31 Days of Halloween - Day 23

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

Tor Books. 2006.


Every Halloween a small isolated agricultural community stages "the Run." The town's 16-18 year old males, after five days of fasting, he'd out into the night armed with clubs, pitchforks, knives, hammers, and other deadly implements to try and find and kill the October Boy before he kills them and reaches his goal of the town church. The October Boy is a supernatural being, an ambulatory scarecrow topped with a jack o'lantern head and armed with a knife.

It's a simple, and very effective plot, yet Partridge is able to inject a surprising amount of twists and revelations into its compact length. Told in a driving narrative style that never lets you forget you're being told a story, Dark Harvest blasts out of the starting gate and never lets up until the end. This is the perfect Halloween book.