As we crossed the field and entered the woods there was no sound from the road. The October day had been full of rain and the trees pulled the darkness close.
There wasn’t much to say. I mean, no one wanted to talk about Frances Howard’s murder, so we walked in silence. Up ahead past the curve someone smashed a pumpkin against a tree.
They said there was nothing Frances could do when the murderer came to her house. She was old and couldn’t get out of bed. But no one thought she would die like that. Her eyes carved into a permanent expression of fear. And we didn’t know why.
But we had the fear. Everyone did.
When we got to the other side of the woods we saw the road ahead. A slender man with a razor smile stepped out onto our path.
We trembled.
“Even the young can never escape,” he said, his black eyes biting our cheeks. Then he handed us a picture.
It was of Frances Howard. Dead.
We shoved our way past him and ran out to the road. We didn’t stop running until we got to town. It was hard for us to catch our breath.
Then we looked at the picture again.
And it was a picture of us. In the woods.
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