“After the last twenty-four hours?” Maria said. “Yeah, maybe I am.”
Adam turned pale. “We’re all going to die.”
“Not yet,” Levi said. “But perhaps before the night is through…”
The darkness began to spread beyond the confines of the hollow, creeping over the burned-out wasteland and reaching for the surrounding forest.
The crowd was getting restless.
They’d descended upon the midway, consuming cotton candy, funnel cakes, barbeque sandwiches, and candied apples. They spent money at the gaming booths, popping balloons with darts and tossing horse shoes and throwing soft balls at the elected officials in the dunk tank. They cooed over the baby animals in the petting zoo. They got free pens at the fire department’s booth, and free pamphlets from the Methodists’ table, and free bumper stickers from a congressional candidate stumping for votes. They stopped by the Baptists’ table, where a sign promised that they could find out if they were going to Heaven by answering three easy questions. They promised the representatives at the SPCA booth that they would spay and neuter their animals. They pointed at some of the people in costumes who walked amongst the crowd. But then, after all of these distractions, they purchased their tickets and got in line for the Ghost Walk. As the sky grew darker and the line grew longer, they milled about restlessly.
Ken watched them with growing unease. Some of the teenagers, and even a few adults, were starting to make trouble—roughhousing and annoying those around them. One man had already caused a scene, reacting belligerently when security pulled him out of line for being visibly intoxicated.
The volunteers were also growing impatient. The ladies running the bake sale weren’t doing much business because attendees didn’t want to carry a shoofly pie through the Ghost Walk with them. Therefore, customers were avoiding the stand, promising to come back on their way out. The folks selling tickets and policing the lines were dealing with a steadily growing mob. Tempers began to flare.
Ken hurried over to the ticket stand and pulled the person in charge, Sammi Horton, aside. She seemed frazzled and tired.
“Have you been in contact with the trail?” Ken asked.
“Yes. They want to know what the holdup is. They say it’s dark enough down there now.”
Ken checked his watch and the sky. “Really? The sun is still setting.”
Sammi shrugged. “That’s what they said.”
“Well, I wish someone had reported that to me. Where’s Terry at?”
“Haven’t seen him, Ken.”
“Shit.”
Ken stomped across the field and told the tractor and wagon teams to get ready. Then he returned to the head of the line, stepped over the stanchion, and advised his security volunteers to go ahead and open. He reminded them to let people go through in groups of twelve, with five-minute breaks between each group. Then he turned on his bullhorn and repeated the information to the people in line.
And then it was time. The sun disappeared below the horizon.
The Ghost Walk—Ken Ripple’s pride and joy, the project he’d worked on for over a year, the thing that had consumed his every waking moment, his testimony to his wife—was open for business.
His fears and misgivings vanished, along with his concerns for Terry and everything else—washed away by a tremendous swelling of pride.
The first group boarded the hay wagon. The tractor chugged forward, transporting them to the haunted attraction’s entrance. They reached it about the same time the second group boarded their wagon and set forth. The first group entered the woods.
Ken beamed. Blinking away tears, he watched them disappear into the shadows and waited for the screams to start.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The O’Bannon family—Liam, Connie, and their sons, Connor and Alex—had been looking forward to the Ghost Walk for the last two weeks, ever since they’d heard an ad for it on the radio. At ten and thirteen, respectively, both Connor and Alex were into scary video games and movies. Liam had been the same way as a boy, except that he’d been into horror comic books and movies. He’d never outgrown that infatuation, and he hoped his sons never would either. Connie wasn’t a fan of anything scary—be it comics, video games, movies, or books. She preferred the Lifetime Channel and A&E, and books by Nora Roberts and Nicholas Sparks. The closest she came to horror was the occasional Sherrilyn Kenyon novel. But she was a big fan of her family spending time together, and if this was what it took, then that was okay.
Liam had taken the afternoon off work so that they could arrive early. After sitting in the unexpected traffic jam and finally finding a parking spot, they’d made a beeline for the ticket booth, spying a chance to be among the first in line. While everyone else stopped on the midway, Liam purchased four tickets and they took their places, just inches from the stanchion—with nobody waiting ahead of them. While Liam and the boys held the spot, Connie had gone to a nearby stand and got them slices of pizza and cups of soda. Then they waited patiently for the fun to begin.
The hayride had been fun, if a little too short. So far, it had been Connie’s favorite part of the evening. Liam had put his arm around her when they sat down on a bale. She’d snuggled up against him. He was warm and the evening was chilly. She’d closed her eyes and smiled, remembering how it had been before the boys. Connor and Alex had bounced up and down impatiently, anxious to reach the trail.
And when they did, Connie’s fun ended and the boys’ and Liam’s began. They’d laughed at the various scenic locations along the path—the pterodactyl’s nest, a guillotine, and a reproduction of a windmill from some horror movie that the three of them recognized and Connie didn’t. They’d elbowed each other and shouted in excitement at each stop while Connie recoiled in disgust. Worse was the people in costumes who hid along the trail at random intervals. Some of the costumed monsters jumped out in front of them. Others waited until the O’Bannons had moved past. A man with a chainsaw and a face like a leather sack had chased her twenty yards up the trail while Liam and the boys howled. Somehow, the people hiding along the path seemed to know she was an easy target. Sometimes they acted alone and a few times they had teamed up, trapping the family between them. During one prolonged period of this, Connie had been trapped between Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. She screamed while her husband and children laughed. When it was over, Connie had laughed with them.
It was a good evening.
They just couldn’t believe how dark it had gotten already—so early in the evening.
The O’Bannon family, for the most part, loved monsters and ghosts.
But it was their real-life ghosts that threatened to tear them apart.
When Connie was pregnant with Alex, Liam had cheated on her with a temporary worker from his office. The girl, Tasha, had left two weeks later, assigned to the next job. She’d e-mailed him once since then, to tell him she was pregnant and getting an abortion. He’d responded, but Tasha hadn’t answered. He’d never seen her again—but the guilt remained. Both for what he’d done to Connie and what he’d done to Tasha.
During her final year of college, Connie had been unfortunately saddled with a manic-depressive roommate named Celeste. While Connie enjoyed all that her final year had to offer, Celeste usually sat in the room with the lights turned off, listening to Depeche Mode—or, as Connie called them Depressed Mood—and getting high. Once a week, Celeste would threaten to kill herself, but after a half-dozen false alarms, Connie and her friends chalked it up to cries for attention, and ignored her further threats to do the same. Until the night when Celeste did it. Connie had been going to a party. Celeste had begged her to stay and talk. Said she was feeling low. Connie had left anyway, telling Celeste to just get some sleep. Instead, Celeste had sliced her wrists open, straight down, palm to elbow. She’d bled out on the bathroom floor, her blood congealing on the tiles before anyone found her. Connie had never forgiven herself for not staying. For not listening. For not being a friend.