Page 83 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
I try to lunge forward, but Ben keeps inching us backward. I want to dart around him, to run to the man before it’s too late, but aprimitive corner of my brain overrules the impulse. It whispers not to get between the tiger and its prey. Just run. Give thanks that we aren’t its target and run.
I still hesitate. I can’t help it. If there’s any way I could stop that creature from getting to the camper…
Except it’s not just that one creature. There’s another behind it, bobbing along and then dragging itself out on a body with one missing leg and the other nearly bone. Two other shadowy shapes emerge behind them, and even then I’m trying to figure out a way to save the camper. But the one in front, the tall male figure, charges and falls on the camper, head dropping and ripping into flesh.
The camper only makes a gurgling sound, as if he’s barely conscious. Another of the drowned dead falls on him, biting and ripping, but the first knocks the second flying with a backhand, grabs the camper by the hair, and drags him toward the water.
Other dark shapes swarm, taking hold of the camper by whatever body part they can reach as they walk into the lake. And throughout it all, the horseman watches. The horse stands on the shore, the rider holding his head out to the lake.
“Sam?” Ben’s voice is ragged. He’s backed up until there’s only a sliver of space between us. He wants me to retreat—desperately wants me to retreat; I can see that in his wide eyes. But he won’t grab me or push me. Nor will he run past me to flee.
I need to get out of here—get both of us out of here. Before those things emerge from the water again. Before more appear. Before the horseman remembers us.
I take one slow backward step and then another. The figures in the water are nearly submerged. Another’s head rises above the surface. I don’t stay to get a better look. I turn and I run, and I get three strides before I realize Ben isn’t behind me.
I wheel to see him still back there, staring at the lake.
“Ben!” I shout.
He breaks from whatever holds him and sprints until he’s right behind me, his hands out as if to spur me on. I run as fast as I can, and he’s right there on my heels as I pass his tent and then scramble up the cottage steps.
“No!” he shouts, and I turn to see him gesturing at his truck.
He gets the passenger door open first, throwing it wide for me before opening the driver’s side. He’s inside in a blink, starting the truck, backing out, and then roaring down the drive. I sit there, numb and staring at the rutted road until I see the gates ahead.
Then I shout, “Wait! I can’t leave!”
He hits the brakes hard enough that I slam forward against my seat belt. I wait for him to shout at me to forget my damned inheritance. Nothing is worth staying after what we just witnessed. But he only puts the truck in park and leaves it idling there as he breathes.
“You should go,” I say softly.
“What happened back there?” he says. “What thefuckjust happened, Sam?”
I don’t answer. We both know what we saw. The only question is how it was possible. What it could have been. And I don’t have answers for that.
“Sam?” he says. “You saw that, right? The horseman? Those—those things, coming out of the water. That camper. What they did to him.”
“Yes.”
He turns, vinyl seat squeaking under him. “That’s what you saw, isn’t it? Your aunt. The blurry photo. That’s what she looked like.”
“Yes.”
“And the horseman?”
I nod. “I saw him, too. The horse, and the rider holding his head in his hand. Like the legend. Except… drowned.”
“You saw it when you were young, too.”
I shake my head. “Back then, I’d only hear a horse. Everyone thought it was my imagination. Dad gave my grandfather shit for filling my head with those stories. Even I thought it wasn’t real. That I was amusing myself by making up stuff.”
“Amusing yourself…”
I tense and then wrap my arms around myself. “What we just saw… Obviously that’s different. Like I said, I never saw anything like that until last night. It’s just… the way my grandfather told the stories, they weren’t scary. Even the part about not going in the forestor the lake at night. It wasn’t because I’d be hurt. It was just…” I shrug. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“The horseman didn’t come after us,” Ben says. “You shone the light right on him. He just looked at us and then looked away. What about last night?”
“The same.”
