She screamed and resumed running, moving faster now along the twisting path. That flicker of hope flared within her again when she heard music emanating from somewhere just ahead. After rushing past another curve in the path, she glimpsed the cabin through the trees. She couldn’t see her friends yet, but they were there. She heard voices singing along with the music.

  Before she could call out to them, the sole of her right foot landed on a particularly sharp rock, penetrating the flesh and drawing forth a thick flow of blood. She was unable to avoid falling to her knees again. It was one stumble too many.

  The killer was right behind her.

  Laurie opened her mouth to scream.

  The killer grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head sharply back. Then he dragged the sharp edge of the blade across her throat. Blood gushed from the gash in her carotid, spattering the leaf-covered path. She spluttered and gagged as the blood continued to pump, and the killer held her by her hair, waiting for her to bleed out.

  29.

  Three days until Halloween

  Slayton, TN

  As the jeep neared the end of the dirt road, Ramona glimpsed two vehicles already parked in front of the cabin, a green minivan and a vintage red Camaro. The Camaro’s windows were open and music was pumping from its stereo. As she’d hoped, her friends had gotten there ahead of her. Whenever possible, she liked to keep people waiting, preferably for what would, for anyone else, constitute an egregious amount of time. She’d been doing this going back to middle school, back when she first started coming into her own as a real beauty, which of course caused her popularity to soar. One thing she learned early on was that practically everyone was willing to cut the most popular girl around a seemingly endless amount of slack. Truthfully, she got off on it. It was a power thing.

  In the months since the end of her high school career, however, opportunities to indulge her diva side had been infrequent. Teachers at the college didn’t fret over her absenteeism. Indeed, they seemed not to care at all. This had been a rude awakening for someone accustomed to being the center of everyone else’s world, teachers included. Even worse, her new social acquaintances at the college were far less inclined to cut her slack than their high school counterparts had been. They simply stopped inviting her on social outings after a few incidents of extreme tardiness.

  This was why only high school friends had been invited to the cabin. Ramona longed for a prolonged period of fawning indulgence and total adoration and thus had only contacted those she deemed most likely to accommodate this desire. She was unsurprised, however, to learn that Laurie Palmer and Bill Christy had gone off into the woods after Laurie had tired of waiting for Ramona.

  In Ramona’s mind, Laurie had been the only question mark among the invitees. Alone among their peers, she’d previously demonstrated a relative lack of willingness to put up with her shit. Ideally, Laurie would have been left behind, but she and Bill Christy were a package deal, and having Bill around was a must. Ramona had dated him briefly in freshman year. Even after unceremoniously dumping him, he’d never stopped worshipping her. If anyone idolized her more than Bill, Ramona couldn’t imagine who that person might be.

  She was a little put out at not seeing his dumb puppy dog face among those of her friends hanging around outside the cabin. The feeling dissipated when Tom Glover, a former top jock at the high school, filled her in on the situation. By then Ramona had her first beer in hand and was more interested in getting the party started than worrying about Laurie’s attitude issues.

  The remainder of the welcoming party was comprised of Jake Feldman, Adrienne Bartram, Kirsten Charno, Paul Gillette, and Amy Miner. Jake and Adrienne were a couple. Kirsten was Tom Glover’s girlfriend. Paul and Amy were single, though there was little chance of sparks flying between those two. Paul was a small, kind of funny-looking guy who’d avoided ostracism in school through sheer force of personality. He was always cracking jokes and making people laugh. The cool kids adopted him as one of their own early on, but Amy Miner was out of his league. In terms of looks, Amy was only the slightest, almost imperceptible level below Ramona and Candice. Even if she’d been willing to overlook Paul’s relative deficiency in the looks department, Ramona suspected it wouldn’t have mattered. She had a strong feeling Amy was a closet lesbian. Despite being gorgeous, the girl had shunned all suitors after breaking up with her sophomore year boyfriend. She’d never said why this was, but what other explanation could there be?

  Once the booze had been loaded into the cabin and everyone had stowed their stuff in their designated rooms, the festivities began in earnest. Because Halloween was just a few days away, Amy Miner had crafted a playlist of seasonally appropriate music using a streaming app on her phone. She insisted on connecting her phone to the stereo receiver in the living room. No one had any objections to this and throughout that afternoon the cabin’s interior reverberated with songs by the likes of Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Type O Negative, the Bile Lords, Bauhaus, and more. The girls bounced around to the more energetic tracks while the guys chugged beers and watched them. At one point, Amy veered away from the other girls and ran up to her second floor room, the pounding of her bare feet on the steps audible even over the music.

  She came back down some five minutes later bearing Halloween masks. They were the flimsy plastic kind sold cheaply in drugstores every year in October. There were three of them. One was a crude knockoff of the Ghostface mask from the Scream movies. Amy kept that one for herself. The other two she gave to Ramona and Candice. Ramona frowned for a moment at the mask Amy had pushed into her hands. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be, though the pale countenance and trickles of blood trailing down from the corners of the mouth vaguely suggested a vampire. She shrugged and pulled the mask on despite its lameness. Once she had it fitted over her face properly, she scanned the room until she spotted Candice. Her best friend’s mask was cooler-looking, a more detailed depiction of a rotting zombie, with an eye hanging out of its socket. The mask was almost gruesome enough to distract attention from her amazing body.

  Almost.

  Adrienne Bartram wanted to know where her mask was. So did Kirsten.

  “You don’t get one,” Candice told them. “They’re only for the really cool kids.”

  Adrienne rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she did it. She probably thought Candice was just playing with her. But Candice meant what she’d said. Ramona knew it, too, and so did Amy. Everyone here was special in some way, but the three of them were on a higher level. The coolest of the cool, the most special of all.

  As a Bauhaus song gave way to a pulsating industrial track, the masked girls started capering around the room in a faux-ghoulish way, making claws with their hands and attempting to hiss like hideous beasts. The guys pretended to be scared and retreated from them. Beer sloshed out of the bottle clutched in Jake’s right hand as he hurriedly circled the sofa in the middle of the room in an effort to keep away from Ramona.

  “Stay back, foul beast!” he cried.

  Ramona let out a louder hiss as she climbed up on the sofa and vaulted over its back, intercepting Jake before he could circle around again. She grabbed handfuls of his tank top and went up on her tiptoes to put her masked face close to his. “I’ve got you now, puny human! Prepare to meet your fate.”

  Jake waved his arms around in mock helplessness. “Someone help me! Please!”

  For a moment, Ramona was intensely aware of how close Jake’s powerfully muscled body was to hers. She yearned to tear her mask off and kiss him. But then Adrienne was there, pulling him away from her. She thumped Ramona’s chest with the base of a fist. Hard. “There. I’ve driven a stake through your heart, bloodsucker. You’re dead.”

  Ramona just stared at her, smiling behind the mask.

  You know exactly what’s on my mind, don’t you? she thought. But I’ll fuck him if I want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Adrienne clasped hands with Jake and tugged him in the direction of the staircase. “This way, baby. I just saved your life. Time for my reward.”

  There was a lascivious tinge to Jake’s smile as he followed his girlfriend up to the second floor.

  Behind the mask, Ramona’s smile wilted, yielding to a frown. After staring at the empty staircase for a moment, she removed the mask and gave it to Kirsten. Kirsten accepted it gleefully and started capering around the room in imitation of the other girls. Ramona went into the kitchen and examined the selection of booze bottles crammed onto the counter by the sink. There was lots of beer in the fridge, but she was in need of something stronger.

  After spying a bottle of Smirnoff vanilla vodka, she grabbed it, twisted off the cap, and drank deeply straight from the bottle. She took the bottle away from her mouth long enough to take a deep breath, then she took several more big gulps.

  There, she thought. I should be feeling just fine as soon as that hits my system.

  She set the significantly depleted vodka bottle back on the counter, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and went back out to the living room, where she plopped down on the sofa and stared at the blank screen of the TV mounted on the opposite wall. The early exuberance of the gathering began to fade shortly thereafter. Amy turned the music down to an unobtrusive background noise level. Some of the others settled into chairs and recliners. Candice curled up next to her on the sofa. They talked about inconsequential things and laughed at Paul’s intermittent jokes.

  The rest of them laughed, that is. Ramona just stared at the TV.

  Audible sex noises drifted down from upstairs, eliciting chuckles. Ramona knew Adrienne was being purposely loud, wanting Ramona to hear.

  After a while, most of Ramona’s friends went outside to hang out on the porch and watch the sun set, while Amy disappeared to her room. Candice put her head in Ramona’s lap and dozed off. Ramona absently stroked her friend’s hair for a few minutes before taking out her phone. It’d been a while since she’d checked her messages. She anticipated numerous texts from Kevin, who’d never been up here before and might have gotten lost on the way.

  There were numerous texts from several people, as usual.

  But none from Kevin.

  Ramona’s mood spiraled downward. Until now, her other friends and the booze had distracted her from the pending meeting with her online boyfriend. She’d almost forgotten how much she’d been looking forward to seeing him for the first time. But now it all came rushing back, stirring anew that feeling of queasy yearning that often came over her when she thought about him. In the relative quiet, her mind went to places it normally avoided and she realized, not for the first time, that Kevin represented something her supposedly perfect life was lacking. An anchor. A new, more focused direction. Maybe even the possibility of real love.

  She sent him a text: Where are you?

  Several minutes passed. No reply came.

  Ramona’s eyes misted and her bottom lip trembled.

  Perhaps sensing her friend’s distress, Candice stirred and shifted position on the sofa, turning her head so she was staring straight up at Ramona. “Oh,” she said, her features crinkling in concern. She reached up and gently touched Ramona’s face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Ramona swiped at her eyes and shook her head.

  Candice sighed. “It’s him, isn’t it? The online faker. He’s not coming, is he?”

  Instead of answering, Ramona shifted sideways, disengaging herself from Candice. She got to her feet and headed in the direction of the kitchen. The back door was through there.

  Candice sat up. “Hey. Where are you going?”

  Ramona didn’t glance back. “Down to the boat dock. Don’t follow me. I need some time alone. To think.”

  Candice sighed. “Okay. Hurry back.”

  Ramona didn’t reply.

  She went on into the kitchen and out through the back door.

  30.

  Three days until Halloween

  Slayton, TN

  Lurking just inside the tree line at the edge of the clearing, Elliot watched Ramona leave the cabin through the back door and walk down the sloping back yard to the boat dock. She passed close enough to allow him a good glimpse of her face. Her mood wasn’t difficult to decipher. She was upset about something and he had a pretty good idea what it was.

  Ramona was one of several girls he’d talked to online utilizing a variety of fake personas. He’d started doing this years ago with no nefarious purpose in mind. Instead, it was a way of dealing with his crushing loneliness, though he’d never had any intention of meeting the women in real life. After all, none of them would want anything to do with him after getting a look at his real face. Out of necessity, then, the relationships were primarily cerebral and emotional. They filled a space in his otherwise dark and empty heart for a brief time. His steadfast refusal to meet in person meant most of these relationships fizzled after a few months. A couple lasted as long as a year. Ramona was his latest and only current online girlfriend. He’d been chatting with her for three months. Lately he’d been thinking it was time to start distancing himself from her because she’d started making noises about wanting to meet.

  But then early today she’d told him about her plan for a multi-day getaway with her friends. They’d be staying at her grandfather’s cabin. There’d be lots of booze and no old people around to put a damper on things. Elliot, who was lagging behind in his goal to reach thirty-one kills by All Hallow’s Eve, realized this might be an excellent opportunity to pad his body count significantly in a short period of time. So he asked for directions to the cabin, made sure everything was locked down tight at his lair, and drove up here as fast as he could, intent on getting to the cabin ahead of everyone else. He succeeded at that goal, arriving ahead of Ramona’s friends by just under a half hour. This gave him just enough time to stash his Civic in an out of the way spot and hightail it through the woods to the cabin. And then that couple had gone on their little hike, giving him the perfect chance to score his first kills of the day. Hours passed. Weirdly, no one ever came looking for the dead ones. He assumed the rest of them were all too busy partying and getting drunk to care much.

  Elliot continued watching Ramona until she’d walked all the way down to the far end of the boat dock. She sat at the dock’s edge, dangling her feet above the calm water. His gaze shifted back to the cabin. He heard voices emanating from the front porch. There was a pronounced slur in some of those voices. Elliot was happy to hear it. The high level of booze circulating in their systems would make them easier to kill.

  After checking the windows to make sure no one was watching, he slipped out of the tree line and hurried across the patch of open ground to the side of the cabin. When he got there, he moved quickly to the rear corner and peeked around it. His hope was that Ramona had left the back door unlocked. The less noise he’d have to make getting in, the better. No one else was loitering around out back. Elliot glanced in the direction of the boat dock again. Ramona was still sitting at its edge, facing the lake. He let out a breath and approached the back door. The wooden steps to the little back porch creaked as he climbed them. His hand shook a little as it closed around the knob. He’d done a lot of daring things lately, but this was perhaps the brashest of them all. There were a lot of people gathered here, which meant there were lots of ways things could go wrong. But extreme risk was inherent in accomplishing the things he wished to accomplish. He was already resigned to being dead before Halloween was over. If the end came a little sooner than he’d hoped—and in the course of trying to achieve greatness—so be it.

  His hand tightened on the knob.

  He turned it and it yielded to the pressure.

  Smiling, Elliot Parker pushed the door open and stepped inside the cabin.

  With Ramona gone for the time being, Candice stretched out on the sofa and stared up at the lazily spinning ceiling fans. There were two of them. The blades of each fan were coated with a fine layer of dust. This wasn’t surprising. The cabin was often unoccupied for months at a time. Candice had last been up here on a day trip with Ramona’s father. That was two months ago.

  The man had offered her $5,000 to have sex with him. This was after he’d confessed to having lusted after her for years. Obviously he was a pervert—not to mention old and gross—but the money had been too much to turn down. So she’d done it. And she’d regretted it ever since. The man was constantly trying to get her to agree to another rendezvous. He was almost sort of stalking her, which creeped her out. Once she’d threatened to report him to the police, but he reminded her she was eighteen now and therefore legal.

  It’d changed a lot about her relationship with Ramona’s family. Until recently, she’d thought of her friend’s parents as secondary father and mother figures. That’s how close they’d been. But now she couldn’t stand the thought of being around Ramona’s dad and always begged off any time Ramona asked her to go over there with her. Being in school, she had loads of legitimate excuses. She needed to study for a test, research a paper, or some other load of bullshit like that.

  Sooner or later, though, the secret would be forced out of her. She dreaded having to tell Ramona about it. It made her feel dirty and cheap. But, also, she worried about her friend. There was no one in the world she was closer to than Ramona. With a creep like that for a father, she had to wonder if there were any darker secrets lurking behind closed doors at the Kimmell household. Ramona might even have been molested as a child. She’d never hinted at anything like that, but maybe it’d happened and she’d repressed the memories. Such things happened. Candice knew it from watching talk shows. Hell, it happened a lot.

  Candice loved Ramona more than anyone else in the world. The possibility of having to one day hurt her with this information was a terrible mental burden. Sometimes it was all she could think about. Right now, for instance. She was obsessing over it again when she should be having fun. That’s what this trip was all about, after all. A chance to leave all their worries behind.