Page 22 of Haunted Horror on Halloween

She hoped Jackson didn’t see her reaction—heck, it was dark.

“Just an owl,” he said, his flashlight not wavering from the twisting, narrow, almost path they were on.

“Okay, in all honesty, it’s a beautiful night,” she told him. “Stars shining bright above us—”

“You ready to burst into song?” he asked her. Then a branch snapped back at him, and he let out an “Ouch!”

“Only a branch.” she told him.

He stopped suddenly and she almost plowed into his back.

“What is it?”

“Look,” he said, directing the flashlight a bit higher.

With the powerful light aimed in a higher direction, they could see through the heavy branches; they were coming back up to the road again.

“Come on, come on, come on.” he told her.

And in another few minutes—and only a few mishaps with the branches—they were on the road.

No stolen car was waiting there.

But evidently . . .

Jackson had hunkered down, studying the dirt by the pavement.

“There was a car here,” Angela said flatly. “So . . . he had his prison guard helper get him so far, and then he killed the man. Kill your witnesses and they can’t talk if they’re caught, that’s for sure.”

“Killed the guy, dragged his kidnapping victims through the woods, and came out to the road again,” Angela agreed. “There is evidence he took another car, and headed—”

“Northeast,” Jackson told her.

“Think it’s worth trying to walk that way—” she began.

“Check it out!” he said, looking at his phone. “Bruce got us a map; we know where our guys are starting and where Valiente and his men are and we know where all the houses are along each side of the road. We’re a quarter of a mile from one on this side—we should give it a try.”

“Let’s do it,” she agreed.

They began to walk and as they did, they felt their phones chiming. Bruce McFadden was calling.

They looked at one another. Jackson answered his, putting it on speaker.

There was no one near them to overhear—dead or alive.

“Just a heads up,” Bruce said. “We’ve spoken to a few homeowners on our end, and they haven’t seen or heard anything. But there is a problem in the searching; people here seem to have gone nuts with Halloween. It’s taking us some time. Yards are Halloween- decorated to the nth degree. Scarecrows, pumpkins, giant skeletons, coffins . . . ghosts, you name it. Naturally, we’re going over each one because—”

“Of the kind of soulless monster this man is, just what he might do—and, of course, the fact he stole everything possible from a Halloween shop,” Jackson agreed. “And there’s no help for it—just keep moving the best you all can, and yes, it’s going to be tough because under the circumstances, we’re going to need to be thorough.”

“Right. Well, we’re on it. Like I said, just a heads-up,” Bruce said.

They finished the call. And it was just a matter of minutes before they came upon the house closest to them on the road.

And Bruce was right.

The place might have been a Halloween attraction, done up almost as much as some of the major theme parks.

It was encased in pseudo spiderwebs, a giant movie monster sat to the one side of the house, leering over anyone who might head up the walk, and to the other side there was a massive scarecrow—one that was animated so that the creature laughed diabolically every few minutes.