The Last Great Halloween

Lonny Kensington had lived in Richfield his whole life. Over the long years, sixty-seven of them now, he’d learned a lot of things. He learned how to hunt and fish, how to love a woman, how to raise a family, how to lose a family and a wife, how to deal with grief, and how to be alone. In the last ten or so years he’d learned something new about himself; that he hated absolutely everything and everyone.

Owning the only store in town helped him come to this conclusion. His store, Kensington’s, was the only grocery store, drug store, and gasoline for miles, so he knew and saw everybody. Of course, there were a few he hated more than the others, as if hate had degrees.

He hated Mrs. Critsch, who would come in constantly complaining about pain and picking up enough pain meds to take down a thoroughbred; and some wine to chase it. Every week it was a new pain and a new prescription. Never once a nice word; never once a hello.

He hated little Toby Walsh, who would spend way too long looking at the fashion magazines while slowly squeezing the front of his pants. When the eleven-year-old was done sexually exploring himself, he would linger around the candy until he thought no one was looking so he could pop a few pieces in his pocket and run out.

Lonny hated Butch Carmichel. A pathetic insecure man that would come in with his even more pathetic family. There were four of them, Butch pushing them around like the big boss he wished he was while the wife, son, and daughter would mope about the place, more often than not nursing a black eye or some other bruises.

There was Father Jessup, the priest that would lounge by the counter, disturbingly sucking on his Icee’s straw while watching that slut, Katie Carlson play pinball.

There was handyman Ted Kline, who was always out to seduce a wife while their husbands were at work, with his tan skin and premeditated lingering glare.

Ted’s current conquest was Mrs. Hathaway, the only real estate agent in the area, there to take advantage of people’s misfortunes as their houses were closed in upon by the bank.

Speaking of banks he hated Paul Theurber, who was always too on top of the rent, as though it was going into his own pocket. He’d always show up a day early with a warning.

He hated them all. The population of Richfield was about one hundred and fifty, and Lonny knew each and every one of them; and knew, in detail, how much and why he hated each and every one of them.

Of course, no one in the town knew Lonny hated them. He put on a good face, smiling and saying thank you, asking how everybody’s day was doing, pretending to care about their fucking problems, their worthless families, their lives at all.

What they also didn’t know was that Lonny planned to torture and kill them all this Halloween. For most people, torturing and killing an entire town of a-hundred-and-fifty people would seem impossible, but Lonny had a logistical advantage. He owned the only store, the store they all got their food from, all of their drinks, all of their drugs, everything.

Lonny’s plan was pretty simple. He had started poisoning everybody at the start of October. It started as just a little bit for everybody, everybody except Dr. Hank. He needed Dr. Hank out of the way early, so he gave him a healthy dose of antifreeze in his morning coffee on the first of the month. The doctor was dead by the end of the day of seemingly natural causes. As a seventy year old man, nobody questioned the doctor’s death and it wouldn’t be until November that the town found a replacement; plenty of time for Lonny to exact his plan.

At first the drugs were light. Light doses of LSD and mescaline Lonny had made himself injected into the fruits and vegetables. As the month went on the doses were upped and the concoctions diversified. Cocaine, methamphetamine, and scores of mixed up drugs from the pharmacy.

Not only did Lonny know everyone, but he knew what each family liked. Who liked twinkies and ho hos, who ate daily apples and who craved red meat. To each bastard in town, a fun little concoction to drive them mad and eventually kill them.

Mrs. Critsch slowly got her medications switched out with paranoia inducing methamphetamine as well as a healthy dose of LSD, administered with a syringe through the corks of her favorite wines.

Toby Walsh was easy. Just a sprinkling of strychnine and oxy on his favorite stolen treats.

Butch Carmichel liked whiskey, a dose of bath salts and PCP in his daily bottle and Lonny figured Butch would probably just beat his own family to death.

Father Jessup got a broad mix of hallucinogens in his Icee. Lonny guessed his confusing relationship between loving god and loving the idea of fucking underaged girls would come to a head, much to the dismay of that slut, Katie Carlson.

Ted Kline ate healthy, always a banana and a pack of nuts. Turns out poisoning a banana is much easier than expected.

Mrs. Hathaway got drugged and poisoned in her afternoon latte, as well as a letter delivered to her husband Halloween morning detailing her affair with Ted.

Paul Theurber got a more traditional approach. That morning when he showed up with his rent warning he got a knife stabbed into his eye and was thrown into the meat freezer in the back.

All of them, all one-hundred and fifty of them got double and triple doses that morning.

But the biggest dose, the biggest was saved for the candy. Every fat fuck in that town would be eatting candy that night; all the basterd kids and their bastard parents, snacking on chocolates and sweets, all with a big surprise.

Their big surprise would come from the happy bucket. The happy bucket was a combination of everything that Lonny could get his hands on, all broken down to a liquid and stirred up in the happy bucket. He’d then enjoy his nights watching reruns of Columbo while injecting and soaking each piece of candy in the happy juice the happy bucket held. They would each be methodically rewrapped and repackaged to be put back on the shelves.

Come Halloween afternoon the entire town was on the brink. Some walking like zombies, some sick in their homes, some ranting and raving, all batshit crazy and ready to explode.

By that evening the air was ripe with kids fighting and parents yelling about the end of the world.

Lonny knew that many were dead in their homes, but many were ranting and hallucinating in the streets as well. And, afterall, his plan was to torture and kill them. He put on his costume, a red tight fitting devil suit just like the one he wore as a kid; the last time he remembered being happy. He got his pistol and his rifle and enough ammo to put a few bullets in each head and took to the streets to make sure the job was done.