Page 84 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

He goes quiet, thinking. I should be doing the same. Working it through. But every time my thoughts slide in that direction, I shrink back.

Don’t think about it.

Don’t analyze it.

“Those things killed that camper,” I whisper. “Or the horseman did. The guy didn’t leave the property after all. He just moved to a different camping site. The horseman… The screams… The hoofprints…” I swallow. “We need to call Sheriff Smits.”

“Yeah.”

I relax, as if I’d half expected him to say no. Don’t call the sheriff. The cyclist is dead and gone into the lake. Pretend nothing happened. Because that’s better than explaining what we saw.

“What are we going to tell him?” I say.

“What we saw. The… things from the lake. Like your aunt in the photo. They dragged him in.”

“And the horseman?”

He goes quiet. “Did you get a photo?”

I shake my head. “So we don’t mention the horse. That’s my advice. We say we thought we saw a shape, maybe a horse, and the hoofprints might be there, but we don’t say… exactly what we saw. The drowned horse. The headless rider.”

“Yeah.”

I exhale, relieved.

“If we go too far, he’ll think we’re high on something,” Ben says. “Or he’ll think I’m high and snuck you some. I did stuff when I was a kid. Experimenting.” He pauses. “A bit of selling. That was years ago. I haven’t so much as smoked a joint in a decade, but that won’t matter.”

“He’ll say the horseman was a drug-induced hallucination.”

“Fuck, even with those things from the lake, he might say that.”Ben bangs back against the headrest and closes his eyes. “Zombies coming out of the lake.”

“The drowned dead. But we have the photo.”

He exhales a slow breath. “Calling in Smits is probably a bad idea, but I don’t know what else to do. A man is dead.”

“And if anyone comes looking for him, we don’t want to need to lie about him being here.”

“Yeah. Agreed.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m going to call Smits, but while we’re waiting, I need to ask you about something.”

Twenty-Five

Sheriff Smits is on his way, and even without the phone on speaker, I know he’s not happy about it. Ben said we believe a would-be camper was dragged out into the lake, and Smits clearly seems to think this is Ben being an asshole.

Maybe it would have helped if I’d called while Ben was driving headlong through the dark, both of us caught in the wild panic of watching a man die at the hands—and teeth—of the drowned dead. By the time Ben placed that call, we were both calm. Too calm? In shock? Or just relieved that we were still alive? Even now, when I’m sitting in the truck, what happened feels like a nightmare I’ve woken from, feeling unsettled but also detached.

Just a nightmare.

Except it wasn’t, and I don’t think either of us knows how to deal with that.

“Earlier, you said things were happening,” Ben says, “and you thought you might be responsible.”

My stomach clenches, and I look out the truck window.

“Sam?” he says, his voice low. “I’m not asking you to confess anything. Trust me, I’m the last person you want for your Father Confessor. But I think you’re really mixed up right now, and after what happened—a mandiedin front of us—you don’t want to takeresponsibility in front of a cop. In fact, I’m going to very, very strongly advise against it.”

My lips twist in a humorless smile. “Practicing law without a license?”

He snorts. “Don’t need a law degree to know that’s a really bad idea. Tell me what you think you did so I can tell you you’re wrong.”