Horror-Ween (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

While the police managed the insanity, agents would be heading through the park, searching the hayride area . . .

  Close to the road the hayride took, delving deeper, but . . .

  The trail he found himself seeking and following was leading back, far back, deep into the woods. Yes, the other agents would get there.

  Eventually.

  He knew Keri and Gail and whoever else the killer might now choose didn’t have that kind of time.

  And he knew he had been an intended victim. As had Brenda, perhaps only chosen that night, because she’d been there.

  He had his pen-sized flashlight, strong at night, moving over the terrain as the neon and exploding lights from the park began to fade. Glock in one hand, flashlight in the other. He searched and prayed each time he thought he saw a break in the leaves, a shuffle in the dirt, that would show that the killer had dragged Keri through the terrain.

  He paused, feeling the thunder of his heart, studying leaves and earth and praying he was reading the signs right. And just when he forced himself to make a choice and start down an overgrown trail, he discovered he was right. A specter was coming toward him through the night, just a shapeless white form at first, and then as he neared Joe, becoming solid in appearance. And that specter was the ghost of Lieutenant Emil Woodruff.

  “Yes, yes, this way, quickly!” Woodruff said.

  “How is he armed?” Joe asked.

  “I haven’t seen a gun—doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.”

  “Belinda had one,” Joe said.

  “Are you injured?”

  “No. She’s dead.”

  Woodruff nodded. “And the others?”

  “I think they’ll be all right. Brenda wasn’t drugged; she was knocked out with the fire poker. But I think she’ll be okay.”

  He brought a finger to his lips, but it was for himself; he doubted anyone else around could hear Woodruff.

  Not the killer, at least.

  In the sudden silence between them he heard noise from deeper to the far rear, land that was possibly off the fair property.

  Woodruff nodded. The two of them moved on ahead, Woodruff following Joe. Joe moving as quietly as he could.

  He came upon the small clearing, moving slowly and carefully, flashlight pocketed then as he focused on the Glock.

  He moved carefully around the last tree, but he had been seen.

  The killer spat out furiously, “You!”

  He was down on the ground; Keri’s shoulders and head cradled in his lap, the sharp edge of a knife hard against her throat, a tiny trickle of blood creating a line there.

  “How?” Brian snapped to him. “How are you still standing? Oh, I know, you idiot, you didn’t give a damn. You didn’t do proper make-up! Well, what shall it be? You put the gun down or I kill her?”

  “You’re going to try to kill us both one way or the other,” Joe said, forcing himself to keep his voice low and level. “Your friend is dead, you know. Belinda is dead.”

  “It’s hard to find good help these days,” Brian said. “We did have a nice long run. She liked killing. She helped me find the ‘Brian’ and ‘Belinda’ that we became. Killed them up north of Baton Rouge. Her idea, once I decided on this park. And you know what, asshole? You just helped her out of life easy—she was riddled with cancer. And I’ve finished my run on this—might as well have finished it up with the old partner as well. But you were supposed to be knocked out. Man, I didn’t plan on you being such a lazy jerk you didn’t put your makeup on, and Brenda was supposed to be out. And once the fireworks started . . . well, I did want to kill you first. Or maybe let you watch me kill Brenda and Gail—I really like Gail’s eyes! Brenda, she could just go. Scream queen. I’d have liked to have heard her scream!”

  “You’re not going anywhere from here. Belinda is dead; the cops and the FBI know who you are—”

  “No, you don’t. You know me as Brian Mayfield. Brian Mayfield is rotting away in a bayou somewhere. You’ll never find him—or me.”

  “You’re dead one way or another,” Joe told him, playing for time. He could fire and possibly kill him the man before he could slice Keri’s throat.

  He was ready.

  But that knife . . .

  “Now, asshole, drop the Glock!”

  Woodruff stepped past Joe. He went flying with all his ghostly force toward the man they knew as Brian Mayfield.

  Mayfield felt something; he jerked.

  But the knife jerked against Keri’s throat; the blood ribbon seemed brighter.

  Yet Mayfield turned as he’d felt something, feared something . . .

  And to Joe’s relief and amazement, Keri suddenly rolled from beneath the man’s hold, from the immediate fatal danger of the knife . . .

  Brian Mayfield leapt to his feet, spinning around, ready to grab her again.

  Joe took aim and fired while the man was in motion, catching him in the shoulder, sending him flying back.

  Mayfield let out a shriek of rage and was lumbering toward Joe.

  He fired again.

  And there was a second shot.

  As Mayfield fell, Joe saw Keri had drawn her Glock from the holster at her ankle.

  They stared at each other for seconds, then she stepped over the dead man and rushed into his arms.

  “You’re going to be a hell of a good agent,” he told her. “Or actress, one or the other, or both.”

  She smiled and turned. The specter of Lieutenant Emil Woodruff was there. He nodded to the two of them gravely.

  “I must say goodbye to Jillian,” he told them.

  “Thank you!” Keri breathed.

  “Thank you,” Joe echoed. “Thank you so much!”

  “No, thank you,” Woodruff. “I have finally been able to serve.”

  On the ground, Gail was groaning. She sat up and looked at the woods and the two of them and asked, “What happened? Where am I?” And then she saw Brian Mayfield’s body on the ground, and she began to scream.

  Keri went to calm her.

  Joe pulled out his phone and called Jackson. In a minute agents were swarming the woods. Shaking, Joe was able to take Keri into his arms for a moment, hold her tight, and then leave the woods to deal with all else that had happened at the park that night.

  Epilogue

  Joe woke up, feeling the sun on his face.

  They’d neglected to close the curtains when they’d finally returned to their hotel room in the early morning, November 1st.

  He lay there feeling Keri curled to his side, and for a moment he lay there not moving—just grateful to be alive and even more grateful to have her at his side.

  He lay still; he thought about the events of the night before.

  It was true that whoever Brian Mayfield might have really been, he wouldn’t have gotten away. Detective Coley and his men had done an excellent job of stilling the panic in the park and shepherding people around and corralling witnesses.

  FBI agents had been combing the woods. They had come quickly at the end, and they had been close before Joe had found Keri.

  Close . . .

  It had been easy enough to figure—once it had happened—what the man’s plan had been. The drug was in the make-up, something that entered the body through the skin.

  He’d been lazy. He hadn’t done make-up that night. And Belinda had been forced to crack poor Brenda on the head because, as Purgatory Puppy, she hadn’t been wearing make-up.

  Impatience had, bizarrely, saved him. The killers had imagined he’d be knocked as senseless as the others. Easy then to garner him, Brenda and Keri and to get them deep into the woods where he could carry out his plan.

  “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.”

  His knife. Yes, he’d intended to rip them all to shreds. And to make that happen, Brian had planned for Gordon Bentley to fall off the horse after he’d pi
cked up what he’d assumed would be the box with the fabricated soldier’s head within it.

  Coley and his men were good cops. They’d discovered before the night-into-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning came to an end, that the head had not been that of a victim.

  The head had been stolen from one of the local cemeteries; Brian had spent the day breaking into a local cemetery and finding a newly sealed tomb.

  He’d broken the seal, desecrated the tomb, and taken the head of one Mr. Nathan Larkin, deceased just three days earlier due to several complications from heart disease; he’d been ninety-three, a man who had made it to a ripe old age.

  His head would be returned to his grave.

  Gordon Bentley hadn’t been wearing make-up per se since his costume came over his head and eye-slits were part of his costume; he had, however, allowed Brian Mayfield to pat him down with powder to keep his skin from chaffing beneath the costume.

  The killer had planned his final event carefully. Lights and rigging had been set to blow just after the horseman made his ride—careening off his horse and throwing a real human head out into the audience. The ensuing mayhem assured the killer and his accomplice the chance to secret their unconscious victims out into the woods.

  If Joe hadn’t eschewed make-up that night, he’d have been on the floor, too. Belinda would have arranged to get them out to Brian in the woods via the wheelbarrow, and the two would have set to work. They would have been caught, Joe believed, eventually. He had complete faith in the many NOLA agents and the police who had been on hand.

  It’s just that Brian Mayfield would have managed to carry out his final theme plan—killing Gail, Brenda, Keri, and himself—before he would have been caught.

  At his side, Keri stirred. She was curled against his chest; and he saw her head was tilted, her eyes were open, and she was looking at him smiling.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t really thinking,” he said softly. “I was just being grateful.”

  Her eyes closed for a moment, opened again, and she said, “Grateful. Yes.”

  “He came so close.”

  “But we made it. We made it, and Gail is fine, and they’re just keeping Brenda in the hospital for a few days for observation and to make sure that gash in her skull heals. Joe, he came close, but we made it, and the others made it, too. Gordon is going to be fine, too.”

  He nodded. “Brian Mayfield and Belinda. I know that yes, they were on our list, but . . . killer Granny? What twists someone so badly?”

  “What twists anyone?” she asked softly. “For that matter, who ever suspected the man would have drugs in the makeup?”

  “I never did trust him,” Joe said.

  She crawled up, placing her hands on his chest, and meeting his eyes. “You didn’t like him because you thought he gave me too much attention.”

  “True, but we’ve been talking about instincts. And my instincts were right.”

  Keri nodded. “Your instincts proved to be very good. Especially when we had people with name changes but had no clue Brian or Belinda might not be who they claimed to be. Do we know who they were yet?”

  He shook his head. “Coley and the police are on it along with our home offices; they might not find out right away. Of course, they will seek and find the families wherever they may be. And look for the bodies, too,” he added softly. “That’s how they did it. Year by year, they’d kill someone else and take on their identities. Horrible. They were responsible for more deaths than we suspected.”

  “Horrible,” she agreed.

  Joe’s phone was buzzing on the bedside table. He picked it up quickly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

  Jackson was on the other end.

  “You two doing okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re fine, thanks, Jackson. You?”

  “Yeah, good, thanks. I’m getting ready to head back.”

  “We’ll be ready whenever we need to be.”

  “You don’t need to be. Jillian wants to see you this afternoon. She’ll meet you at the Carousel Bar at the Monteleone at four. You can head into NOLA at your leisure, meet her there, stay on a day or two, or head out somewhere else. You did great.”

  Joe wasn’t sure they’d done great. It still disturbed him that he had pinned Brian as the killer and that Brian had come as close as he did to carrying out his plan.

  “You mean—”

  “I mean I don’t want to see you back in the office until the middle of next week.”

  “But—”

  “Joe, it’s over. Mission accomplished, and everyone is all right, except for the killers. Yes, we like to take people alive. But not at the cost of our own. You and Keri did it; you flushed him out. And in the end, you made him desperate.”

  “There were agents everywhere—”

  “Right. We’re a team. Along with the cops, too. Coley was great; he had it all under control when the place went nuts so quickly. Take a break; take it easy.”

  “Keri—”

  “Will be fine. I have her cleared. She can make up the work and graduate with her class.”

  “I—”

  “Joe, say thanks, and take a little rest.”

  “Thanks.”

  He ended the call with Jackson and looked at Kari. “We’re to go to New Orleans—”

  “And see Jillian. I heard.”

  “And he wants us to take a few days off. He said you can make it up with your academy class.”

  “Cool.”

  “So . . . see Jillian. And then . . . fall colors are happening all over up north.”

  She smiled. “We’ll be in New Orleans.”

  “Yes, but after all that has happened . . .”

  “I love New Orleans. We’re meeting her at the Monteleon; I think that’s what I overheard. I love the Monteleone! A few days, huh? We’ll take the riverboat, we’ll visit the museums, the aquarium, the zoo . . . the wax museum. I love the wax museum. We’ll take a very romantic carriage ride . . .” Her voice trailed for a minute. “I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

  He smiled slowly, reaching for her. “Anything I do is okay when I’m with you.”

  They’d crashed to bed and fallen to sleep almost the second they’d finally gotten into their room, but they’d managed to shed guns and holsters and clothing first.

  Her skin was warm and sleek when he held her.

  Her eyes touched his in a way that seemed to be electrical magic.

  She whispered softly to him, her arms curling around his neck, the feel of her naked body close and soft as silk and seductive.

  “We don’t have to be anywhere until four, and we are alive . . . deliciously alive.”

  Her lips touched his.

  God, yes, they were alive.

  ***

  It was wonderful to see Jillian.

  And while the killer was dead and the danger was over, Angus McGee was still with her.

  “We’re, uh, moving in together. Permanently,” Jillian told them.

  The Monteleone was beautiful; they left the revolving bar to garner a corner table and there, they found Lieutenant Emil Woodruff was waiting for them.

  Both Keri and Joe thanked him again.

  He nodded with a little smile and then said, “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  “You’re going back to Massachusetts?” Keri asked him. “We can help you get there.”

  He shook his head. “I’m going to Jackson Square. I’m going to slip into the Cathedral. I’m going to wait for the sun to come up, and I’m going to watch it rise and join it.”

  Keri wasn’t certain; none of them knew the truth of what lay beyond, though many of the Krewe had seen friends leave . . . in a ray of light.

  She prayed it would be that way for Lieutenant Woodruff.

  They had a wonderful afternoon talking. Jackson called later; they might never know who Brian Mayfield and Belinda had been in truth, but they’d found a man named Clarence Drucker who had disappeared aft
er a stint in a mental hospital outside of Chicago almost five years ago. They were going to do tests to find out if Mayfield and Drucker had been one and the same.

  They were still searching for even a possible match for Belinda.

  The group stayed together and dined at K. Paul’s, and then split. Keri and Joe spent a beautiful night at the hotel, but woke up at the crack of dawn anxious to get to Jackson Square.

  Lieutenant Woodruff was just coming from the Cathedral. He walked out to the area just in front of the cathedral, saw them, and waved.

  They waved in return.

  The sun was just coming up.

  Lieutenant Woodruff lifted his arms while the sun’s rays shot down.

  Keri lifted a hand to shield her eyes.

  And as she watched, the light shimmered around the lieutenant.

  And then he was gone.

  She turned into Joe’s arms.

  “He was truly a fine and beautiful man,” Joe said.

  Keri told him quietly, “And so are you.”

  “You think?” he said lightly. “Well then, come on, Special Agent Wolf, we’ve a lot of sightseeing to do.”

  “I’m not a special agent yet,” she reminded.

  He turned to study her. “But you are. In my mind, you are. Bright, able, wary—and excellent at playing out a scene to the best advantage. Best partner ever—in all things.”

  “I like that,” she told him. She kissed him quickly, then took his hand.

  They walked to the river; watched the mighty Mississippi.

  And he knew they were both thankful to be alive.

  And especially thankful to be alive—together.

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Graham, majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over two hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, sci-fi, young adult, and Christmas family fare.

  She is pleased to have been published in twenty-five languages. She has been honored with awards from booksellers and writers’ organizations for excellence in her work, and she is the proud to be a recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers and was awarded the prestigious Thriller Master Award in 2016. She is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from RWA. Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.