Ghost (The Halloween Boys #1) (6)

With a sigh, my mind drifted to Hallows Fest.

A costume. I needed something epic to wear.

Maybe being a ghost for a night would actually benefit me for once. Besides, who would notice me anyway?





CHAPTER 4





Ames





WAH HA HA





I put a spell on you now you’re mine

Hocus Pocus





I didn’t want to leave her there all alone. Everything in me screamed like a banshee, telling me to kick down her door and be done with the song and dance. But the song and dance was my favorite part. The anticipation. The hunt. I hadn’t gotten to hunt in so long. I wanted, no, needed, to drag this out. Make it last. That meant a trip to the tech store. Reluctantly, I shifted my ‘69 Mustang into drive and made another call. The static on the other end was the only greeting I received. My only indicator that someone was listening was the call dial ticking forward, second by second. Judas was a scary motherfucker.

“Hi, sweetie, so nice to hear your voice,” I drawled into the silence. “We got a gig. The boys are meeting tonight. The usual spot. You in town?”

A moment passed and I checked the phone to make sure the call was still connected. The seconds droned on. “It’s a fun one, Judas. A scared, lonely, girl on the run . . . ,” I said as if I were taunting a dog with a bone.

He bit.

A low, graveled voice growled. “Fine.”

The line went dead.

With a chuckle, I turned up the music. This was so much better than listening to whiney ass Brandon Peters for an hour. I added psychologist to my collection of careers to help . . . myself and my boys. It began as an intel gathering mission on newcomers. Though, there hadn’t been a new batch in a very long time. The older residents, if they ever stumbled into my office, the haze would make them forget who I was. I spoke with them to attempt to assuage some lost part of myself that needed help a long time ago. I thought I could deny who I was. What I did. We we did to this place, these people. I thought maybe I could guide the new and old with words, through unravelling their damage, walking them through the darkness.

What a load of shit.

I was the darkness. I was worse than any of their problems. Scarier than any of their mundane fears. My past was always worse than theirs. My mistakes . . . jewels in my crown. Where people like Brandon would shrivel up and die under the weight of the char on my soul and blood on my hands . . . I thrived on it. I got off on it.

Unfortunately, the light filtered in after a while. Eighteen months ago, I was laughing my ass off, dirt on my knees and under my fingernails, drunk off the beers the boys and I drank. We shoveled as slowly as possible, relishing feel of metal stabbing into earth, the scattered raindrop sound of dirt hitting the firm and filled garbage bag below.

The morning after I murdered Spencer Warbler, I ordered a bear claw and doppio espresso. With a spring in my step, I walked to work instead of drove. The air smelled cleaner, my body felt as if I’d just fucked the hottest woman alive, and my mind was clear. In the weeks that followed, I almost hoped for a missing person’s report. A news story. Maybe a stray dog would dig something up or a hiker would stumble upon the makeshift grave. I checked the local media outlets every day, but of course, nothing. We were too good. Our skill sets were molded by the god of death herself. The chase was over. There were no follow-up endorphins to be had. Goddamn, there was nothing like that post-homicide feeling. The high was like none other.

And I was about to get that feeling back.

But first, I had errands to run.





The teenage boys working the tech store didn’t bat an eye when they scanned my items. The devices I purchased should have been illegal. I was lucky they weren’t, but still. Bad guys could buy them. A bad guy was buying them. I looked the part of the hometown geek. I looked like someone who built computers from scratch and lived in his mother’s basement. My oversized clunky glasses and shaggy black hair were more of a mask than the one I wore to Hallows. That one at least mirrored what I really looked like. I didn’t grow up academic and professional. I’d lived long enough to see the world change, speech adapt, ideas shift. Being smart wasn’t the byproduct of books. It was more a self-taught survival skill. When I went to college, I wasn’t only studying the courses. My attention often fixated on my professors and how they carried themselves. Brainy yet . . . doofuses. No one ever questioned them if they ran late or changed clothes between classes. No one batted an eye at their short responses or eccentric interests. Smart, dopey, harmless. I could wear that skin. That wouldn’t frighten the locals. The ones who didn’t already know. My height could even be concealed by slouching in the right way. My muscles hidden behind pink polos and khakis. Gag me.

But it was a worthy disguise. No one suspected good ole Doctor Cove. The guy who brought doughnuts to the office every Monday and never wore jeans on casual Friday because it just wouldn’t feel right. I loathed every moment of it, instead daydreaming in crimson, in screams and the smell of burnt and poisoned skin. Ash Grove was a pendulum town swinging between Mayberry and Gotham. But I loved that. I’d lived here my whole life, as did my father and my grandfather. I wouldn’t abandon it even if I could.

My next errand was unconventional, but I was hoping it would pay off. Hopefully I didn’t turn into a slug when I stepped through the threshold. Like Marcelene would even try me. Bells jingled upon my entry and a skeleton holding a plastic scythe on the cobwebbed wall laughed a buzzy, wah ha ha. “Hi! One moment, sir,” Yesenia chimed.