Ghost (The Halloween Boys #1) (70)

It seemed I attracted his type.

Because I was prey.

But not anymore. Now, I’d be a predator. Whether I felt like it on the inside all the time or not. I’d find my teeth and claws. And it would start with catching Ghost.

The Devil I knew.

The Ghost I knew.

I wove through the trees and fallen branches. With every step, the fog at my feet grew thicker. Anyone would have turned around. Anyone would have listened to their primal instincts pulling them away from the dark. Only the most idiotic ignored that voice. Or the ones like me with nothing more to lose.

With every crunch of dead leaves beneath my shoes, my resolve grew. I had no idea where I was going, but it didn’t matter. I’d walk all night until I found him. Something inside me told me to turn right, so I did.

My therapist’s, Dr. Omar’s, voice played through my mind from our last meeting. She said I had extreme avoidism that roped me into dissociation: the daydreams that assaulted my waking hours and pulled me from any hope of being in the present, and the nightmares that plagued my consciousness, causing dark circles under my eyes. The things and events surrounding me were unbelievable. They defied all laws of nature. Dead men didn’t chase girls to strange towns. Strange towns with residents who looked at me like they’d never seen another human before. We don’t get many visitors.

I’d never seen Ash Grove on a map. It didn’t show up on my phone’s navigation, only gray roads with no bigger picture to zoom out on. I’d never heard of Hallows Fest or anything like it.

Everyone had a different ghost story. I’d been collecting each one like the pirates said they did. Maybe scattered amongst the variations, the truth would become apparent, only they all only got stranger. But they all agreed on one thing, this group called The Halloween Boys were to blame for each and every scary story here. They’d killed, and brutalized, and burnt it all down two hundred years ago.

And I was following one of them into the woods. Alone . . . somehow.

And somehow, in this place where vampires drank from pirates and crows could talk . . . here I was. I knew it even though I didn’t want to. I’d deflected, ignored, and ran. Even inside my own mind, I ran and avoided. I didn’t know what Ghost was . . . .

But those blue eyes. That touch . . . that smell. When I brushed his hair back last night, I saw it. I saw exactly where the paint would go. A serial killer, he’d admitted that much. I realized why Ames let me go alone to Hallows—because I wasn’t alone. I probably hadn’t been alone a day since coming here.

No, I didn’t know what Ghost was, but I had an idea of who he was. And I was ready to face it. All of it.

And I was going to do it here and now.

I’d thought this whole time that being a clever fox was my mask. When in reality, the only mask I wore was playing dumb, hiding my smarts, my observations, not willing to act or question. I’d gone back to the library early that morning, before breakfast with the guys, before they could miss me. I told Ames I was picking up some clothes and showering at the shop. I found the newspaper the boys tried to hide from me. The Halloween Boys . . . and a faded sepia photo of Wolfgang Jack, Onyx Hart, and Ames Cove.

Looking as alive and young as they do now.

The rabbit was my mask all along. They wanted to tell me, as evidenced by the conversations I’d overheard at the church and in the car, when they thought I was sleeping. I’d pieced together that Onyx had some sort of hypnotic ability, but he overestimated how long it worked on me, and I used it to my advantage. I just hadn’t been brave enough to put the puzzle together until now. I couldn’t pretend any more. If my stepfather was somehow apart of the paranormal world . . . others had to be too.

My feet hit gravel and the trees cleared. The fog was blue violet and like a thick and living thing as it pulsed and swirled around me. As it waved and thinned, I made out the towered shape of a wrought iron gate. The tops were sharp spears and the energy that emanated from it was ominous. There was no lock to be seen, but when I shook the gates, they didn’t budge. I couldn’t exactly climb the massive two-story structure, so I stood at a standstill. I knew he was in there; I could feel it. Where else would he disappear to than a creepy cemetery in the woods?

“I know you’re in here,” I said just under a shout.

Just then, the gates rumbled and clanked, opening automatically.

I stepped through the threshold, and a howling wind whistled past me as the fog parted like a sea. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of decrepit gravestones jutted from the ground and rolling hills in the distance.

It was the largest and oldest cemetery I’d ever seen.

And then I saw him.





CHAPTER 26





Blythe





A SACRIFICE FIT FOR A MONSTER





Welcome to my nightmare. I think you're gonna like it.

Alice Cooper





He was leaning against a gravestone with his arms crossed in that alluring way of his, obsidian hair brushed back, revealing his skeleton disguise—all under a leather jacket and jeans. The only sort of modern attire I’d seen at Hallows. But I guessed a Halloween Boy could do whatever he wanted.

I’d be lying if I said a twinge of trepidation didn’t shudder through me at the sight of him in such a grim setting. This place was far from the hallowed orange jack-o’-lanterns and rubber bats. There weren’t wires holding balloons under sheets or bowls full of chocolates. The frigid breeze that brushed past my cheek and the blue fog were real . . . as real as the monster staring me down in a graveyard. Like a spider, confident in knowing I was stuck in his web, he didn’t have to move. There was nowhere I could run, and certainly no one to hear me scream all the way out here.