Maria filed out with the rest of the attendees. Mark from the Daily Record smiled at her again. His pants legs were covered with dried boogers. She smiled back, and then looked away, pretending to be interested in some Halloween decorations hanging on the wall.
Yeah, her life was really working out the way she’d planned.
Maybe tomorrow she’d look into moving again. Try getting out of York. Search Craigslist for an apartment in New York or Philadelphia. And maybe she’d win the lottery, too. That was the only way she could afford to move, after all.
Like it or not, she was stuck here. Alone.
On her way out the door, she glanced back at Mark. His finger was in his nostril up to the first knuckle.
So she wasn’t the only thing that was stuck.
Maria finished her assignment half an hour before the deadline and e-mailed the attachment to her editor. Her little television flickered in the corner. Conan O’Brien was interviewing Canadian stand-up comedian Pete Zedlacher. The two were laughing at something, but Maria couldn’t tell what because she had the sound muted.
Her apartment was small but comfortable—bathroom, living room, kitchenette, and two bedrooms, one of which served as her office. The place was furnished with a curious mixture of leftover dorm furniture from her college days and more recent purchases from Ikea and Target. A new couch. A used futon. The eggshell-colored walls were sparse—a framed Monet print, a montage of photos from high school and college, and a collectible spoon rack. There was only one picture of her parents in the whole apartment, subconsciously hung above the entertainment center where she didn’t have to look at them every day. Maria spent little time in the living room—when she was home, her evenings were spent sleeping or working. Her office wasn’t much. Two desks had been lined up in an L-shape in the corner. One held her laptop and the other her older desktop. A two-drawer filing cabinet contained her various clippings and bylines, as well as contracts, receipts, and financial records. Two bookshelves leaned against the wall. One overflowed with paperbacks and compact discs. A green vase sat precariously at the top. The other bookshelf held her television and more books.
Conan gave way to an annoying commercial for a headache medicine. She was just about to turn the television off and go to bed when her laptop beeped, signaling a new e-mail. She clicked on Outlook Express and saw it was from Miles, her editor at the paper.
It read:Got the piece. Thanks. Will run in the local section tomorrow. Meanwhile, how would you like a bigger assignment? Looking for a special feature on a new local Ghost Walk. At least one full page, plus pictures. Maybe more, if material warrants. One of the staff photographers has already made arrangements for pics. Just need someone to do the story. Normally, Hilary would cover this, but she’s still on maternity leave and the Ghost Walk’s own er, Ken Ripple, is adamant about coverage. The attraction opens the night before Halloween, so we’ve got to get hopping. Not a lot of time. It’s a rush job. You interested? —Miles
She was surprised to see that Miles was still awake this time of night. But then again, judging by how often he complained about his wife and kids, maybe he was happier at work.
Maria hit reply. Was she interested? A full-page feature? That paid a lot more than a sidebar item about local government. Hell, yes, she was interested, and she told him so. A few minutes later, Miles responded with Ripple’s contact information and a suggestion that Maria come in and go through the newspaper’s archives tomorrow. There was a lot of history associated with the haunted attraction’s location, and since she wasn’t a local, she’d have to brush up on it.
Assuring him that she would, and promising to stop by the office in the morning, Maria logged off and went to bed. It was a long time before she fell asleep.
When she finally did, she had a nightmare about her parents. They were displeased with the path she’d taken in life and had decided to talk to her about it—with knives.
They were very angry, and the knives were very sharp.
CHAPTER THREE
Ken Ripple wiped the sweat out of his eyes. Then, hands on hips, he stretched his aching back. He let out a satisfied sigh as it cracked.
“Getting too old for this shit?” Terry Klein asked.
“No,” Ken said. “I was banging your wife last night and threw my back out.”
“Well, at least one of us is getting some from her.” Terry pulled off his leather work gloves and flexed his fingers. “Damn, blisters.”
Ken grinned. “Too much jerking off.”
“Like I said, at least one of us is getting some from her.”
Both men laughed, and then turned back to the business at hand: rigging a pulley system to an out house door. When triggered, the series of cable and pulleys would open the door, allowing a dummy to lurch out at unsuspecting passersby. All they had to do was step on the hidden switch. The dummy wasn’t much—straw and plywood covered with some of Terry’s old clothes, and a rubber monster mask for a face—but in the dark, it would suffice.
The Ghost Walk had been Ken’s idea. He’d always enjoyed haunted attractions. Central Pennsylvania was loaded with them—Field of Screams, Jason’s Woods, The Spook House, The Haunted Mill, Scream in the Park. But it wasn’t until last year, when Ken had attended a trade convention in Baltimore for haunted attraction operators, that he’d gone from an enthusiast to designer. He’d gone to the convention out of curiosity, hoping for a glimpse behind the curtain, some trade secrets, how the magicians pulled their rabbits out of the proverbial hat. Instead, he’d come away with a deep desire to build an attraction himself.
And dedicate it to Deena’s memory.
Two years ago, Ken’s wife, Deena, while suffering from a slight cold, had missed her period. A home pregnancy test showed a positive result. This was a joyous event. They’d been trying to have a child, without success, for the last three years. But the subsequent follow-up visit with the doctor brought grim news—her slight cold was anything but, and Deena wasn’t pregnant. Instead of a baby growing inside her, she had a tumor. The cancer had already spread. Four months later, she was gone, and Ken was alone again. He missed her more and more each day. His friends and family told him that it would get easier with time, but it didn’t. Yes, the emotional wounds healed, but the scars still ached.
To honor his wife, Ken decided to build a haunted attraction, and donate the proceeds to women’s cancer research. The area around LeHorn’s Hollow seemed like the perfect location. It was steeped in local folklore—ghosts and witches and all kinds of creepy phenomena. Murders, both solved and unsolved. The place was perfect. Sadly, he couldn’t construct his Ghost Walk on the LeHorn property, since the land’s own ership was tied up in a lengthy battle between the state and surviving family members. But the woods around LeHorn’s Hollow were vast, and a lot of it was untouched by the fires, which had consumed so much two years before. And the area that had been burned wasn’t suitable; it was ash and rubble—a wasteland.