Outside, a hushed male voice, still perfectly audible in the dark foyer, said: “The door’s already open. Why don’t we just—”

  “Don’t you—” the woman, Red Nose Trixie, said, then put the bullhorn away from her mouth. “Don’t you remember what just happened? Nobody attempts to breach that door. Not until we’re sure it’s safe.”

  Jerri remembered what Rust’s father had done. Even if the clowns were being more careful this time, Jerri still couldn’t shake the idea that the people outside were idiots.

  “Hey,” Jerri said, putting a bandaged hand on Mrs. Duvall’s arm. “You’re one of them. Can you go out and talk to them?”

  “Yeah. That’s a great idea,” Cole said. “Get them to leave. Tell them we’re not here.”

  “Or,” Jerri said, “talk some sense into them, tell them we need to get Hunter to a hospital.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, pointing his chin at his two crooked arms, looking embarrassed. “I guess that’s good, too.”

  Jane Duvall looked down at her son, patting his hair, the part staying where she put it, the blood on her hands like hair gel. He was still. Too still.

  Mrs. Duvall’s face twitched, small lip spasms and eyelid tics visible in the SUV headlights pointed at the front of Hill Manor.

  “I could try,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Jerri said, then reached out to touch the woman, but Hunter’s mom recoiled against her.

  Jerri crawled to the nearest window, but couldn’t bring herself to peek over the sill. There weren’t just the headlights. There was the orange flicker of flames out there as well. If this was an old-fashioned mob, she couldn’t see if they had pitchforks, but they certainly had torches.

  Mrs. Duvall bent, kissed her son on the head, and then stood.

  “I see something,” one of the men outside said. “There’s movement in the window.” He said it “win-da.”

  “Don’t shoot,” Mrs. Duvall said. Even raised, her voice wasn’t strong.

  Jane Duvall stepped into the full light, shadowing her eyes with her hands. “I said don’t shoot, I’m one of you! BigTopKnits2020!”

  Jerri looked over to Cole, who shrugged and mouthed: Clown names.

  “Come out with your hands up,” Trixie said into her megaphone.

  Jane Duvall obliged, needing to use the toe of one of her house shoes to pull open the remainder of the shotgunned front door.

  “Mom,” Hunter said. Jerri looked over to where he lay, but it was unclear if he was conscious, aware of what was happening, or if he was having a bad dream, calling for his mother.

  “I’m one of you,” Mrs. Duvall said again as she stepped out the door.

  “Where’s your mask, then?” one of the men asked, the “win-da” guy.

  “They took it from me,” Jane Duvall said. “Like they took my son. They’re in there. Two of the Three. Hill and Vance. And they killed him,” she sobbed. “They killed my boy!”

  “Fuck,” Cole said. “Hunter’s mom’s fucking crazy.”

  Jerri didn’t bother to agree. There was no time; she had to listen.

  There was a hushed discussion going on outside. Then it ended, a decision reached, and Jerri heard Red Nose Trixie say:

  “You heard her. Burn them out.”

  Then the windows broke and the torches were thrown inside.

  Rust couldn’t worry about the new voices outside. Or the screaming and the breaking glass.

  Because something had just moved, right in front of him.

  There it was again and—

  The smell.

  The stench was like the unnerving sensation of walking into a spiderweb. It almost tickled but was also deeply gross. Even more troubling was the realization that this smell had been all over the house, in pockets, for months. Rust had noticed, but he figured the smell was just Cole being a slob, attracting pests that’d died in the walls.

  It was too dark. There were no windows in this part of the house.

  Rust could risk moving for his penlight, but if he wasn’t quick enough, he’d need to fire the Mossberg one-handed and that could go bad.

  Here, trapped in the back corner of the house, there were only two directions Arthur Hill could be going: forward to meet Rust—or deeper in, the laundry room was followed by a few storage rooms, a linen closet, and then, at the far-east corner of the first floor, the old servants’ quarters. What Cole called “the Butler’s Bedroom” even though they didn’t have a butler.

  Something crossed in front of Rust then, a heel squeak on hardwood, and he fired at the sound.

  The muzzle flash lit the hallway in front of him, not revealing a pale and broken Arthur Hill, as he imagined it would, but an empty expanse. He got enough of a glimpse to see that the door catty-corner from the laundry room was ajar. Rust breathed, ears ringing, working the pump to feed another shell of low-recoil double-aught buck into the chamber.

  The extended magazine was bulky, but it gave him ten shots without having to worry about reloading.

  He was down to eight.

  When are you ever going to need that? he could hear Quinn asking, the memory from one of their last sessions before she’d headed off to college.

  I’m hoping never, was how he’d replied then.

  There was a small sound ahead of him in the hallway.

  Got you, asshole, Rust thought. A sensation of great relief cooled his blood, easing the burn in his scar tissue.

  Yes, he was counting the chickens before they hatched.

  Rust approached the closet door, groping in the darkness for the knob before finding it, resisting the urge to throw the door open.

  Instead, first he listened. There was a commotion out front, screams and more breaking glass and one word “Fire!” then “Put it out!”

  No. No more fire. Rust couldn’t take it.

  Something moved behind the closet door. There was a muffled thud and a grunt of exertion.

  If Rust opened the door, he’d be giving Arthur Hill one last opportunity. If the old man was somehow quick enough, or had better low-light vision than Rust had, he’d get a chance at Rust before Rust could fire.

  Should he say something? Something that would serve to put a tidy ending on this last year of hell, this waking nightmare?

  No.

  He didn’t feel like giving Arthur Hill that opportunity.

  Rust moved the barrel of the shotgun to the middle of the door. He tried to estimate where center mass would be, aiming so he wouldn’t miss if the man was crouched.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  With the barrel inches from the door, the wood vaporized in a puff of air. The muzzle flash gave the glimpse of a circle, a foot in circumference, punched into the center of the door.

  Inside the closet there was movement, possibly Arthur Hill’s body slumping to the floor.

  And there was the smell. The pent-up animal stink in the small closet released like Rust had just lanced a boil, liquid putrefaction filling the hallway.

  For safety, he expelled the spent shell and advanced another. That done, he took his hand from the forestock and dug into the pocket of his flannel for the penlight.

  The hole was ragged and smoking at the edges. But inside the closet there were singed bedsheets and feathers from exploded pillows, though . . . no blood.

  How?

  Rust bit the end of the penlight, holding it in his mouth, and put the Mossberg back up on his shoulder. Then he swung the ruined door toward himself and . . .

  There was nothing in the closet. No body. No Arthur Hill.

  Then why the smell?

  Something hung loose in front of his light, like a pull chain to an exposed bulb but . . . thicker.

  Rust reached out and grabbed the rope, pulling it forward.

  Two wooden slats hung from the rope.

  A ladder. He’d shot a rope ladder, destroying one side so the footholds hung loose.

  Rust looked up just in time for a ruby gem of saliva to drop into his face, the glob of spit hitting him on the cheek.

  Frendo the Clown’s face leered down at him, the human jaw underneath the broken mask unnaturally distended.

  That was Hunter’s doing. He’d smashed Arthur Hill’s jaw open with the skillet.

  Arthur Hill didn’t say anything, just smiled the best he could with his mouth hanging open like that, a rippling twitch of his neck muscles and a snort into his mask.

  Rust pointed the Mossberg up and fired.

  His target was expecting that, though, and had ducked out of the way, back into the second-floor hallway, before Rust even had his finger on the trigger.

  Above him, harder to hear over the din at the front of the house, Cole’s dad made a delighted squeal, a taunt yelled at Rust that the old man could no longer put proper words around.

  Let’s see how fast you can run, Rust thought, stepping back out of the linen closet, pointing the shotgun a few feet down the hallway, at the ceiling, and firing.

  Plaster exploded, falling debris making Rust’s eyes water. He racked. His muscles were beginning to strain, and he was sweating under his clothes. This was harder work than he remembered.

  He ran two more steps down the hallway, toward the direction he’d heard Arthur Hill hobbling, and fired again, more plaster and this time . . . a scream, an anguished yowling sound, a hunted animal that would need to be tracked and put out of its misery.

  Got you.

  Rust felt himself smile now, the sweat against his scalp itching his scars as the droplets rolled against the smooth, poreless skin. He stopped clenching his teeth, and the penlight slipped from his lips and onto the floor.

  It was fine—he didn’t need it.

  You’re the reason I have these scars.

  You’re the reason I scream at night.

  The reason your son screams.

  Let’s hear you scream a little more.

  Rust glided the tip of the Mossberg, trying to follow the keening sound in the second-floor hallway above him, leading it by about half a foot.

  He fired again, then took three more steps, bringing him to the intersection of the first floor. . . .

  Wait.

  Someone had gotten the lights back on.

  No, that wasn’t it. Rust took his hand from the forestock, shook the muscles of his arm out. Low recoil, my ass. He wiped his brow, trying to clear his vision so he could get a better idea of what was going on.

  The lights weren’t on.

  The house was on fire.

  Hill Manor was going to burn to the ground. He took a few more steps, felt the heat, understood now why he was sweating so heavily.

  And the flames weren’t the worst part.

  There were men with guns here. Men in clown masks. One of them approached Rust from the foyer, and the other one flanked him, coming around through the kitchen.

  “I repeat. Stop firing!”

  There was a flashlight in Rust’s eyes.

  “Drop it. Drop it now,” the man in the kitchen said, coming up alongside him.

  Rust considered his options. If these men wanted to honor the legacy of the masks they wore, they were going to kill him anyway.

  Should he try to get a shot or two off before they took him down?

  What about Arthur Hill? Was he lying in a pool of his own blood somewhere on the second floor, ready to let the flames take him? It seemed anticlimactic, if that was how it was going to end, and if Rust wouldn’t get to see it.

  “Let go of me!” Cole yelled from the foyer.

  Cole was still alive. That was good.

  No. Rust shouldn’t try to fight these men. He’d die. He wanted to see Cole one more time before then.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Ruston Vance showed his hands and put his gun on the floor. There were five more shells in the weapon, and he only wished he’d gotten a chance to use them all.

  Twenty-Six

  The cop had his back to Quinn. He was keeping an eye on the clearing, not the trail behind him, and talking into the radio clipped to his shoulder.

  Dummy.

  “Dispatch, I know you’ve got other concerns, but any word from Miller?”

  Officer Cody then switched, taking a small walkie-talkie from his belt. The device was camo-patterned plastic, the type of thing a kid would get for their tenth birthday.

  “Hey man,” Officer Cody said into the toy, probably his direct line to Miller. “What’s the issue? Over.”

  Quinn crept forward, timing each step with his words and sighs. They were playing a high-stakes game of “Red Light, Green Light.”

  “A lot of people are heading back to their cars, and there’s not much I can do to stop them,” Cody said, a whine in his voice. He was a follower, not a leader, and he needed Miller to tell him what to do.

  Miller couldn’t come to the phone right now.

  “Don’t move,” Quinn said, flicking the front sight of the handgun against the cop’s earlobe, then pressing the barrel into his neck.

  “Wh—what is this?”

  “I killed your buddy,” Quinn said, low. She didn’t want everyone looking over here. Not yet. There were other people in the clearing, some sitting on their haunches, faces illuminated by their phones, others milling around the reconstructed barn and other set pieces that the Duvalls had installed out here. “This is the only chance I’m going to give you so you don’t end up like him.”

  She reached down and pulled his gun from his belt.

  Her small armory was growing.

  Throw them all into the ocean, she thought. Then remembered she’d just killed a man with a zip tie.

  “Tyler,” Quinn hissed, wiggling the gun behind her back without looking, hoping he’d take it from her.

  Nothing.

  “Tyler, a little help.”

  She was ready to pull the trigger and kill Officer Cody if he moved. It would make things easier, actually. No need to babysit.

  But it might make it a little harder to execute the next part of her plan, to convince the kids in the clearing that she wasn’t a crazed murderer.

  She chanced a look back at Tyler.

  The boy was sitting in the dirt on the trail behind her, knees up, uninjured arm covering his face like the slacker kid in math class that “just wanted to sleep, Miss.”

  This was bad. He needed a doctor.

  And you did that, she told herself. You put a round in him.

  Keeping the barrel of Miller’s gun under Officer Cody’s high-and-tight buzz cut, she looked down at the gun she’d just taken from his belt. She checked that the safety was on, used her thumb to drop the clip, then tossed the extra gun somewhere into the dirt behind her, freeing up a hand.

  She then began to unclip the cop’s handcuffs, fumbling with the metal snaps for a second. One or two Duvall Farms employees had noticed her. Shoulders were tapped, Look without making it obvious whispers exchanged, and by the time she had the handcuffs free, most of the clearing was watching her.

  “Hands,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  Quinn pressed a cuff to his wrist, but the loop didn’t budge. She tried a second time, really needing to karate-chop the ring down to get the mechanism to work.

  Click-click-click. She tightened the cuff, relishing in that ratchet zip, a sound that meant halfway there.

  “The other one. Behind your back. Now.”

  “Hey,” a girl in the clearing said. She wore a wedding dress with a large ragged hole where the heart should have been. Most of the kids in the clearing were in costume, girls in need of an exorcism huddled next to DayGlo killer clowns and mid-transformation werewolves. Which meant that they were the staff of the haunted house, all drifting over from their different-themed zones to this clearing to figure out what was going on.

  “We’re fine,” Quinn yelled over to the girl and her coworkers. “Everything’s fine here. Stay over there.”

  “She’s got my gun!” the cop said, his voice sounding scared. It was a nasal voice. Quinn tried to recall how Frendo has a posse had sounded. It had to have been Miller who’d said that, she was certain. Which meant it was Miller who’d stabbed Sheriff Lee. Which made Quinn feel better about crushing his windpipe.

  “Does anything you know about me make you think I’m bluffing?” Quinn asked. If she was going to live in these people’s heads as some kind of murderous mastermind, she’d lean into it. “Your hand. Now.”

  “Okay—” he said, and slowly moved his arm down, offering her his wrist. She tightened the cuffs, shook the chain a bit to make sure it was secure, then kicked him behind the knees.

  “Sit,” she said, not helping him to the ground but instead letting him fall. “Stay.”

  “You can’t do that, he’s a cop,” another girl said. She had the neon fletching of crossbow bolts sticking out of her body and one fake arrow through her neck, an effect probably achieved with two ends of a shaft and a headband. It was too much. Too grotesque. It reminded Quinn of Ginger Wagner, the first to die.

  Quinn tried to ignore her, turning her back to the clearing now that Cody was neutralized. She collected the stray magazine and then opened the slide catch to check that the gun didn’t have one in the chamber.

  Then she started walking back to Tyler, the boy nearly in a fetal position now. She hoped he was still conscious.

  “Okay, big guy. Stay with me—I need your help talking with your coworkers.”

  The boy didn’t speak, but did remove his arm from around his head and let her help him stand.

  They walked to the center of the clearing, Tyler leaning against her.

  Quinn looked at the faces around them.

  Then at the features of the clearing itself.

  God. Why would someone do this? Even if they weren’t using the actual Frendo the Clown costumes, they’d reconstructed the barn and the silo. Each structure was resized and repositioned so that they aided the flow of traffic through the attraction, but even so, why do that? What’s the fun of fake scares on a real mass grave?

  Being back here, surrounded by all of this, it made Quinn’s heart beat a little faster, made her feel more awake, and not in a good way. She shook the rising panic away. There was no time for it. Neither Cole nor Rust had picked up their phones, and 911 was unstaffed. She wondered if the dispatcher was in on whatever was going on or if the Municipal Building had been completely overtaken by the mob.