Page 24 of Haunted Horror on Halloween

Nothing.

“Jackson?”

She called him as she hurried out to the balcony area.

He stood in the center of the great hall and looked up at her.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing, no one.”

“Same down here,” he told her. “No one, but . . . in the dining room, one of the chairs was knocked over. That alone doesn’t show signs of a struggle, but . . .”

“Let’s try the yard again. Let’s ‘inspect every single decoration’ out there.”

“That’s a plan.”

He started for the front door, and she hurried down the stairs to join him outside.

“Okay, the giant scarecrow . . .” Jackson murmured, standing back and looking at it, moving closer and inspecting the way it had been set into the ground and assuring himself it was nothing but a metal structure with plastic to create the face and cloth to create the ragged clothing it wore.

Angela moved over to the monster featured in a series of movies.

Pretty creepy, she had to admit.

Again, she gave it a bit of distance, then hurried to it, searching through the rubber folds that created the massive body of the thing and then the long, extended neck.

Nothing.

Jackson had started with the various ghosts, vampires, witches, and zombies around the yard.

She took a long look around everything. The yard was incredible.

But then again . . .

She’d seen other neighborhoods where the holiday was truly embraced. Some people kept their decorations for years and years and added more continually. In fact, their son, Corby, had a friend in Forest Hills in New York who did an astonishing job with their decorations and loved getting into decorating every year.

She surveyed the many, many creatures and beings in the yard again.

One “zombie” seemed to attract her. It was good. A stunning zombie, a woman zombie, created to appear as if she was in her mid-twenties. She had beautiful long dark hair and reminded her of an actress Angela had loved. Caroline Jones who had played a character in the ‘Adams Family’ shows that had aired years before—and were available for streaming now.

Blood dripped along her forehead to her cheeks. And her eyes . . .

They just weren’t staring the way they should have. Not in a “real” zombie.

She started for it as Detective Valiente arrived, jumping quickly out of his car.

“Just checking this out!” she called to him. “It doesn’t look like a commercial zombie from a shop to me.”

Valiente caught her briefly by the shoulders.

“Because it’s not.” he murmured miserably.

She burst from him, running to the supposed “decoration,” and swiftly touching her fingers to the woman’s pulse at the throat.

“No zombie, no zombie!” Valiente, now at her side, ready to lift the woman from the metal stand that was keeping her up. His eyes caught Angela’s for a second. “It’s Carla Hanson; she helps with Sally’s housework and hobbies! Carla, Carla—”

“Ambulance!” Angela shouted.