Page 26 of Haunted Horror on Halloween

Would he fall for it a second time?

He knew Angela was willing to be the bait to catch the man. And he knew she counted on him to be there at the right time. In a way, he hated the very concept of her taking such a risk. But she was a trained agent; they’d begun their time together as part of the first Krewe unit. She would always be such an agent and, of course, she worried about him as much as he worried about her, and yet . . .

They had faith in each other. Thankfully, so far, that faith had been warranted.

But this man . . .

Jackson wasn’t sure that in all of his days working on heinous cases that he’d ever come across a human being he could describe as being purely evil—as if the man was the devil incarnate on earth. The taking of a human life meant nothing to him at all. He could kill as casually as he could breathe.

Valiente had finished his phone call. He looked at them and nodded.

“They know; my guys know to rip everything to shreds. Well, you know what I mean. I’ll head to the next house, going from the middle. And I’m hoping to hell I find some folks home, or maybe even someone who has seen something,” he said.

“We’ve had the warning out with the media,” Jackson told him. “Hopefully, some people have heard and will double-lock everything and pay no heed to a stranger. Of course, the fear with him is that he’s great at bribing or threatening others into doing his biddings.”

“Or, in some cases as we’ve seen, brainwashing them. Except in the past, that’s taken him a bit of time, so, we can do our best to get everyone out of danger as quickly as possible. Which means,” Angela said, looking at Jackson, “We need to get moving.”

“All right, over the river and through the woods,” Jackson said.

“There is no river behind the house,” Valiente said.

Jackson winced. “Just an expression. We move.”

He did so, nodding to Angela and then they, in turn, nodded to Valiente and headed toward the back of the property.

The handsomely manicured lawn, with its flower garden and sporadic trees, was met in the back by a wall of oaks.

But as Jackson had expected, there was something of a very slim trail in the center of the massive array of trees.

“Broken branches, a few,” Angela commented. “Too bad one of us isn’t a canine. You can’t really tell if people were dragged through here or not.”

“He must have someone else helping him,” Jackson said. “Or else . . .”

His voice trailed as he looked to the right of their position. It seemed there was another trail that led in a parallel position with the road beyond the houses.

“I’m going to give Valiente a call and make sure he’s checked out the nearest neighbor to the northeast of the house we’ve just left. Looks like there might be a connection here,” he told Angela.

“And maybe one that was just created or enhanced,” Angela said. “Jackson, look. There are several branches in that direction, leading toward this trail.”

Jackson nodded, calling Valiente.

He suggested the direction in which the man should move—and asked him to return the call as soon as he knew anything.

“Okay, he’s on it.” he told Angela.

“And ahead.” she suddenly whispered.

At first, even with the strength of his light, he saw nothing.

And then he saw what Angela saw, something that might have been taken for part of the landscape, part of the night.

Spiderwebs.

“They’re not real!” she whispered.

“I agree. No spider is really that big or has a web that thick, but in the darkness . . .”

She laughed softly. “There’s something up there. One of his scenarios, I’m certain.”