Devil’s Night

The explosion lifted them off their feet, singed their scalps and

rattled windows a quarter mile away. They lay there, semiconscious, in

the darkness for some time before stirring. They stood, staggered

around, disoriented, ears ringing, until they heard the sirens. Then

they ran, stumbling across a plowed field in the moonlight. When they

reached the car out of breath, they looked back over their shoulders and

could see orange tongues lapping skyward where the abandoned house once

stood.

“Hooo-ly shit,” Jack said.

“Start the car,” Lad said, “and don’t turn the lights on until we’re

past the Witch’s place.”

“I told you not to use that much gasoline,” Hank said. “Half that woulda

got the job done.”

“I had no fuckin’ idea a Molotov cocktail could go off like a bomb,”

Jack said and doubled over in laughter.

“I think I broke my fuckin’ ankle,” Jimmy said. He was crouching in the

dirt alongside the car wincing in pain.

“We gotta go,” Lad said and they grabbed Jimmy and shoved him into the

back seat and they all started laughing.

“What a rush,” Hank said, barely containing himself.

“Drive,” Lad said, “and try not to put us in the ditch.”

Jack swung the Chevy out onto a gravel road and coasted quietly past the

Witch’s house, a vine-covered heap that squatted behind a stand of birch

trees. There was a vapor light in the yard near the barn where the lane

curled toward the woods, but other than that, the place looked deserted.

“Stop the car,” Hank called out from the back seat.

Jack tapped the brakes. “What is it?”

“I want to peek in her windows.”

“Have you lost your fuckin’ mind?” Lad said.

“I’ll be quick,” Hank said and before they knew it, the back door flew

open and he was out of the car, sprinting down the lane, hugging to the

shadows.

“She’ll put a spell on him,” Jimmy said. “That whole family is into

black magic and Satanic rituals. It’s common knowledge.”

“Dumb sonofabitch,” Lad said.

But no sooner than he was gone, Hank was back, clutching a stitch in his

side, panting heavily.

“Go,” he huffed.

“What happened,” Jack said, looking anxiously at Hank in the rearview

mirror as he laid on the accelerator.

“I saw her.”

“The Witch?”

“Yeah, the Witch. She was outside when I rounded the corner of the

house. Jesus, I ’bout shit my pants.”

“She see you?” Lad said.

“I dunno. I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“She was preoccupied by the fire.”

Jimmy said, “What did she look like?”

“Short. Crazy hair. Had on an old Army jacket.”

“You’re lucky that dog of hers was penned up or it’da ripped you to

pieces,” Jack said.

“Fuck,” Hank exhaled, “I’m never doing that again.”

When they reached town, they drove past the firehall. The hall’s big

barn doors were open and the stalls where the pumper and water tanker

normally were parked sat empty. Lights were on inside and they could see

people milling around.

Jack pulled the car over to the curb and Lad called out to two men

standing in front of the hall.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Devil’s night,” the first man said. “Someone torched the old Patterson

place east of town.”

“Saves them the trouble of knocking it down,” the other man said. “It’s

been an eyesore for years. You boys wanna come in? They got hot cider

and fry cakes.”

“Thanks just the same,” Lad said, “but it’s late. We got school in the

morning.”

Jack drove his friends home, one at a time. When he reached Jimmy’s

house, he said, “You make it awright on one leg?”

“Yeah, think so. It ain’t broke. Just a bad sprain.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “Where’s the gas can?”

“Shit, the gas can. I dropped it when I fell in the plowed field,” Jimmy said.”

“We better hope no one finds it,” Jack said and shifted into drive.

#

Jack was reluctant to return to the scene of the crime the next day, but

Lad insisted. He said they needed to see their handiwork for themselves.

“Besides,” he said, “we got to find that gas can before someone else

does.”

The pair drove out after school in Lad’s pickup truck. Hank had a

football game later that night and couldn’t make it and Jimmy was

nursing a swollen ankle.

Firefighters reported the blaze was so intense when they arrived that they were unable to get their equipment close enough to douse the flames and the building burned to the ground.

When Lad and Jack reached the site, a small crew was doing mop up work, hosing

down hot spots in the pasture and orchard where cinders had settled. All

that remained of the old home was its stone foundation and chimney, both

blackened and soot covered.

“Place is off limits,” a Sheriff’s deputy told the boys and a knot of

onlookers that had gathered at the bottom of the drive that led to the

property. “No one’s allowed near the site until the Fire Marshal

conducts an official investigation and that won’t be for a few days.

He’s got his hands full. Appears the firebugs were out in full force

last night.”

“Any suspects,” an old woman called out.

“None that I know of,” the deputy said, “but the Sheriff will be on

point for the criminal inquiry if it’s determined it was arson. I’m just

here to secure the premises.”

“Damn right it was arson,” the old lady said. “The explosion nearly

knocked me off the pot. Sheriff needs to catch ’em and throw ’em in

jail.”

“I’m sure he’ll do his best, ma’am,” the deputy said.

“Let’s go,” Jack said to Lad and the boys drifted away from the

gathering and got in the pickup. “Drive around the section to where we

parked last night. Let’s retrace our steps and look for the gas can why

we still got daylight. It shouldn’t be that hard to find.“

They drove in an uneasy silence to the backside of the property, the

deputy’s comment about a criminal investigation hanging heavily in the

cab between them. Setting fire to tumbledown barns, houses and

outbuildings on Devil’s Night was a rite of passage in northern

Michigan. Growing up, they heard scores of stories of older boys,

including their siblings, who had done the same thing over the years. No

one ever got caught, let alone convicted. You kept your mouth shut and

head down and eventually the investigations would peter out. Or so they

told themselves.

After hunting for twenty minutes, they located the spot where

Jimmy fell. They could see the indentation his body made in the plowed

field when it hit the ground, but try as they might, they couldn’t find

the gas can.

“It’s gotta be here somewhere,” Lad said.

“Maybe he’s mistaken and dropped it back at the house,” Jack said. “It

was pretty fucking chaotic.”

“I hope not, for our sake,” Lad said. “Let’s keep looking.”

Darkness fell and they were forced to abandoned the search. “It doesn’t

make any sense,” Lad said as they climbed into the truck. “It’s gotta be

there.”

When they rounded a bend in the gravel road on the drive home, the

Witch’s place came into view. They saw her standing at the end of the

lane, her wild hair windblown and in a tangle, a leash in one hand

attached to a savage-looking German shepherd and in the other hand, down by

her side, the missing gas can.

She watched the truck roll past and smiled grimly.

“Fuck me,” Lad said. “Did you see what she was holding?”

“Yeah, I did,” Jack said and spun around to look at her through the rear

window but she was gone.

“What do we do now?”

“We need to get back to town and tell Hank and Al,” Jack said. “Beyond

that, I ain’t sure.”

That night, while making a tackle on the final play of the football

game, Hank shattered his shoulder. Jack, Lad and Jimmy were in the

stands and saw him get carted off the field.

“I told you the Witch would put a spell on him,” Jimmy said.

They visited Hank in the hospital the next day and ran into the football

coach and Tony Boyle, the team’s captain, leaving Hank’s room.

“He’s awake,” the coach said, “but not making a whole lot of sense. They

got him pretty well doped up.”

“Why, what did he say?” Lad asked.

“Gibberish, mostly. Babbling about a witch and a fire.”

The boys looked nervously at each other than toward Tony who shrugged.

“I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it,” he said.

“How’s he otherwise?” Jack asked.

“Unlucky. He’ll need a couple of surgeries to repair that shoulder, but

he’s young. You boys need to be quick in there and let ’im rest. Let’s

go Tony” the coach said and walked off.

When they were beyond earshot, Lad said, “We can’t leave Hank by

himself. One of us needs to stay and make sure he doesn’t blurt out

something that lands all of us in hot water.”

They both looked at Jimmy.

“Alright, I’ll take the weekend shift,” he said. “It’s not like I can go

anywhere on one leg.”

Hank was discharged from the hospital Monday morning at 8 a.m. Not long

after, the Fire Marshal opened his official investigation into the

Patterson fire.

#

Jack saw the sweep of headlights on his bedroom wall, heard the crunch

of tires on gravel and a car door slamming. He swung his legs over his

bed where he was studying for an English exam and got up to see who it

was. Just as he reached the window, there was a knock on the front door,

voices and then his mother calling out from below. “Jack can you come

down here.”

She met him at the bottom of the staircase. “The Sheriff would like to

have a word with you,” she said, a strain in her voice and sadness in

her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Jack said and laid a hand on her arm. Jack was her

youngest, and favorite, and as a single mother, she had been through

similar experiences with his older brothers. It got so that anytime

there was trouble in town, it was routine for the police to question her

sons.

The Sheriff was standing in the doorway, his six-foot-four, 220-pound

body filling the frame. He was dressed in full uniform, which Jack

thought odd since it was long past suppertime. It likely meant that he

had been working late and had not yet been home.

“Sheriff,” Jack said and nodded, stepping around his mother.

“Is there a place we can talk, Jack?” the Sheriff said. “Betty, you’re

welcome to join us.”

“I got dishes to do,” she said. “You two can talk in here. I can listen

from the kitchen.”

They took seats in the living room – Jack on the couch, the Sheriff in a

wingback chair facing Jack. He adjusted his holster so his revolver

wasn’t poking him in the ribs. “I’m guessing you know about the fire at

the old Patterson homestead?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “I heard about it.”

“Well, Fire Marshall issued his findings today. It’s definitely arson.”

Jack just nodded.

“You can never be certain of these things until you get the official

word. Gasoline was the accelerant, as expected. Now, Jack, the reason

I’m bothering you and your mother is because we have a report that a

vehicle matching your car’s description was seen in the vicinity around

the time of fire. Care to explain that?”

Jack gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment. “Sheriff, you can drive

through the school parking lot any weekday and find three or four other

cars that look like mine.”

The Sheriff smiled. “You know, Jack, I did just that, and you’re right.

So, you weren’t out there then?”

“What night was that again?”

“Halloween eve, Devil’s Night.”

Jack shook his head. “Nope.”

“To be honest with you, Jack” the Sheriff said quietly, and scooted to

the edge of the chair to crowd the boy, “I never did care much for that

old house. I always hoped it’d get knocked down in a windstorm or stuck

by lightning.”

“Uh-huh,” Jack said and pushed back into the coach to distance himself

from the encroaching Sheriff.

“And if this was just a garden variety fire investigation, Jack, I

wouldn’t be calling on you and your mother this time a night.”

“I see. What can of investigation is it then?”

“A homicide investigation,” the Sheriff said, and stood over the boy, glaring down

at him, anger in his voice and a hardness in his eyes. “They found a

body in the ruins, Jack, or what was left of it. They’ve identified the

remains through dental records. It’s Pony Malloy. He had been sleeping

off a bender and was incinerated, the poor bastard. Pardon my French,

Betty but I’m hungry, tired and mad.”

Then they heard a crash come from the kitchen as an armful of dishes hit

the floor.

#

Jack knew Pony Malloy, as did nearly everyone in town. In fact, he and

Malloy had worked together as farmhands the prior summer. Malloy had been a deck

mate on a Great Lake’s freighter until he was discharged for lewd

behavior. He was more than twice Jack’s age.

The pair got along on the job well enough – Malloy could repair nearly any

piece of broken machinery -- but they had little in common. What Jack

remembered most about Malloy was that he rolled his own cigarettes, told

dirty jokes, bragged insistently about all the women he screwed, or

alternatively, launched into unprovoked and vicious tirades against

them.

After collecting his wages on Friday afternoon, Malloy would disappear

for the weekend and, invariably, show up for work Monday morning

hungover, broke and in a foul mood, complaining bitterly about some

woman. By mid-week, he’d be back to boasting about sex and asking Jack

for a loan until payday.

Malloy’s nickname came from the long, skinny ponytail that hung down between his

shoulder blades and fell to his waist.

“Not many people in town cared for him and he won’t be

mourned,” Lad said, “but I don’t think that’s going to weigh in our

favor if they find out we were the ones who –” he trailed off before

finishing his thought.

“Guy was a drunk and a pervert,” Jimmy said.

“I’m not sure that matters,” Hank said, his right shoulder encased in

plaster of Paris, his arm in a sling. “He’s dead and it’s our fault. I can’t help but feel guilty.”

“Who doesn’t,” Lad said.

They were in Jack’s car and had been riding around for what seemed like

hours, drinking beer, stopping occasionally to relieve themselves and

dissecting the Sheriff’s interrogation of Jack.

“When he asked about your car, did he say anything about passengers?”

“No.”

“Did he say who reported seeing your car?”

“No.”

“Did he hint at any witnesses?”

“No.”

“Did he ask if you set the fire?”

“No.”

“Did he ask if you knew who did?”

“Yes. I told him no.”

And on it went.

“They’re fishing,” Lad said finally. “They’ve got nothing.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Hank said. “What do you think,

Jack?”

“I think I need to go talk to the Witch.”

#

Jack stood on the top step and rapped gently on the front door. He heard

a dog’s deep growl, a woman’s sharp rebuke – “quiet” – and the click of

a lock as the door handle was turned. The door swung open and there

stood the Witch, hair askew, in overalls and work boots, holding a

broom.

“I’m –”

“I know who you are,” she said, cutting Jack off and eyeing him warily.

He was staring at the broom. “And I know what they call me. I don’t fly

around on this thing, if that’s what you were thinking. I was sweeping up. I broke a bottle.”

“I see,” Jack said.

“You might as well come in since you’re here,” she said.

“What about the dog?”

“Roscoe? You don’t need to worry about him. He looks mean. That’s to

keep people away but he’s gentle as a kitten. Mind the broken glass,”

she said as she led him through a hallway and into the kitchen.

“Tea?” she asked.

“No thanks,” Jack said. He pulled out a chair and sat at

the kitchen table. Roscoe sauntered over, tail sashaying, and curled up

at his feet.

Despite the rundown appearance of the property on the outside, the

inside was neat as a barracks. There was a fire in a wood-burning stove and a

transistor radio was tuned to a classical music station. The house

smelled of cloves and fresh-baked bread. Framed photos of a young woman

were displayed everywhere – on tabletops, walls and counters.

“That’s my baby sister, Nell,” she said when she saw Jack studying the

photos. “She was born with Down syndrome.She’s institutionalized now. People took advantage of her.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“They’re the ones who ought to be sorry. You want to tell me what this is all about?”

“Well,” Jack said haltingly, “I’ve come to ask a favor.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Before you do, I’ve got something I want to ask you,” she said. “When did

young people go from toilet-papering homes on Halloween to burning them

down?”

“It was stupid.”

“You can say that again.”

“I would never have done it had I known then what I know now.”

“You mean about Pony?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We all do things we regret. Best to own up to it.”

“That’s what I intend to do.”

“What about your friends, the ones that were with you that night? I saw

the whole thing from my porch.”

“I’d like to leave them out of this. It was my idea, not theirs. That’s

the favor I’ve come to ask. Could you not mention them to the authorities if it ever

comes up?”

“And you’ve thought this through?”

“I have,” he said. “What do you plan to do with the gas can?”

“I think I’ll hold on to it for a while.”

Jack nodded, stood and walked toward the front door.

“Marty,” she said.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Marty.”

#

It was an overcast Wednesday afternoon when Jack entered the Sheriff’s

Office to give his statement to the police. He had been in the

interrogation room only a few minutes with two detectives, a man and a

woman, when he happened to look up and see the Sheriff and Marty walk

past the window. She was carrying the gas can.

Jack stopped what he was saying in mid-sentence. Had she come to

implicate his friends? Why else would she be there? Had she not given

him her word? He thought back to their conversation. She hadn’t actually

promised him anything.

“Jack,” the female detective snapped. “What is it?”

“I just thought of something,” Jack said. “Can we take a short break?”

The man said, “Jack, if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to continue.

We just started and we have a lot of ground to cover.”

“I think I’m going to need a lawyer,” Jack said.

“Do we need to remind you, Jack, that you volunteered to come in and

tell us what happened that night,” the woman said.

“I know, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“Sheriff’s gonna be mighty pissed off to hear that, Jack,” the man said.

“There he is now,” Jack said as the Sheriff appeared in the window outside the room.

“I’ll tell him.”

The Sheriff tapped on the glass and motioned to the two detectives to

join him.

“Has he said anything yet?” the Sheriff asked when they stepped out into

the hallway.

“No, we just started the interview, but he’s changed his mind. Says he

wants a lawyer now,” the woman detective said.

The Sheriff nodded. “You two can go. I’ll take it from here.”

“But –” the detectives said in unison.

“I said you can go.”

The Sheriff entered the room and sat down with a heavy sigh. He folded

his hands on the table in front of him and looked over at Jack.

“Pony was already dead, Jack,” he said.

“What?”

“Pony Malloy, he was dead before the fire started. Marty killed him. She

just confessed.

“I’m not following you.”

“It was revenge. She said Pony had molested and raped Nell when she was

a teenager. Marty knew he went to the Patterson place to sleep off his

drunks. She saw him go in, waited and when he was passed out, bound and

gagged him and injected him with strychnine, rat poison.“

“What about the fire?”

“Claims she set it to cover up the killing. We got the gas can she

used.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“My advice, the less you say the better, Jack.”

“Marty say anything else?”

“Yeah, she did. She asked if you’d mind looking after her dog.”

Mark Pawlosky © 2026