The Halloween Contagion

I remember when I was a child how Halloween used to be a fun day, a day for children to don costumes and go begging for treats from neighbors and friends. But not any longer, no, for in this day and age the thought of Halloween brought terror to children's eyes and heart palpitations to a concerned parent's breast.

I suppose it really began innocently enough. Two men, Aleksandr, a candy-maker and Andis, a banker, worked tirelessly on a new sweet recipe which Andis believed would make them rich.

You see, the two were brothers who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia when they were both quite young. They had, among their belongings, an ancient cookbook which had been handed down from generations of candy-makers. When he grew old enough, Aleks took over the family business. Andis, wanting nothing to do with making sweets, went into banking and was very good at it.

Through the years, Aleks toiled away, making chocolate truffles, fudge cremes, corn-syrup lollies and any manner of sweet treats one could crave. But then it happened. Aleks locked up his sweet shop and trudged home by the light of a full moon. As he walked, he pondered over a tiresome recipe in his head.

Aleks' path home was not a long one, though he did have to pass the cemetery but this did not bother him. He neither believed in ghouls or goblins or the possibility of ghosts.

There was one time when Aleks had forgotten his umbrella, it was raining and he had taken a short cut through the grave yard instead of his usual long walk around. He had heard eerie noises but it only turned out to be a few neighborhood boys playing tricks on unsuspecting passers-by.

Ah, I digress, I must beg your pardon. I was explaining how that first thought entered Aleks' head. The thought which eventually ruined Halloween for the world. You see, Aleks wanted to make something special for the children of the world. He experimented with bee pollen and coconut milk, honey and caramel, brown sugar and bitter chocolate, but could not come up with that one special treat, that one something which would make the world sit up and take notice of Aleksandr Ottoczeck!

Suddenly, on that night of the full moon, his mind snapped!

"But of course!" he exclaimed excitedly. "The book. The family cookbook! There is certain to be something in there which is special." Aleks had hurried the rest of the way home, anxious to open the old tome in search of, well, he knew not what!

Always, when he had opened the family book, it was like a homecoming. In the early years he had consulted the recipes of the book a great many times and never had he been let down but it had been years since he consulted the old recipes. The generations of Ottoczecks had meticulously kept their recipes in order, never sharing with the outside world the exact ingredients of any cooking secrets.

Aleks himself had made many entries in the book, he hoped one day to pass it on to his own daughter, Ana. He called out to his wife when he got home, "Maria! Bring down the book. I must look and see what there is in it. I know there must be something which is special, something..."

His voice trailed off to nothingness as the book was brought to him. It was very old. It was bound in black leather and was immensely thick. The pages inside contained fine script entries, all by hand and all by past Ottoczeck sweets-makers. Aleks turned to the latest entries, all of his recipes. Then he flipped to earlier writings, his mother's entries and then earlier still.

He perused through his ancestor's recipes like one possessed. He sat and read till the early morning, searching and reading, taking notes and jotting down ingredients. Sometime around three A.M. Maria brought him a cup of hot coffee and some pumpkin cookies she had specially baked for him. They were decorated with little pointed hats, black cats, and bats for Halloween, which was fast approaching.

He thanked Maria before she went up to bed, for being such an understanding wife and as an afterthought, asked about his daughter.

"She is happy, Aleks. Today she tried on her costume for Halloween and she shall make the sweetest vampire there ever was! Though when you see her you must act afraid and make the big fuss. She even wants you to make her a little coffin to sleep in but I told her that would be too much. She is going to the haunted house party with Bergit." Maria had gone up to bed then and Aleks, with a smile on his face, continued his reading.

It was in some of the earliest writings that he found what he was looking for. A sweet recipe, created for a royal wedding some four hundred years earlier, caught his eye. He had never shown much interest in it before because of some of the ingredients. Such things as deadly nightshade could not be put in children's candies, even in small amounts.

The recipe also called for the petals of a small, orange flower, a pair of white butterfly wings and two measures of some long-dead innkeeper's best ale. But, aside from those ingredients, Aleks felt sure there was some merit in the sweet concoction. He decided to make the recipe as written first, just to test it.

The next few days had him scurrying to find orange-petaled flowers, nightshade, and butterfly wings. The ale he would buy from the local market. He read and reread the recipe several times, repeating it out loud to himself, reminding Maria of an old witch saying a chant over her evil potion.

Finally, at the end of the tiresome recipe, Aleks called Andis and Maria to come and taste of the new treat. All three bit into the exquisite sweet-smelling biscuits which were drizzled with glazing sauce made from the petals and butterfly wings. The crisp, buttery-flavored biscuit melted softly in their mouths and surprised smiles lit their faces.

"This is wonderful, Aleks!" Maria breathed. She reached for anther little biscuit and popped it into her mouth.

"I agree, this is outstanding! You must tell us, Aleks, what is this recipe?" Andis delicately ate two more before Maria was again reaching for the plate.

"It is an old one and is called the Royal Wedding Dessert Biscuits. I was worried some about the ingredients but these are perfect!"

"You must begin selling them in the shop, Aleks," advised Andis, "You can become rich with treats such as these."

And so they had begun to sell the biscuits in the shop. They had shortened the name to just Royal Treats, and sold out of them every day. It seemed no one could get enough. By the time Halloween night arrived, Aleks had his workers making nothing but the Royal Treats. No one wanted to buy his other candies. If he ran out, buyers would get a desperate look in their eyes for a craving for the cookie seemed to possess them.

Indeed, that is what happened. Aleks had no notion that the cookies were no more than a sweet treat. But the people of the town slowly began to look as though they were wasting away. By Christmas that year, Andis moved Aleks into a large factory and the Royal Treats began to be mass produced.

The problem of finding deadly nightshade was solved when Andis found a farm in the old country which was happy to sell it in great quantities. A man in Canada who raised white butterflies for collectors became overjoyed at the orders for the creatures from a strange little banker who never said what he used them for.

Ah, and the flowers, well, they grew everywhere. Andis bought them in bulk from local nurseries and hothouses without a second thought.

Yes, Andis took care of everything while Aleks continued his baking. The people of the town became pale and weak, unable to bear the thought of eating anything but the sweet biscuits drizzled with their tangy, sweet glaze.

By Easter, the county sat up and took notice of the increasing deaths in the small town, but when investigators brought back the wonderful treats, no one could resist them. By July, half the state had succumbed to a rising death toll. The government stepped in, thinking foul play but once again, nothing became of the investigations. But the Royal Treats spread farther and farther until it was a worldwide phenomenon.

At last, the Ottoczeck name was famous! The delicate biscuits were served at tea in Britain, at luncheon in India and for dessert in the Sahara. One could find them in Africa and Greenland, Russia and America. They were truly world wide!

But the farther they spread, the greater the death toll. Pallid complexions became noticeable and thin figures were had by even those who had once been greatly overweight. Thousands of people and children died.

Then it was that Aleks became sick, and Maria too. Little Ana took care of her parents as best she could, but they died in their sleep on the same night, almost a year after his great discovery. Before he passed, Aleks made Ana promise to keep the great recipe book, bound in its aged black leather, safe from prying eyes. She did promise him.

Not long after, Andis too, died, no longer able to feed his appetite for the Royal Treats.

As Halloween passed that year, the fervor literally died for the Treats. The mysterious deaths slowly stopped around the world and no one ever figured out why.

Every year after that, around Halloween, the dark factory where Aleks used to make his cookies would spring to life. Once again Royal Treats would be packaged and shipped around the world to waiting customers who had heard about the wonderfully tasting cookies from the years before.

Eventually, the Halloween Contagion, as the phenomenon was called, came to be associated with Halloween and like I said before, fear replaced frolic in young and old alike. Over the years, almost two million deaths had been squarely blamed on the Contagion and its elusive origins, without any apparent clue as to how the Contagion selected its victims.

Well, that's all I have to say for now, I really must be going. You see, it's time to make the Royal Treats again since Halloween is only two short weeks away and my reservations list is nearly twice what it has ever been. It takes a lot of time to squeeze the oil from the poppy flower petals and prepare the opium glaze. And the deadly nightshade, when not properly prepared, tastes quite bitter which just won't do or I'm not Ana Ottoczeck!