The Archer Novelty Company
Dwight Archer sat at his cluttered mahogany desk, frowning at the quarterly sales figures his chief financial officer had given him. The news wasn't good. The company was still operating in the black, but barely. Dwight, who had celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday earlier in the year, could easily live on his savings, retirement account and social security benefits, but there was no one else who could take the helm of the company and steer it through the troubled waters of an ailing economy.
The Archer Novelty Company began as a manufacturer of gag gifts and jokes such as plastic dog excrement, polyurethane vomit, rubber flies and spiders encased in Lucite ice cubes and birthday candles that couldn't be blown out once lit. Dwight's grandfather, a resourceful immigrant fresh off the boat from Amsterdam, had started the company by selling joy buzzers, itching powder and dribble glasses from a street vendor's cart. Over the years, the company managed to make a profit, not a large one, mind you, but a profit nonetheless.
For three generations, through two world wars and a Great Depression, Archer Novelty's employees brought home a steady paycheck that enabled them to put a roof over their families' heads and food on their tables. Dwight, like his father and grandfather before him, took his responsibilities as an employer seriously. His employees were loyal to him, and he, in turn, always tried to do right by them.
I can't close the company and put all these people out of work. I owe it to them to keep Archer Novelty going.
To keep his grandfather's company alive, Dwight was prepared to sink every cent he had into it. He would even sell his house and move in with his daughter should the need arise.
Who am I kidding? the mild-mannered Archer asked himself. There's no possible way to save this company. All I can do is try to postpone the inevitable.
Dwight was not being overly pessimistic. He knew his product line, which included whoopee cushions, palm buzzers and exploding cigarettes, had a limited appeal. Most people weren't interested in buying corny gag gifts and playing practical jokes anymore, not even adolescent boys who had always been the company's target age group.
Just as Dwight Archer was seriously considering filing for bankruptcy, a savior in the form of Oliver Hall, a creative and ambitious young employee in the company's design department, stepped forward. It was Oliver's idea to start producing humorous holiday gifts: Christmas neckties with miniature flashing lights, snowmen boxer shorts, girl's hair bands with angel halos, baseball caps topped with reindeer antlers and even Christmas toilet paper.
Slowly but steadily, Archer's sales began to increase. Encouraged by this success, Oliver urged his employer to manufacture more serious Christmas decorations: inexpensive tree ornaments, twinkling light sets, ceramic figurines, molded candles and holiday cardboard cutouts, all of which sold well at dollar stores.
Again, the public responded favorably to the new line of merchandise. The company's sales figures continued to climb at a steady pace.
Still, Oliver Hall was not a man to remain content with his past accomplishments. He was continuously setting new goals for himself, raising the bar higher each time he did so. When he saw that his wife had decorated the dogwood tree in their front yard with white cloth ghosts and black felt bats one October, he was inspired to expand the company's existing holiday line.
Three days later, he asked to meet with Dwight Archer.
"Did you know that American consumers spend one-and-a-half billion dollars a year on Halloween costumes and another two-and-a-half billion on Halloween candy, crafts and decorations?" Oliver asked his boss.
"No, I didn't," Dwight replied, moving a die-cast Mustang off his desk to make room for the papers Oliver had given him.
"I've been doing some research the past three days. I've learned that Halloween is the second most commercially successful holiday after Christmas as well as the third biggest party day of the year, immediately following New Year's Eve and Super Bowl Sunday. In addition, one-third of all adults in the United States don costumes and participate in Halloween activities such as parades, parties and haunted houses. Best of all, a whopping eighty-six percent of Americans decorate their homes for Halloween."
"And you're here to suggest we start making costumes and decorations for Halloween."
"Maybe not costumes since we're not in the clothing business, but definitely decorations. It's an untapped market for us."
"All right," Dwight said with a benevolent smile as though he were dealing with his grandson. "We've got some money in our product development budget. See what you can come up with."
Oliver's first attempt at design was a four-foot-high Halloween tree, one with a knotted, gnarled, twisted trunk and black, snakelike, leafless branches. To accent this nightmarish tree, he created blinking orange Halloween lights, purple and black garland and a ghoulish assortment of unbreakable ornaments: ghosts, witches, bats, vampires, werewolves and movie monsters. Archer Novelty even offered a fiber optic jack-o-lantern tree top to complete the package. The Halloween tree with its various accessories soon became Archer Novelty's top-grossing item, outselling all the gag gifts and joke items combined.
As a result of his many innovative ideas, Oliver Hall was promoted to vice president of product development. This promotion and the accompanying pay raise prompted him to design additional items for Halloween.
His next idea was the Halloween stocking that children were to hang from their fireplace mantles on the evening of October 30. These stockings were soon followed by a variety of wreaths decorated with ghosts, skeletons, scarecrows, black cats and more. Another item that went over big was the Halloween advent calendar that featured a macabre drawing with thirty-one paper doors to be opened each day of October.
With the introduction of these new and unusual products, the company acquired additional customers. Not only big box stores like Walmart and Target but also Spencer's, Hot Topic and other national chain stores all placed large orders.
Naturally, not everyone responded favorably to these somewhat macabre products. Several fundamental religious groups wrote strongly worded letters to the Archer Novelty Company protesting that the new Halloween line bordered on sacrilege, but Oliver regarded his creations as fun and innocent decorations, with no religious significance whatsoever.
Motivated more by enjoyment than by personal ambition, Oliver went back to the drawing board to produce an even wider selection of unique products. Christmas's Jolly Old St. Nicholas became the model for his Halloween counterpart, Crafty Old Nick: a vinyl doll clad in a black velvet suit trimmed with orange-colored fake fur and a matching cap that was pushed to one side of his head while a pointed devil's horn protruded from the other side. Although Crafty Old Nick lacked the bushy white beard of Father Christmas, he did sport a pointed black goatee and mustache.
Finally, in place of Santa Claus's famous sleigh and enchanted reindeer, Oliver designed a flying hearse that was drawn by eight magic vultures: Slasher, Manson, Rancid, Nixon, Vomit, Stupid, Blunder and Blitzkrieg.
To promote the Crafty Old Nick doll, the Archer Novelty Company produced an animated Halloween special entitled The Night Before Halloween, which soon became as popular as It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There was also a collection of Halloween carols, available on CD or downloadable mp3s, featuring such parody songs as "It Came Upon a Midnight Dreary," "Oh Come All Ye Frightful," "I Saw Mummy Kissing Frankenstein," "Randolph, the Big Nosed Werewolf" and "Furry the Wolfman." The first year it was released, this collection of hellish hits outsold the latest releases of both Eminem and Britney Spears.
One afternoon Oliver Hall was sitting at his drafting table, softly singing along to the CD, "We three ghosts of Halloween are haunting houses near and far," when Dwight Archer knocked on his office door.
"Have you got a minute?" the owner asked.
"Sure, come on in. Have a seat."
"I wanted to thank you for the birthday present you and your wife sent me," Dwight said with a warm chuckle. "I always wanted a black wicker basket with Halloween eggs inside."
"It's a prototype of a new product I've got in mind. Kids won't have to wait until Easter to color eggs."
"Another good idea of yours. And I assume there'll be a bunny rabbit as well?"
"Sort of. It's more of a zombie rabbit."
"You get a kick out of all this, don't you, Oliver?"
"Yeah. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart," the designer admitted somewhat bashfully.
"That's what I like about you. This is more than just a job to you. That's why I think I can finally retire."
Oliver looked genuinely upset by his boss's announcement.
"You don't mean that, do you?"
"I'm an old man. I just turned seventy. I want to devote what time I have left to traveling with Felicia and spending time with my daughter and the grandchildren. I've been putting it off because I didn't want to see my grandfather's company fall apart. I don't have to worry about that anymore. It'll be in good hands with you."
"Me? But I don't know how to run a company. I'm just a designer. I know nothing about finances or marketing."
"Neither did I. That's why you hire people to advise you. I have faith in your abilities. You saved this company from certain ruin. I trust you to keep it going."
Dwight Archer's faith in his successor proved to be well-founded. With Oliver Hall in command, the Archer Novelty Company enjoyed its best years ever, with profits far exceeding any in the company's long history.
* * *
Sadly, tragedy struck at the peak of the company's success: Dwight Archer, chairman of the board and former president and CEO of the Archer Novelty Company, was found dead in his bed one Sunday morning. Having discovered no evidence of foul play, the local police ruled that his death was due to natural causes even though the results of the autopsy indicated that Dwight had been in excellent health.
"His heart simply gave out," the medical examiner explained as he signed the death certificate. "There's no other possible explanation."
"At least he didn't suffer," his wife cried, sobbing into a crumpled Kleenex.
"No, your husband died in his sleep," Oliver said in an attempt to give some comfort to the grieving widow. "I hope when my time comes, I can go as peacefully."
Not long after the funeral service, Felicia Archer, who was nearing her seventy-fifth birthday and not in the best of health, sold her husband's company to a group of foreign businessmen who had tried unsuccessfully in the past to purchase it from her late husband.
Shortly after Dwight Archer's coffin was lowered into his grave the new owners began making drastic changes to his grandfather's company, which were hardly necessary since the business was making more money than it ever had before. All the old corny gag gifts and joke items were immediately eliminated from production. This was somewhat understandable since these items made little money and had only been continued out of sentiment. However, soon afterward all holiday decorations, with the exception of those in the Halloween line, were discontinued as well. Gone were all the Christmas, Fourth of July, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Easter and St. Patrick's Day items. Although not as popular as the Halloween decorations, they still contributed a significant amount of revenue to the company.
More disturbing than the discontinuance of many of the company's products, hundreds of employees were laid off, only to have new employees fill the vacancies before the end of the day.
Understandably, Oliver Hall was upset by all the unnecessary changes, especially those involving personnel.
"These are good people you're letting go," he complained to the new owner, Jonathan Lambert. "Valuable employees who have been with the company for years. I don't see why any of them had to be laid off."
Lambert turned to Oliver, his eyes flashing with anger.
"When I bought this company, I had no choice but to keep you on. It was one of Felicia Archer's conditions when she agreed to the sale. I can't fire you or lay you off like I did the others, but let's get one thing clear. I'm the owner. I'm the chairman of the board, the CEO, the president, the head honcho if you prefer. I've given you back your old position as vice president of the design department because I don't know where else you'll fit in. But I'm running this company. I don't have to answer to you or anyone else."
"And if I decide I don't want to stay under those conditions?"
"You know where the door is," Lambert said with a nasty smile on his face. "Don't let it hit you on the way out."
Oliver went back to his old office, fuming, and sat at his drawing board.
I can't take this!
He picked up a pen and a blank sheet of paper and began writing his letter of resignation. He was composing his third paragraph when he heard a soft knock on the door.
"Come in," he called.
The door opened and in walked Hillary Tolman, the sixty-three-year-old administrative assistant he had inherited when he took over the reins from Dwight Archer.
"I came to say goodbye, Mr. Hall," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
"You're not going, too?" Oliver asked with surprise.
"Mr. Lambert has brought his own secretary with him, so I've been laid off."
"But you came here right out of high school. He can't let you go after all that time. Surely, he could find some position for you!"
"Honestly, I wouldn't stay even if he did. There's just something about the man I don't trust. He gives me the creeps."
"I know exactly what you mean, Hillary. In fact, I was writing my letter of resignation when you came in."
"Oh, no! You can't quit!" she cried. "Mr. Archer was relying on you to keep his grandfather's company running. You were his hand-picked replacement when he retired."
"I know that, but at the time he chose me he didn't know his wife was going to sell the business after he passed away."
"With you gone, Oliver, Lambert and his people will run the company right into the ground," Hillary predicted.
"Maybe that's the idea," Oliver suggested. "They can drain the company's resources, then declare bankruptcy and write Archer Novelty off as a loss on their taxes."
"Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck."
"The same to you, Hillary. I hope you don't have any difficulty finding another job. I'll be happy to give you a fine recommendation."
"Don't worry about me. I'm eligible for early retirement now. I'll be fine."
By the end of the day, Lambert's axe had finally stopped falling. All of Dwight Archer's former employees, except for Oliver Hall, had been let go.
* * *
The following day, with all new personnel in both the factory and the office, manufacturing began on a new line of Halloween products. One item was a ceramic nativity celebrating the birth of not the Christ child, but that of the Antichrist. Statues of ancient gods and demons joined the harmless Halloween stockings and tree ornaments in the Archer warehouse. But these new items were not being marketed to the general public. They couldn't be found in Party City, Spirit Halloween or even on eBay; they were being secretly shipped directly to special interest groups around the world.
Oliver Hall, whose loyalty to his late employer made him tear up his letter of resignation before he completed it, was unhappy with these new products that he had no hand in designing and was even more upset when he was refused entry into both the factory and the warehouse.
The more he observed what was happening around him, the more he became convinced that Lambert and his hand-picked employees were up to something shady, possibly even illegal.
I wouldn't put it past Lambert to be smuggling cocaine inside the musical stuffed bats.
Regardless of the possible danger he faced, he was determined to learn the truth.
* * *
Oliver bided his time until one day when the factory was receiving several large deliveries at once. He seized the opportunity to sneak inside undetected. Fortunately for him, no one noticed one more deliveryman carrying a large carton of supplies. Once inside, he hid in a storage room and waited until the factory shut down for the night. When he first ventured forth from his hiding place, Oliver saw nothing out of the ordinary, just the same old talking witches, illuminated jack-o-lanterns, sound-activated laughing mummies and dancing skeleton action figures.
Then he spotted an item he'd never seen before: an inverted crucifix displaying a grotesque caricature of Jesus Christ with his dying body hideously deformed and his face twisted in agony.
This is no harmless Halloween decoration, he realized with alarm. This is blasphemy, pure and simple!
"I hope you found what you were looking for, Mr. Hall," a voice said, startling Oliver.
He turned and saw Jonathan Lambert step out of the shadows.
"Just what is this ungodly thing you are manufacturing?" Oliver asked with unmasked revulsion.
"It's not ungodly at all. To our god it is quite proper, I assure you."
"You know, Lambert, I was afraid that you were running a drug operation here, but that's not it at all. It's much worse. You and your cohorts belong to a coven of witches, don't you?"
Lambert laughed.
"No, Mr. Hall. Witches are simple, innocuous folk, content to study herbs, cast ineffective spells and celebrate the changes in the seasons. My friends and I, on the other hand, are Satanists, devil-worshippers. It's a natural mistake on your part, however. After all, throughout history, people have confused witchcraft with devil worship. No doubt that's why so many innocent people were persecuted down through the centuries. The only thing we have in common with witches is that we've both been tortured and executed by religiously intolerant people like you. But now that you know our little secret, why don't we continue this conversation in the comfort and privacy of my office?"
The tone of Lambert's voice made it clear that his suggestion was not a request but a command.
* * *
Oliver barely recognized Dwight Archer's old office when he crossed the threshold. The former owner, a good-natured soul who never outgrew his childhood, had once filled the room with toys: antique train sets, model airplanes and die-cast cars. How he had ever managed to work amidst all that clutter had been a mystery to his employees. Now the office was surrealistic in appearance. The walls were painted black, and the furniture was made of glass and chrome. Crimson velvet curtains covered one wall, while on the other three walls hung paintings of heretics being burned at the stake or tortured by officials of the Inquisition.
Jonathan Lambert went to his desk, pressed the intercom button on his telephone and instructed his secretary, "Ask the members of the board to come to my office, please."
"What's been going on here, Lambert?" Oliver demanded to know.
"We Satanists believe in a religion much older than Christianity, and yet even in this so-called enlightened and broadminded age, everywhere we go people try to either banish or destroy us. For centuries, we've been forced to practice our faith in secret. Then it occurred to me to find a small company in some quiet little town where my fellow believers and I could all live, work and worship our god in peace and safety."
"But why here?"
"Ironically, Oliver, it was one of your designs—the Crafty Old Nick doll—that first drew my attention to this company. When I investigated further, I decided the Archer Novelty Company would be the perfect front for my congregation. It will provide a haven for persecuted cult members from around the world. With that goal in mind, each day I put more Satanists on the company's payroll."
Oliver heard the opening of the door and the footsteps of the members of the board as they entered the office. He turned and saw eight men and four women wearing black hooded robes solemnly gathering around the long black conference table.
Mr. Lambert opened a small closet in the corner of the office, took out his own hooded robe and put it on over his Armani suit. Then he pressed a button that opened the crimson drapes. An onyx altar had been concealed behind them, and on the altar were black candles and one of those obscene inverted crucifixes that Oliver had seen in the factory. Below the crucifix, on a red velvet cushion, was a jewel-encrusted gold dagger.
As Lambert approached the altar, the other members of the board surrounded Oliver. Twelve sets of hands pushed him down and held him captive on the conference table, while Lambert, the thirteenth member of the cult, picked up the jeweled dagger.
"Our father who art in hell," Jonathan loudly intoned, "accept this sacrifice in gratitude for all you have given us. We beg you to extend your protection over our group and all members of our brotherhood. Blessed be our Lord Satan."
Although his death was more violent than his employer's had been, Oliver Hall, like Dwight Archer before him, died at the hands of Jonathan Lambert's devil-worshipping cult. One can only hope that in their final moments, they both took some small comfort in the fact that their deaths would ensure the continued prosperity of the Archer Novelty Company.
Look what Salem bought at Archer's end-of-year clearance sale.
