Page 8 of Are You Scared, Krowe?

Every Hollow Night ends the same way. Drunk fucking kids passed out in the cornfield, someone tied to the stake, and hell waiting to be paid.

This year's different.

The sun's just barely rising and it's cold as fuck, but I drag my ass out of bed the way I do every day... the way I have every day for the last twenty years in spite of how fucking tired I am.

Life stops for no man, so I get up and go about my day— make sure the scarecrow's up in the field, make sure the corn's growing, chase away the crows if I see 'em, and repeat to fucking infinity.

But there's something about this morning that feels different.

I don't know what it is until I find myself at the edge of the field, right where it opens up to a big clearing.

They call it the festival grounds, but it's not much of a place for celebration.

Then again, I suppose for the fuckers that still live in the town, it's probably a reminder of some of their best times.

Hollow Night happens every year on the Saturday before Halloween. But the 'sacrifices'? Those only happen every ten years. I should know; I was the last one.

Until now, it seems.

From my angle, all I can see as I approach is the arms draped over the stake, the head down with the hat obscuring its face.

I prepare myself to have to talk down a drunk fuck who hasn't dried up from the previous night yet. I wonder who the poor sap will be.

If there's anyone who should have been safe from Hollow Night hazing, it's me. Or at least, the stereotype of a guy like me. I'm big, broad-shouldered and I can hold my liquor. And I was one of them. But that didn't stop them from leaving me out there.

I still don't remember how I got free. I just know that it's been twenty years, and my hatred for them and their stupid tradition has just been simmering all this time. Maybe that's why I plan to cut the poor fucker down and be on my way before they can wake up and ask a million questions.

But as I walk around the front of the stake, realization slams into me hard.

It's a girl tied out there, if the tits are any indicator.

I can't see her face because of the hat, but I don't need to. She's got a soft body, curves in all the right spots. And yet that beautiful body has been absolutely brutalized. It's clear by the scratches, the blood, the fucking corn husk between her thighs.

Rage floods my veins, and scarlet clouds my vision. I literally see red, everything tainted by the horror of what I just stumbled upon.

She doesn't move as I approach, which makes me wonder if she can't hear me or if she's just really out of it.

The sun's rising fast now, after all. She oughtta be waking from it soon.

I swallow my reservations as I approach and lift the hat off her head.

Golden locks spill forward as her head drops further, obscuring her face. I can see nothing of it to tell if she's awake or in distress, if she's gagged or otherwise silenced.

I don't need to see her face though to know the right thing to do. I cut her down easily, dropping the garden hoe I brought with me so I can saw the ropes loose.

She falls the moment the bonds break, and I catch her against my chest, shock halting my rational brain.

I don't know what to do now.

She's so fucking cold, she's freezing.

Swiping her hair out of her face, I finally get a look at it.

She must have had it painted last night. Now, all that remains of whatever she was dressed as is dark tracks of her makeup streaking down her pale skin, lashes clumped together and crusted with tears, and blue lips.

"Fuck, little wraith."

The right thing to do is to call the police. To call an ambulance.

But I lived in that town. I know how they operate. They protect their own, and if this girl ended up here, like this, she's not one of them.

"I've got you." I tell her, hoping she can hear me.

Her soft body is so damn cold I can't fight back a shiver as I pull her against me. I'll take her to the house, set her up in the tub and warm her up slowly. We don't want to risk hypothermia, if she hasn't gotten it already.

"What the fuck?"

The voice certainly doesn't come from the woman I've got in my arms; it's clear when I turn to see him standing there, his jaw slack as he stares at me... at her.

I appraise him slowly, wondering whether he's worth the time it will take to deal with him.

"Who are you?"

"Who am I?" He laughs. "Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here? Put her down!"

That's as good an admission of guilt as I need. He clearly knew she was out here. Was he coming to finish the job?

But if he wants me to put her down, I suppose I can oblige that request.

He reaches into his jacket, a letterman one like what I used to have, and pulls out a knife.

It's a fucking kitchen knife, maybe one meant for steak. He seems to realize his mistake when I smirk, not the least bit frightened by being threatened with fucking tableware. I could gouge his eyes out with a spoon quicker than he could do damage with that puny knife.

"Okay..." I agree, laying the girl out on the ground.

Her head lulls to the side, and I track his eyes as they run over her body.

I watch his throat bob as he swallows.

"What... what are you doing with her?"

"Gonna warm her up, for starters." I say honestly. "Fucking monsters, whoever left her out here like that on the coldest night of the year."

"Yeah." He agrees quickly, taking a step towards her. "Is she—"

"Ah ah!" I warn, wagging my finger at him. "I don't think you should go near her."

"What? Why?"

I shrug. "What's your name?"

"Toby." He says obediently.

"Last name?"

I can see his distrust as his eyes track my face, trying to decide whether he should answer that.

He really shouldn't, but it doesn't matter.

I can already tell by the way he's looking at her that he had a hand in whatever happened out here last night, and that's as good as a death warrant regardless of who he is.

"Connors." He swallows, watching my face for signs of recognition. He won't find it.

"Toby Connors." I muse, grinning for him. "You celebrate Hollow Night, Toby?"

His eyes flick from me to her, and I recognize the confession his tongue will never give me.

"I... I've heard of it."

"Have you?" I laugh.

Of course he has. The whole town's heard of it. But that's not what I asked.

"What's the big deal?" He shrugs. "It's just a little superstition, right?"

"Right." I nod slowly, watching his fingers twitch around the wood handle of the knife.

"I just... I'm gonna take her."

Fat fucking chance.

I raise an eyebrow at him, a silent suggestion for him to rethink that. But he doesn't. He fucking moves for her, he touches her, and I explode.

I've got the handle of the hoe against his throat before he ever lifts her into his arms, and the threat of me collapsing his trachea is enough to make him drop the knife, lifting his hands in surrender.

"Don't..." he warns. "It's not worth it. Capital punishment is an option in Kansas."

"Good for you." I tell him coldly. "But Kansas hasn't executed anyone since 1965. Ten years before the people of this town took matters into their own hands and the Scarecrow was born."

His heavy breaths press against the handle of the hoe, so I dig it into the column of his throat harder.

"You don't wanna kill me." He warns. "The sheriff will be looking for me soon."

"Oh?" I laugh, slamming the bar into his throat and reveling in the sound of his choking.

He crumples to the ground when I release the hoe, on his hands and knees gasping as he tries to reclaim his breath and dignity. He'll not get either.

When I slam the back of it down on his skull, he collapses easily, his hands giving out beneath him and sending his head crashing into the ground.

I take advantage of his moment of stunned surprise, burying the blade in the back of his skull.

He gasps, shock arresting his movements, keeping him from screaming.

When I kick him over, his eyes are glassy and wide, staring at me with his mouth making fish lips, opening and closing around words that don't come.

I don't doubt it hurts, but that's kinda the point.

Not getting to hear him scream sort of puts a damper on things.

My eyes flicker to the other side of the hoe, the metal spikes for tilling the earth.

I get the scream I was after when I bludgeon him in the face with it. The claws dig into his flesh and tear; it splits easily and blood squirts out in all directions from the holes I just put in his head.

I have half a mind to leave him here now, to try and crawl his way out of the cornfield before he bleeds to death.

But that's not a fate fair enough for what he did.

He's a monster, and I think the outside should match his insides.

I could turn him inside out if I had a little more time, but the little wraith on the ground needs to be warmed up, and the sun that's snapping into place on the horizon isn't gonna cut it. I've gotta be swift.

The sound from him as I throw my weight on the handle and pull is inhuman. Guess that's fair, since he's not human.

He's a fucking demon, one of hundreds that call this town their home. They've hidden here for years, operating on the fringe, hiding from the rest of the world behind their cornstalks and fucking festivals. But there's no mistake.

This town is infested, and it's time for an exorcism.

Toby Connors' flesh splits easily beneath the weight of the hoe, the claws digging into the muscle of his face and giving me the slightest bit of resistance as I open him up, exposing the rot and evil lurking beneath.

His screams taper to a pathetic cry as I drag his body by the boots, pulling him to the stake.

I could leave him out here to die slowly, but he deserves worse.

After all, he touched her.

I leave him just long enough to go back for the hoe, twisting it in my hands as I approach the place I dropped him. Pathetic kid is on his hands and knees, trying to get away, but I don’t think he can see with all the blood dripping in his eyes.

I knock him off balance easily when I kick him square in the chest.

“Please just let me go!”

He sobs as I push against his chest again with my boot, knocking him flat onto his back and pinning him beneath me.

When I use the sharp edge of the hoe to chop off his left hand, he screams again, so loudly that there’s a commotion in the trees in the distance, like the crows are scattering.

His hand comes clean off, severed beneath the weight of my blow, and he sobs, immediately choking on his tears, his screams, his own fucking blood.

I'm impressed, particularly when the fingers still twitch on his disconnected hand.

I've half a mind to chop them all off one by one as he watches, but time is of the essence. It's why I don't take my time letting the horror sink in before I heft the hoe again and sever his right hand at the wrist just the same.

He's too horrified to do anything other than wail like a little fucking bitch.

His cries have no effect on me; I wonder if he felt anything when she cried. And I know she did... I can see the tear tracks down her face.

I don't mind him crying; it makes it easy to heft him onto the stake.

I didn't bring rope, but I've got what's left of what I cut her off of, and I make quick work of wrapping him up with it.

He's not a big guy, but he's surprisingly solid, leaning forward as his body strains to pull away from the rope.

I'm grateful it holds, though, as I slip the sack from my back pocket and drop the hood into place, tugging it down over his now ruined face.

It's the blood loss that kills him, I'm sure. That or shock. Either way, his sobs and screaming cease before I even get the hood in place.

When I step back to admire my handiwork, I can't help but smirk.

It looks so real.

The crows won't dare come around here... but the sheriff?

Well, I'm counting on that.