Don’t listen to him, Quinn jumped in. What Kieran is saying makes sense.
Oh, really? Kyle responded. Cave cats will bring you back from the dead?
She wanted to tell them to shut up, but it was pointless. The voices in her head wouldn’t stop no matter what she did. Only the drugs the doctors at the asylum had given her had blocked them out, and even those didn’t work anymore. Not after she got her powers back. She felt helpless and lost. If only there was a way to verify at least part of Kieran’s mad story. That’s what she needed, some way to tell if he was selling her truth or delusion.
The idea hit her like a thunderbolt. In the room in her mind, she looked up. While Kyle and Quinn sparred with the Horseman watching, the banshee nodded at her. Kate felt a mirthless smile form on her face. There was a way to put this to the test, to know if this could be done. She stood up.
“I have to go,” she said.
Kieran and Tim looked alarmed.
“Kate, the police are looking all over for you,” Tim said.
“Uh, don’t you think we should keep planning?” Kieran added.
The two men shared a worried look, which only served to anger Kate further. Quinn’s murderer and her former boss were sharing some kind of bond, and she was left out in the cold. They said they were trying to help her, but she couldn’t trust anyone anymore.
“The police are useless,” Kate said. “And before we plan, I need to do something.”
She opened the door and left without another word. She didn’t need to explain herself to them. She had enough trouble telling the voices in her head what she was up to.
Kate still heard them talking, however, while she stood on the front stoop.
“That’s not a good sign,” Kieran said. “You have any idea where she’s off to?”
“I just hope it doesn’t involve murdering anyone,” Tim replied.
Kate disliked listening to others talk about her, but she was unable to walk away.
“We have a very big problem,” Kieran continued. “I hope you realize that.”
She couldn’t hear it, but she could sense Tim nodding in agreement.
“If she can’t find a way to silence the voices in her head, this plan doesn’t stand a chance.”
*****
The Headless Horseman rode through the streets of Leesburg once more. It noted with satisfaction that the town was deathly silent. It was past 3 a.m. and if the Horseman had sensed anyone out this late, he would have assumed they were up to ill intent. And that would have only distracted him.
He rode down Route 15 for several miles, before breaking off across a field to the right. Out here, the trappings of civilization began to fall away. There were no more parking garages or crowded outlet stores. The Horseman rode through old Virginia, looking much the way it had two hundred years prior. The Horseman sped like a midnight blast through woods and over streams.
When he arrived in Middleburg, he rode past the Red Fox Inn and other landmarks before heading to the Middleburg Baptist Cemetery.
The Horseman stopped in front of the gate, his steed kicking up dirt as it came to an abrupt halt. There was a flash of light and the ancient figure and his horse disappeared, replaced by Kate Tassel.
She almost feared entering the graveyard, not because of what she planned to do, but because of all the memories entombed in this place.
Her mother, Susan Blakely, was buried here, murdered more than a decade earlier by the killer who had now taken up residence in her head. She had also first talked with Quinn here, sitting on a bench looking over the small pond. A year later, they had met up and made love in that same spot, oblivious to whether they would be spotted. She smiled at the memory, the first genuine smile she had experienced in a long time.
Of course, Quinn — the real Quinn, not the ghost in her head — was still here. They hadn’t let her out of the asylum long, and she could barely remember the actual ceremony, but they had buried Quinn here on a chilly November day last year. In one of her brief moments of clarity, Kate had asked for him to be buried right near the memorial bench where they had first talked. She didn’t know she was asking the impossible, that no one was buried here anymore. But Tim had quietly pulled some strings and made it happen.
Kate took a deep breath, turned into the banshee, and walked through the iron gate. Once on the other side, she became herself again, and walked in a straight line to Quinn’s grave.
She hadn’t been back since the funeral. Most of that time she had been locked up, but even since she’d escaped, she couldn’t bring herself to return here. In her heart, she knew why. Coming here was admitting the one thing she hadn’t been able to fully comprehend: that Quinn O'Brion was really dead.
She still heard his voice in her head; she had even assumed his identity and form, all in an effort to keep him alive.
Only now, arriving at his grave site, did she realize how foolish that was.
His grave was plain, inscribed with his name and the dates of his life. But Kate was shocked to see a small statue perched just behind the headstone. It was a small girl with her arms out to either side. She recognized the statue from the cover of one of Quinn’s favorite books, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Quinn would have loved it, yet Kate had not put it there. She leaned down to read the inscription at the bottom.
“To one of the best reporters we have ever known. You will be missed. Love, your friends at the Loudoun Chronicle.”
All the staff names were on it, Kate saw: Tim, Ethan, Rebecca, Josh, Bill, Alexis — even Helen, who had never stopped pestering Quinn about silly stories she wanted him to write.
Tears welled up in her eyes. She was touched by the gesture on Quinn's behalf. Seeing it drove home the reality of his death in a way nothing had previously.
Despite her best efforts, she knelt before the grave and broke down sobbing. She could hear Kyle mocking her in her head, but she couldn’t stop crying. It came out in a flood — gasping sobs as if she could barely breathe.
That’s when she heard them coming.
It was a soft sound, like a snake slithering over dried leaves. They approached cautiously, but apparently unaware that Kate could hear them.
“It’s crying,” one of them said.
“It feels sad,” another replied.
“It has no hope.”
Kate could see them now, three skeletal-like figures with thin white hair and long, misshapen fingernails gathered by Quinn’s grave. Their very presence was a desecration to his memory, but she resisted the impulse to banish them. After all, they were who she had come to see.
She slowly stood up, not letting on that she knew they were there. Most people couldn’t see wraiths — ancient ghosts who had lost their humanity so long ago that they now fed on sadness and grief like parasites.
“Who are you to approach me?” Kate asked, and she looked at each wraith in turn. The three of them looked shocked.
“She sees us!” one hissed.
“It’s her, it’s her,” the other said.
“I told you she would return,” the third one said.
“I want you to answer my questions,” Kate said.
Before they could speak, she clarified.
“Just one of you,” she said. “I don’t need a Greek chorus.”
“What does she want to know?” the first wraith said. Kate watched as the other two clamped their hands over their mouths to stop themselves from speaking. It might have been comical if she wasn’t so serious.
“What is ‘the last?’” Kate asked.
“She asked this before,” the wraith replied. “The last is the last. That is all there is to say.”
“No,” Kate responded, her voice commanding. “It’s not. You told me last year that I would be the one to set you free. From where?”
The wraiths looked confused and looked at each other with blank faces. They looked so alien it was hard to remember that once, long ago, they had been human.
; “Everywhere,” the first one finally said.
“Dammit, answer the question!” Kate said and she turned into the banshee.
At this, the three wraiths all shielded their eyes in terror and moved back, hiding behind various objects. They peeked out and kept their eyes on Kate.
“She is angry,” the first wraith said.
“We tried to answer,” the second one said.
The banshee looked at the third and put a bony finger to her lips.
“Tell me what you know,” the banshee said, her voice coming out as a rasp. “All of it.”
The wraiths bowed to her. She had the impression they would kneel if they weren’t also hiding. She had never seen such expressions, a mixture of awe and horror at the same time.
“It is a story that has been passed down,” the first one said. “We tell it to each other when we meet.”
“What is told?” the banshee asked.
“That one will come,” it replied. “That it will call the spirits to it. That call shall go out far and wide. We will heed it and follow. That one will be called the last.”
“And where will it lead you?” the banshee asked, but she already knew the answer.
“It has a choice,” the second one said. “We may sweep the world clean, purging it of sin.”
“Or?” the banshee continued.
“It will reopen the gate that was shut,” the third wraith said. “It will take us to Annwn, the world that is below.”
Kieran was right after all, the banshee thought. The legend was real, at least.
“I want you to do something for me,” she said.
All three wraiths bowed before her.
“We will,” the first one said.
“Anything,” the second one said.
The third one put its finger to its lips, earning a smile from the banshee. To any mortal, that smile would have instilled fear. But the third wraith basked in it like it was the morning sunshine.
“Start calling the others,” the banshee said. “Gather the ones that are like you. Tell them the last has come. And she will set you free.”
They were gone in a flash, before she could say another word. But she knew they would deliver.
The first test was done, but there was still one more thing she had to do tonight.
And it filled her with dread.
Chapter 13
Quinn listened to the wind rustle through the corn and watched it sway. It was almost hypnotic.
“So what’s the big deal about this Lord Halloween?” Elyssa asked. “He’s just a man, right? He’s no match for us.”
Quinn sighed. They were all sitting on a grassy patch near the still-smoking exit of the Haunted Mansion. He hoped they would have a chance to catch their breath before the next monster attacked them.
“First of all, last time I checked, we’re just mortals now too, remember?”
“You didn’t seem like it when you were killing those clowns,” Janus replied.
It was true. Quinn had seen how Elyssa fought, and his reflexes seemed sharper than ever too. The way he had thrown the knife — or the rock before that — had felt preternaturally good.
“Okay, maybe we’re not quite human,” Quinn said. “But neither is he. Not anymore. He created this place somehow. ”
“How is that possible?” Janus asked. “How can he even be here, much less in charge?”
“That’s easy,” Quinn replied. “Because Sanheim put him in charge, at least of this place.”
“Why would he do that?” Janus asked. “He’s crazy, and all he wants to do is kill...”
“Me,” Quinn said. “Not to be a narcissist, but this entire operation is about me.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble just to kill you,” Janus said. “Why did he send me to help you if he was just going to spring a mousetrap?”
“It’s some kind of test,” Quinn said. “Don’t ask me how or why, but that’s what it feels like, doesn’t it? First the Wyrm, then the sluagh, then the scarecrows and haunted house… All of it.”
“Yes, a trial,” Elyssa said, looking thoughtful.
Quinn nodded his head.
“Give the devil his due, he’s a master planner and a sneak. He’s clearly up to something. He put Lord Halloween here, let him re-create Halloweenland, likely from his own memories. Now that I think about it, the entire Lord Halloween persona was likely culled from that stupid amusement park. It’s the place he first learned to kill.”
“Why’d he put Elyssa here?” Janus asked. “Kyle doesn’t know her.”
“I have to assume that was Sanheim’s idea,” Quinn replied. “Who better to make my traveling companion than my once mortal enemy? She doesn’t trust me, I don’t trust her. I have to worry not only about threats from without, but also someone stabbing me in the back. No offense, Elyssa.”
She looked at him in confusion.
“Why would I be offended?”
“Right,” Quinn said. “It’s a brilliant strategy actually. Hand power to an old nemesis that he thinks I fear, and make me take another one along as my companion.”
“And the scarecrows? How did he get them?” Elyssa asked.
“No idea, but...”
Quinn was about to tell them about the scarecrow who had winked at him, but some instinct made him hold his tongue. He didn’t know who else might be listening to them.
“But?” Janus asked.
Quinn shrugged.
“Lost my train of thought,” he replied. “Wasn’t important.”
Janus gave him a quizzical look.
“So now he’s dumped us in a cornfield,” Janus said. “And like, wow, Fred, this cornfield is super spooky. I think it might be — gulp — haunted.”
“Could you give the Scooby shit a rest?” Quinn asked.
“You know, you’re less fun since you died,” Janus said.
“Funny how nearly being torn to bits, filleted in a vortex and burned alive interferes with my appreciation of your sense of humor. Besides, I don’t think he dumped us here. I don’t think he meant for us to be here at all. I heard him back there on the loudspeaker. He sounded angry when you broke down the door. I think he meant to kill us, not let us escape here.”
“Yeah, but...”
There was the sound of sudden movement through the corn. Quinn wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but he knew it wasn’t the wind.
“Not sure this is much of an escape,” Elyssa said.
“No, but we did something unexpected,” Quinn said. “That means that not everything is going according to Sanheim’s or Lord Halloween’s plan. It also gives me the one thing I was told to abandon.”
“What’s that?” Elyssa asked.
Janus answered.
“Hope,” he said.
Quinn heard more sounds in the corn, and they were closer this time. He looked at the foreboding path in front of them.
“If you’re so sure we weren’t meant to be here, why does the ‘Corn Maze of Death’ even exist?” Janus asked.
“Maybe it wasn’t meant for us,” Quinn said. “But I don’t feel like this is Halloweenland anymore; I think this is Kyle’s base of operations. If we follow that path, we find the man behind the curtain.”
“Follow the terror-filled road, follow the terror-filled road,” Janus said.
When Quinn looked annoyed, Janus held up his hands.
“What? It wasn’t a Scooby-Doo reference,” he said.
Quinn stood up and brushed the dirt off his clothes. Elyssa and Janus followed suit.
“No sense waiting,” Quinn said. “Let’s go.”
The three of them entered the corn maze.
*****
The maze didn’t seem to have much death — at least so far— but it was damn creepy, Quinn thought.
The corn grew in dense, curved rows, taller than their heads. Once inside the maze, they could see very little other than what was immediately in front or behind them.
Around each corner was an abandon
ed building or vehicle. Unlike the Haunted Mansion, none of it appeared fake. Instead, it seemed as if the maze ran through a ghost town, one that had been vacated in a hurry in the middle of some crisis. The corn seemed to have grown afterward and taken over the town.
Quinn knew this was logically impossible. Corn didn’t grow like this, and certainly not on this scale, unless it was carefully planted and cultivated. Yet that wasn’t what happened here. Somehow, this corn field had swallowed an entire town.
They passed the burnt-out remains of a school bus. Around the next corner was the skeleton of an old Volkswagen Beetle.
The path meandered back and forth in no discernible fashion. It would go straight for ten yards, make a hard left, followed by a series of random turns. So far, there was only one direction they could go, which was a good thing as Quinn was already confused about where they should head.
More disturbing, Quinn could hear rustling in the corn. Every time he looked, there was nothing there, but it was clear they were being tracked.
He knew what was out there of course. The one thing that would belong here — scarecrows.
There were signs of them every few yards, large wooden beams driven into the ground that now seemed forsaken. Quinn wondered if they had ever actually hung there, or if it was all for appearance. He wasn’t sure which idea bothered him more.
After walking for several minutes, Quinn came across a beam set directly in the middle of the path. He stopped to examine it, looking at the torn rope that still hung from it. He noticed an orange stain that ran the length of the pole.
“I think I know how he got some of his followers,” Quinn said.
“A good medical and dental plan?” Janus asked.
“He tortured them,” Quinn replied. “He probably hung them on these poles until they agreed to obey him.”
“A stupid way to get moidin,” Elyssa said. “They must worship you, be willing to sacrifice themselves for you. You don’t get that with torture.”
“Kyle has always believed in the motivating power of fear,” Quinn said. “He would rather be feared than loved. He believes it’s the emotion most central to our lives.”
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