Horror-Ween (Krewe of Hunters) Read online

  They all said, “Happy Halloween,” in return, then Keri heard Brenda speak to Mel.

  “Okay, what am I doing tonight?”

  “Purgatory Puppy,” he told her.

  “Where’s Gail?” Keri asked him.

  “Got a text from her; she had to go home unexpectedly. Her mom was rushed to the hospital. Heart problem. Brenda has done this kind of thing before. You’ll help her?” He asked.

  “We’ve got you, Brenda!” Marvin assured her.

  “Keri and I have you!” Lance said. “You’re upstairs, in the playroom with us.”

  Keri looked at Joe. Gail not being there was a surprise to them. Joe gave her a slight inclination of his head, and she knew he’d be following up on what had happened.

  “Make-up, my beauty?” Brian asked her.

  “I—uh, Brian, give me a few minutes, please,” Keri said. “I think I’ll dress first if that’s okay with you?”

  “Sure, dolly, sure.”

  Keri wanted to see everyone else. She busied herself getting her costume; Lance and Marvin were chatting while they went through the hangers.

  Steve, Janice, and Rowdy had arrived as well. They were talking about a call system if anyone needed help since they might be far apart along the hayride trail at any point.

  The others had arrived as well, Connie sighing and wishing she could be with her children, Laura agreeing, and Justin saying his baby just really didn’t care much this year—but next year, he’d have to figure out.

  She took her turn behind the curtain.

  Joe was there when she slid the curtain open.

  “The text was from Gail’s phone, and I have Jackson on it, finding out if she even has a mom who is still living. We’ll know soon. Play it straight for now,” he whispered to her.

  “Come on, love birds, let’s move,” Gordon called to them.

  Keri went back for make-up. Brian was delighted. She sat in his chair, and he began.

  “Beautiful!” he told her. “Such a face, such a palette for my work!”

  She saw Joe come back; he never liked her in the back alone, and maybe he had good reason. In the make-up chair, she might well have a bad time reaching her Glock, strapped to her ankle.

  He appeared tense and distracted.

  He wasn’t really doing make-up, she thought, not that it mattered too much. He was a tall, dashing count without it.

  He grabbed his teeth; Marvin hurried on by him, ready to do his make-up.

  “My amazing work, my amazing work,” Brian said.

  Keri thanked him and hurried up. “Should we get over there?” she asked Joe. “Did you hear anything yet?”

  They had just stepped outside; Mel was standing there, ready to introduce them to the FBI agents who were on duty, even though the agents knew who they were.

  Everything was for appearances, of course.

  Marvin came out behind them. And then Gordon—who did look amazing in his headless horseman costume.

  “My time to shine,” Gordon said.

  They started over to the house, arm in arm.

  “Well?” Keri demanded.

  Joe’s phone buzzed; he glanced at it and hit answer.

  “They’re still trying to find out the truth of the matter. Gail’s mother’s address is listed in St. Francisville; they haven’t been able to reach her, and they’re sending agents now to the house and to the local hospitals. He’ll call back within another twenty minutes or so; he believes he’ll have answers by then,” Joe told her.

  Keri tripped over one of the steel backs to a ride.

  Joe caught her quickly.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Just not all that coordinated, I guess.”

  They reached the house. Brenda, Marvin, and Lance were right behind them.

  “Man, I feel weird tonight. And I was going to drink—not like Janice last night, but a nice celebration drink of some kind.” Lance said.

  “I’ll drink for us both,” Brenda said. “Man, I hate these costumes.”

  “You’re not in it yet,” Marvin reminded her.

  “I hate that I’m going to get in it,” Brenda said. She looked hard at both Joe and Keri, but said nothing about them.

  Mel had talked to her. She knew.

  And she had every right to hate being here!

  Inside, Marvin and Joe promised to help Brenda into her costume. It was downstairs on the settee just where Gail had left it the night before.

  But where was Gail?

  “Time for them to help Brenda, and for us to get upstairs,” Lance told Keri cheerfully.

  “Okay, time, Halloween, yeah. Yah, Halloween,” Keri said.

  She almost missed a step. Of course. She was exhausted. This was the night; they had to catch the killer.

  She wanted to talk to Joe again.

  But from down below, she heard the cry.

  “Gates are open! Get ready!”

  No chance right now. But she knew if there was something, something known, something a problem . . .

  Joe would be there.

  Halloween.

  Yes. The night had begun. And if Captain Woodruff was right, the killer was already on the move.

  Chapter 12

  Kids came; kids went.

  The night was like any other.

  But halfway through, Joe noted Marvin was behaving strangely. He would start to leap out of his box, then fall over it.

  The way he was moving was just slightly skewed . . . off.

  But once, when he nearly fell over, Joe made a pretense of the count being annoyed by the antics of his evil jack-in-the-box and leaned close as he helped him, whispering, “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  Marvin looked at Joe. His make-up appeared to be running, and it gave him a sad look.

  “Just tired . . . and ready for Sam’s tonight,” Marvin said.

  He felt his phone buzzing and when a group moved on upstairs, he quickly looked at the message that had come through.

  It was from Jackson.

  “Gail’s mother died three years ago; Gail’s phone tracked to a restaurant on the highway, about three miles west of the fair. Heading there now. Agents and cops on high alert at park; watch your back.”

  He gazed at the time; they had an hour to go.

  He wasn’t sure they had an hour.

  And they didn’t. He heard shouts from outside, a cacophony of cries and screams and conversation.

  He glanced at Marvin who was hanging out of his box and headed to the door throwing it open.

  People were running everywhere, and sirens were going off.

  One of the agents from NOLA was just outside. He looked as if he wanted to run into the fray and do what was needed, but he had been assigned to watch the house and he was going to do so.

  “What’s going on?” Joe demanded.

  “The headless horseman,” the agent told him. “He went for his ride; then the actor careened off his horse and he threw a head down . . . and it was real. Someone’s head. Police are flooding in, but I think it will surely close, and they’ll interview people as they try to get out. Special Agent Dunhill, you might want to get Keri Wolf and the actors in the house and get them to the entrance.”

  Joe nodded. Like the young agent, he wanted to run out and find out what the hell had happened, make sure the crowd was back, and see the head that had been thrown down.

  “The head,” he said quickly. “Was it that of a young woman?”

  “No, sir . . . not a woman, and . . . I don’t know. Maybe buried, maybe rolled in dirt. The cops are holding the crowd, the agents are moving in, the medical examiner has been called, but mostly right now, everyone is working on crowd control.”

  He could barely hear the young agent. The flood lights had been turned on at the park; sirens were blaring. The neon lights on the rides were blinking as motors whirred as the rides were closed.

  The human cacophony had risen to hysteria.

  Joe
quickly asked the young agent, “What happened to the horseman, Gordon Bentley?”

  “Don’t know; he’s still on the ground. Ambulance and paramedics are on the way.”

  Joe wanted to see Gordon; he wanted to know what had happened to the man.

  But more than that, he needed to get back into the house, get Keri, get the others out, and find out where the hell the killer was.

  He had Gail already, Joe was certain. Who else?

  Gordon hadn’t just fallen off his horse; the killer had orchestrated the chaos.

  “Stay here!” Joe ordered, turning to head back into the house. He threw open the door heading for Marvin’s jack-in-the-box.

  Marvin wasn’t there. He hadn’t gone out the front.

  Drawing his Glock, Joe headed on up the stairs. He hurried to the playroom.

  Marvin lay on the floor. At his side, Lance was also on the floor.

  There was no sign of Brenda Templeton—or Keri.

  He let out an oath of fury—fury with himself for having played right into the killer’s hands. He quickly dropped down by Marvin and Lance, checking the two for a pulse.

  They lived. Both had a pulse, weak, but constant.

  A strange feeling shot through him as his fingers brushed Lance’s face.

  Then, he knew. He knew why Marvin had been falling out of his box. He knew why Keri had tripped on their way here.

  He thought he heard motion from the closet; the door was usually open.

  It was closed.

  His Glock at the ready, he threw open the closet door.

  He didn’t face the killer, he thought.

  But he was facing the accomplice. She was standing there, Brenda Templeton’s collapsed body pushed behind her. She stared at him with her eyes narrowed with fury.

  “You!” She hissed. “You—you are an unprofessional jerk! You didn’t do it right. You should be on the floor, and we should all be out of here now!”

  She let Brenda fall, lifting a small Colt revolver and aiming it at him as she spoke. Aiming it straight at his chest.

  She had to know. She had to know he couldn’t reason or argue with her as she moved her hand slightly; he heard a click. She was going to fire.

  No choice.

  He fired first.

  She went down, almost on top of the half-puppy clad body of Brenda Templeton. Joe drew Brenda quickly from the closet, seeking a pulse.

  Something different had happened to her, of course.

  And it had.

  Blood streamed from the right side of her forehead; she’d been struck hard with something . . . the poker that had sat by the fake fireplace.

  He ducked to feel for a pulse.

  Brenda, too, was living. Maybe just barely.

  He rose and raced to the front again.

  The young agent had apparently heard the shot; he was just coming in, his own service weapon drawn.

  “Don’t shoot! We need paramedics in here, fast! One dead, an accomplice, while the main killer is still out there. Three employees are down, barely breathing. I need you to move. Get help in here now! Control the situation here!”

  He turned to head out of the back of the prefab house, praying he’d find a trail.

  “Sir, where are you—”

  “The killer has Keri and Gail, too, I believe. Get agents out to the cemetery and the hayride. Search every inch of this park!”

  “Sir—”

  “The killer has made his move and is about to complete his final murders. Get people moving, now, fast!”

  He tore out the back; one of the park’s wheelbarrows waited there, as if it had been meant to carry unconscious bodies. Beyond that . . .

  There was a trail in the dirt, leading behind the rear of the attractions.

  Toward the acreage that made up the haunted hayride.

  Something had been dragged.

  No.

  Someone.

  Keri.

  As he raced around the rear of the rides and attractions, his mind worked in fury. He, of course, was supposed to have been drugged out, too, on the floor an intended victim. Maybe Brenda had been intended as the fourth. It was to have been him, Keri, Brenda, and Gail.

  And it hadn’t been logic or any great investigative powers that had saved him.

  No . . .

  Just his impatience!

  ***

  “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.”

  Keri came to consciousness slowly, the words of the killer’s taunting rhyme spinning in her head along with the verdant smell of the earth and drifting of the breeze. It wasn’t unpleasant at first, the feel of the air and the earth, but it combined in a twisted vortex with the words in her head. It was almost as if children chanted the words, saying them over and over again.

  The chant faded as she became aware of more. Dirt beneath her. Strange groaning sounds from nearby.

  Then she heard fierce swearing, and in the distance came shrieks and screams.

  She couldn’t open her eyes. The effort was too much.

  Reality came to her; she was lying on the ground somewhere in the woods. She mentally strained to figure out how she had come to be here. The last thing she remembered was staggering back when a group left the upstairs, falling against Lance as Silly Skeleton, and the two of them seeming to fall together in slow motion that brought them crashing to the floor. There was no pain, because after the slow-motion fall, there was nothing else to remember.

  They’d been drugged.

  How?

  They hadn’t eaten together, they hadn’t had drinks together. The only place they had been together in any way had been . . .

  In the tent. Costumes and make-up.

  Had it come through their skin?

  She became aware that someone near was cursing, muttering darkly.

  She had to open her eyes!

  Carefully; she didn’t want to give away the fact she was coming to consciousness. The concept of barely opening her eyes was fine in her mind; trying to do so was another struggle.

  There was movement near her.

  At last, she managed to crack her eyes open.

  Yes, her senses had told her she was in the woods—and she was. Great trees towered over her; fallen leaves were by her side. If she moved at all, they would rustle. And that was what she had heard, someone else moving within the leaves . . .

  About a foot away from Keri was the prone body of Gail Aubrey. Gail. She was by her; her eyes were closed. She had barely shifted.

  They had known; they had known Gail had not gone to see her mother. But they had called out all the troops. Agents and police officers. By the scores, and still . . .

  She was here with Gail!

  Carefully, she tried to survey her surroundings. There was no one else on the ground; just her and Gail.

  The killer always killed in groups of four.

  Was he awaiting the others?

  She heard cursing again and then the muttered question. “Where the hell is she? What is taking that ridiculous woman so long?”

  Joe! She thought. You scumbag—Joe has stopped whoever “she” might be!

  Of course, that didn’t help her any.

  She heard a different voice, soft, almost part of the air.

  “I’m here. I’m finding Joe and agents and police and . . . somehow, we’ll stop him this time, I’m here, I . . .”

  The ghostly voice of Lieutenant Emil Woodruff faded.

  The leaves rustled and footsteps came close.

  He was standing over her; the killer was standing over her.

  She kept her eyes barely slit; willpower allowed her to do so then. Willpower or the desperate human desire to survive.

  “The idiot must have been stopped, but don’t worry, my beautiful Devilla Dolly. The fun has begun; the night is alive. She has failed me, but the carnage will exist no ma
tter. And she is no fool; she will have become one with the dead herself. We made a pact; sealed in blood. I did want Brenda! Such a lovely scream-queen! But I will do without. I’m sorry, so sorry. She was to have brought Brenda and that boyfriend of yours, that Joe. Big, hunky Joe, cool Joe, tough Joe—he’s down, my love, down, down, down!” He hunkered to a squat by her and she very carefully kept her eyes as nothing but slits. “It will be Brenda first. I’ll let you watch. I’m going to give that old biddy just a few more minutes to get here, and then . . . well, then we’ll begin. And me, don’t worry about me! I know the place is flooded with FBI and cops. But we’re back behind the tree line; they’ll be going crazy searching the area by the hayride trail. I walk away, happy as a clam . . . kill another middle-aged geezer like myself and become him. Maybe I’ll move on to Atlanta this time. Or Seattle! Haven’t been in the northwest yet. But this is my Halloween finale. I need a new theme, but fear not . . . maybe the Santa Claus killer! What do you think of that?” He swore softly again, shaking his head. “I need you to wake up! Son-of-a-bitch. I might have gotten a little carried away with your make-up. But the drug will wear off. You don’t know how I’ve watched you, coveted you, waited to have you look at me while . . . well, while I claimed your soul forever!”

  She was careful not to move a muscle. Then again, if she tried at this moment, she would be able to do nothing but twitch anyway. She barely dared breathe; she had to think. And she had to pray that something came back to her, movement, power . . . anything.

  There was a rustling of leaves nearby.

  And then she heard the killer cry, “You!”

  And she moved—because he lifted her. Lifted her shoulders and head, laying them on his lap as he hunched near.

  And she felt the cold steel of his blade against her neck.

  ***

  Joe followed the trail around the rear structure of the rides and attractions. The chaos at the entry to the adult section of the park—cemetery, house, and hayride—continued.

  Agents were everywhere; cops were everywhere. But people were screaming and trying to run, trampling one another, and the police were busy trying to bring order out of chaos.