by JL Bryan
There was literally no reason for them to sneak off together. What was the last thing Stacey had said? Something about finally getting in touch with Jacob. Maybe she'd gone outside in search of a better signal, but again it seemed like somebody would have mentioned to me they were leaving.
I shouted their names again as I reached the front stairs, hearing the panic creep into my voice. I ran down the steps as quickly as I dared, avoiding the damaged steps and the broken glass.
Nobody answered. I was alone in the house.
Chapter Eighteen
I made a quick check of the downstairs, but at this point it was obvious that Stacey and Michael were gone. Either that or they'd both suddenly turned invisible and lost the ability to speak. Maybe Jacob's message had caused them to flee for some reason, but it didn't make sense that they would leave me behind. Unless, of course, this was their way of telling me that they'd secretly hated me all along and hoped a ghost horseman would put me out of my misery.
Outside, I stood on the porch and searched the front yard with the iris of my flashlight wide open to create a sweeping floodlight.
All three vehicles still remained in the gravel drive. I pointed my light inside the windshields of Michael's truck and the van, and even looked inside Jeremy's old Corolla, where I saw some bowling shoes and a battered Heinlein paperback on the floor, but not much else.
I opened a back door of the van but wasn't surprised to find it empty. I would've been much more surprised to find Stacey and Michael hiding in there with the lights off. Still, it's best to be thorough when the people you care about suddenly vanish.
Calling their names again, I circled the outside of the house and checked the little dirt crawlspace beneath the front porch. Nothing.
It was hard to ignore the fear spreading all through my body with every heartbeat. I have encountered some weird stuff in my time, but nothing like two people instantly vanishing in silent, alien-abduction fashion.
A horse whinnied in the distance. Lacking any other direction, I started toward the stable, leaves crunching under my boots. It was past midnight and officially Halloween. The gates to the world of the dead now stood wide open, if you believed the lore.
That thought did not place me in a calm frame of mind as I approached the stable. I couldn't see any of the horses from the outside, nor did I hear any of them whinny again.
“Stacey? Michael?” That was me, drawing attention to myself as I wandered toward the dark old building like a soon-to-be-stabbed-to-death character in any horror movie. I really have to stop treating horror movies like how-to manuals for life, but they're just so relevant to the problems I face.
I lifted the thick horizontal board that latched the wooden door to the stable. The horses shied back from my flashlight as I entered.
The footsteps began just overhead, as though someone were watching me from the rafters. At first, it was just a creak, not necessarily anything more than the old timbers settling, no different from the insignificant sound that had drawn me to look for monsters in the house's linen closet.
I've learned not to ignore such small noises, though. I pointed my light up at the ceiling above, made of boards with significant gaps between them. It might have been okay for storing bales of hay, but it didn't look like the hayloft up there was exactly child-safe. There was plenty of opportunity to trip and fall while you walked, and maybe even slide right through and free-fall onto the ground.
A thump sounded farther along. I moved my beam quickly across the ceiling to follow it, just in time to catch the fleeting edge of a shape as it passed over a gap between the boards.
“Hello?” I said, just in case a psychotic killer ghost was stalking around up there and wanted to know exactly where I was so it could pounce on my head.
Another noise followed. It sounded like a foot-fall, like a boot clomping on wood. There was another thump, and then another. I tracked along underneath, pointing my flashlight up through the gaps, but I saw nothing except the dust and strands of hay that came trickling down toward my eyes.
“Is somebody up there?” I asked.
There was silence, as though the entity were hesitating, and then the boot-steps started up again. They were moving toward the steep wooden stairs tucked into the corner. A variety of leather implements hung on nails near the stairs. I assumed these to be horse-related.
The top stair creaked, and then a dark form began to descend toward me, the sound of boots creaking on every step. My flashlight revealed, not a murderous dead mercenary, but the pale face of a girl who looked back at me with guarded suspicion.
“Corrine?” I asked, knocked completely off-guard. She moved so softly as she descended the narrow stairs that she could have been a ghost herself.
“Hey,” she finally said as she reached the bottom step.
“Where...how did you get here?”
“Hid in the van,” she mumbled. Then, with a little more confidence, she added, “Somebody had to check on the horses, you know?”
“We told you we would do that,” I said. “And they all look okay to me. They aren't hurt.”
She just shrugged and walked over to one of the stalls. She petted the big brown horse with the white forehead.
“We need to call your parents and tell them where you are.” I drew my phone, but the little satellite graphic had no bars. “Do you have a signal?”
“Of course not,” Corrine said, after the briefest glance at her own phone. “There's never a signal. You have to walk around in a big circle trying to find one.”
“Maybe we can use the landline at the house. The power seems to be out, though...”
“It's this stupid place. No phone signal, power conks out for no reason, we're lucky there's running water,” Corrine said. “There's no reason to tell my parents I'm here. They'll just worry.”
“You don't think they'll worry that you were last seen going to the convenience store, and then you vanished?”
Corrine shrugged.
“You'd better stick with us,” I said. “It could still be dangerous around here.”
“Where are your friends?” she asked.
“Um...” Here I was acting like the responsible, experienced adult who could keep her safe, when I'd just failed to accomplish the same thing for Michael and Stacey. “They're around. I was just looking for them.”
“Around?” Corrine walked to the wide stable door through which I'd entered and looked up toward the house. “Did they get lost or something?”
“Something like that,” I said, and a high-pitched scream tore through the night, making us both jump.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“That was Stacey,” I said. I knew her scream pretty well. I tried to act calm, resisting the urge to sprint toward Stacey's voice for just a moment, because I didn't want Corrine coming with me. “Stay put. I'll be right back for you.” I bolted out the door. It was a tough call to leave her, but it seemed even more foolish to drag the clients' kid right into the thick of the danger. Neither option was a great one.
“It sounded like it came from the woods,” Corrine said.
I rushed out from the stable, along the wooden rail of the corral and toward the dirt road.
The scream came again, and I began to run.
“Stacey!” I shouted. “Stacey, where are you?”
Her voice cried out again, fainter, as if she were losing energy or consciousness.
I sprinted across the yard and into the dirt road. The voice came from ahead, from somewhere within the acres of corn that made up the maze. I began to run toward the maze entrance, the high archway made of old shovels and pitchforks twisted together, with the scarecrow beside it holding the plastic sign with the maze rules. I called out again, but Stacey didn't answer.
I paused to slide my thermal goggles out of my backpack and place them on my forehead, ready to drop them over my eyes when I needed them. Normally, I use them to search for abnormally cold spots and shapes that indicate ghosts.
This time I'd be looking for warm reds and yellows, searching for the living instead of the dead.
A rhythmic thumping approached on the road behind me—heavy hoof beats. Terrified, I turned back, ready to face the horseman.
It was only Corrine, though, riding after me on that big brown horse with the white spot.
“What are you doing out here?” I snapped. “I told you to stay inside the stable.”
“Who says it's really safe in there, either?” Corrine asked. “And it'll take you forever to search on foot. The horseman will have killed your friend by then.”
“Why do you assume the horseman took her?”
“Because he's scary.”
“Go back to the stable,” I said. “You're not putting yourself in danger for me.”
“Who says it's for you? Anyway, I'm in danger as long as I'm here. The whole stupid place is haunted.”
“Then maybe you should take your dad's car and leave.” I turned and shouted Stacey's name again, toward the woods and the maze, but I didn't get any response. I needed to get moving.
“And maybe my parents should have let me get a license, but they didn't. They probably thought I'd just go get high or something.”
“Would you?”
“Probably not.” She shrugged. “So do you want my help, or...”
Corrine fell silent and gaped at me. I was feeling the same shock. More hoofbeats approached—heavy, slamming thuds, as if the approaching beast were impossibly huge.
I looked up and down the road, but didn't see anything.
“Hey, Corrine? You didn't happen to let another horse out of the stable, did you?”
“It's him.” Corrine held out a hand. “Come on up. You'll never outrun him on foot.”
The hoofbeats sounded louder and closer. It didn't even sound like a horse, but something much larger, like an elephant. Or a brontosaurus. The ground rumbled.
“I don't think I can. I don't have much horse experience.” I looked doubtfully at the big brown mare and the girl on top of it. “You should go on. I'll deal with the ghost.”
Then Stacey screamed again—weaker and fainter this time—and I thought it might be better to keep everyone together, or else I could find myself following Corrine's screams a little later if something awful happened to her.
“Last chance,” Corrine said.
An immense black shape erupted from the woods, formless, like a thundercloud rolling over the dirt road and rushing directly toward us, swallowing up what little light was in its path. Though it was more than a hundred yards away, I could feel a sudden press of frigid air from that direction.
The horseman was back. He clearly wasn't done for the night.
I took a deep breath and did my best to jump onto Corrine's horse, just behind Corrine. I landed awkwardly, of course, draped over the horse's back like a carpet. Fortunately, the horse was gentle and remarkably calm, especially considering the cloud of supernatural evil rushing toward us. Most animals would have bolted already.
With Corrine's help, I barely managed to arrange myself. As soon as I was in place, the horse started to move. I held on tight to Corrine.
The horse trotted toward the corn maze, then broke into a run as we passed under the archway. Corrine steered her down the path. High rows of cornstalks formed walls on either side of us, reinforced by plastic mesh.
As we twisted and turned, I had to admit I was glad to be moving so fast, with somebody who knew her way and wouldn't accidentally run us into a blind alley where the horseman could trap us. It was up to me to keep Corrine safe, even she maybe happened to be rescuing me at the moment.
I drew my thermals down over my eyes and looked out over the maze. Mounted on the horse, I could see much farther than I could have on foot, peering across several rows at a time. I searched desperately for a warm sign of life. The corn maze sprawled over five acres, so there was a lot of searching to do. We hadn't heard a thing from Michael, either.
Cold air pressed against my back like a giant hand. I turned and saw a deep cold swallowing up the trail behind me, engulfing the high stalks and corn cobs in a deep blue. A dark purplish figure rode at the center of the wave of cold—I could discern the basic outlines of a man on a horse.
He was close, and drawing closer. His ghost horse was faster than ours. The hoofbeats sounded loud as thunder now.
“Corrine, he's close!” I shouted.
She urged our horse to race even faster, but the poor mare was burdened with the weight of two riders and racing against a phantom made of nothing but energy and fury.
We rounded another tight corner. There would be no shaking the horseman, no losing him in the endless twists and turns of the corn. He was much too close for that, and much too fast.
My thermals bounced askew, so I nudged them up and off my eyes with my shoulder.
I no longer needed them to see the horseman. With all the heat he'd just sucked out of the air, he was beginning to manifest as a visible apparition, giving me my first real look at him.
He was tall, narrow, and shadowy, his eyes lost under the pointed brim of his black tricorner hat. I could see his pale lips, drawn back in a tight little smile. The smile unnerved me more than anything—the dead don't usually greet you with a grin.
He wore a long black outer coat and matching waistcoat, both adorned with rows of brass buttons. I could see white just below his throat, maybe lace ruffles. I was more interested in the long, narrow blade he brandished in one hand, swiping it through the air as if to demonstrate what he intended to do to my throat.
His horse was wiry and fast. It seemed much thinner than ours. After a moment I realized it was a running corpse, its eyes missing, its flesh dried and shriveled, its stiff dark hair barely covering gaps in the skin through which I could glimpse the bones beneath.
The horseman moved in. He raised his ghostly sword, which was really a psychic projection on his part, based on the memory of the blade with which he'd killed men on the battlefield and later robbed travelers on the road. In another moment, he'd be close enough to plunge the blade into my heart. With the kind of power and energy he'd demonstrated while wrecking the family's house, I had no doubt he could kill me.
I clung as tightly to Corrine as I could manage with one arm, while trying to reach inside my jacket with my other hand. It was precarious. One extra-hard bounce from the horse would have sent me sprawling on the ground, and old Josef could have had some fun trampling me a bit before he skewered me with his sword.
The Ziploc bag inside my jacket pocket was reluctant to open, especially since I was blindly working at it with two fingers while trying not to fall off a rapidly moving animal. I managed to open a corner of it and dipped my fingers into the soft, sandy red dirt.
Ghosts can have a range of reactions to encountering the earth from their own graves. Many are entirely indifferent. Some of them, seeking solace and rest, may move into it. Others, resisting against their state of death and their need to move on, will desperately avoid that soil.
I didn't know what effect it might have on the horseman ghost, but this seemed like a worthwhile time to test it out.
I pulled the open bag from my pocket. I meant to toss just a pinch of it at him to see how he responded, but I was holding the bag in one hand and holding on for dear life with the other. All I could do was wave the open baggie in his general direction.
All the dirt spewed out at once, leaving only trace amounts inside the bag. Gone to waste, really. Regardless of how he responded, I now had none left to use, either to draw him into a trap or draw a defensive line he couldn't cross.
The thin, dead horse let out a dry, rasping whine. I could see its teeth through the rotten remnants of its nose and mouth. It was a dry rot, and what remained of the horse's flesh had a shriveled texture almost like beef jerky.
The burial earth puffed out in a thick red cloud across the path. This seemed to bother the horse, who slammed into the cloud of dirt as though it were solid brick. The horse re
ared up, kicking its long, stick-like front legs in my direction. I ducked aside as best as I could. The horse's limbs might have looked withered and brittle, but I'd seen the damage they had done to the stairs and walls inside. They could easily cave in my skull.
The highwayman held onto his reins with one hand, still brandishing the sword with the other. His horse remained high, up on its rear legs, as if it couldn't break through the haze of dirt.
The highwayman was no longer smiling at me.
Then we pulled away, around a corner and out of sight, because Corrine was still urging her horse to run as fast as she could. We'd delayed the horseman momentarily, but at the cost of probably my best weapon against him. The dust would settle, or he would find another way through the maze.
We didn't have much time, so I immediately pulled the thermals down over my eyes again.
Another turn of the maze, and I glimpsed a slice of glowing red through the corn many rows away. I nudged Corrine and pointed toward it, though I wasn't sure if she would be able to see where I was pointing.
She managed to get us closer, whipping back and forth through the rows of corn. I could identify a fairly Stacey-shaped red figure, now much closer. Several other warm spots glowed nearby, like tiny light bulbs.
“There!” I shouted. “Stacey! Stacey, can you hear me?”
The glowing red form didn't answer. I pushed up my thermals to get a better look at her.
Corrine's horse slowed as we emerged into one of the larger clearings within the maze, where several paths came together. This was the one decorated with the row of three scarecrows styled as the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.
The butcher remained just as I'd seen him before, a butcher knife in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other, clad in his apron stained with fake blood. His cloth bag of a face was literally expressionless, with no features at all, yet he still seemed to be watching us.
At the other end of the row, the candlestick maker was lit up, including the electric candles in his hands and those on the brim of his scarecrow hat.