“This hole hasn’t changed much in a century.” The noise of the crowd swallowed Prudence’s mutter. Fair booths lined both sides of the street. The Fall Harvest Festival was like a Halloween themed farmers’ market. Some booths had games, but most sold homemade goods and sweets. Hand-knitted sweaters and blankets, apple and pumpkin butters, summer jams, hand pressed ciders, homemade fudge and candied apples.
Warring scents assaulted her sensitive nostrils. Fried fair food -burgers, corn dogs- mixed with freshly popped kettle corn and pumpkin flavored cookies, cakes, pies and mingled with scents of homemade candles. This bouquet of smells was underscored by the sting of homemade alcohol. Shrieks of excited children pierced her ears and the pungent aroma of dirty diapers filled her nose, drowning out the other scents. Little sugar-crusted snot goblins ran everywhere, too fast for tired parents to keep up.
Prudence nimbly side stepped the kids as she slid between the gaps of people milling about. Her slim hand slipped into pockets as she passed, occasionally coming out with money. Mostly chump change from the locals, but she got quite a few crisp twenty dollar bills from the visiting yuppies. And a few wedding rings she could pawn, though the gold was low quality and not worth much. Her haul was better than the last time she strolled down these streets, pick-pocketing at the turn of the century.
Newton was a small town surrounded by farmland and woods. Cornfields and wilderness as far as the eye could see. That hadn’t changed much; now there was more farmed land, less woods. The town had expanded as the population grew. Dirt roads paved over. More automobiles. No more horses and buggies. Telephone polls. Street lights. Cell phones. Girls in pants.
Main Street was still the largest street, running right through the center of town. A couple of fast food joints. A few diners. One grocery store. Some gas stations. Feed store. The three bars
in town still stood in their same spots. The names changed and buildings were modernized. Her hometown was still just a backwoods scratch on a map. Just a newer version of the same old shit she’d left behind. Even the Halloween Carnival was mostly the same. The name had changed; somewhere along the line, it morphed into the Harvest Festival. Main Street still got closed off and shut down so booths, a spook house, bounce castles and a few carnival rides popped up. A maze of hay bales and tables for pumpkin painting.
Prudence noted one big difference as she walked around; a big increase in the number of attendees. Farm families were too far apart, so they used to bring their children to town for trick or treating. Adults took advantage of the time to trade goods, thus spawning the Halloween Carnival. Now, city-dwelling yuppies, enamored with romantic idealizations of the quaint, wholesome, rustic country life flocked with their broods to the small town. They drove for an hour or more for the honest, simple country folk to fleece them with over priced, hand-made goods.
Prudence couldn’t fault the locals for their business savvy. The yuppies were ripe for the plucking; big pockets, small brains. No common sense. City living bred it right out of them. Not that she was complaining. She smirked and patted the pilfered money in her own pockets.
“This Halloween sucks.” Picking the pockets of idiots with their guard down was the only entertainment this town had. She’d never wanted nor planned to return. Only once had she come back, in the 1940’s to burn a few records of her past and erase some evidence. Local police had labeled those fires as Halloween pranks by deviant youth. One of those fires occurred a few streets away from where she stood now.
She recalled a full harvest moon in a starless black sky and the orange flames turning day to night. That night had been a ill moon for the town. Tonight was a full moon on Halloween, too. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, feeling all her ill-gotten gains. “Looks like it’s another bad moon for you, baby.” She grinned to herself then laughed.
Hicksville was boring as hell, but all that she hated about this place made it the perfect place to lay low. She had pissed off quite a few dangerous, powerful lycans when her latest, not-quite-legal, get-rich-quick scheme went bust. The law got involved. The law breakers were not happy. Now Prudence was laying low until the heat- both from the cops and the wolves- blew over.
The crisp autumn breeze shifted. Red, orange, and yellow leaves fluttered about. Costumed kids shrieked, tiny hands grasping for the dancing leaves. The change in direction of the wind brought in scents of earth, of rotting vegetation, pine needles, and animal musk. The forest. Fresh cut hay and pumpkins from the fields. Pumpkins everywhere. Just like when she was a child. A human.