Page 1 of Haunted Horror on Halloween

Prologue

The Setting

Spiderwebs threaded eerily through the little area of the forest, ashen and creepy as they tangled around the long and crooked branches of the trees, creating their own atmosphere of a haunting visage even had there been nothing more.

But there was more. So much more. A creation in art and planning and brilliance that was beyond anything he’d ever seen.

A grinning Jack-O-Lantern sat in one corner of the circular clearing.

A scarecrow, grinning evilly, stood in the center.

Bloodied corpses littered the place, a few new—because, of course, there was nothing like the perfect revenge—a few dug up just for the occasion. Those were rotting in different stages of decomposition.

And again, if the “new” weren’t actually corpses right now, they would be soon enough.

Ah, yes! Halloween! His work really was magnificent, even if he did say so himself.

Half the country looked a little bit the same—ghosts, goblins, spiders, scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns adorned almost every street in the country—just not with the same natural and artistic flair as he had managed.

Ah, yes, parks were hosting Haunted Houses everywhere. So, so much fun!

Hey. It was almost Halloween!

But this, this was his creation, and damn did he create well!

Slayer was proud of himself.

Slayer? Ah, yes! Bringer of blood and death and darkness.

Because he’d been created to rule; and he was frighteningly good at it. He had escaped what the supposedly saintly human beings attempted to do to him. Loving his role in the evil of humanity. He laughed inwardly, remembering his time in court. Did he believe himself to be the devil incarnate on earth, or . . .

Did he love the game of power, deciding on life or death? Law enforcement and the legal system had gone insane over the question!

And it didn’t matter.

Because there was one revenge that was going to be the sweetest. That against her.

Rumor abounded of course, which was why this revenge was going to be so incredibly perfect.

Ghostbusters, right? Ah, yeah, like hell.

But to make it absolutely perfect . . .

Ghosts abounded as well, in almost every imaginable way. Sheets over mannequins, creepy gray creations . . . all manner of creepy haunts that could be so easily purchased since Halloween was on the way.

Slayer had hated others almost as much as he hated her. Others had been instrumental in his downfall, in sending him to the horror of the prison where he’d lived in misery all those years . . .

And yet!

They had been the years in which he had planned his revenge down to this perfect creation. There were still a few tricks he needed to figure out.

Getting her alone here! Of course, her beloved partner needed to die, too.

Such a great plan. She would most likely not have returned to the west, though that was possible. But here . . . right where she and her He-Man lived with their family . . .

Too perfect. And for the He-Man partner . . .

For him, well . . . a gunshot to the head would be sufficient.