“Quick! Someone help!” Mabel shouted. “There’s a gangster in my vault stealing my money and jewels!”

Mabel ran to the graveyard to alert Raven, the undertaker, about the situation. Raven was often cantankerous with Mabel and was not particularly brilliant. Today was no different.

Mabel left, grumbling to herself. It had been raining, and the walkway was slippery. As she ascended the hill, she slipped and fell into the mud, covering herself in muck. Mabel was mad as hell; everyone—including guests—would pay the price tonight.

Mabel had invited Bonnie Parker, the famous bank robber, to spend the holidays with her. Bonnie had been buried with 26 bullet holes in her body. She’d make an interesting greeter for my guests, Mabel thought.

Could Bonnie Parker be stealing from me? Bank robbery must be in Bonnie’s blood—or whatever was left of it, Mabel mused. If it’s Bonnie Parker heisting my jewelry, “it’s off with her head!” Mabel shouted.

Capturing Bonnie would be challenging but a good job for Bonkers. The beheading would be the butcher’s job. In the past, Butcher and Bonkers had worked well together at the Manor, but that had changed.

Bonkers would stalk guests, torture them, and take them to the butcher, who would, in turn, butcher them so Mabel could turn them into BBQ. “It’s not pork BBQ, dear; it’s just BBQ,” she often said.

“That thick-headed clown is dumber than a fence post,” the butcher told Mabel. “He can’t be trusted to do anything right.”

Then Bonkers would tell her, “That sick monster has a brain the size of a pea. Everything he does, he screws up. What a pea brain!”

Those two had been battling for Mabel’s affection for years. But alas, Mabel had her eye on the one-eyed butler. When that one eye looked at her, it set her heart on fire.

Earlier that morning, a young clown wandered onto the grounds of Creekside Manor. He was sure he had been born in the manor house and that as an infant, his bassinet was swept away downstream during a flash flood of the Conococheague.

He said his name was Ballard. “I’m looking for my father,” he said.

Just who is this outsider? Will the clowns at Creekside accept this stranger? Who is his father? What about his mother?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN