The twilight takes its time.

  Priest gazes up into the cold pale green sky and glances at his watch. Again. It's quarter to six. All Saints' Eve. Priest keeps seeing pumpkins everywhere. Big ones, small ones and tiny misshapen calabashes strung on long sticks.

  They form mounds in the front yards, obfuscate the path leading to the church and stick out of the bald hedges like ugly baby’s heads. It seems to Priest that there are more of them as darkness falls. The orange lights of pumpkin eyes glow in the windows of the houses. As if the pumpkins have mysteriously driven out the inhabitants and taken their place.

  Priest's hope that the city that has swallowed up the village will also swallow up the barbarian traditions is not coming true. The pumpkins still gloat at him out of the murky blue evening.

  On top of it all, Priest sees a white coffin. The coffin turns heavily out from behind a pile of pumpkins and rolls straight at him.

  ‘What on earth,’ Priest sighs heavily and walks back to the church. He used to keep there a big sack of sweets for the children.

  Children are God's angels. And future parishioners, he reminds himself and turns to the door with a smile.

  ‘Wonderful outfits!’ he excalims with exaggerated enthusiasm.

  The disturbed silence staggers away in fear. But the two figures on the threshold, illuminated by the yellow lantern, do not smile back or recite any rhymes. One of them, with long black ears, reaches his paw through the doorway and sniffs the air in a hesitant manner.

  ‘Hare, are you sure the church is safe for the Children of the Night?’ asks the other one with scepticism. ‘What if he starts splashing holy water?’

  Long-ears yanks back his paw and takes a step back.

  ‘Well, where's your sack?’ intervenes Priest with mild irritation, wanting to end the uninvited show as soon as possible.

  He scoops up more candies from his supply.

  ‘At the bottom,’ comes a muffled gurgle from behind his back.

  With a sharp turn, Priest steps into the puddle. The water drips off the dead Beast's wet, green fur. His eyes shine the same evil orange as Halloween pumpkins. Priest scatters the sweets.

  ‘Father George?’ Beast scowls and steps towards him.

  Priest shakes his head in slow-motion. He feels like he is dreaming and having a terrible nightmare.

  ‘Father George was my father. He died ten years ago.’

  Beast stops. He gives the young priest a grim look.

  ‘Rowan?’ asks the man, gazing at the unexpected guest. ‘But how? Where have you been all this time? Father said you ran away.’

  ‘You can't run far in a sack,’ remarks Beast and distinctly begins to smell of sludge.

  Priest turns round and runs to the door. His feet slip in the slimy water.

  ‘Stand where you are!’ comes a high grumpy voice as an ugly calabash on a stick is shoved through the door.

  ‘Standing!’ Priest skids to a halt and blesses himself with the cross. Pumpkins! Pumpkins everywhere!

  ‘Not you,’ Calabash snaps back and makes a sound like a nose sniffle.

  'He was speaking to us,' the same Halloween orange root vegetable explains to him in a polite tone. ‘Deadly Root and Gothic Hare,’ he introduces himself and his companion.

  The pumpkin head spins in the doorway. Bright sparks fly from it in all directions.

  ‘It’s safe,’ he states with disappointment. The lights in his eyes dim displeased.

  A long, crooked stick is followed into the church by the guests from the white coffin and Priest suddenly realises that these are not outfits.

  ‘We have a case to bring to you,’ the long-eared one appeals to him. ‘A cemetery case...’

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  ....

  ‘Alas, I don't know where the parish book is,’ Priest repeats again.

  He refills a small crystal vase with sweets and looks at Beast with guilt. The council has been going on for half an hour now. The tea has run out. Priest pours holy water from a large plastic bottle into the glasses and sprinkles it on Calabash with curiosity.

  ‘Safe,’ repeats the dreadful pumpkin again, giving Priest a grimace full of darkness and shadows.

  Gothic Hare sips from his glass and takes the last candy from the bottom of the vase. There a greenish puddle spreads itself out. Beast smells of chocolate in a soothing and cosy way.

  ‘Isn't it harmful to you?’ worries Priest.

  ‘Nothing is harmful to the dead. That's the nicest thing of being one,’ grins Beast in a friendly manner.

  Root doesn't trust Halloween Calabash. Besides, holy water makes his nose itch.

  ‘But who knows about the book?’ asks Rooty in a grumpy tone.

  ‘Father. I mean Father George knew. But before he died, he forgot all of it. Just when they decided to transfer the parish data to the computer. All of it. Couldn't even recite the Lord's Prayer right. So he took the secret to his grave.’

  ‘Then we're very lucky he's dead,’ smirks Beast wickedly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the dead remember everything. Every last thing.’

  He reveals a predatory grin.

  ‘Where's the grave?’ Gothic Hare rises from the church pew where someone once long ago scrawled the word Amen.

  He feels the dark magic filling the air and makes his heart beat faster.

  ‘Here, actually,’ Priest looks around as if he's just woken up. ‘There is a family crypt under the floor.’

  ‘The crypt...’ echoes Gothic Hare in reverence.

  He taps with Calabash'scrooked stick on the massive slabs. A hollow thud reverberates.

  ‘Dangerous!’ Calabash breaks into a satisfied sneer. The candle in his pumpkin head flares up again with malicious joy.

  ‘Follow me,’ says Priest with resolve.

  The sombre triumph that suddenly swamps the small village church is passed to him as well. Dusk has finally fallen. The sleepy spiders that have crawled out for their nightly hunt are scurrying away in panic. The door to the church basement does not give on the first try. The iron creaks, the dusty stones crack, the freaked deadies mutter.

  ‘Wait outside,’ says Beast with a vengeful voice and dives into the musty darkness of the dungeon.

  Silence reigns for a while. Calabash twists his ugly head in excitement and grumbles something indistinct. This is followed by an escalating splash of water.

  ‘More than anything, the dead need justice,’ says Priest in a humble way, and listens to the darkness.

  Gothic Hare carefully pokes the wicked pumpkin into the underground blackness, bright orange sparks shooting out of its eyes.

  ‘Very dangerous!’ shouts Calabash cheerfully, illuminating the stinking green water. On the surface of it a lacquered teak coffin is bobbing. This is followed by a desperate cry from the deady from inside the coffin.

  ‘St Luke! St Luke has your trashy book! As you take down the icon, there's a secret shelf it sits upon! Only you won't need it! Nobody needs your old cemetery, or old animals! People just want jobs and eternal life! Aah! Get him off me! Get him off!!!’

  The scream turns into a shrill shriek, interspersed with the snarling of Beast and the hungry plash of water. The cracking of bones is heard, making the blood run cold.

  ‘Rest in peace, Father,’ says Priest into the darkness, and closes the heavy, unliftable door.