The Circle

For Six Years

They'd been meeting on Halloween night, here at Walter's cabin, and reading ghost stories to each other. Some of the faces varied from year to year, but Lesley had never missed on of the readings. She'd come alone this year, and as she parked her Datsun at the edge of the graveled road she couldn't help but think of Rob. She'd brought him to the reading the year before, and that night they's slept together for the first time. It had been nearly two months now since she'd heard from him, and the thought of him left her wavering between guilt and sadness. 
Her Shoes crunched on pine needles as she dodged the water droplets dripping from the trees overhead. The night was colder than she had expected, the cill seeping quickly through her light jacket. 
She hopped onto the porch of the cabin and rapped on the door. Walter's wife, Susan, answered it. "Come in," she said. "You're the first one." 
"It's cold out there," Lesley said.
"Isn't it? Tea's ready. Sit down and I'll bring you a cup."
Lesley had barely settled by the fireplace when the others began to trickle in. Some of them had books, others had manuscripts, most of them also had wine or beer. All of them wrote, several of them professionally, and about half the stories each year had been written for the occasion. 
Lesley hadn't felt up to writing one herself this year. In fact she hadn't felt up tp much of anything since she and Rob had broken up. His bitterness had hurt her badly, and she was hoping that something would happen tonight to pull her back out of herself.
She hoped it would be the way it used to, when the stories had been chilling and the nights had been damp and eerie, and they'd gotten themselves so scared sometimes that they hadn't gone home until daylight. 
They'd been younger, then, of course. Now that they were all closing in on Thirty they seemed to be more afraid of election results and property taxes than they were of vampires and werewolves.
About nine-thirty Walter stood up and ceremonially lighted the candelabra over the fireplace. The other lamps were turned off, and Walter stood for a moment in the flickering candlelight. He looked a bit like an accountant in this sweater and slacks, with his horn-rimmed glasses and his neatly trimmed mustache.
"Well," he said, clearing his throat, "I think we're all here. Before we get started, we've got something unusual I wanted to tell you about. I go this in the mail last week." He held up a large manila envelope. "It's from Rob Tranchin, in Mexico."
Lesley felt a pang again. "Did he..." she blurted out. "Did he say know he is?"