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

by Gleaves, Richard

  The air felt nippy and full of Halloween. A little wintry “brr,” promising ghosts and bringing that dead-leaf-dancing-behind-the-schoolbus feeling. It was electric, as if the storm had charged the earth and water with some sizzling power, unpredictable and deadly. The gas station was dark and dead. The pumps weren’t running, apparently. People were bickering out front, lining up for bottled water and batteries, pissed off because their debit cards wouldn’t work.

  “Do you see Jason?” asked Joey.

  “No,” said Zef.

  They walked back up Broadway to get a look at the millpond. They bounded diagonally across the road, and on the Horseman Bridge they could see the whole Philipsburg site through the gap in the trees. The waters of the millpond had surged, higher than Joey had ever seen them before, expanding like a black heart between contractions. The rush of the Pocantico battered the stone embankments below their feet, pouring from the tunnel beneath the bridge, chewing the old ivy and swallowing it. The storm had bent a few trees toward the pond, and in the blustery afternoon air, every autumn leaf unclaimed by the blight had stripped itself from the branches to whirl over the water, as if some low-pressure zone had formed there. They caught in devil-dervishes and danced. It looked if the Halloween leaf-horse was trying to manifest over the millpond but couldn’t. Not yet, at least.

  “What the hell are they doing?” said Zef.

  At least a hundred men swarmed the grounds of the old Dutch farm, busy as ants repairing a stomped hill. They wore hardhats and work gloves and overalls. Some rolled cable, some mounted light fixtures. One dropped plywood in front of a wagon mired in mud. It contained a faux-marble angel and bolts of black and orange bunting.

  “This isn’t good,” whispered Joey.

  “Come on.”

  They left the bridge, making for the manor’s parking lot. Downed tree branches clawed the air, snatching at their passing legs. The sewer grates slurped and hissed, guzzling runoff. A Pepsi can clattered past, rolling in the gutter. Arcane symbols and graffiti defaced the picket fence—the language of the grimoires. The branches above bristled with laughing crows.

  In the parking lot, they discovered the metal framework of a party tent, a DJ booth under construction, gas generators, folding tables, stacks of Dixie cups and paper plates, and immense floodlights suited for an air terminal runway. Men shouted to each other, raising an orange and black canopy, fighting the wind, pulling rope, hammering spikes, dropping cinderblocks to brace the frame. A half dozen port-a-johns loomed on a flatbed truck, like enormous blue Fudgesicle molds.

  “I thought they canceled Horseman’s Hollow,” said Zef, leaning over the fence.

  “They did. All us actors got emails. After the massacre it wasn’t cool.”

  “So what’s this?” Zef gaped up at a big orange sign. “Oh my God.”

  “What?”

  Zef raised a finger. “It’s the Great Pumpkin Blaze, Charlie Brown.”

  “The what?” Joey went to Zef’s side and read the sign.

  ONE NIGHT ONLY

  Historic Hudson Valley

  presents

  THE GREAT JACK-O’-LANTERN BLAZE

  All proceeds to benefit the victims of

  The Homecoming Tragedy

  “No no no no no,” said Joey.

  “I thought they did the Blaze up in Croton!”

  “They do! This is bad, Zef. Really bad.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t throw up if you don’t throw up.”

  “I might throw up.”

  “We can’t both throw up! What are we going to do?”

  Joey had been to the Blaze many times. The event occurred every autumn at Van Cortland Manor up in Croton. It was the Hollow’s less-scary sister act to the north. The Blaze was no haunted house, though it had plenty of creepy atmosphere, with piped-in music and mood lighting. It was an artistic explosion of jack-o’-lantern art, a symphony of carvery, a dazzling display of every possible face, figure, or design one could cut, spoon, saw, drill, gouge, or slice into pumpkin-flesh. Not just heads either, but wired-up displays: fifteen pumpkins carved into a beehive, twenty on a frame to form a T. rex. Pumpkin spider webs and pumpkin zombies and pumpkin ghosts…

  Joey and Zef looked at each other. Joey didn’t need telepathy to know what his boyfriend was thinking. If Agathe was coming tonight, she’d find the millpond brimming with more than just magic water. The place would be overflowing with innocent Tarrytowners, and her Horseman would have unlimited ammunition.

  “Holy shit,” they said, as one.

  The crows in the blighted trees were laughing again, stamping their feet expectantly. Joey took Zef’s hand as they crossed the lot, gaping at the chaotic endeavors. A chain snapped tight, raising a heavy chandelier of pumpkin heads to dangle inside the tent. A woman pushed by, her arms full of lanterns and rope. A truck disgorged boxes and boxes of pumpkin pies. The boys whirled, startled by the gunshot of a hammer.

  They circled the gift shop, pushed through a small wooden gate, and stepped onto the rickety bridge that topped the milldam. Snakes of bright green cabling ran up and down the walkway, which shook with the pulse of water sluicing through its gates, roaring and crashing and turning the great millwheel. Workmen bent at the rail, braced against the blustery wind, securing decorative pumpkins, a row of grinning demonic faces like gargoyles gazing over the pond.

  Joey and Zef hurried over and, on the opposite shore, found various pieces of the Horseman’s Hollow set, repurposed for the event. Ichabod’s Schoolhouse, the Throne of Satan, a funeral carriage bunted with black crepe. The crews had their ladders out, twisting wire through the branches like macramé plant holders for the coming pumpkins. Every tree was a hanging tree now.

  Joey recognized Ford Matthews, the Hollow’s event director, and ran up to him. The man had close-cropped blond hair, stylish eyeglasses, and carried an armful of lighting gels in metal frames, all the colors mixing together into an orange-green blob.

  “Mr. Matthews!”

  The man stopped. “Yeah? What’s up?”

  “Joey Osorio? From the Hollow, sir? I was a redcoat zombie, sir?” Joey knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t help it. “Two callbacks? I did a scene from The Miracle Worker?”

  “Sure. I remember. You were very… persistent.”

  “Thank you, sir. I try to be. Um—”

  “But we don’t need actors for this, sorry.”

  “I’m not here to act. You can’t do the Blaze! I’m sorry but you have to cancel it, sir!”

  “What? Slow down. What do you mean I can’t—”

  Matthews froze, staring blankly. Joey thought for a second that the man was having a stroke, but no—Zef was responsible. Zef’s brows knit as he fought to keep Matthews under psychic control.

  “What are you going to say to him?” Zef whispered.

  “The truth?”

  “He won’t believe you. And we can’t reveal our Gifts.”

  “I know! But we have to stop this. I’ll tell him there’s a…”

  “A what? A terrorist attack? He’ll call the cops. We’ll end up at the station. Then how can we help anybody?”

  “Can’t you… give him a command? Force him?”

  “Maybe, but I can’t voodoo everybody here. I think we should wait for Jason and—shit, I’m losing him.”

  Matthews blinked. “—do the Blaze? Why the hell would we cancel?”

  Joey’s mind raced, trying to think of something—anything—that might sound plausible. “It just seems… dangerous, sir. The Horseman Killer and all.”

  “Oh, that. Didn’t you hear?” Matthews pushed his glasses up his nose. “They caught the guy. It was Fireman Mike. Can you believe it?”

  “What if they’re wrong?” said Zef. “What if he’s not the real killer?”

  “What is this? You kids hear something?”

  Joey squirmed. “No, but… with all the things going on—”

  “Listen to me,” Matthews snapped, growing impatie
nt. “You know how much work I’ve got to do? We almost had to cancel because of the rain.” He pointed to the millwheel spinning with the current. “I practically drowned trying to stop my sets from washing away. So I don’t have time for games. I’ve got a hundred carvers at work, and a gazillion pumpkins to set up. Now, if you know something, spit it out.”

  Joey glanced at Zef, wracking his brains for an answer. “We’ve just got… a bad feeling.”

  “A real bad feeling,” said Zef, somewhat unhelpfully.

  “You kids were at homecoming, weren’t you?” The boys nodded and Matthews softened. “I get it. We’ve all been through a lot. Don’t be paranoid. Tonight will be great. We’ve got plenty of security. Here.” He shifted the lighting gels and produced a couple of passes from his shirt pocket. “Just relax and have fun. It’ll be a fantastic Blaze. No streetlights to compete with, and without electricity there’s nothing else to do, right? The whole town’ll be here! Don’t worry so much.”

  He pushed his glasses up his nose again and hurried away, leaving Joey and Zef with Blaze tickets in hand, more worried than ever.

  They watched as electricians mounted floodlights beneath Satan’s Throne. They followed a line of unlit lanterns and watched the workmen strip the old Dutch barn, transforming it into a tunnel of pumpkins, filling bins with the unneeded shovels and pitchforks and scythes. They watched the raising of Ichabod’s Schoolhouse and jack-o’-lantern totem poles, ten faces tall. The pumpkin spider web went up, inside the small gated garden once tended by the African slaves. The pumpkin T. rex went up, menacing a pumpkin brontosaurus that towered against the sky.

  They turned away, feeling helpless, and followed a path downhill, skirting six-foot-high cardboard bins of pumpkins. Cheap pumpkins. Pumpkins too green for the grocer, too lopsided or browned for pies, but perfect for carving.

  The wind turned, bringing the aroma of pumpkin guts. Zef squeezed Joey’s hand, painfully. They stopped to stand on the hillside, gazing down the slope with identical expressions of horror.

  Endless tables dotted the northern slabs of the GM land. Spreads of newspaper fluttered in the wind, weighted by goopy orange mounds. Carvers bent to their work. Old women and young men and girls. Happy little goblins, glad to be busy, giddy with holiday spirit. Every hand held a knife. Big knives, little knives, delicate scrapers and serrated saws, cutting into orange flesh, slicing orange cheeks, stabbing out orange eyes, opening orange throats, carving up clowns and cartoon characters and flowers and skulls, scratching at translucent coffin lids and the arched backs of cat silhouettes. Orange faces collected on the concrete, in ranks and rows like a gathering army, grinning and grinning and grinning and grinning. Some simple and childishly crude. Others complex, baroque and byzantine. Smiley faces and Van Gogh paintings and complex Celtic weaves. Lizards and bullfrogs and snails. Face after face, cheerful and angry and vicious and cutie-pie. Stems for noses, curling comically. Heart-shaped pupils and jagged grins. Cross-eyed jokesters and buck-toothed rabbits. Monsters from every genre and era. Laughing and snarling. Baring their fangs at Joey and Zef, biting the blue October sky. Eager for sunset, for twilight, for night—for the fall of darkness and the life-giving breath of fire.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “Cowards”

  The New Jersey Palisades had cut the throat of the sun. She bled copious color into the water-blue sky, arterial scarlet and venous purple, then fell behind the horizon, into her grave, shrouded by aquamarine clouds. The Earth turned its face away and dressed itself in black, lowering a mournful veil of night, hanging crepe over the mirror of the Hudson. The moon filled with lamentations, the wind howled its grief, and the stars lit votives for the funeral of the day.

  Tarrytowners lit their candles as well. Those who’d charged their mobile devices before the blackout had learned from the village website that, though ConEd was hard at work, power would not return for at least three days. Wires had broken all over town, as if the barren trees had cleared out the cobwebs. Tarrytowners emptied the CVS of batteries and flashlights, fearing the fall of such total darkness, nervously aware of the growing emptiness beyond their windows. No streetlights would burn tonight, no shop lights. No TVs would flicker behind neighbor curtains. Only black shapes and half-glimpsed shadows out there now. Shadows festooned for the Halloween season. A dangling plastic vampire bat to startle Ms. Martins, out walking her terriers by flashlight. The skeletal remains of Groucho Marx to leer at Dee Harlow as she jogged past. The McDonald’s on Wildey Street would raise a great black ‘M’ tonight. Mayor McCheese would call for calm, but the Hamburglar would be at large, sneaking through a window to steal ketchup from Grimace. The blackout of Sleepy Hollow was absolute, and all the little ones could feel that… something was out there. Something bad.

  Halloween masks and scarecrow corpses and human corpses littered the grounds of Lyndhurst Manor, plastic faces waking to the moonlight, shaking off sleep and rising into the sky, straw hands crackling as they flexed their fingers. Corpses played host to spirits not their own, writhing like maggots where they lay as the new drivers rediscovered feet and hands and learned how to move without pulse of blood. Leatherface twisted above the door, and the mullioned windows blinked starlight from glassy eyes.

  Inside, mannequins rose again, joints creaking and gore-splashed faces manic with painted rictus, their hinges in need of blood to lubricate their dancing. Fun fun fun.

  Hadewych Van Brunt cringed in the music room, at the rise of death and the gathering of Agathe’s army. He sipped the potion that Agathe had made as his reward for returning the Treasure, stilling the maddening summons-call, like a drunk defeating tremens with hair of the dog. The burlap-headed corpse of Mather raised its pike, and the dead face of the Gift-Catcher gaped at the crowd, mouth open, choking on its first fly, eyes drained of purple, turned milk-thistle white, one lid drooping. Mather had warned that this doom might come. The Death of the Hollow, just as Centralia had died. Sleepy Hollow would burn tonight, scoured like that cursed mining town, its houses swept away, asphalt bubbling and smoking, only the marble Jesus left standing at the topmost crest of the cemetery, weeping rust above a hellish ruin.

  How had things come to this? What monster started this?

  “Hadewych! Let loose our sacrifices.”

  Agathe wore a wedding dress, stripped from the mannequin Bride of Frankenstein. She radiated ethereal beauty, as Kate Usher would have done on Zef’s wedding day, if Hadewych’s dreams hadn’t curdled. A redheaded girl, possessed, stood at Agathe’s side, arms tight around the reliquary. The severed head within had spun rightward, sharing a significant look with the slack-jawed Gift-Catcher, a moment of camaraderie, head-to-head.

  “Did you not hear me, Dylan?” Agathe snapped her fingers under Hadewych’s nose. “Let them loose. The spirits are strong again.”

  Hadewych blinked at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He fled the room, lit a hand for light, and rushed down to the basement level. He took keys out with his dark hand and unlocked each room, ignoring the pleading of the Gifted. They tried to rush the door as he released them, but he kept them cowed with his fire until a ghost had taken each one. They fell in line behind him, shadowing his steps.

  Eddie cringed against the curved wall of the dusty wine cellar. “Please. Please. Please. Please. I just want to go home.”

  “Shut up.” Hadewych pointed to the horse’s bridle that Agathe had hung on the wall. “Put it on.”

  “Man, I’m done. Don’t let her—don’t let her put his head on my neck. Call my dad. Please. Call my dad. I want my dad.”

  Hadewych raised a fireball. “Do what I tell you!”

  Through wracking sobs, Eddie picked up the skein of leather and metal and slipped it over his face.

  “Put the bit in your mouth,” said Hadewych.

  Eddie obeyed, face flushing with shame, and Hadewych saw a reflection of himself in this punk kid who’d wanted power. He saw himself slipping a toothbrush into his own mouth, on the nigh
t he’d first bled into the reliquary. Eddie’s teeth came down on the bit.

  “Good,” said Hadewych. “Don’t be a little bitch.”

  A spirit wafted into the room. Eddie tensed, frantically searching for escape, but his face went slack and dull—a mindless, muscle-bound body on a leash. A thoroughbred, bound for the glue factory. Hadewych gave a tug, leading Eddie along with a little “nick nick” sound.

  Valerie lay cringing in her cell. Her trembling fingers went to her valve.

  “Please,” said Hadewych. “Spare my ears.”

  “Just kill me already. I don’t care anymore.”

  They looked at each other. Almost eleven years had passed since the night he’d heard her cries, bleeding out after her mother’s attack. He’d saved her that night. He hadn’t wanted anything from her. He’d been a good Samaritan. He’d only seduced her later, once he’d discovered her wealth. At the very beginning, he’d been Valerie’s savior and hero. Truly. If only he’d been able to hold on to that. Could he save her again, here and now? No. He didn’t dare defy the matriarch.

  A ghost took Valerie, yanking her to her feet like a puppet. On impulse, Hadewych kissed the back of her neck as she passed, surprising himself. But, after all, Zef had called this woman “Mom” once.

  And Zef had called this next woman “Mommy.”

  Jessica’s hands were tied so that she couldn’t touch anyone. She gagged on a pink lipstick-smeared necktie. He didn’t need his son’s psychic abilities to know what she was thinking. Just as his hands blazed with fire, her eyes blazed with hate.