Nervously, Kyle lit the light on his watch. It was 11:52 p.m.
“I don’t think so, Kyle,” Kate said.
Kyle thought now he could hear where the voice was coming from. He turned to the right and fired the gun. The blast was nearly deafening in the small house. He heard the bullet slam into the wood grain.
“Nice try,” Kate said.
“You see? There is still something left in me,” Kyle said. “Let me go and I will just walk out of here.”
“Oh, you are free to leave, Kyle,” Kate said. “But I think you will find a friend waiting for you outside.”
The sound of horse hooves had stopped. It meant only one thing, Kyle thought.
“He’s here,” Kate said.
His knees felt weak and he noticed his hands were shaking.
“He can’t get me in here,” Kyle said.
And then he heard a large crashing noise from below. The whole house shook.
“Think again,” Kate replied. “Actually, he could walk up the steps if he wanted to. But we have a different idea.”
The large crash came again and again. The whole house felt like it was breaking apart.
“Not very stable here, is it?” Kate asked.
“If this house falls in, it will hurt you too,” Kyle said.
“I doubt it,” she replied. “I think I’m beyond that kind of thing.”
Kyle looked at his watch again. 11:54 p.m.
“I’m not going to let the clock run out here, don’t worry,” Kate said.
“Then come and get me,” Kyle said. “I’m not moving.”
A large crash happened again and Kyle felt the floor shake. It was going to fall in.
But then a figure moved across the floor. He could not believe he hadn’t seen her before. She grabbed the gun out of his hand and punched Kyle in the face.
He stumbled back and heard the floorboards creak as he landed. There was another crash from below, and the house now tilted on its stilts. Furniture started sliding. Kyle felt the coffee table hit him in the leg.
Before he could move, something hit him in the stomach. Kyle went sprawling across the floor.
“Looks like the house of cards is beginning to collapse, Kyle,” Kate said.
Kyle tried to get up. He got to his knees and was hit in the head from behind, falling forward again.
A voice was in his ear.
“I could kill you, you know,” a female voice whispered. “I would even enjoy it, as you did. But I think I would rather see you run.”
He turned over and tried to throw the figure back.
But when he looked into the face above him, it was not Kate that he saw. It was her mother.
“What’s the matter, Kyle?” Sarah asked him. “Seen a ghost?”
With all his might, he tried to push her backwards and get up. She easily dodged him, but stepped back.
“This is not real,” he said.
“I could have taken another form,” Sarah said to him. “I could have been your worst nightmare. But this one felt the most fitting.”
Kyle stumbled back and looked at her. He blinked hard again.
“This isn’t happening,” he said again, and nearly lost his balance as another crash caused the floor to tilt even further. “What are you?”
Sarah crossed the floor and leaned into Kyle’s face before he could block her.
She whispered in his ear.
“We are the Lords of Halloween, Kyle,” she said, and pushed Kyle through the front door. “The real Lords of Halloween.”
Kyle landed on the front stoop and felt intense pain in his back. His arms flailing, Kyle tried to pick himself up. He did not look back into the house. Instead, he tried to make it down the stairs, which were coming apart even as he walked down them.
He stumbled off them and tried to run to his car. Even from here, he could tell that the tires were slashed. Cut by a sword.
Kyle heard the pounding of hooves behind him. He did not dare look back. Instead, he ran forward as fast as he could and looked at his watch. 11:58 p.m.
Just two more minutes. Just two more minutes and he would be safe. I can’t die like this, he thought.
He heard a blade being unsheathed behind him. He ran faster now, throwing all his energy into it. He had always come out on top. He would again.
But the Horseman was gaining on him. He looked at his watch again, willing it to go faster. 11:59 p.m. and 30 seconds.
He felt the horse breathing down his neck and dodged to the right to try and avoid him. Thirty more seconds and he would be free, Kyle thought.
He jumped now to the left and felt the Horseman slice the air near him as he went by.
Kyle stopped, dropped back, and watched as the Horseman wheeled around and then halted. Kyle looked from his watch to the Headless Horseman, who stood there impassively.
10 seconds, he noted.
The Horse reared back and Kyle backed up some more.
He glanced at his watch. 5 seconds.
But the Horseman did not move. Instead the horse held his position in the air and came to ground at exactly midnight on Kyle’s watch.
Kyle looked up and shouted, waiting for the figure of the Horseman to dissolve in front of him.
“I won, you stupid fucks,” he shouted, grinning, and looked back at his watch.
It was ten seconds past midnight.
But the Headless Horseman still stood there. Kyle felt the smile fade from his face.
The Horseman surged forward, his sword in the air.
Kyle looked at the specter with disbelief.
“But it’s midnight,” he shouted. “It’s midnight. You are supposed to…”
The Headless Horseman’s blade came sailing through the air and Kyle at the last moment threw up his arm to try and ward off the blow. It didn’t help.
The Horseman cleanly lopped off Kyle’s head. The look of surprise, terror and confusion was still on it as it sailed through the air and fell to the dust just as Kyle’s body crashed down.
The Headless Horseman wheeled about and rode up to the figure that had come out of the house.
Kate, now once again looking like herself, walked over to Kyle’s body. Absentmindedly, she stroked the horse’s mane as it drew up beside her.
Kate leaned over the body and pulled on Kyle’s watch. She held it up to her own.
“What do you know?” she said. “It’s three minutes fast. Just like he always taught us.”
The horse reared up and the Headless Horseman laughed. Kate just smiled.
Epilogue
A week later, it was a Loudoun Chronicle exclusive, a double by-line by Kate and Quinn. “Lord Halloween: The Real Story.”
Police had stayed quiet after the discovery of the Holober house, which they had searched after an anonymous tip. There they collected Kyle’s real body and drew their own conclusions, mostly the right ones.
However, the police were so concerned about being burned again by announcing that Lord Halloween was finished that they delayed saying anything at all. Instead, they only said that their investigation continued.
Kate had found Buzz’s papers inside the Holober house and kept them. With Buzz’s portfolio in hand, it was not hard to completely retrace Kyle’s steps over the past few years.
It was a huge hit when the Chronicle announced who the killer was and that he was dead. What followed was a definitive account of the serial killer. When it had started and even what he had planned. The last bit they attributed to police sources, who had found a paper in the Holober house that was a draft of a note that Kyle had written. In it, he talked about crucifying kids.
Kate knew much more than what she could say. She had seen into Kyle’s mind, after all, and there was much laid out there that couldn’t come from any portfolio. But Quinn and Kate kept that mostly to themselves.
As they did their role in any of it. While paying tribute to the losses of Janus and Buzz, they removed any trace they had been involved. The police never knew who called them out to the Holober house and were never certain how Kyle had been killed. It wasn’t until later that Sheriff Brown began to worry about it.