Dead End: Midnight Hollow by Penn Cassidy (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

every shadow. A rat scurried from a trash can onto a drain pipe, and I swore my soul departed my body for a second there. I was walking so fast now that I was overtaking Cal in a powerwalk, and I probably looked like a fucking spaz.

“I swear to the great pumpkin, Cal, if your phone starts playing ‘Thriller’—”

I choked as something was placed over my face from behind. My nose and mouth were immediately filled with something sharp and pungent smelling. My eyes burned, and I began to cough as a strong arm wrapped around my torso, holding tight. Thrashing side to side, I tried to shake my head and bite through the scratchy cloth covering my face, but I was losing the battle. Suddenly, my arms felt leaden, and my vision started to swim.

I’m being drugged…

Who would do this…?

Who would…

Cal.

That was the last thought that ran through my head before darkness descended.

It was pitch black when I came to. My eyes felt like they were filled with sand, and my mouth was as dry as a desert. It was cold, bone chillingly cold. I shivered, cringing as my teeth gritted together.

I tried to move, but I was immediately met with resistance, my right knee slamming into something hard. “Fuck,” I muttered, sticking my hands out in front of me.

Light was beginning to creep in through the blurriness of my vision, and I realized that if I stood on my tip toes, I could see out of a little rectangular slot fitted with four small iron bars. Panic set in as the sight of the orange twin blood moons shone back at me from behind the bars. I was obviously outside still, and I could feel just a small amount of frigid wind on my cheeks when I pressed my face closer to the bars.

I felt around in front of me, and to my horror, I realized I was completely caged in on every side with about half a foot to move. The walls were made of dark stone, and it smelled like moss and soil. Standing on my toes again, I looked outside and realized exactly where I was.

Midnight Hollow Cemetery. I must have been on the very top of the narrow hillside, because I could see the road far below and that arched wrought iron gate past a sea of headstones. Fear coiled in my gut.

How the fuck did I get here?

I thought back to the moments leading up to nothingness and froze. Calvin. He’d done this to me, but why? He drugged me with some kind of potion and brought me to this stone coffin like some kind of serial killer. He freaking kidnapped me and was probably going to bury me alive! My veins ran ice cold, and I suddenly wished I’d forced Jessica to wake up. She could have fled and alerted someone, told them what Cal had done.

I could see my mother and father’s graves from my perch on the top of the hill. They were less than thirty paces away, and when I squinted, I realized that was exactly where another source of light was emanating from. There were black pillar candles scattered around the base of my parents' headstones and a pewter bowl between them. An athame rested atop the stone, gleaming in the flickering light.

A shadow moved in my peripheral, and I stiffened. The crunch of soil underfoot was slow and deliberate. That shadow quickly became a man, and his face was inches from mine in less than a heartbeat.

“Mayor Ichabod?” I breathed in disbelief, eyes going wide. “What are you—”

“What am I doing here?” he sneered with a slow, creepy smile. “I find it adorable that you even have to ask.” His laugh was slimy, and there was something strange about his face that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“What do you want from me? Why am I here?” My voice came out a whisper as panic took hold of me, making it hard to draw in a proper breath.

He laughed again, and it made my stomach roll. Stepping backwards into the moonlight, I could see that he was bare chested under an open white frilly dress shirt, and down the front of his torso was a bleeding wound that dripped down his abdomen. It didn’t look deep, but it looked self inflicted, if the bloody athame in his hand had anything to do with it.

“Calvin, you never told me she’s as stupid as she is pretty.” His eyes were staring at me a little too close for comfort, then they shifted off to the side for a moment, and my blood boiled. So Cal was still here.

I saw movement from beside Ichabod, and my breath caught as three familiar clowns moved into position at the cemetery gates in the distance. Each of them I recognized as the ones from outside that motel on the first night. They were dressed in their usual jumpsuits and were twirling around blunt force weapons and machetes in their meaty hands. Payton’s family was here.

Through the fog covering the ground came a shadow skipping into the clearing, pigtails bobbing on the side of her head. Red lips pulled in a sinister smile spread wide, past the point of normal. A bristle of fabric, and Payton appeared next to my parents’ headstone as she waved her pom-poms, little sharp knives embedded into the shiny material around them. Payton’s eyes met mine, and she swirled around, her cheerleading skirt billowing around her legs as she started to dance in place like she was at a prep rally. She was fucking crazy.

“Gimme an M!” she squealed. “Gimme an O.R.T.A.L!” she added with a chuckle and a shake of her pom-poms. “So I can kill her!” Payton cheered dramatically, laughing like she would never stop. A screw had to be loose in that head of hers.

A woman was right there on her heels, wearing a Society cloak, and I recognized her immediately as Payton’s mother.