21. Kristin
KRISTIN
The scream ripped through the hallway—raw, desperate, and unmistakably Hailey. Patrick and I locked eyes for half a heartbeat, then bolted. Our feet pounded the hardwood, sliding slightly as another crash thundered somewhere behind us.
“Hailey!” I screamed.
I threw my shoulder into her bedroom door, but it didn’t budge. Something was jammed up against it from the inside.
“Move!” Patrick barked.
We hit it together. The second impact sent the door flying inward, wood exploding and her desk chair splintering into pieces. Hailey was in the far corner, face streaked with tears, Henry clutched to her chest.
But they weren’t alone.
The neighbor, the one who’d helped me with the deer, was halfway through her window. His arms braced on the sill, calm as a man climbing into his own house. He held the pitchfork handle. The tines were buried deep in Hailey’s dresser.
I didn’t think. I moved. A sound tore out of me—guttural, furious, not human. The splitting maul arced through the air, and the blade caught the side of his head with a sickening crunch. His body spasmed. Then he sagged, half in the room, half out the window.
Hailey shrieked. I was on her in an instant, dragging her and Henry into me. “Are you hurt? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, trembling so hard her teeth clicked.
“We’re surrounded,” Patrick said.
I looked at the broken window, the busted door, the hallway beyond—trying to find a clean exit in a house that had never offered one.
Hailey grabbed my wrist, and my gaze followed, locking with hers. “Mom,” she gasped. “Eddie said we have to burn the house down.”
“What? Where is he?”
Her mouth wobbled. “He’s dead.”
The words hit like a blow. “What do you mean, ‘he’s dead’?”
Tears slid down her cheeks. “They killed him . . . a long time ago.”
Patrick stiffened, and his gaze snapped to mine—because now the stories weren’t stories. They were standing in our home, breathing.
“We have to burn it,” Hailey said. “Then we run. And we never look back.”
Glass exploded in another room, followed by pounding, like dozens of fists striking every part of the house at once. Windows blew out one by one like dominoes.
“They’re inside.” Patrick’s voice cracked.
I could feel them. The floor vibrated with their synchronized approach.
I yanked the pitchfork free from the dresser and spun toward the open window. “This way,” I said. “Now.”
Patrick went first, climbing out the window and landing in a crouch in the snow. He scanned the yard, and when he deemed it clear, he lifted his arms. “Hand me Henry.”
I passed our baby through the window, and Patrick cradled him against his chest.
“Go, Hailey!” I urged.
She hesitated, staring at me like she was trying to memorize my face. Then she climbed out.
Patrick looked up at me, frantic. “Come on, Kristin!”
I shook my head. “Get in the car and drive. I’ll meet you at the top of the driveway.”
“No.” His voice broke. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re not leaving me,” I said. “You’re getting our kids out.”
“Mom, please,” Hailey sobbed.
I forced my mouth into something like a smile. The kind of smile you give a kid when you’re trying not to scare them—even when everything is already on fire.
“I’ll be right behind you. Go.”
Patrick’s face twisted, but he knew there was no talking me down.
“I love you,” he said, pleading.
“I love you too,” I whispered. “Now go.”
He took off across the side yard with Hailey close on his heels. I turned back to the room, shaking, and ripped the pitchfork free from the dresser.
This wasn’t what happened in Chicago. That was postpartum, my mind playing tricks on me. This was real. I pulled a lighter from my pocket, the one I’d shoved there earlier, half hoping I wouldn’t have to use it.
Then I stepped into the hallway. They were already there.
The neighbors, dozens of them. Their silhouettes filled every inch of the corridor, and they advanced toward me in slow, synchronized steps.
Their eyes were wide and unnaturally bright, like something had hollowed them out and left the lights on.
Judi Vee led them, drifting forward with theatrical delight.
“Well, well, well,” she drawled, spreading her arms as if welcoming a dinner guest. “There you are.”
I kept the pitchfork behind my leg. “Get out of my house.”
“Your house?” She clicked her tongue. “Oh, sweetheart, this place was never yours. I tried to be nice, but you tossed my niceness away.”
I stared at her, disgusted and confused.
“My casseroles,” she clarified.
“Your casseroles were shit, Judi.”
For a moment, her face actually flinched, like I’d slapped her. Then her smile returned, smaller and meaner. “And you ignored the welcome party. We don’t like being told no.”
“And I don’t like being hunted by a bunch of small-minded, backwoods psychopaths.”
“This isn’t hunting, dear,” Judi said softly. “This is how we keep things the way they are.”
I nodded once, as if considering.
“Here’s a new tradition,” I said, flicking the lighter. The flame snapped to life.
Judi’s smile faltered for the first time. “Easy, Kristin. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Oh, I am.” I held the flame steady. “You just don’t like what I’m thinking.”
I feigned dropping the lighter. Judi instinctively lunged forward, trying to catch it before it hit the hardwood.
My hand shot out. I planted the pitchfork at an angle in front of me like a stake. Her eyes went wide, but it was too late to stop. She impaled herself, the metal punching through her stomach and out her back. Blood spilled down the handle as she folded over it, twitching.
The crowd behind her paused, waiting—like the glitch in their programming needed a second to load.
“You’re . . . all . . . still . . . going . . . to . . . die,” Judi gargled, forcing the words out.
“Yes,” I said, staring past her at the faces. “You are.”
I tossed the lighter at Judi’s feet. It hit the gasoline-soaked rug and whooshed into a roaring wave, rushing toward them.
Judi screamed as flames climbed her coat, devouring her in seconds.
The walls and ceiling caught, and the hallway became a throat of heat and fury.
The neighbors screamed too, finally sounding human as the fire tore through them.
I ran, sprinting back into Hailey’s room and diving through the window. I landed hard, pain detonating through my ribs. For a second, my lungs refused to work. Then I forced air in and shoved myself upright.
Behind me, the Nightmare House erupted—orange light punching into the night and smoke boiling into the sky. Furious screams cut through the cold.
I ran along the pond’s edge. The ice groaned beneath its frozen shell as if the thing under it were waking up. Firelight reflected off the ice like a second world was burning. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.
The SUV sat in the driveway, idling, the brake lights bleeding red while smoke curled from the exhaust. Hailey’s face was pressed to the window, eyes locked on me. I sprinted the last yards, ripped the door open, and threw myself inside.
“Drive,” I gasped. “drive!”
Patrick floored it. The tires spat up ice and snow. Just when we thought we were free, the gate rose out of the dark, locked tight.
He hit the brakes and patted his coat pockets. “I don’t have the key!”
“Oh God,” Hailey sobbed. “Oh my God! We’re gonna die—”
I twisted in my seat and looked back through the rear window.
They were coming. Some barreled toward us, some limped on ruined legs, and some burned as they advanced, their skin sloughing off in molten sheets.
“Drive through it,” I said.
“Kris—”
“drive through it!”
The SUV rocketed forward and crashed into the gate. Metal shrieked, almost like an animal scream, and I couldn’t help but think of the deer and how we were facing a similar fate. The impact snapped us against our seat belts, and the gate shuddered but held.
“Again!” I screamed. “Hit it again!”
Patrick threw the car into reverse, and the engine roared as he floored it. We lurched forward with violent speed. The second hit buckled the metal, folding it like ribs under a blow, but it still refused to break.
“They’re coming!” Hailey sobbed.
“Once more!” I shouted.
Patrick let out a full-body roar and drove like the engine was on fire too. The gate finally gave with a splintering crack, snapping clean off its hinges.
A dozen neighbors collided with the bumper a split second too late, clawing at the windows, smearing blood across the glass. Patrick yanked the wheel and the car fishtailed, then straightened as we shot onto the road.
“Go,” I choked. “Go, go, go—”
Trees blurred past, dark and skeletal, reaching from both sides like hands trying to pull us back.
Behind us, the house burned.
Flames clawed at the sky, painting the woods a violent orange. In the rearview mirror, I caught one last glimpse of the neighbors standing in a crooked line, watching us leave—something they could never do.
My lungs finally released a shaking breath.
“We made it,” Hailey whispered from the back seat.
That was when I saw the headlights crest the rise ahead. A white truck barreled toward us, high beams glaring. It didn’t slow. It drifted—just a little at first. Then more. My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered.
The grille came into focus. The dented hood. The cracked headlight on the driver’s side. I knew that truck. I knew that man.
Through the windshield, his face appeared—weathered, familiar—the same expression I’d seen at the intersection, twisted now into something almost pleased.
Our eyes met, and then he jerked the wheel into our lane.
There was no time to scream. No time to brace. There was just the violent certainty of impact as metal tore itself apart.
Somewhere in the distance, Tillington stayed exactly as it was.
Population: 256