 Good evening friends, this is your house to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Come on in. One prankish little fellow whom we shall call maniac for lack of a stronger word just set fire to the walls. He said a closed room made him feel confined. As a result four other characters are slightly burned up now. Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Corpse for Halloween, was written by John Robert and stars Larry Haynes in the role of Jimmy with Barry Kroger as Cavanaugh. And now let's unhinge our minds a little. After all, what's a little insanity among friends? Tonight's story dramatizes the fanatical hold of memory. The one scene, the one fragment that plays and replays over and over again in your mind. The one terror that's with you, when you die and when you walk and when you sleep. Who can sleep? I'm here in the 35 cent flock but I'm in the Burmese jungle. Watching a scene that never gets stale even though it's five years old. I can hear sounds traveling across the brush. I pick them up as if I'm a receiver, said animal sounds. And I see as if my eyes are in the sky I see two blue figures standing with their rifles aimed at a pair of jungle beasts. A tiger and its mate in a crotch ready to jump. They fire point blank together as if by signaling. So good. They miss. The beasts roar and weep. I hear them scream out Cavanaugh and box a goal. Just before they die. Five years. And you've been everywhere trying to forget. And you almost do forget. But if that just right back into your mind by itself. Like when a guy suddenly sneaks up on you in the night. Do you have a match? What? Do you have a match? Sure. You popped up on me so suddenly. You're a nervous man. Thank you. I have a parcel with me for you. For me? What are you kidding? No. I have a parcel for you here. Take it. Wait a minute. Hey, hey, wait. But he's gone. Just the way he came. As if he's a chip of my sanity. As if there'd been nobody. But there is a package left with me. The mind doesn't dream up a package. A cardboard box. Heavy kind of. And tissue. Lots of tissue around something that had the feel of a head. It is a head. The stuffed head of a jungle tiger. It's mouth fixed in the snarl. It sends the blood hammering to my head. Doesn't make sense. No good figuring it out. Toss it in the river. Box it all and get away. Get among the people. Yeah. Yeah, Rocco's got a Rocco's. Get the jukebox going and slip into a fox. Copy, Rocco. Jimmy, I got something for you. For me, Rocco? The package. The guy came in before and leaves your package for you. See? The Jimmy Fox. Your name on it. My name. My name's Jimmy Scott. You know that. Scott, yes. But the man says your name is also Jimmy Fox. He says he knows. He knows. I took the package outside into the night into an alleyway. Another cardboard box. Heavy. And a tissue. Lots of tissue around something that had the feel of a head. It was a head. But not a tiger's this time. It was a human skull. It shone with a hard white light when the moon touched it. And then it seemed to speak. Do you have a mask? What? You're being an idiot. It isn't the skull talking to you. It's me. You? Where are you? I'm behind you. I don't see you. Because you're afraid to. See me now? Yeah. A black suit and a face squinting at me like a laughing mask. It is a laughing mask. Well, why are you wearing a mask? Why not tonight's Halloween? Halloween? Sure. Halloween. Everybody plays jokes. I should have remembered it was Halloween. Can you identify the skull? Identify? Look, what kind of a gag are you trying to... Suppose I give you an hour to identify the skull. It's eight now. Until nine o'clock then. Wait! Hey, hey, wait! He was gone again. As if there'd been nobody. Just another big chip off my sanity. I really had to get away from myself now. I hit the back streets and then somewhere a big neon sign across a tenement pulled me off the sidewalk. A red artillery street boy's neighborhood association. Halloween costume ball. Public invited. A girl in a boot, masked like a witch, stopped me at the door. Mask, mister? Mask. Oh, sure, sure, give me one. Black, green, yellow, or purple? What's your favorite color? Uh, yellow. Hi, are you a yacht? Fifty cents. They are. Oh. A what? Just a description left with me. I'd almost forgotten. Are you Jimmy Fox? Suppose I was, Jimmy Fox. What about it? This grocery bag was left here for you. A man told me to tell you. You forgot it somewhere. And he said that he'd meet you one place or another later. Here, take it. By the shape of it, I'd say you had a Halloween pumpkin inside. But if I told you there was a human skull inside that grocery bag, he'd meet me one place or another. He did. He was under a street lamp waiting for me to happen along. Hello, Jimmy. Have you dared to call the skull by name yet? Or must I? Look, that gag isn't paying off, mister. All right, go ahead. You call it by name. Lord, boxer Dolan, remember him? I, uh, never knew the guy. He was... No doubt got me confused. Have I, Jimmy? You've changed your appearance cleverly except for one thing disguise could never conceal. One thing? Your guilt. You wear it like a badge of shame. Oh, what am I guilty of? Murder. Two men left an encampment in the Burmese jungle just before dawn. Boxer Dolan and Kavanaugh. The third man remained behind. He played sick, pretended to fever. The third man was you, Jimmy. Must I tell you the rest? Tell me the rest. Dolan and Kavanaugh carried rifles in the event of a jungle encounter. There was a jungle encounter, a tiger and its mate. An emergency, but an easy one to resolve for two expert hunters. Just one shot a piece and there'd be two more dead tigers. Just one shot a piece. They had their one shot a piece, but the tigers didn't drop dead in their tracks. Instead, Boxer Dolan and Kavanaugh dropped. Ask me what happened, Jimmy? What happened? During the night, someone had emptied their rifle loads and substituted blank bullets. You did that, Jimmy. You engineered the murder of two men. Two partners in crime. Just one day's push from the Hindu temple you'd all teamed up to loot. They got within 24 hours of treasure and then you murdered them. One more day to the temple, so why split three ways, huh? You know about the temple, but I never pushed on to that temple. No loot, no nothing. How about that? You lost your nerve. You just hadn't counted them losing your nerve. What are you, a detective? No. I'm your second victim. I'm Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh? The Kavanaugh was killed. Unfortunately for you, you wasn't. I'll show you what I had to survive. Feel my sleeve. Feel it! It's empty. Torn out of the socket. Now, the face behind this laughing gargoyle. I wear. See the left profile? It isn't pretty, is it? The eye? The eye's gone, too. I spent five years finding you, Jimmy. I've waited a long time to let you see my face. You can after me to kill me? After you've had the same 24 hours you arranged the door room that I would have. What do you mean, the same 24 hours? Unarmed in the jungle and helpless. I'm gonna hunt you for 24 hours in this jungle, the jungle of the city, with every beast of prey I can find. I'm gonna hunt you, Jimmy. And in the end, when I've wrung every suffering from you, I'm going to kill you. What do you mean, every beast of prey you can find? The citizens of the city jungle, the riffraff, the murderers, the men and women who buy and sell murder. I can afford them, Jimmy. See this, Ruby? It's real. And I have dozens, Jimmy. Dozens. I didn't lose my nerve. It's ten o'clock, you can go now. Go and see if you can escape me and my pack. You're going through with this? The beast will be coming at you from the sewers and the cellars, ambushing you from the shadows into the dawn and through the day for 24 hours until 10 tomorrow night. Or you win. You live. Hurry, Jimmy. See how painful death can be. Cavanaugh's one fella I never want to hunt me off. No, sir, that guy slays for creeps. 24 hours. Cavanaugh's got 24 hours to kill. And Jimmy has just enough time to die. Yes, you know, Jimmy might win out over Cavanaugh. Now that he's got an extra skull to go with the one he's stuck with, after all, two heads are better than one. Let's live out the terror now, shall we? An animal game of murder for 24 hours. I was to be hunted down in a jungle where human beasts came at you from the sewers and cellars where killers in the hire of a homicidal lunatic lay in ambush. Well, I had to win. I had to save myself. I had to hide. The thing to do was to hide, fade into an alleyway and find a cellar and stay put for 24 hours. Just stay put. The second rake of garbage cans until 10 tomorrow night was I alone. Movement. There was a whispering movement somewhere in the cellar. A faint rattle of ash cans as if the wind was rattling them. Wind in an airtight cellar. Hello? Anybody there? I've been imagining. But then something winged at me, roaring into my shoulder sharp and deadly like a knife. I came to bleeding from a shoulder gash. I got out of there and back into the streets. Into a jungle of faces. It was Halloween night like I'd never seen it. Masks and costumes on kids of six and old clones of 60. A crazy jungle of witches and garling peak captains and lunatics. They couldn't all be in the hire of Kavanaugh. And then a fence was plastered with circus posters of jungle animals. A zany looking guy was shooting from the hip of the poster while making menacing faces like a bad man. I caught a whiff of powder in the night air. The shot had burned into the poster. I crept up behind him, faking a gun with my fist in my coat pocket. I ran against his back. Get him a pallet. I got nothing. I got a sandwich. You're gonna want your gun handed over? Sure. Now walk. Walk up the block and don't turn back to luck. I had a gun now and the tables were turned. I was the hunter now. I drifted to the docks and took up a position with my back to the river. Faking him suicide, Jimmy? Got any more, Kavanaugh? I mean, it sounds as if your morale had suddenly improved. My morale's going great, Kavanaugh. Your animal hunts about to boomerang blow right up in your face like this. Who's hunting Kavanaugh? Who's hunting Kavanaugh? Kavanaugh kept standing up. Three bullets point blank enough to blow his head off the Kavanaugh, kept standing up on home. How does it feel to hunt game with blank cartridges like Bucks or Dolan and I did once? Blank cartridges? But that crazy looking guy saw a burn a hole in the circus poster. Only one bullet, the first one was real. Simple. Very simple. I get it. Dead-eyed dick was another one of your beasts. Who's hunting who, Jimmy? Who's hunting who? Kavanaugh, Kavanaugh, wait. Kavanaugh, kill me. Get it over with and kill me now, will ya? Kavanaugh, you gotta kill me. I had to get out of there. Get away, get the subway, fade into the subway, get on a train and ride to the end of the line, right out of the channel. An empty station, no one in it. Though, though someone, two people. A dapper little guy buried behind a newspaper. An old lady in ragged clothes carrying him, yet half hidden under a coat. A pet that looked like a cat. She came up to me, close, like to ask me something. This side goes to Leffat's Avenue station? Uh, Leffat's Avenue, I don't know. I'm a stranger here. Oh, hush, Genevieve. Oh, Genevieve is hungry. That's not a cat. No, son. A cub. A tiger cub. A tiger cub? Would you like to smoke, Genevieve? No, no, no. Don't run away, son. Genevieve won't turn. I ran away with the old crone after me, hobbling in his skirts. And a little dapper guy behind the newspaper, circling at me from the opposite direction, cornering me. I jumped to the tracks, my only out, and I ran. I ran as deep into the bars of the subway, deep, very deep. With a little dapper guy after me, as if he lived business. I'm in a train. I've had a Halloween look too, apparently. And I, in face with banjo eyes, I ran against the wall and frightened out. The train passed, passed, and the dapper guy screamed. Cavanaugh was shy, one beast in his jungle. The little guy had been hit glancingly and hurled against the subway wall, pulverized. I got to him quickly and freshed him. I had a gun now. A gun with bullets that killed him. I ran. I ran a half mile underground to another station, and then back on the streets. Back in the animal game. It was through in the morning. A neon sign that tell every street boy's neighborhood association. Halloween costume party. People were straggling out. The fun was over. Hello. What? You remember me? No. I'm the witch who gave you a free mask and a grocery bag that you forgot somewhere. And you're Jimmy Fox. Jimmy, Scott, I used to be Jimmy Fox. Sister, are you all right? Am I all right? I mean, are you just what you look at? A sweet kid with brown eyes and a heart. Are you drunk? No, no, no, beat. I'm dickbeat. I've got a hole up somewhere. Get some shut up. I've got it where I'll die. You're sick? Yeah, yeah, I'm sick, sick. If I could just sleep around the clock until 10 tomorrow night. If an angel came along and said come home with me, I'll put you up. Come home with me, Jimmy. I'll put you up. I fell asleep on a sofa with a gun under my pillow. And the girl on a chair watching me anxiously. I had a friend. I could drop off and live in Dreamland until 10 that night. At 10, I could wake up and live. Coming awake, I heard the alarm which said go off. The alarm stopped. And there was a sound. An animal sound. And then a claw scratching at me, carrying it in my cheek. I jumped up. The girl was gone. A guy was sitting watching me now. A skinny kid with a heavy shock of hair and had a day over 21. Well, that's a lousy way to have to wake up from a sleep, pal. A lousy way. There was an animal clawing at me, my cheek's bleeding. Genevieve, she isn't housebroken. Still a little while. You should have seen her dash for the kitchen when you laid out a scream just now. Genevieve, who are you? You're Jimmy Fox, huh? Yeah. I've got something for you. For me? Yeah, it was given to me to give to you. A rupee. Wait a minute. That clock's always 15 minutes ahead. Now the game's over. It's 10 and you can't cheat. I've won, Cavanaugh. You can't go back on your promise, Cavanaugh. You can't. What are you trying to get over, pal? I've won. You can't cheat. I won't be tricked. Oh, God. You're crazy. It's 10 and I won't be tricked, Cavanaugh. I've won. I'm still on the sofa. My arms are rigid. And my legs rigid. My legs rigid. Like something exploded inside me and paralyzed my nerves. I can just look and hear. She's in the room now. A girl with a sweet face and brown eyes. On the horizon, red, swollen from crying. I hear her talking to a cop. He's taking down what she says. He was a stray. He was like a sick dog in the street. So I picked him up and brought him home. Why did he kill your brother, buddy? I don't know. I was taking a shower and I heard him scream like a crazy man. I heard him talk all mixed up. Didn't get here any time. There must be something you've been telling me. Oh, officer. Everything is all mixed up. It's a touristy costume ball. A man gave me a cat with tiger stripes and he begged me to keep it for him for a while until he found a new home for it. He benefited. Well, then, in the all night restaurant my brother works in, a man gave buddy a ruby to give to Jimmy Fox when he woke up. He told my brother the ruby belonged to Jimmy Fox. This piece of glass? That's something of the world of time, county. What else? Watching by here I see through Kavanaugh's trick. Get me crazy so I'll murder a stranger who called himself Buddy. The brother of a girl with brown eyes and a heart. Flame me so I'll just want to die for weeks of a murder trial and death house in four minutes in the death chair. I kept listening to him talk the girl and the cop. Okay. We'll have to get the rest from Jimmy Fox there. Yeah, look at him. He's paralyzed with fright. He wonders what kind of crazy Halloween story he's going to start upon, my honest one, when we get him talking. Oh, Captain Devereaux speaking. McEvoy, send a police ambulance to 4-5 Tenite Street apartment 3 Rear and McEvoy see that a straightjacket's on that ambulance. Well, quite a chase. It got so poor Jim didn't know whether he was coming or going. Nuts. What got his goat most was the way he kept seeing animals everywhere. Very confusing to a guy on the lamb. I've got so he couldn't tell who's zoo. Tomorrow? Oh, sure. I read this Halloween notice on a tree somewhere. Never hunt out of reason. Ha, ha, ha, ha.