Before Henry Crawled Inside

Stacktember 2025: The Bargain

“Halloween Night,” ca. 1913 (Toronto Public Library)

The following is an answer to Nico Harlakenden’s Stacktember prompt, “The Bargain.” As always, thank you for reading.

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Before Henry Crawled Inside

THREE DAYS AGO:

“Pray to St. Anthony, baby.”

Henry couldn’t find his bear, and it was everyone’s problem. Mr. Brickles (sometimes called Sloppy, for reasons only the children know) had been left in the September rain, and things Left In The Rain have a way of vanishing.

Bradley knew little Henry would remain despondent. She knew Mr. Brickles was Left In The Rain, and was gone forever. She knew he was waterlogged somewhere, living up to the name Sloppy. She knew he could not be replaced, having been a gift from a grandparent, and those things are usually ordered by teevee or hand-me-downed by church friends.

Kayla, her daughter (who was supposed to be the oldest and the wisest) suggested Henry pray to St. Anthony. Bradley had a new worry-- that when Mr. Brickles stayed Gone With The Rain, it would lead to a crisis of faith.

But Henry prayed, and asked Kayla and his mom pray. So they all held hands, and Bradley prayed too.

TODAY:

So there is their porch, where Mr. Brickles was Left In The Rain, and outside the porch, there is a desk and some run-down home appliances, all stacked in a heap likely after a renovation or a garage sale. Nearby are some balls (baseballs, soccer balls, half-deflated balls that smell like grape soda), a large water gun that hurts little hands to pump, and a miniature house once loved by Kayla and Henry until conquered by a family of orb-weavers. And now, on the desk, is a Object.

The Object is not a quite scarecrow, and not quite an effigy. Bradley thinks of it like a snowman, but also tree knots, but also vegetal tumors.

It is comprised of three gourd-like growths sitting atop one another, top one (head?) with two black tumors where eyes should be, and an old farmer’s hat resting on top. A finger-like tumor spins from a dent on the top lump, like a stem but more like a nose. The folds in the shapes, glistening in the sun, make it look like the thing is smiling. Nothing can be done to remove the thing on their porch:

SIXTEEN DAYS FROM NOW:

Soon, Bradley will try to push it, or topple the Object with stones. She will pepper it with buckshot and it will not make a dent. The thing will not threaten them, it just will just sit atop the junk they did not want, the things that had been there Ever Since, and it will smile.

This heap is shall be its fiefdom, and it will not be driven from its castle. This brickabrack (piled now so many feet high) never mattered to the Bradley, but it will now that the thing at the porch has marked its territory. The crushed toaster oven, the rusting humidifier. That writing desk, maybe there is room in the house for it after all.

When Bradley learns to stop thinking about the Object, and Kayla has learned to not look directly at the Object (because she is the oldest and wisest), Henry will look up at the lopsided smile, and its mismatched eyes, and its silly straw hat and say:

“Sloppy, you came back!”

Bradley will hear this from the bathroom upstairs, and run down the stairs to the cacophony of the porch heap tumbling down, the wet thuds, the shriek of delight or terror. The Object will be gone, Henry will be gone.

The junk will all be Left In The Rain. Not even the orb-weavers will want their house back.

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Thank you for reading. If you’re curious, take a peak at my ongoing Occult Pulp Noir serial, The Longest Game.