The Horseman appeared to be keeping up easily, gaining ground even. As Kyle watched, the Horseman disappeared from his rearview mirror to the right.
“Shit,” Kyle said again. It was coming up alongside the car. “You aren’t real, you fuck.”
Kyle watched in his rearview mirror as the Horseman swung his sword. The blow connected, smashing the rear windshield. Kyle felt glass shards hit him in the neck and he shut his eyes momentarily.
The car jerked to the left. Kyle opened his eyes quickly and tried to keep it on the road. He moved his car to the right and the Horseman dropped back.
Kyle saw with some relief that the main road was in front of him.
He saw the Horseman fall back even further in his mirror.
“What are you playing at?” he asked himself.
He accelerated to Route 7 in front of him and did not even pause at the stop sign as he finally pulled his car onto a paved road. Kyle shouted in triumph and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“Let’s see if you can keep up with this,” he said.
He looked in the rearview mirror and saw nothing.
He breathed a sigh of relief, but kept the car moving fast. Its speed edged up to 80 miles an hour.
He was uncertain what his next step should be. Quinn knew who he was-if Quinn even still existed-so staying put was out of the question. He sped past houses, through stop signs and streetlights. If the cops were out here, they would just have to pull him over. He could deal with them.
Kyle knew he had to go back to his base of operations. There was too much stuff there for someone to find. If he acted now, hopefully Quinn would seem like a lunatic. After all, the DNA test would still confirm his “death.”
He kept his eye on the rearview mirror. Still nothing.
He had left the Horseman in the dust.
He sighed again and slowed down. It wouldn’t do to get a ticket. He should go back to base, pick up his stuff and leave town. Maybe someone would believe Quinn or maybe not. It wouldn’t matter. Kyle Thompson would disappear.
God, but it was frustrating. He had been so close to finishing up here. And now he was just running away. He checked the clock in the car. It was 11:40 p.m.
Just 20 more minutes and he wouldn’t have to worry about the Horseman anymore. That part he remembered from Kate’s conversation with Janus. Given what he had seen, he had no choice but to acknowledge some of that shit must be true.
He just hoped the deadline was one part that was real.
He pulled off on Mulberry Lane, still constantly keeping one eye out for anything behind him. At an empty post where a mailbox should have been, Kyle turned left, confident that no one had followed him.
Go in, grab the stuff and go. Deadline or no deadline, it wasn’t worth sticking around to find out. Winding his way down the long driveway, he pulled the car up to the house and stopped.
For once, he wished that this house had not been his choice for a base of operations. It was rundown, its steps were treacherous, and every creak of the floorboards could be heard throughout the house.
But that was what had made it perfect. It was Charles Holober’s house, the poor schmo whom police had tapped as Lord Halloween the first time around.
From the beginning, Kyle had known it was a perfect spot. Nobody wanted to buy the land, even in the days where everything was being plowed down to make way for new luxury townhomes. Not here. A house built in a swamp standing on rotten stilts.
Kyle could not keep his collection items at his own house. That would have made for easy discoveries by any curious person. So Holober’s it had been. Kyle had befriended him 13 years before, a lonely schizophrenic hermit with a house in the swamp. Kyle had set him up of course-he had wanted a patsy for police to find so they would stop looking for the real killer.
And Holober’s place remained an excellent hiding spot. No other houses for miles, and the creaky floorboards would easily tell him if anyone else was around. It was like a built-in alarm. Kyle had kept all his trophies there. The news clippings, the stack of post-it notes, mementos.
But now he wished he hadn’t. Kyle had never been afraid of the house before. After all, he was the thing that other people should fear. He was what went bump in the night.
Kyle got out of the car and checked his watch. 11:45 p.m.
But he was growing nervous. Far away, he thought he could hear a sound and it was getting louder.
“Damn,” he said, and climbed the steps.
He would be safe in here. He opened the door and went through.
The air in the place was stale and had a rotten odor. The house still had electricity, thanks to a generator Kyle had maintained in good order.
Kyle flipped on the light. But nothing happened.
“Damn,” he said again, and the sound of his own voice made him jumpy. He must not have charged the thing, he thought.
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, which they did only slightly, and moved forward. He banged his leg into the couch as he tried to make his way to his bedroom.
He crossed the living room and heard the floorboards groan beneath him. He stopped a minute and listened for any other sounds. Kyle shuddered.
Outside, the sound was unmistakable and getting closer. The pounding of horse hooves. How the hell had it followed him? But, really, was that the most surprising part of the night? He doubted it.
Kyle knew he did not have much time.
He went into the bedroom and pulled a duffel bag out of the closet. He could barely see, but he knew where most of the things he needed were. Just the newspaper clips and mementos and he would be on his way. He checked his watch again. 11:48 p.m. In 13 minutes, he would not need to worry about this anymore.
He reached onto the bed for some of his papers. He couldn’t see them, but he had prepared them just this morning. They were a new identity for himself, so he could move this show to some other town and start over.
But instead his hand closed around a single small piece of paper.
In a panic, he reached all over the bed. But all that remained was a note.
He picked it up-a small yellow post-it note with writing on it. He pulled it close to his face so he could read it.
“You are not alone, Kyle,” it read.
Kyle dropped the note in shock. He wheeled around and faced the living room.
“Who’s here?” he yelled.
But no sound came back. Just silence.
Kyle bent down to the duffel bag and pulled out his emergency back-up plan. A gun.
“I hate using this thing, I really do,” he said out loud. “But don’t think that I don’t know how. I was in the service for a long time, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” a voice in the darkness came back. It sounded like a woman’s, or was it a man’s voice as well?
“Quinn? Is that you?” Kyle called out, and held the gun in front of him.
“He’s here, in a manner of speaking,” the voice came back. “But he is also outside, getting closer. And when he gets here…”
“Fuck you,” Kyle said. “Fuck you and your parlor games.”
He held the gun in front of him and walked out of the bedroom door. He left the duffel bag behind. Let the cops find him. He just needed to get out of here.
“Come on, Kyle, you were always the one who liked parlor games,” the voice said. “You played one with me, remember?”
“Who are you?” Kyle asked, but he knew. He had known from the moment he found the note on the bed. It made no sense. How could she have known where to come?
“See you real soon, remember?” Kate’s voice came back.
Kyle tried to tell where the voice was coming from. He tried to look for her, but he couldn’t see.
Outside, he could hear the sound of the horse getting louder.
“Look, Trina,” Kyle said. “I’ll cut you a deal. You call all this shit off and I will go away. I’ll leave you guys alone-I will be out of your hair forever.”