Page 10 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

I briefly wonder whether I’m actually awake. After Dad died, I’d started sleepwalking. Mom kept finding me in his office at home, wandering around as if looking for him. Once she’d found me out back in his toolshed.

I’d gone to therapy then, with someone Gail had recommended, and my therapist had explained that the sleepwalking was a manifestation of my trauma. I haven’t done it in over a decade, but every time I see something questionable at night, that’s my first thought.

I peer at the lights. It must be something bioluminescent under the water.

I’ll need to look that up in the morning.

For now, it’s kind of cool. It’d probably be even cooler if I were wearing my proper prescription.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be. Put on my contacts, and I might realize I’m just seeing reflections from light pollution.

I pull open the window. And the stench of something dead blasts in on the breeze. I fall back, hand to my nose. Then I quickly shut the window.

I’d forgotten that part of cottage life—the smell of decomposing critters. Of course, I used to get that in my apartment, too, when Lucille would actually bother to kill a mouse and leave it under the sofa. Dead mouse, though, smells a whole lot less than dead deer or dead raccoon.

I shiver. There must be a carcass between here and the lake.

Add cleaning that up to my to-do list. One advantage to having been med-school-bound is that I’m not freaked out handling a dead animal.

I used to find them fascinating, crouching to examine them and identify what I could. My own childhood anatomy labs.

I stand at the window as sweat dribbles down my temple.

Lights dance under the water, and I really do hope it’s not a trick of the light.

It’s so pretty. I’m tempted to slip outside and get closer, dead-critter stink and all.

Except there’s more than a dead critter out there. I don’t want to bump into the squatter.

I sigh, take one last look at the lights, and head back to bed.

“Do not open the window,” Gail says, by way of greeting, as I walk into the kitchen the next morning, drawn by the smell of coffee.

“Still stinks out there?”

Her brows rise.

I yawn and take a mug from the cupboard. “I got up last night and made the mistake of opening a window for a little air. Something’s dead outside. I’ll clean it up.”

“Isn’t that a job for the caretaker?”

“Nah, I’ve got it.” I pour a coffee from the pot. “We might need to do something about the headless horseman, though.”

Another brow lift.

I add cream and sugar to my coffee before saying, “I heard him last night.”

A moment’s pause, and then she bursts out laughing. “I remember you hearing him every summer, and it was adorable. Oh! There was that one time when you talked me into staying up half the night listening for him.”

“And you heard him, too.”

“Uh, yeah … About that…”

“You were humoring me, weren’t you?”

“Well, no. Not exactly.” She leans against the counter. “Remember all those times you said I smelled like skunk? It wasn’t skunk.”

“You smoked weed as a teen? I am shocked.” I stir my coffee. “It does explain the smell, though. I was seriously worried for your hygiene. Or the possibility of an illicit relationship with a skunk.”

She throws a pot holder at me.

“As for the hoofbeats,” I say, “I woke up thinking I heard them and then nearly laughed loud enough to wake you. I was a weird kid.”

“You were adorable. Still are.”

“You’re just saying that because I offered to clean up a rotting animal.”

She raises her mug, and I clink mine against it.

“I know you don’t do breakfast,” I say, “but I will be cooking eggs. Right after I clean up that mess.”

“You do know that most people would put that off until after they ate?”

“It’s better to do it on an empty stomach.”

She makes a face.

I gulp half my coffee and set the mug on the counter. “Step one, clean up the mess. Step two, make breakfast. Step three, work. And at some point this morning, I want to check out the shed.”

“Can I bring my gun?”

“If you promise not to point it at me.”

She gives me a thumbs-up as I pull on my boots. Then I grab a garbage bag.

“What about a spade?” she says. “That’d be in the shed, right?”

I pause. “Shit. Yes. So maybe we move up the shed investigation. Let me take a look at what we’re dealing with first. If it’s a small animal, the bag will be enough.”

I rifle through our open boxes until I find disposable gloves. I snap on a pair and swing open the front door.

“Oh God.” Gail slaps both hands to her face. “Go! Quickly!”

I shake my head, step out on the front porch, and stop.

There’s something on the steps. Something red and pink and brown.

“Hey!” Gail calls as I start forward. “Shut the door!”

I keep walking, my gaze fixed on that lump. Flesh. That’s what I’m seeing. Fur and flesh and bone.

“Hey!” Gail says behind me. Then, “What the hell?”

I don’t know what it is. A dead animal. That’s for sure. But it’s not … Something about it …

What the hell am I seeing?

I stop short. There’s a head. A rabbit head. Staring at me. But it’s …

I struggle to process. All the parts are there—a head, legs, a body—but it’s not making sense. Then I see why. The rabbit has been ripped apart, every limb and the head torn off, but then …

The torso is splayed on its back, belly ripped open, organs arranged around it. The legs all protrude from inside that open chest cavity, paws sticking up. And in the middle is the head, perched there, staring at me with empty eye cavities.

My mind rockets into the past, to a squirrel, carved up and left for me—

I let out a small whimper, arms wrapping around myself as I shake.

A noise sounds behind me. I don’t even need to look to see what it is.

My aunt, retching her coffee onto the porch.