Read Online Halloween Is For Lovers by Nate Gubin - Free Book Online

wings, slowly moving closer to soak up every word and witness every subtle gesture of Hugh's tragic tale.
    "I got onto the interstate, I-80 west, and I felt like I could breathe again. I stuck my head out the window and sucked in that fresh air." He stopped, his head sank, he lowered his voice. "But then, after a few hundred miles, somewhere in Iowa, I started thinking about Lily. About how much I wanted her sitting next to me, about how much I wanted her along for the ride, about ... about how much I loved her."
    He stopped. The room was perfectly silent for a very long time. It was so quiet, Rusty was positive he could hear that cricket pissing on cotton.
    "All the freedom in the world was worth nothing if I didn't have her to share it with. So I turned the car around and raced back toward the church as fast as I could."
    Crain whispered under his breath, "But?"
    "But on the way back to the church I died in a freak accident. I never got to tell her that I'd made a big mistake. I never got to say I was sorry. I never got to tell her that I really, truly, deeply ... loved her."
    Jerry tried to hide his face from Crain. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. The minister with the hacking cough now had the sniffles. The fierce little man retracted his claws and patted the place in his chest where his heart used to be. Crain leaned into the light with a sated grin. "That is one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. But tell me, and please don't spare any details, what was the freak accident?"
    "I lost control of my car, crossed the median and crashed headfirst into a bus going the opposite direction."
    Crain argued, "That's not a freak accident. Lots of people die in car accidents."
    Jerry piped up, "Three thousand two hundred traffic-related deaths a day in the Land of the Living, a hundred thirty-seven in the USA alone."
    Crain nodded. "It's true." He looked from side to side at the council members. "We should be thankful for the invention of the automobile. It has been a huge boon to us, right up there with cigarettes and fast food." They nodded and mumbled in agreement.
    Hugh somewhat bashfully twiddled his fingers and stared at the ground. "Actually, the bus that I hit was full of freaks, you know, circus freaks."
    Crain tilted his head with a twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, I get it."
    "The impact was so powerful, and the resulting explosion and fire so severe that they found it impossible to separate my body parts from that of the ... freaks."
    Crain rubbed his hands together, trying to contain the swelling glee inside him. "Yeah, okay, I can see it now. That is freaky.”
    "The coroner ended up combining all the tissue remains and burying them in one plot."
    "I see, sort of a grave of the unknown circus freak slash star-crossed lover." Crain popped to his feet with titillation. "And the bride, she didn't know you were coming back. As far as she knew, you abandoned her, on her most special day." His sinister grin grew as he created the image in his mind. "I can see her now, standing there alone at the altar, mascara running down her cheeks, family and friends staring at her, judging her like she's a horrible butt to your joke ... Tell me, was it a big wedding?"
    "Yeah, we had a hard time saying no to the second cousins and friends of friends, and all the coworkers and well-wishers."
    Crain nodded. "So many well-wishers, I'm sure. How many?"
    Hugh peeped under his breath, “Five hundred.”
    "Five hundred?!? Five hundred! Did you hear that?" He looked to his side and the rest of the council nodded in astonishment. "There was a lot blossoming in that room, all of it wilted into pain and despair." Crain smiled. "That's a good story, I like that story."
    Crain paced, tenting his fingers to prop up his chin. "Now I understand why you want, nay, need to cross over. You need to race through that thin veil of fog and find her and—"
    He suddenly stopped and stared at Hugh. He imagined the failure and heartbreak Hugh would suffer when