***
Gunshots in the distance mark the progress of the hunters. They aren't constant—not yet. This early in the game, only the truly desperate will be seriously working to make their kills. Everyone else will be enjoying the day, looking for their prey amongst the panicked throng of the dead. And there are always a few who won't hunt the unarmed, men and women who wait for the dead to arm themselves before closing in. Never mind that they have guns, and the best we have is old farm tools and rusty knives. It's the principle that matters to them, not the actual potential to be defeated. They want to be hunters, not killers.
Fuck them and their fragile justifications. If it were up to me, no one would go armed at all. You'd have to beat your victims to death with your fists, feel their blood on your fingers, feel their teeth breaking your skin, and truly understand that your life was coming at the expense of someone's eternity. So it's probably a good thing for everyone that I'm not the one in charge.
We run through the corn in silence, Jimmy hanging back to pace me, Salem pushing herself harder than she ever did in life. As long as those gunshots stay distant, I'm not worried. It's a rare year that anyone comes out this far, this fast. The mouth of the rear channel is almost a surprise, looming out of the gray-and-green stalks like a mirage. Grabbing Salem by the elbow, I turn, and keep on running. She yelps, managing not to stumble as I haul her along.
"So where are we going?" asks Jimmy, pulling up alongside me again. He's not even breathing hard.
"Out of the corn," I snap, using as little air as possible. God, I wish this shit counted. With as much time as I've spent incarnate and running for my life in the last year, you'd think I'd be able to work my way into slightly better shape. "Apple orchard. Old barn." And the marsh behind it, but I don't want to tell him that, not yet. There's too much of a chance that he'll be a liability, and I'll need a route he doesn't know about.
Salem's already a liability, too slow, too visible against the corn, little Snow White tattoo girl, like a naughty fairy tale running from the hand that holds the apple. But at least she's trying. Jimmy looks like this is all a joke, and I don't have a clue how I can get it through his head that this is anything but funny.
We run until the corn gives way, our feet pounding against the hard-baked earth. The apple orchard looms ahead of us, trees groaning under the weight of the fruit that's waiting for the harvest. The Barrowmans always get a good crop; it's part of the same bargain that keeps them healthy and alive for as many years as human frailty allows. "This way," I snap, still hauling Salem in my wake.
"I thought we wanted to stay under cover," says Jimmy, still too damn amused for anyone's good.
"If you've got a better idea, you can just be my guest." I'm too annoyed by his attitude to stop the words from getting out. Halloween is serious business, and here he is, treating it like it's all just another game.
"I think I will," he says. Putting two fingers in his mouth, he whistles shrilly. There's a click in the trees to the left, and then—almost before I hear the gunshot—Salem is wobbling, a comic look of surprise distorting her features. A bloody red rose is blooming on her chest, Snow White felled in the presence of a hundred unpicked apples. Her hand pulls free of mine as she falls, crumpling to the ground.
"What did you do?!" I demand, dropping to my knees. It's too late, I know that even before I see Salem's open, glazed-over eyes; she's gone. For the second time, she's gone, and this time, she won't wake up in the dubious safety of the twilight, won't have any second chances. I stare at the red blood staining her borrowed clothes, realizing numbly that I don't even know what she was. Hitcher, phantom rider, yuki-onna, wraith...the choices are endless, and Salem wasn't.
Salem ended.
Salem ended, but I haven't. That thought gets me back to my feet, poised to run, run away from this little boy who brought the hunters down on a stupid little fairy tale princess. Let him face the rest of this long night alone. I'm done.
Instead, I find myself looking at a man in hunter's green, with a shotgun pointed square at the middle of my chest. Jimmy is smiling like he's just won himself the world.
"See, Anton?" he says. "I told you I could break some of them away from the rest of the herd."
The man with the shotgun has Jimmy's eyes. This can't possibly be good.
***
I raise my hands, trying to look innocent and young. Everyone who comes here to hunt knows they'll be shooting ghosts to ransom their own lives, but some of them still have trouble killing kids. "Please don't shoot, mister," I say. "I'll do anything you want."
"Brave one," the man snorts. He walks to Salem, nudging her with his boot. "If they're all this accommodating, I should've let the goth chick be yours. Goth chicks'll do some freaky stuff if they think it'll get them somewhere."