. “Hey, you didn’t happen to do a crooked thing with that guy who just came out here, did you? Haha.” The stable boy’s eyes got big and he opened his mouth, but only managed to get a sentence out after a few seconds. “N-no, of course not! I guess the gentleman heard about what happened in our village on Halloween and wanted to leave as soon as possible. I-I would never risk my job here” You raise an eyebrow, not quite sure if you have caught the boy out or if he was just very surprised by your accusation. You shrug and point out to him that you were joking. The young man laughs sheepishly, scratches his head and exhales in relief. You hand him the money and leave the stable.

The cold air of the night finds its way into your lungs and your ears hear the sound of the tower bells again. You look up at the illuminated church in the middle of the village. It reminds you of your childhood, when you had to go to the holy place every Sunday to pray. Your father was a knight and therefore a strict believer, but you think the god of light is just an old legend. But you had to keep that to yourself, otherwise there would have been trouble. The man who has already died always wanted you to become a knight as well, but you were gripped by wanderlust and negotiating brings you joy, so you stood your ground and pushed through your goal of becoming a merchant. You wonder if anyone in this village goes to church at all, when an icy, strong wind makes you shiver. The drizzle gets stronger and slowly wets your hair and coat. In addition, your tiredness returns and you realise how hungry you actually are. Annoyed by these circumstances, you want to get to the inn as quickly as possible. You can already see yourself with a juicy roast and beer as you set off in the direction of your overnight accommodation.

After a few minutes, the path forks. It thunders and the icy cold rain pelts down harder and harder. You sigh and take a closer look at the fork. To your right, a lit road leads into the interior of the village, where there is a marketplace and a fountain. You have only taken this road once before, when you were here during the day and wanted to kill time. It is a diversion to the inn. You can make out a few people in the distance in the chromashine. You look to your left and your eyes wander down a dark alley. In the distance you see a flickering chromalight that goes out for a few seconds at a time, leaving the surroundings behind a pitch-black veil. You have walked this way many times before, as it is much shorter and leads directly to the inn. But since you had taken the chromalantern from your cart anyway, the darkness would not be a problem for you. Nevertheless, for some inexplicable reason you have a queasy feeling in your stomach today as you stare into the dark alley. For a few seconds you think about whether to take this path or the street. Slowly, the rain soaks your coat, you shake your head and push yourself to make a decision.