Phil Mation stood under his park's gate and counted heads. The carved pumpkins glowed above him. The jagged sign spelled out Horrible Halloween World in letters he had painted himself. Below it, only nine visitors walked the paths. Phil wanted more. He wanted every traveler in the realm to pass under this gate at least once. But no one beyond the local roads knew his park existed. He had tried signs. He had tried word of mouth. The locals came back, but strangers never arrived. The problem was simple. His park sat at the end of roads that led nowhere new. Travelers passed on the far highways and never turned off. Phil walked to his office, a tall orange building with rounded windows and curling trim. He climbed to his desk and pulled out a blank page. For years he had kept a blank page ready for his detective stories. He had not written one in a long time. Tonight he used the page for something else. He wrote a list of every town the far highways touched. Then he crossed out the word signs. Signs stayed still. Travelers moved. To reach a moving traveler, he needed something that moved too. Phil remembered the old bus rusting behind the park. He had bought it years ago and never used it. He went out and pulled the tarp off. The thing was a wreck, but it ran. He spent the night working. He painted it in Halloween colors. He hung a banner across its side that read Groovie Goolie Halloween Road Trip. He filled the windows with grinning figures and draped fake webs over the mirrors. By dawn the bus looked alive. Phil could not drive every road alone, so he asked his park's performers to ride it. The fortune teller agreed. The ghost band in their three-cornered hats piled aboard with their instruments. The bride brought a basket of lollipops to toss from the windows. Phil climbed into the driver's seat. He drove the bus out past the local roads and onto the far highways. The band played out the windows. The bride threw candy to children in passing cars. Travelers slowed to stare at the painted monster bus. Some followed it. By dusk, a line of strange cars trailed behind, all heading toward his gate. Phil parked the bus at the entrance. Behind it, forty cars rolled in. Travelers he had never seen walked under the pumpkins for the first time. The park filled. Phil watched them crowd the paths and felt his chest tighten with pride. Then a ticket seller ran up, breathing hard. "Phil, we're out of tickets. The booth's jammed. The food trucks are empty. The rides have lines an hour long." Phil had wanted the whole realm to come. Now the realm was coming, and his small park could not hold them all.

Phil pushed through the crowd near the gate. The food trucks sat dark and empty. A woman held a crying child and pointed at a bare counter. Behind her, a dozen travelers were already turning back toward their cars. Phil heard the word he feared most. Hungry. He had drawn the whole realm to his gate, and now the realm wanted to leave on an empty stomach. He ran to the two restaurants he kept shuttered on quiet nights. One had a thatched roof and a grinning carved face above the door. The other leaned and glowed orange, bats hung from its eaves. Both could seat a crowd. But Phil had no staff inside, no plan, and a mob at his back. He needed someone who could run a packed room right now. He found Frankie Fangsworth straightening his bow tie by the haunted restaurant's doors. Frankie had seated monsters for thirty years. Phil had hired him once and rarely dared disturb him. The maitre d' ran his dining room like a king runs a court, and he knew it. "Frankie, I need both rooms open. Now. Every seat. Can you do it?" Frankie did not blink. "Of course. No one else could. Zese people are starving, oui? Leave zem to me." He clapped twice and the park performers nearest him snapped to attention. Frankie pointed one at the thatched kitchen, another at the orange one. He barked numbers and tables and orders. He did not ask Phil a single question. "But ze menu," Frankie said. "Two rooms is not enough for forty cars. We need more." Phil looked past the restaurants and saw the dark food trucks again. An idea landed. "Open the trucks too. Pull them into a court. One from every country." Frankie grinned, showing fangs. "A food court. International. Zat, I can run." Phil dragged a tall sign on a skeletal pole into the open space between the trucks. Bold letters read international food court. He fired up the first truck himself. Frankie set performers behind each window. Within minutes grills hissed and steam rose. Tacos, crepes, raclette, miso. The smell reached the gate and stopped the leaving travelers cold. The crowd turned around. They filled the two restaurants. They lined up at the trucks. Frankie moved between it all, seating, directing, boasting to anyone who listened that only he could manage such a night. The grumbling died. Children ate candied apples. Phil watched the crying child chew a crepe and go quiet. Phil had fed the crowd. The park held. But Frankie caught his sleeve near the orange doors, no longer smiling. "Phil. Ze trucks will empty by morning. We cooked everything we had. Tomorrow zese people wake up hungry, and we have nozzing left to cook." Phil looked at the full tables and the empty storerooms behind them. He had bought one evening. He had not bought the next.

Phil did not sleep. By first light he walked the food court and checked every truck. Each counter was bare. Frankie's warning was true. By morning the crowd would wake up hungry, and the park had nothing left to cook. Phil needed a fresh supply, and his park sat too far from any town to fetch one in time. He climbed into his old office, a tall building with rounded windows and an offbeat orange face. He pulled out his ledgers and his delivery records. One name kept appearing. A farm supplier a day's drive out. Too far to reach and return before the crowd stirred. Phil pressed his hands to the desk. He had drawn the whole realm here. He could not let them leave starving. Then he looked out the window at the restored bus. The battered thing wore a banner that read HORRIBLE HALLOWEEN across its side. It had carried forty cars to his gate. It could carry crates back. Phil ran down and fired up the bus himself. He drove through the dark toward the farm, the banner flapping. The supplier met him at a loading dock, half asleep and unimpressed. "We don't deliver this far," the man said. "Not for one load." Phil did not argue the distance. He opened a crate of cash from the night's receipts and set it on the dock. Then he pointed at the painted bus with its grinning pumpkins. "Forty cars followed that thing yesterday. Your whole county will hear about my park by next week. Load me now, and I'll buy from you every week after." The man eyed the bus. He eyed the cash. He waved his workers forward. They stacked the bus with crates of eggs, flour, meat, and produce until the floor groaned. Phil drove back faster than he came, racing the sun. He reached the gate as the sky turned gray. Frankie stood at the orange restaurant doors, bow tie already straight. His mouth fell open when he saw the loaded bus. "Phil. You found food?" He clapped twice and performers swarmed the bus, hauling crates toward the kitchens. Frankie laughed. "Only you would feed a mob from a parade bus." Grills hissed before the first child woke. The crowd ate. The park held a second morning. But Frankie caught Phil's sleeve again, holding a scrap of paper. "I counted heads this morning. Phil, zey are not leaving. Word spread. More cars came in ze night." He pointed past the food court to the gate. A fresh line of travelers stretched down the road, longer than the first. "We fed yesterday's crowd. Today's crowd is twice as big, and our new supply is already half gone." Phil looked at the swelling line and the emptying crates. He had solved one morning. He had made the park too popular to feed.