SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3)

by Gleaves, Richard

  Joey stumbled backward and landed on his ass, clutching the black costume and gaping up at the Monster that had been inside it.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!

  The wind kicked up again, flinging dead leaves through the glare of the overhead lights. The Horseman brandished his sword in one hand and raised the severed head of the coach in the other. The head caught on fire, its skin blackening, sending up a tendril of wicked purple smoke. Then with a hip-hip and a clippety-clop… the massacre began.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Sudden Death”

  DANGER! HELP! RUN! NOW!

  “Joey,” blurted Jason, stepping away from the window where he’d been keeping watch. His eyes met his own in the round glass. He turned away from his porthole, which faced the lighthouse landing, and hurried to the one facing the GM property. Beyond the concrete wastes lay the town, nestled on the hillside.

  Joey’s up there. Joey’s in danger… in danger at… the high school.

  Jason felt compelled to run, to go, to rescue his friend. He’d felt this alarm only twice before: on the night his grandmother had died and… on the night the Horseman had chased him to the bridge. He had felt that Kate was in danger that night. Had she… Had she survived it? He’d felt nothing since. No fear for her. Was that good or bad? Did it mean she was safe, or did it mean she had died?

  At least he knew that Joey was still alive, even if he was in trouble. And he knew something else. Something the psychic alarm had proved. Joey was his best friend, and Jason loved him.

  They were brothers.

  “Run, Joey,” Jason whispered, his eyes on the distant hills. “Whatever it is, just run.”

  “What?” said Dr. Tamper, somewhere in the pitch blackness of the porthole room.

  Jason hesitated. He couldn’t tell Tamper what he’d felt—the psychic alarm, his Pyncheon heritage.

  “What are you seeing?” said Tamper.

  “Nothing. I—” But Jason did see something. A car had pulled onto the GM land, lights off, maneuvering between potholes and steel stubble. “I think he’s here.”

  Tamper came to his shoulder and they watched together. The car slowed and parked behind a wall of solar panels. Someone got out. A man in a ski mask approached the lighthouse.

  “That’s him,” Tamper whispered. “Sure you’re up for this? We could wait until you’re more—”

  “He’ll find out I’m awake eventually. We might not get another chance to surprise him.” He brandished his weapon—a metal bar, one of the two legs they’d snapped off the cot. “Hit him hard, knock him out, or else…” He’ll set us on fire. “… or else he’ll shoot us.”

  “Don’t worry. I know all the best bones to break.” Tamper slipped his own identical weapon into the back of his pants, hiding it with his shirt. He laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “If you see a chance to run, don’t stop for me.”

  Jason met the doctor’s eye. “Same to you.”

  They stood at the porthole and watched the masked figure below as he unlocked the fencing and crossed the lighthouse bridge. They moved in unison to the next porthole. The man turned on the landing and climbed the gangplank. He disappeared beneath their feet, hidden by the black gables that encircled the first floor.

  The sound of a metal lock clanged through the lighthouse. The door on the first floor had opened.

  “It’s now or never,” Tamper said. “Let’s go.”

  Jason climbed into his cot, kept level by concealed boxes underneath. He lay in silence as Tamper left the room. He gripped his weapon in his right hand, keeping it hidden at his side under the covers. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

  One swing. That’s all he could hope for. One swing.

  He would have to make it count.

  Jennifer the waitress counted out change in the concession tent, listening to the crowd scream its heads off.

  Must be a good game, she thought.

  The Halloween theme had stopped playing. Damn. She’d wanted to see the mascot ride. She hated to miss it. But she was so darn busy with all these kids. A crowd of preteens surrounded the tent, waving money, demanding cookies and brownies and corn dogs and Cokes. Always the way, wasn’t it? Lazy parents sit on their butts back on the risers and send their little elves to fetch the halftime grub.

  She passed a pizza slice to a freckle-faced kid of eleven. “Two bucks fifty, kiddo.”

  “I only have two dollars.” The kid held up his money, looking glum.

  “Okay, have one bite of it.”

  The kid bit the tip off the slice, just up to the first pepperoni, savoring the greasy mouthful, since he wouldn’t get another.

  Jennifer smiled. “Shoot! It’s been bit now. Can’t charge full price, can I? Two bucks even.” She took the kid’s money and mussed his hair. “Who’s next?”

  The screams of the crowd intensified. The kids frowned, rubbernecking. She straightened and turned. What the heck was going on?

  A knot of people came rushing past. A woman threw her arms around the pizza boy, hard, as if giving him a Heimlich, and rushed him away so fast that he dropped his slice and his legs went horizontal. At least two dozen women and kids ran past, but the gush of people stopped as quickly as it had begun, as if the hose had been kinked. Jennifer left the concession tent and approached the field. Her jaw dropped.

  Little garter-snake tendrils writhed up out of the ground, weaving through the chain link, growing thicker, tangling with each other. They’d already consumed the entire southern gate, cutting off the escaping crowd. People were running along the fence, climbing it, trying to stay ahead of the spreading kudzu. The black vines claimed all the chain link in view and the barrier kept growing, getting taller. A man in red pushed halfway through, but the vines caught him ’round the waist and he screamed, stuck half in and half out. Jennifer grabbed his wrists, pulled with all her might, and yanked him through. He stumbled to the ground, grabbed the hanging hem of a concession booth tablecloth, and pulled it over himself, covering the sidewalk with white napkins, plastic knives, and fallen ketchup packets.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jennifer barked.

  The man went into a fetal position, pointing hysterically at the chest of a newcomer—a girl from the merchandise stand who wore a red team sweatshirt. SLEEPY HOLLOW HORSEMEN: Follow the Hollow! He was pointing at the logo—at the logo of—

  “It’s him! It’s him! It’s him!” the man cried.

  Jennifer strode up to the vine-tangled barrier and peered through the gap where she’d pulled the man through. It was already closing in, like a tightening noose. But she could see…

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, as the figure rode past. “It is him.”

  “Who?” said the merchandise girl.

  The noose closed entirely and Jennifer backed away, trembling. Ketchup packets broke beneath her shoes, spattering the bronze horseshoe on that square of sidewalk.

  “It’s the Headless Horseman.”

  The Horseman attacked the ref first. He ignored Joey, still in the grass gawking, spun the horse, and threw the head of Coach Konat, striking the back of the ref’s skull. The man went down, the whistle still in his mouth, letting out a shrill swan song as he landed in the dirt. He would be no Founder, though; the Horseman rode past and casually decapitated him with the sword. He rose in his stirrups, a hatchet flew into his free hand, and he galloped straight into the melee, swinging left and right, taking down Ossining players, one by one.

  The head of the ref bounced and bounced and bounced, like a bad fumble, and came to rest between Joey’s splayed legs. One eye was open, and the whistle still hung between the lips.

  Joey had seen lots of dead people in his time. Gravediggers see all types. Old people mostly, but young people too. At their viewings, in their coffins. Just another glorious day in the Dismal Trade. But all the dead Joey had ever seen had come to him embalmed and made up, hair perfect, lips red, in suits and ties and Sunday dresses. This… head… came to him
with fresh blood and blades of grass clinging to its cheeks. He thought crazily that he should dig a hole for it. Dig a hole. Dig a hole. Dig a hole. Yeah. So he wouldn’t have to see it. Or be seen by it. His eyes welled up and he threw the fallen Horseman costume over the thing, fighting his tears.

  He wiped his eyes and recovered his senses. He could hardly tell what was happening, the chaos was so bad. Why were so many people still here? Didn’t they know to run? He rose, trembling, and searched for Zef. He needed Zef. Where was Zef?

  Zef had fallen on the big chalk “30.” The red-suited player pursuing him had caught an ankle and was dragging him away. Joey took off running and, on reflex, sent a spout of dirt up to knock Zef’s attacker down. Someone screamed behind him and he whirled. A wall of men came running in his direction, fleeing the Horseman. Joey sent up another spout of dirt, protecting himself. The men spun, confused, but kept running, breaking to either side as they passed. Something struck Joey hard and he fell to the ground.

  Zef had tackled him. “Don’t use your Gift!”

  Joey blinked, realizing what he’d done. “I didn’t mean to! Did anyone see?”

  “I don’t know! Let’s get out of here.” They rose, unsteadily, amid chaos. Zef pointed. “Oh my God.”

  Most of the crowd should have been able to escape the scene, even through the bottleneck of the south gate. But very few had. A wall of vines had risen, in a great black tangle, all around the field. An impenetrable mass, ten feet high, full of thorns and clutching tendrils. Finding no exit, people had begun running along the perimeter, searching for a gap in the inexplicable barrier. Their screaming raised a haze of exhalations that rose and spread like smoke from a growing wildfire. A man tried to climb the wall, but a vine caught his leg and threw him back down hard. He lay motionless in the dust.

  Joey tugged Zef’s sleeve, and mumbled, dumbly, “Why is there… killer shrubbery?”

  Zef looked thunderstruck. “Magic is real. Magic is real. Magic is real. Magic is real.”

  “I know it’s real!” Joey spread his hands. “But who’s doing the magic?”

  Agathe stood on the dark rooftop of Sleepy Hollow High, among the spinning air vents, unseen by the crowd below. She held Mother Hulda’s little black grimoire in hand, reading spells from it. She could feel the energies rising within her, magic she’d collected in the realm of the dead, as a traveler brings home souvenirs. She’d never been this strong in life, had she? The pulse of her magic made her feel invincible. But she could be even stronger. She would be. She would be a necromancer at last.

  The fools below screamed and ran and searched for escape. They would find none. She whispered spells, lingering upon each ancient syllable as if tasting a rare delicacy, and watched with satisfaction as her entanglements sprouted thorns and brambles and briar, as the wall she’d conjured circled the field and gathered the sheep. That’s what they were. Sheep to slaughter. Helpless and afraid… bleeding and bleating.

  Sally Blatt pushed her whole torso between the risers and brushed her trombone with her fingertips. She’d almost caught hold of it. It lay among dead leaves and Oreo wrappers under the stands. She closed her eyes, strained, and her hand closed on the instrument. But something caught hold of her. Fingers of cold dead leaf wrapped around her forearm, pulling her in. She waved to the screaming crowd with her free hand, shouting “Heeeeeeeeelp!” endlessly, for she had excellent breath control. But no one was listening. With a great lurch, whatever music critic lurked beneath the stands pulled her in through the gap, scraping her bloody, and stuck a mute in her, cutting her note dead.

  The Horseman targeted one of the Ossining dads and galloped after him. He threw his hatchet, and the man fell with a befuddled expression. The hatchet flew back to the Monster’s hand, whipping blood into the air.

  “What do we do?” gasped Joey, clinging to Zef.

  “We get off the field! Go.”

  They took off, as fast as they could, running for the sidelines. Joey noticed Zef’s limp. “Are you bleeding?”

  “He cut my leg. But it’s fine.”

  “You’re hurt!”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Joey balled his fists, turning back. “I’m going to sinkhole his ass.”

  “No,” said Zef.

  “I am! He hurt you. Like he hurt Jason! Hic!”

  “Was that a hiccup?”

  “Of course (hic!) not.”

  “You can’t use your Gift. Look!” Zef pointed. Even crouching in terror, some kids still had their phones raised, recording the massacre, as if unwilling to bear the spectacle of carnage unless they had “likes” to look forward to. “You’d curse the whole town.”

  “Why are those idiots filming?” Joey said, but he remembered his own foolishness last Halloween—trying to get a photo of the Horseman—and bit his tongue.

  He and Zef made for the perimeter and found a patch of shadow. They turned and gaped at the scene.

  One of the possessed Horsemen caught an Ossining boy’s arm and swung him onto the forty-yard line, directly into the Horseman’s path. The Horseman ripped the kid’s helmet off, set it on fire, and did a pump fake. The boy winced, crouching with his hands over his head. The Horseman let out a roar of laughter, fogging the air like a hot furnace, and threw the flaming helmet at the crowd instead, striking a woman in the temple. She fell, and the crowd shot away, like ripples radiating outward from where the Horseman had struck, zigzagging from one side of the field to the other, as if expecting to find some escape route they’d overlooked before. The screams were endless and deafening and in surround sound. The Horsemen players kicked the Ossining kid until he stopped moving then circled their master, facing outward like his palace guards. Most had lost helmets. Some had lost teeth. All were blood-spattered, vacant-faced, and merciless. They darted out, selecting victims, dragging them onto the field to join the growing pile of corpses.

  “Now what?” said Joey.

  “I want you to go,” said Zef.

  “Go where?”

  “Get up top and hide in the announcer’s booth.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’ll be safe.” Zef squeezed Joey’s hand. “He only cut me because he couldn’t kill me! He said so!”

  “Who?”

  “I think—Eddie Martinez.”

  “Holy shit.” Joey whirled. “That’s Eddie?”

  The Horseman took off at full gallop. His minions held a fat man in an Ossining jacket. He put a sword right through the black ‘O’ and pulled it out bloody. The body joined the others on the pile. Joey thought maybe ten or eleven corpses lay there so far, plus a dozen or so injured around the field. No little kids, thank God. Not yet, anyway.

  “Okay.” Zef took Joey by the shoulders. “I have an idea. But I can’t help these people if I’m worried about you! I need you out of danger.” He tapped his temple. “You’ve got my alarm bell going crazy!”

  “Take an aspirin. I’m not going.”

  A pair of men, blood-streaked and terrified, rushed past and began yanking at the wall of vines, scratching their arms and getting nowhere. A tendril shot out and wrapped itself around the first man’s throat. Zef and Joey grabbed the vine and snapped it, freeing him, but the second man got pulled in. His screaming became strangulation and then silence. The man they’d saved ran on without a word of thanks. Joey dropped the piece of wriggling vine and stomped on it.

  “Go!” said Zef, his eyes bright. “Please? I need you safe. I’m scared enough already.”

  “Tell me your plan first.”

  “We need an exit.” Zef pointed. In darkness at the northern end of the field sat the flatbed homecoming float. “I can ram the wall.”

  “How? You don’t have keys.”

  “Coach Konat drove the Homecoming Court. I know where his body is.”

  “We’ll go together.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. How are you going to ram the shrubbery with all these people zipping around? They have to know
to make a space or you’ll drive right through ’em.”

  Zef’s heavy eyebrows came together. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Which is why I’m going… to the announcer’s booth.”

  Zef grinned. “You’re a genius.”

  “I know. (Hic!)”

  “Why are you hiccupping?”

  “It happens when I’m (hic!) scared.”

  “Don’t be scared. Be safe.”

  “I will. And you stop…”

  “What?”

  “Stop acting like… I’m the girl.”

  Zef kissed Joey’s cheek. “Who could possibly think that?”

  Joey frowned. “Yeah, well, (hic) screw you too, Van Brunt.” He turned and ran for the stands.

  Jason lay in darkness, eyes shut tight, gripping his weapon under the blanket and making his desperate incantation.

  This had better work. This had better work. This had better work. This had better work.

  “What wrong?” snapped a husky male voice, somewhere below on the lighthouse stairs. Jason concentrated on the voice. It was possibly Hadewych, but Jason couldn’t be a hundred percent certain. It did have a familiar, ineffable… asshole quality.

  Tamper’s voice was panicky and sharp. “Oh, thank God you’re here! Thank God! Come up, quick!”

  “Why?”

  “Open the door and come up. Please! He’s convulsing!”

  Convulsing? Jason’s mind raced. We didn’t discuss any convulsing.

  “Come on! He’s going to swallow his tongue and choke to death. Help me hold him down. You’ve got to hurry! Please!” Tamper pounded on metal and the whole lighthouse echoed with the sound. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Jason felt a jolt of dread he couldn’t explain. THUMP! THUMP!