Everybody Loves a Picnic

A Short Story

The house was built on unhallowed ground, and the owner’s death, some eighty years prior, had been especially unpleasant. Half of its shingles were missing, and every single window that faced the road had been shattered, targeted by schoolboys who dared approach no further than the edge of the overgrown yard. The neighbors avoided the place by tacit agreement, and inhabitants of the nearby farms whispered darkly of lights in the windows, of ghostly screams, of wind whistling through the eaves with the hideous susurration of indrawn breath – a suggestion, perhaps, that the house itself lived.

To Jennifer, it was the perfect spot for a picnic.

On a crisp Saturday in late October, she parked her car at the edge of the road and made her way through a field of goldenrod as a hundred pairs of yellow eyes followed her, observing her movements with malignant glee as she spread her blanket upon the ground. Jennifer opened her basket, and the bats in the attic fell dead in a group as the waters of a nearby stream turned to blood. The front door slammed, and she bolted upright, suddenly remembering the thermos of tea that she had left on the front seat of her car. Jennifer made her way quickly to the road and retrieved the thermos, which rested on the floorboard beside a small cooler.

She poured the tea, and a large snake uncoiled from its lair beneath the porch and slipped into the yard, staying close to the hedgerow to conceal its movements. Jennifer spread out her meal – rye bread, sandwich ham, cheese, and pickled cucumbers – and was reaching for the potato chips as the wedge-shaped head reared. Its lidless eyes regarded her with malevolence and its mouth opened to reveal long fangs as her eyes widened and her lips pursed in horror.

“Oh no!”

Jennifer cursed her misfortune, for she had left the tomatoes at home on the kitchen counter. The serpent’s head darted past, missing her by inches, as it filched a piece of sandwich ham and slithered back to its hiding place.

She slathered a layer of mustard onto the bread and took a bite of her sandwich as doomed souls cried out, their speech a screaming cacophony – the howl of a thousand banshees, the metallic shriek of a coffin opening in the recesses of an empty basement. Jennifer removed her earbuds as the cries died away and popped them into their case, for the day was too pretty to be distracted by the music on her phone, and when she began to feel drowsy, the house whispered its horrible secrets in her ears as sleep overtook her. Ghosts and witches and dry bones… Jennifer dreamed of childhood trick-or-treating, and remembered how Mr. Lawrence down the road had given her homemade popcorn balls, the best she had ever tasted.

She awoke with a jerk, surprised at how much light had gone out of the sky. The sun dipped behind the oak trees as she packed up the remains of her meal, and the assembled ghouls waited, itching with glee as she dallied about her basket. Just a few minutes longer, they hissed to themselves. Then the sun would vanish from the sky, and they would be free to devour their meal, a meal they had eagerly awaited from the moment that the trespasser had crossed into their domain. Jennifer made her way to the road, racing the dying sun at a walking pace, and reached the car with barely a minute to spare. She plunked the basket into the backseat as the ghouls, scarcely believing their misfortune, howled at the departing stranger. Jennifer paused in the final moments of twilight, watching the old house. There’s something I’m forgetting…

“The cooler!” Jennifer shook her head at her foolishness.

She retrieved the cooler from her floorboard and retraced her steps as the house followed her movements in the dying light. So strange for one to return, it thought, for no one who tasted the poisonous atmosphere of the place returned of their own volition, yet there she was, walking lightly on her feet as she made her way to the front door. A trace of steam escaped into the air as Jennifer opened the lid and unwrapped the foil covering.

The pumpkin pies, still warm in their aluminum pans, exuded a wholesome smell that was out of place in the gloom, but it was nearly Halloween, and the squirrels and field mice deserved a treat of their own. A hundred spirits lunged when she turned her back, tearing at their meal with relish, and when the last morsel was gone and the plates licked clean, they hissed at the departing taillights. Perhaps there was a wistful note to their howls, or perhaps it was only the wind in the trees, rising and falling in a cadence that was remarkably like speech.

“Come back again next year.”

Author’s Note: Special thanks to A. C. Cargill (https://substack.com/@accargillauthor) for the writing prompt.