“Maria?” Levi reached for her, concerned. “Are you okay?”
Levi’s voice sounded far away, as if he were speaking from the other side of a long tunnel. Maria tried to answer him but had trouble forming the words. She felt weak and her senses seemed deadened. She bowed her head, grasping for something to hold on to. Her hand felt heavy—made of lead. It suddenly seemed very hot and stifling inside the car, yet she was shivering.
“N-no… I…”
Then her eyes rolled in their sockets and she fainted.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ken went through the masks and costumes, making sure everything he’d ordered was there. He ticked them off in his head. Werewolf. Gorilla. Boar with tusks. Witch. Evil clown. Phantom of the Opera. Both Boris Karloff’s and Robert DeNiro’s versions of the Frankenstein monster. A leering jack-o’-lantern. A gargoyle. Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Jason Voorhees. Freddy Krueger. Pinhead. A few zombies, including Bub from George Romero’s Day of the Dead. Several different mutants and aliens. Leatherface. The Fly. A man with one latex eyeball hanging down his cheek. Another man with a hard foam axe jutting from his latex head. And Ken’s personal favorites, masks of veteran horror actors Bruce Campbell and Michael Berryman, cast from molds of their faces. Two of his volunteers were going to dress like the actors’ characters in Army of Darkness and the original version of The Hills Have Eyes. For the former, they’d even built an attraction that looked like the inside of the windmill from the movie. Hopefully, the attendees would recognize it. In any case, these masks would cap the ensembles off perfectly. Satisfied with the results, Ken then double-checked the costumes and found they were all in order, as well.
“All set?” asked the clerk, a college-aged kid who still hadn’t outgrown the curse of teenage acne.
“Yeah,” Ken said. “I think we’re good to go.”
“Sweet. I’m glad you picked these up early. We’ll be busy tonight.”
“Because of Halloween?”
“You got that right. We make nine months of rent during the month of October.”
At the counter, Ken grabbed a few compact discs of Halloween music and added them to the pile. He already had dozens of sound effect and ambience recordings, but a few more wouldn’t hurt.
“Want to add a fog machine, Mr. Ripple? I can give you a discount since you bought so much.”
“That’s okay. To be honest, the ones you guys have here are too small for my needs. The Ghost Walk has a creek that flows through one part of it. We’re gonna use dry ice. Drop it in the creek and place buckets of it at intervals along the trail. According to some haunt enthusiasts I’ve talked to online, once it starts evaporating, the dry ice should have the same effect,”
As he handed the salesclerk his credit card, Ken’s cell phone rang, playing the main orchestral theme from Young Guns II. While the clerk rang up his charges, Ken glanced at the phone and saw it was Terry calling.
“Hey,” he answered. “What’s up?”
“The police were here.”
“W-what? Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Rhonda and Sam. The kids from the high school? Turns out they never went home last night. Their parents called it in. Last time anybody saw them was here, at the Ghost Walk.”
“Yeah,” Ken agreed. “I saw Rhonda yesterday evening, before Maria and Rudy showed up.”
“I told the cops that. They want to talk to you about it when you get a chance.”
Ken twitched. “Why? They…they don’t think I had something to do with it, do they?”
The clerk looked up from the register. Ken turned his back on him.
“No,” Terry said. “At least, I don’t think so. They found Sam’s car in Lancaster this morning, parked at a supermarket in Columbia. That’s all they’d tell me. Don’t know if they ran off together, or had a fight, or what. I wouldn’t worry about the cops thinking we’re involved. You know how kids are. Remember the shit we used to get up to?”
“Yeah.”
“The cop left a business card for you and wrote his cell phone number down on the back. I told him you’d be out running around most of the day but would get back to him as soon as you could. I also gave him two free passes. Hope that’s okay? He seemed really into the Ghost Walk.”
“Sure,” Ken said. “That’s fine. I’m finishing up at the costume shop right now. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Sounds good,” Terry said. “I just figured you’d want to know right away.”
“You did the right thing. Are the others saying anything?”
“The cop talked to Cecil, Tom, Russ and Tina. Jorge ain’t back yet with the lime. I walked out here to the field so I could call. You know how bad cell coverage is in the woods.”
“Okay. Hold down the fort. I’ll be there soon. And Terry?”
“Yeah?”
“Let Cecil and the others know that I’d appreciate it if they didn’t go blabbing about this. We don’t need that kind of publicity, and it’s not going to help the cops find them.”
“Agreed.”
Finished, Ken disconnected the call and stuffed the cell phone back in his pocket. Then he turned back to the clerk, who was holding out the store copy of his receipt and a pen for him to sign it with.
“Everything okay?” the clerk asked.
Ken nodded. “Fine. Just one of those days, you know?”
“Tell me about it. Seems like I’m having one of those lives.”
Ken signed the receipt. “Ever get the feeling something bad is coming? You don’t know what, but you can feel it—looming like a thunderstorm?”
The clerk stared at him. “No, can’t say that I ever have.”
“Oh.” Ken shrugged. “Must be me, then.”
“I’ll give you a hand loading up,” the clerk offered. “And then you can be on your way. Bet you’re excited! Tomorrow’s the big day.”
“Thanks,” Ken said. Then he muttered under his breath, “It’s just getting more exciting all the time.”
“Time to piss,” Cecil Smeltzer announced.
“Thanks for sharing,” Tom McNally said. “Want me to hold it for you?”
“No need. This ain’t no union job and we don’t work for the state road crew. Doesn’t take two men to hold my pecker. It still stands up every time. Unlike you younger guys with your Viagra.”
“You get a hard-on when you piss? Maybe you’d better see a doctor about that.”
“No, sir.” Cecil frowned. “I don’t guess I will. You get to be my age, any visit to the doctor involves him putting his finger in your ass.”
The sound of their laughter filled the forest.
“I’m gonna go back to the field,” Tom said. “Check in with Terry. See how he made out with that cop. You want anything from the cooler?”
Cecil shook his head. “No, I’m good. I drink anything else, I’ll just have to piss again.”
As Tom strode away, he called over his shoulder, “Careful you don’t cut your dick off with that machete while you’re pissing!”
“Young people,” Cecil muttered. “No respect for age or beauty.”
After Tom was gone, Cecil drove the blade of his machete deep into a rotting tree stump. Splinters of dry wood fell to the ground around the stump’s base. When he let go of the handle, the machete was still vibrating from the force he’d put behind the blow. He grinned, flashing his dentures and feeling happy. At his age, he was lucky if he could lift the machete most days, let alone swing it hard.