I was standing hunched over in the window of the Southern Comfort Restaurant. My name is Rylly Barr. Lynn Montgomery is chef and head teacher at my Southern Comfort Culinary Academy. She was handing me colorful chains of cardboard pumpkins alternating with scarecrows and black cats and bats. I was awkwardly draping them across the window and down the sides from ceiling to floor. There was fake grass on the floor of the window, real cornstalks flanking both sides complete with pumpkins and scarecrows.

Since I had recently added souvenirs and gifts for sale in the restaurant, we were showcasing various platters, salt and pepper shakers, coffee pots and mugs.

“That’s everything you had set out.” Lynn brushed her hands against her jeans. “I’m going outside to see what it looks like.”

I followed her. I shivered a little. I’d never liked Halloween as a child. My four older brothers and three older sisters loved to wear gruesome, realistic Frankenstein and Dracula masks. Once they found out that I was terrified of the masks, they insisted on jumping out of the dark at me.

I’ll never forget the Halloween when I was nine. My seventeen-year-old brothers—twins with the same dark humor found incredibly realistic masks of a dead man and woman. They hid in my room, then made scary sounds to wake me up. The first thing I saw when I opened my sleep laden eyes were two dead faces floating around my room. I screamed so loud that I nearly woke the dead in the cemetery seven miles away. I still have nightmares about that night.

My parents thought it was funny. My dad said I needed to toughen up. I never told anyone that I had nightmares for years and when my dad died on Halloween night, I hoped that he would come up against something or someone on the other side that would scare him silly.

Needless to say, I’m relieved when November comes and I can focus on the kinder Thanksgiving holiday. I was out of luck this year though. My nephew’s school was having a Halloween fund raiser and he’d volunteered me to be on the committee along with his best friend’s mother and grandmother.

Southern Point was a small community of about fifteen hundred people just to the southwest of South Port. And yes, there is a lot of confusion about the name since we aren’t really a point, more like a bulge in the shoreline. But I guess the people who named our town didn’t think South Bulge sent the right message.

I looked at the strip mall that stood to the west of my culinary school. The owners of each store had gone all out with pumpkins in the windows and around the doors, big black bats and cats marching across the buildings. The small hardware store that stood at the end of the mall, closest to my building had hung a ladder across the sidewalk with a black cat walking under the ladder. He had a manikin laying on the sidewalk clutching a broken mirror. It was obvious that the display showed that the manikin shouldn’t have walked under the ladder after the black cat.

The building that housed the Southern Comfort Culinary School and restaurant was a big, gray, cinderblock building with all the charm of a dead snake. I had inherited the building from my jerk of a husband. I’d tried to liven up the building by painting pumpkins, ghosts and ghoulies in the windows. I thought about adding window boxes but when I tried it, I thought it made the building look like—well, I wasn’t sure what it looked like but I hated it so the window box idea went the way of the dodo bird.

We were standing critiquing the window, when Kohler, my nephew, and Scott, my adopted nephew hurdled the fence that separated the Southpoint Science Academy from the restaurant’s parking lot. There was a gate in the fence but it wasn’t cool for fourteen-year-old football stars to walk meekly through a gate.

Lynn’s voice was dry. “We are about to get invaded.”

“I thought they had football practice tonight.” I looked over my shoulder, then smiled as my nephew came jogging up to us.

“Cool window.” He flung his arm around me but looked at Lynn. “Do you have any leftovers? I think we cleaned out the fridge in our apartment last night.” He opened his hands. “It’s as empty as Scott’s head after one of MacPherson’s tests.”

Lynn nodded but before she could tell them to be sure to wash their hands so they could keep the health inspector happy, Scott said, “Slow down, Kohler. We need to talk to Rylly and Lynn before you start stuffing your face.”

Kohler’s shoulder’s slumped.

“What?” I asked. I could tell there was a big problem. Kohler would never make a living playing poker. His face told it all.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mr. MacPherson is trying to rally support to cancel the Halloween fund raiser. He thinks that poor students lower the prestige of the school or some such rot as that.”

            Kohler glared at the school building. “I’m a poor student. Scott is a poor student. We both carry 4.0 grade point averages and we’re stars on the football team. It’s a crock.”

Scott nodded. “I think he’s still sore about the football team being able to pass his tests. We told you that he hates football—thinks it’s a Neanderthal activity that only brain-dead people play.”

Lynn looked from Kohler to Scott. “Do you really think Mr. MacPherson would dare cross Mrs. Smith. I’d rather run barefoot through the cemetery on All Hallows Eve than get her mad. She’s put in a lot of work on this fund raiser so far.”

Scott sighed. “Trouble is, it’s bothering her. And when she gets bothered she gets cross then my whole family suffers.”

He looked at me. “You couldn’t have another grand opening, could you? She was so much fun while that was going on.”

“’Fraid not. Do you think I should call her? Since I’m on the committee this fiasco concerns me, too.”

His face brightened. “That would be great. She really likes and respects you. Maybe you could come up with a way to stop MacPherson.”

Kohler scowled. “The only way to stop that jerk is to shoot him.” He looked at me, his hands held up in a stop position. “I know that’s not an option. But it sure is tempting.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his wiry hair like he wanted to stop all the horrible things he could do to Mr. MacPherson from running through his head.

I put my arm around him. “We’ll figure this out. Too many people have put in too much time, energy, and money to cancel the fund raiser now. Besides Dr. Beauregard is in favor of it and has been since you proposed the idea.”

“True.” He twisted his mouth to the side. “Life would be much more fun if people would just stop being stupid.”

Lynn grinned. “There are a lot of leftovers in the special fridge. Food will make you feel better.”

Kohler and Scott took off at a gallop.

I looked at Lynn. “I wish food would make this situation better. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Mr. MacPherson had worked at the school when it was a poor school with zero funding. After it was scheduled to close, a group of wealthy parents had turned the building into a prestigious science academy with big name teachers, sponsors, and administration. Somehow, four of the original teachers were retained. All four were in their seventies, which wasn’t the issue. They all taught as if they came over on the Ark.

MacPherson was one of these. He had developed a test that the students were unable to pass so most kids failed the class. He hated the football team and they all got low scores on his tests until I came along. I had seen that type of test before. I taught Kohler and Scott how to pass the test. They taught the football team. That year the football team had taken ‘State’, the first year ever. Mr. MacPherson had never forgiven them or me.

Lynn pointed to the phone in my pocket. “Better get it over with. However, I think if any plan is going to succeed you need to include the school administration. They need to know what MacPherson is up to. After all, he’s a teacher and he should be supporting the administrators rather than going behind their backs and tearing things down.”

I could feel my mood lighten. “Good idea. I’ll call Mrs. Smith and suggest we have a meeting with Mr. Beauregard and Ms. Torres. I’m not sure which other teachers are on the committee but we all need to be on the same page or Mr. MacPherson will win.”Lynn gripped my arm. “You can’t let him win. He’ll set that school back thirty years. If he has his way, they won’t let in anyone but rich white students.”

I pulled back my shoulders. “That’s true. I think he doesn’t really care who the school lets in. I think he’s still angry about my teaching the football team how to beat his tests. Once the football team knew, everyone in Mr. MacPherson’s classes knew. I toppled his petty little empire.”

Lynn nodded as I pulled out my phone. “I wonder how he’s survived this long. Any time you say that man’s name people have more horror stories about how he ruined their dreams. If he’s not careful someone is going to take him out and when they do, I hope it’s painful. He’s wrecked a lot of lives.”

I felt a shiver go up my spine.