Ghost (The Halloween Boys #1) (17)
But right now, all I had was a blank letter from a psychopath and a soggy basement. I had no escape plan, no way to defend myself, and no one was coming to save me.
“Excuse me.” Knuckles vibrated lightly against my table. I glanced up to see a tall, good-looking man in a suit. His hair was black and slicked back. He reminded me of a more self-assured Dr. Cove. “You look like a person who knows about letters.”
My breath caught. “Excuse me?”
“May I sit?”
I swallowed down the fear threatening to overtake me and nodded, frozen in place. “What do you mean letters?”
The man gave a lopsided smile and slid into the adjacent booth. “Letters of the alphabet, what else would I mean?”
My cheeks heated. “Great, another stranger to toy with me.”
He chuckled darkly. “You mean I’m not the first local weirdo to bother you this morning?” He looked at his watch. “It’s seven-thirty. I guess I need to be quicker next time. I need a six-letter word for how the victim in a horror movie walks so their predator doesn’t hear them.”
He was toying with me. “Who are you?” I asked, my fear easing into curiosity. Something about him felt familiar but wild, unpredictable. He smiled a smile that told me he knew more than he’d ever say.
“I’m a friend.” Silence hung between us for a moment.
He scribbled on his crossword for a moment, obviously comfortable sitting across from a woman he didn’t know. He reminded me of the football players in high school who just assumed that every female wanted them around. The fact should have annoyed me, I should have moved, but I was too tired, too stunned, and maybe a small part of me liked that I wasn’t sitting alone for once. “So you’re a local? Can you tell me what the hell is up with this place?”
He snickered, not looking up from his page. “Well, Tim’s Diner has the best burgers in Ash Grove if you get here on Wednesday mornings at eleven right after the meat shipment drops—”
“Funny. You know that’s not what I mean,” I interrupted. He was irritating, but in that way a guy who’s been your friend for a long time was. I couldn’t help the grin that pulled at the corner of my mouth. “The obsession with October, this Hallows Fest, the ghost stories everyone alludes to but won’t tell me about . . . the lack of tourists. What’s the deal?”
“Good questions, you’d make a fine attorney. I’m hiring a paralegal if you’re interested.”
I crossed my arms and sighed. It was hopeless. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be here very long anyway.” The words chilled me because in that moment, I truly didn’t know if I meant I’d leave or I’d die soon. Either or both were inevitable.
The man’s stare caught mine, his green eyes gleaming the most vibrant shade of emerald I’d ever seen. “A lot of what stories say are monsters are really just people. Like the story of this town. Ash Grove, the tiny little gothic town that was slaughtered on Halloween in eighteen twenty-three.” Chills nicked my arms as he continued, “Some say it was beasts from the forest, some say it was an army attack, the others . . . think maybe it was the Devil himself. But does the answer matter? I think people would prefer a human variety of bad guy. Something they can explain. But regardless, there are scary stories of people . . . that are really monsters. Something else, something unholy, something unexplainable. Those are scarier than anything in our woods or campfire tales.”
My breath caught in my chest. “Just spooky old ghost stories, I guess.”
The man rolled up his paper and stood. “Court awaits.”
I replied, staring at my lukewarm coffee. “Tiptoe.”
“Pardon?”
“The answer to your crossword. To get away from a predator in a horror film, you tiptoe.”
With a grin, he unrolled his paper and filled in the squares in accomplishment. “See? I knew you’d know.” The man turned and took a carafe from the bar counter and refilled my cup. “You’re not alone, Blythe.”
I opened my mouth in surprise, but before I could say a word, he’d walked out. In his wake, the old waitress toddled over and sat a heaping plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon in front of me. “Oh, I didn’t order this—”
“Courtesy of Onyx Hart, dear.”
Tears swelled in my eyes as I inhaled the salty sweet aroma of a freshly cooked breakfast. Something terrible, awful, and ghastly was happening now.
I was beginning to love it here.
Raja always paid me in cash after each shift. Without having to pay for rent or breakfast, I had enough to buy some new clothes. Ironically, my backseat was filled with bags, but they were costumes for Hallows Fest. Yesenia fully stocked me with sexy outfits for Hallows so I wouldn’t have to repeat too often. The festival was kicking off that night. The anticipation tempered my anxiety over being found. I knew my stepfather would make a move eventually, but I was hoping to maybe get another month in first. Regardless, I needed something to wear other than my sleep clothes and robe. I stumbled into Yesenia’s shop, embarrassed over my attire. I remembered seeing some casual smocked dresses and knit cardigans on my last visit. This time I was prepared for the dangling skeleton that greeted me. More decorations had popped up since last time, though the shop didn’t need it. The entire ceiling housed hanging dried herbs and flowers. Crystals, bones, and runes lined the shelves between garments. And I was pretty sure the bones weren’t Halloween props. Maybe it all wasn’t so entirely strange. Many towns I’d travelled through put huge emphasis on Christmas, and decorations and festivities would stretch throughout November and December. Ash Grove’s focus was on being a Halloween town, which even made sense with its old architecture and bright red, orange, and yellow trees. The townspeople were a bit kooky, but they seemed to mean well. I really hadn’t met an unkind person since my arrival. But the man this morning’s, Onyx’s, words played in my head. The history of Ash Grove sounded brutal and mysterious. An entire town slaughtered on Halloween and hundreds of years later there’s no consensus on how it happened?