Horror-Ween (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

  HORROR-WEEN

  By

  New York Times Best-Selling Author

  Heather Graham

  Horror-Ween Copyright © 2019 by Slush Pile Productions

  All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior express written permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction of this material, electronic or otherwise, will result in legal action.

  Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at theoriginalheathergraham.com, via email at connie@perryco.biz, or at Heather Graham 103 Estainvilke Ave., Lafayette, LA 70508. Please help stop internet piracy by alerting the author with the name and web address of any questionable or unauthorized distributor.

  Horror-Ween is a work of fiction. The people and events in Horror-Ween are entirely fictional. The story is not a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental

  Prologue

  The place was fantastic!

  Jillian Murphy was in love with it and had been for as long as she could remember. It was one of the best things about being from the middle-of-nowhere, Massachusetts. When she’d first come with her parents, her mother argued with her father that she thought Jillian was too young for the place, and her father pointed out all the great things for kids her age.

  There were great things, of course. The petting area with baby goats and miniature horses, and the “farmstead” where chickens and pigs and a few prize cows were shown. After that first time, she became a five-year-old vegetarian, driving both parents to distraction, but they dealt with it.

  What had bothered her mother was the “farmstead” was protected by grotesque scarecrows and pumpkin-headed guardians. Even the petting area sported evilly grinning and skeletal, animatronic “guides” to hold signs and point the way to different attractions.

  And from there it got worse. Or better. Depending on your way of looking at it.

  The “Haunted Hay-Ride!” brought visitors on a fantastic journey over hills and trails through pines and oaks, and even through an abandoned cemetery from some time long, long ago when settlers had first begun to move west across the state. The owners played upon that, and all manner of rotting, decaying “dead” wandered out of the old cemetery. One of the creepiest, so Jillian heard at the time, was Sister Sally Sadist, a vengeful nun, purportedly stabbed to death by the wife of the man she’d seduced to do her evil bidding.

  And now she’d also heard—on good and knowing authority—that the nun was played by Corey Templeton’s older sister, Brenda, who quickly moved on to bigger and better things—B-horror movies out in Los Angeles.

  The “Haunted Howling Halloween Theme Park” also offered the “Tunnel of Too-Much Love.” Little heart-shaped carts brought lovers—and others—through a ghastly trail of love gone wrong, from images of the ‘black widow” and her various victims—all killed quite imaginatively—to a disgusting image of a glutinous Henry VIII—holding the heads of the two wives he had decapitated. The heads talked—introducing themselves as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.

  The seasonal park was beloved across the region; it was an escape for farm kids and city kids. It was an escape from the historical bombardment of Plymouth Rock and the Puritans and Concord and history. It was, for that fleeting time every year, something wickedly cool!

  Grown up—or almost grown up—Jillian loved it even more. She’d been coming for years. This year was both special—and sad—in a way.

  She was there with Mack Simon, Eleanor Farrell, Gideon Blanche, Francie Dumont, and Corey Templeton. She and Mack had been a “thing” since tenth grade. Eleanor and Gideon had gotten together at least a year ago. Francie and Corey had been a duo for almost as long.

  This would be their last time together in such a way as a group. Graduation was coming up; she knew she’d be heading to Tulane. Her mom was from New Orleans and had gone there, and while she’d done her best to encourage Jillian to make her own choices, it turned out they did have an excellent program for a student who wanted to major in anthropology. People! She loved studying people, and where they came from, and how they had developed, and civilizations and . . .

  It was right for her.

  Mack wanted to be a veterinarian. He would be heading to north Louisiana. They’d be close enough to see one another. And they both believed—maturely, she thought—that if they were intended to make it, they would. They both knew they wanted to go to college; they wanted careers. They didn’t want to become minimum-wage earners never able to move on from a small town and menial jobs.

  The others were going off, too. Francie and Corey were heading to separate colleges, but both in

  New York City. And Gideon and Eleanor were headed to Worcester, Gideon to Holy Cross and Eleanor to Clark.

  Still months away, but they all knew this was the last time they’d be “kids” together at the theme park. Corey had turned eighteen two weeks ago, and Francie’s birthday was in early December. By June, they’d all be adults. Or as Mack liked to say, something kind of like adults.

  They were going to do everything. Everything!

  They started out at the petting farm, laughing at the scary animatronic figures. They all knew Jillian had become a vegetarian at a very tender age, and she was going to pet a couple of the prized cows as if they were puppy dogs.

  They went on the rollercoasters with their wild twists and turns and cheesy-ghastly art. The magician that year was especially good. He called himself “The Greater Great Merlin,” and he made a wolf disappear and reappear on an empty stage.

  Naturally, a rabbit jumped out of his hat.

  But then the rabbit sat on the wolf’s back, and the wolf howled and took the rabbit for a ride.

  They went in “The Tunnel of Too Much Love,” and laughed their way through it because the attraction was getting a bit old—and Anne Boleyn’s lips had given up moving in sync with her words.

  Maybe the proprietors knew the ride was getting a bit dated. They added an actor toward the end, a fellow dressed like Henry VIII, who vowed he was looking for another wife—he really needed to add in a new head to his collection.

  They left laughing.

  And headed for the hayride. Their “ghost host” was supposedly “Henry Hacksaw,” ready to tell them chilling tales of murder and mayhem in the woods. Francie whispered she thought Henry Hacksaw might just be Principal Canton’s oldest son, Eddy, who had moved on to work at a theme park in New Jersey, but who liked to come home for breaks.

  Whoever he was, he could spin good tails, some about Patriots and horrendous deaths during times of war—and some just terrific murders that had taken place in the area.

  All true, he swore. With many of the dead in the old abandoned cemetery—long forgotten and left to the sweet caress of nature, where dust to dust and ashes to ashes were the total truth of life.

  They moved on toward the cemetery.

  And that’s where everything changed for Jillian. And where the real nightmare began.

  The others were screaming with delight over the headless horseman who continued to ride by the hay wagon and the silly zombies recently added to make their way toward the wagon as well.

  It stopped . . . allowing them to come close.

  But Jillian didn’t see the zombies or the horseman. She elbowed Mack in the ribs, but he was laughing and catching a scared-silly Laura as she fell back, almost l
anding in his lap.

  There was something different. Something not . . . cheesy. Not even terrifying.

  Just . . .

  Real.

  He was tall with long hair in a queue and was dressed in breeches, boots, and a jacket. She knew the look of a Revolutionary soldier. Lord, she’d grown up in Massachusetts.

  He walked through the hordes of decaying dead without notice, a worried and frustrated look on his face—and then a look of surprise as he stared at her.

  He began to move faster, heading toward the wagon.

  Heading toward her.

  She wanted to scream, but the scream was caught in her throat. She wanted to move, but the others, shrieking and laughing, kept her pinned where she was.

  “Look, look!” she managed.

  And they thought she was talking about a bloodied “corpse” headed their way.

  He reached her. The wagon had started to move, but he leapt on the sideboard, at her side, staring at her intently.

  “Get out. Get out—do you understand? Man is the monster here. He seeks the young and the beautiful. Get out.”

  Jillian stared at him, stunned. She managed to swallow.

  “I try . . . but a killer is among you. Flesh and blood. Man is the monster.”

  He jumped off the floorboard saying, “It is any man’s duty. I must try.”

  The wagon rolled on. He disappeared behind a horde of the walking dead.

  Their wagon returned to the starting point. Corey wanted to do more rides. The others seemed willing, though Laura wanted a corndog first.

  “No,” Jillian said. “We have to go.”

  “Hey! It’s not that late,” Mack protested. “Jilly, this is our last—”

  “I know. I’m sorry. We have to go.”

  Mack never looked angry. He did this time. He was a good guy, the best. Tall and dark and handsome, an excellent student and a good sportsman, too.

  “Jilly—”

  “Hey, what’s up?” Francie asked. She did so with a smile. Francie was a little bombshell, always energetic, always with a light of friendship in her dark eyes.

  “There’s a monster here,” Jillian said.

  “Duh!” Gideon mocked. “It’s a horror-theme park. It’s full of monsters.”

  “No, a real one!” she said.

  Mack put his arms around her. “Hey, honey, they’re doing a good job here. I even had a few frights. But please, come on, we all know what this year means. We’re okay. We’ll just go and get some corndogs and it will be all right.”

  She didn’t know why, but the soldier had put her into pure panic. She shook her head.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  The others pleaded.

  Mack looked at her, puzzled and angry.

  “Something terrible is going to happen here.”

  “What?” Gideon demanded.

  “Oh, Jilly, hon,” Francie said.

  “What makes you think that, Jilly? This is all for fun. Hey, in the rides, half the cardboard monsters are falling apart,” Corey said gently.

  “I know it; I just know it,” she whispered.

  There was silence for a minute. Maybe they realized she was really shaken.

  But then Mack took a stand.

  “If you go, you’re going alone,” he said firmly.

  She stared back at him. And she turned, determined. Fine; she’d go alone. They might live in the middle of god-forsaken Massachusetts, but they had Uber even here.

  “Jillian!”

  She didn’t know if he was coming after her or not. She began to stride toward the exit as quickly as she could—trying not to burst apart families with younger children.

  When she reached the exit, she saw a man dressed in a security uniform.

  Knowing she was going to sound like an idiot, she winced and tried anyway. “Sir, I have a problem to report,” she told him.

  He smiled. “Someone burst your balloon, little girl?”

  He was young; maybe he thought she was trying to flirt. She knew that because she was tall, she appeared to be older than her seventeen years.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  He frowned. She saw from his badge his name was Jared and he was from Wilson Security, Inc.

  And she knew if she told him a dead soldier walking out of a graveyard had warned her there was a monster present, he’d throw her out or call the police and accuse her of trying to cause a riot.

  “People were whispering,” she said. “About a monster—not one of these. A human monster. I think someone in the park is going to hurt people.”

  His frown remained for several seconds. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll call the police and report what you heard. We’ll check it all out. You know, though, that kids just talk, right? And especially here. People try to scare friends who aren’t easily scared by actors in make-up or mechanical monsters.”

  Looking closely and watching his eyes, she thought he was telling the truth.

  “Thank you,” she told him. And she hurried on out toward the parking lot to the pick-up-drop-off zone, digging in her pocket for her cell phone.

  As she did so, she heard footsteps behind her.

  It was dark; the woods in Massachusetts could still be as stygian and threatening as they had been to those who’d arrived on the Mayflower hundreds of years before. Lights and life and laughter and humanity were behind her at the park.

  Was she an idiot? Had she left the safety of tons of people—to be swept up and abducted and murdered out of a parking lot? It has happened!

  But it was Mack behind her.

  And behind him, Gideon, Francie, Corey, and Eleanor.

  “We’ll finish it off with fries and shakes,” Mack told her. “Drive into town—and talk about colleges. Okay?”

  She smiled. Tears sprang into her eyes. And she nodded. She was grateful to her friends.

  The next day, they were grateful to her.

  The bodies of four young adults—or the remnants of them—were found in among the prized pigs that had been on display at the farmstead.

  Chapter 1

  Four years later

  “Trick or treat, trick or treat

  Not looking for anything good to eat

  Must may be that I’m up for a trick

  Think this time, a nice big pick.”

  Joe Dunhill studied the enlarged photo of the note received at the headquarters of the Krewe of Hunters as he listened to Jackson Crow, field director for the Krewe, repeat the note by memory.

  Frowning, he looked across the man’s desk at Jackson.

  “Nasty Halloween rhyme? Prank? You apparently don’t think so—and therefore we are taking this seriously?” he asked. He was sitting there, in Jackson’s office, looking at the copy of the rhyme that Jackson had handed him.

  Of course. This was serious. That was why he and Keri had been called in that morning. It was why she’d been whisked off with Angela while he’d been brought here.

  Jackson didn’t bring his agents in unless a situation had been studied and deemed not just relevant, but relevant for the Krewe of Hunters. Still, he was just out of the academy, though he had worked a few cases with the Krewe before and after he’d gone in. And Keri . . .

  Well, Keri had surprised him. He had thought she would keep on being a writer and researcher, one who might consult with the Krewe now and then.

  Instead, she’d gone into the academy. She hadn’t, however, graduated yet. It wasn’t such a surprising thing that she’d been called in—the Krewe was known to work with “consultants” when they were needed. So, yes, it was all serious, very serious, and he wasn’t sure why he was dreading having been called in like this.

  Deadly, strange situations were what they did. What he did now. And he didn’t want to be a chauvinistic jerk. It was just hard to contemplate Keri being in danger again.

  “Sorry, trust me, I know you’re right on every situation,” Joe continued, “It’s just the poem or rhyme, it’s threateni
ng enough and it’s also Halloween, but doesn’t Angela field a flood of notes and calls that come in by—no pun intended—tricksters?”

  Jackson nodded gravely. “She does.”

  “And being Halloween season, doesn’t that double these?”

  “Yes.”

  “But?”

  Jackson leaned back, hitting a key on his computer and reading from the screen.

  “This little piggy went to market,

  This little piggy stayed home.

  This little piggy had roast beef,

  This little piggy had none,

  This little piggy went yah, yah, yah, eating up some human bone.”

  Joe lowered his head, shaking it as he did so. “And,” he said quietly, looking up again, “you’re going to tell me someone was killed and fed to pigs—after the rhyme you just quoted was received?”

  “Four people, yes. All between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three. The killer was never caught. The letter and the envelope gave police forensic teams nothing. The killer handled his writing utensils with gloves and used block lettering. And he sealed the envelope with a sponge. Suggesting someone with at least a minor knowledge of fingerprints and DNA testing, and possibly, other forensic tools.”

  “All info available from dozens of shows and movies, entertainment and documentaries.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the one you just read—?”

  “Was received at a Massachusetts police station four years ago. And four teens were killed.”

  “Almost four years ago, and the killer wasn’t caught.”

  “Right.”

  “We’ve just received the new one?”

  “Yes,” Jackson said, nodding grimly. “And this is now the fourth time such a missive has come—and the other three had disastrous events following. The first was Massachusetts, as I said, and four teens were killed and fed to pigs. Next, a note was received in L.A., and then last year, a letter was sent to police is south-central Arizona. The first murders were highly publicized—they took place three days before Halloween. After that, two days before Halloween, and then one day before Halloween—four, three, two—and we’re coming up on Halloween. So, Massachusetts, L.A., and Arizona. The L.A. park was called ‘The Dead of Night.’ Their poem read, ‘Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, achoo, achoo, we all fall dead!’ “