Courtney shook her head. “No.” She took the photo from me again and, this time, she took a longer look. “You know, I think this was taken a few weeks before Goldie died.”
“His dog died?” I asked, heart breaking at the thought of losing a pet, while, at the same time, alarm bells started clanging in my head.
“She did.” Courtney actually sounded sad about that, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. “Goldie always had health issues. You would have liked her.” She glanced at me. “Still, it came on suddenly, caught them both by surprise.”
“And what happened to Annie?”
“Jon never liked letting Annie out of the house, which meant Goldie was her closest, if not only, companion. She kept her sane, I think.” She handed back the photo and turned away. “Annie never recovered after Goldie passed. The way I heard it, she died a few days later of a broken heart.”
Nothing moved in the corn. The sign still hung from the rope, barring entry, which meant… What exactly? I assumed Jon was the one who’d put it there. He must have entered the maze, thinking he’d seen his dead wife and dog, and then…?
I had no idea what to think. I didn’t believe in ghosts, whether they were human or animal. I mean, spirits, sure. If we’re talking about a feeling, or the residual affection that remained once a loved one had passed. But a legitimate, pale and creepy ghost?
There had to be some other explanation.
My family was still wandering the grounds, seeing ghosts of their own, but those were the sheets-with-eyeholes kind. I’d spotted Detective Cavanaugh on my way over to the corn maze, but what could I tell him? If I tried to explain my ghost theory, he’d laugh and tell me to get some sleep.
So, with a quick glance behind me to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I ducked under the rope barrier, and entered the corn maze.
I walked carefully, listening for any sound that might indicate I wasn’t alone, but it was hard. Screams and laughs and the general murmur of dozens of voices speaking at once made it almost impossible to discern much outside of my own passage. I checked every intersection, every dead end, yet, no matter how hard—or where—I looked, there was nothing to indicate Jon or his dead wife and dog had passed through.
Instead of turning back, however, I kept going. The maze had to spill out somewhere, didn’t it? Every step took me farther away from the entrance and the safety of the crowd. The hair on my arms was standing on end, and I was clenching my teeth against a shock I wasn’t sure would come.
More than once, I thought I saw eyes peering at me through the corn, or a light breeze would cause the stalks to sway and rustle, giving the impression of movement. I desperately regretted not dragging one of my kids along. Or perhaps Manny, though he’d tease me relentlessly for my nervousness. Anyone would do, really, just so long as I wasn’t alone in a place my hindbrain kept warning me was haunted.
It did make me wonder if there was more to Annie’s death than merely a broken heart. Ghosts didn’t manifest if the person—or, apparently, animal—died peacefully. Or did they? I only had stories and movies to go on here.
I took a step, and I was no longer surrounded by corn. The maze spilled out into a section of Jon’s farm not being used for the Howl-O-Ween event. A few barns were scattered across a field, and fence blocked off most of them. A roped off path led back around toward the front of the maze, and I imagined when it was open, someone would be back here to greet those who completed the journey.
But, for now, I was alone.
I tugged my phone from my back pocket, happy that I’d remembered to take it from the cup holder of my van where I always left it, and checked my bars. Two. It should be enough. I did a quick Google of both Jon and Annie’s names, but came up with little more than what Courtney had already told me, and a short article mentioning Annie’s death. Apparently, Jon had a brother who’d died when he was just a kid, and Annie had a sister named Lana who lived out of state. That wasn’t much to go on.
“I’m being stupid,” I muttered, shoving my phone back into my pocket. Jon was playing a prank; he had to be.
I had just started to wind my way back around to the front of the corn maze when I saw a glow coming from the equipment barn.
The glow was faint. My heart hitched as it moved, and a shape crossed from one end of the open doorway to the other.
A shape in a green dress.
My brain screamed at me to run, to flee back through the maze, but my feet were frozen to the spot. The glow persisted a good ten, twenty seconds, and then winked out.
I should get Detective Cavanaugh.
But if I did that, I knew I’d drag him all the way out here only to find nothing but an empty barn full of tractors and sharp objects. You know, the sort of stuff you’d find in a horror movie.
I took a step, but it wasn’t back toward the maze, nor was it on the path back around front.
Despite my trepidation, I was headed for the barn.
With every step, the night got that much darker. I pulled my phone back out of my pocket and flipped on the flashlight app, using it to light my way. There wasn’t much to see now that the glow was gone. No more shapes passed across the doorway, no sounds drew my attention. I felt alone out there, and the thought wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been.
“Hello?” I called as I neared the barn. And then, because I couldn’t help myself, “Annie?”
I didn’t expect an answer, figuring that whatever I’d seen was likely long gone. So, when someone stepped out of the barn, I couldn’t stop the scream that ripped from my throat like a live thing. I stumbled back and lost my grip on my phone. It fell to the ground and flipped so that the flashlight was pointing down, casting the area in gloom.
The woman was mostly as I remembered her from the corn maze, though she was diminished, as if she’d lost a foot of height, and about ten pounds around the hips. She was still pale, red-headed, and was wearing the same green dress I’d seen her in earlier. And she still scared the life out of me.
“Who are you?” I asked, too terrified to pick up my phone again. The woman wasn’t glowing, meaning I could only see her by moonlight. Did ghosts glow? I mean, she was glowing when I’d seen her in the barn, so why wasn’t she now? “What did you do with Jon?”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
I jumped at the sound of the woman’s voice. There was no spectral quality to it, no airy gasp of words. She sounded, well, human.
“Who are you?” This time, my voice didn’t tremble.
“I didn’t bring her here. She came on her own.”
I was confused at first, but then realized the woman in green wasn’t addressing me.
She was looking past me.
I whirled around to find another woman wearing the same green dress. This was the one I’d seen in the maze, the one who’d pointed at me. At her side, the golden retriever stood, happily panting.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You’re not Annie.”
“No,” the woman by the barn said, almost sadly. “I wish you wouldn’t have seen this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“Where’s Jon?” Quite suddenly, I was positive I didn’t want to know. These Annie’s weren’t ghosts, nor was the Goldie in front of me. But Jon Luckett? I didn’t think he was so lucky.
“We don’t have to,” the woman with the dog said. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“She saw us. We do.”
The woman by the barn tossed something aside. It took me a moment to realize it was her phone. It was likely the source of the glow I’d seen.
But none of that mattered anymore. In place of her phone, she was now holding a knife.