Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
FROM ONE TO HAUNTED MURDER FARMHOUSE
VAL
One.
Two.
Three.
We count the silence like it might betray us. I wait for something. A scrape. A drag. A breath that doesn’t belong to either of us.
Nothing.
Just the house settling with soft ticks and pops, wood adjusting like it’s trying to pretend nothing terrible happened here. Dead leaves whisper across the floorboards, dry and faint.
Shaun’s arm loosens.
We move.
The closet door groans when I ease it open, a sound that feels way too loud in the quiet. My pulse jumps into my throat.
I step out and Shaun follows close as though any space between us is dangerous. I’m thankful for it because everything looks worse up close.
My gaze is locked on the fresh blood in the center of the room. The blood isn’t just a stain. It’s layered and smeared across the floor.
My hands start shaking. My lunch is dangerously close to coming back up.
My brain panics and grabs for anything that isn’t this.
A fact slips out before I can stop it.
“Fun fact,” I whisper. My voice sounds brittle, like it might snap if I raise it any louder. “Your brain throws out random information during extreme fear to keep you from shutting down completely.”
Shaun turns and blinks at me.
“I’m not okay,” I add quickly, because that feels important to clarify. Then the real thought claws its way up my throat. “What the fuck was that? Was that . . .”
The word lodges there. Refuses to move.
He swallows and scans the room, eyes sharp, jaw tight. “I don’t know.”
“But it looked like Drew,” I whisper anyway. The name tastes like rust. “And Fred. And Sandie was . . .”
My voice cracks. The image slams back into my head, vivid and wrong and smiling.
“Val.” Shaun grips my arm. His eyes meet mine, wide and wrecked in a way that mirrors exactly how I feel. “I don’t know.”
We stand there whispering like idiots in a house soaked in blood and vines, trying to have a calm, rational discussion about the impossible.
“This is . . . not ideal,” I whisper.
Shaun nods gravely, also whispering. “Strong agree.”
“On a scale from one to haunted murder farmhouse,” I whisper, my voice barely holding together, “where are we right now?”
Shaun doesn’t hesitate, his stance taking on full-blown panic mode. “Oh, we blew past haunted murder farmhouse. We’re in the dimension where haunted murder farmhouse is run by demonic pumpkinheads with a necromancy quota.”
“Cool,” I murmur. “Love an organized threat. Cool, cool, cool.”
My laugh comes out thin and wrong, more air than sound. My pulse won’t slow.
Shaun shifts closer, like the walls might be listening. His hand settles at my back, solid and warm, thumb tracing circles that ground me to the moment. To him. The world narrows to that small motion.
Then his other hand cups my jaw, gently turning my face toward his. Like he needs me focused. Like he won’t let me spiral.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers.
The words feel dangerous. Reckless. Like saying them out loud might tempt fate to prove him wrong.
He presses his forehead to mine for a heartbeat. I feel his breath. His tension. His resolve.
“I’ve got you.”
My brain latches on to that. Holds tight. “And I’ve got you.”
I pull my phone from my pocket. No bars. Just that stupid spinning wheel, endlessly searching like it’s mocking me. “No signal,” I whisper, like lowering my voice might magically convince a cell tower to care.
Shaun checks his. Same blank lie.
We tear through the kitchen. The landline dangles from the wall, receiver cracked in half, cord ripped straight from the base like someone jerked it loose in pure panic. How did we miss that?
“Great,” I mutter. Of course the one thing designed for emergencies is very dead.
Shaun steps past me, jaw set. “Stay here.”
I snort, sharp and shaky. “Like hell I will.”
He ignores me and moves back into the living room. My nerves spike until I hear him murmur, quiet and grim, “Bingo.”
He reaches above the mantel and pulls down a shotgun. Dust and dried pumpkin pulp rain onto the floor. He checks the chamber. Empty. His mouth tightens. “Shit.”
I nod at an old buffet table nearby. “Check the drawers.”
We start pulling them open and it's not until Shaun gets to the bottom right one that he exhales in relief. He takes out a box of shells and loads the gun with smooth, practiced movements. The click of metal immediately makes me feel better. A tiny bit.
He pockets what he can, then presses a few shells into my hand. “Hold these.”
I nod and shove the shells into my jeans pocket, fingers clumsy and slick with sweat. They rattle together. I wince and still them with my palm. It’s not like the vines can warn the others. Right?
By the door, something catches the light. Fred’s truck keys hang from a hook shaped like a smiling pumpkin. Of course they do. I tug them free. “We’re not staying here.”
Shaun nods immediately. No argument. “Couldn’t agree more.”
We slip outside, staying low, shoulders brushing the siding. The golden hour presses in hard and close, like it’s leaning down to listen.
The cars sit lined up in the dirt drive, dark shapes waiting to save us.
Hope flares. Small. Fragile.
Then I see the tires.
Shredded. Split open. Rubber peeled back in long black curls like dead petals. Vines push out of the rims, thick and glossy, pulsing as if they have a heartbeat. One tendril drags across the gravel with a soft, wet scrape that makes my skin crawl.
Goodbye hope.
“For fuck’s sake,” Shaun mutters, raking a hand through his hair.
Panic surges up my throat, fast and sharp. My vision tunnels. Every instinct screams run, scream, do anything except stand here.
Think, Val. Do not spiral.
A useless fact pops into my head, bright and uninvited. Pumpkins are technically berries. Berries with vines strong enough to crack concrete if you let them grow long enough.
Great. Killer berries.
“We can go on foot,” I say, forcing the words out. “Follow the road. Maybe flag someone down—”
My voice cuts off.
Somewhere in the distance, an engine growls.
Ice floods my veins.
“Shaun,” I whisper. My throat shrinks around the word. “Did you . . . did you see one of them on Cole’s body?”
He freezes. The shotgun stops halfway up, caught between instincts. For a second he doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
His eyes lift to mine and the truth lands there, heavy and rotten. Confirmation without words.
We turn together.
Beyond the corn maze, the tops of the stalks ripple. Not from the wind. Something pushes through from below, forcing the plants apart. Stalks bend and snap. Leaves shudder like they’re trying to crawl away from whatever’s coming.
The tractor’s engine revs again.
“Fuck,” Shaun says, the word torn out of him.
My brain, traitor that it is, throws out another useless fact. Cornfields sound louder at night because moisture stiffens the leaves. Every rustle carries. Every snap echoes.
Great. Murder produce with surround sound.
“Run,” Shaun snaps.
I don’t argue.
We bolt. Gravel bites through my soles. My lungs burn, each breath sharp and shallow. The corn rushes toward us, a wall of green teeth whispering and hissing like it knows exactly what’s hunting us.
I spot a pitchfork leaning against a hay bale and grab it without slowing. The handle scrapes my palms, rough and splintered. Real. Heavy. It grounds me in a way panic can’t steal.
For the first time since this started, I don’t feel completely useless.
Just terrified.
My chest locks tight as we tear toward the maze.
Please don’t let us be too late.