Horror at Halloween, Prologue and Part Four, Chuck

Book 4: Horror at Halloween

by Stephen Jones

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

OXRUN STATION HAS ALWAYS BEEN DIFFERENT. Nobody can really explain it. You just have to understand that bizarre things happen there. They just do. Weird things. The kind of things you don't even want to dream about in your worst nightmares. Maybe it really is the rare conjunction of Mars and Saturn with Venus, lowering the barriers between our world and another, shadowy realm . . . or maybe it is just that the full moon always brings out the strangeness in that place. When Chuck Antrim and his fellow members of the Halloween Club first come upon the standing stones, they have no idea of the insidious evil that lurks within those ancient monoliths . . . The fabric of the cosmos is unravelling and dark and dangerous things are leaking across the borders . . . For five unsuspecting teenagers, their lives will never be the same again as they discover the hidden terrors lurking beneath the surface of their quiet town and experience the most horrifying Halloween of them all . . . This year in Oxrun Station, THE TRICK IS TO STAY ALIVE!

Release date: October 21, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

CHUCK

CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

1

Maybe, Kenny thought, he shouldn’t be here after all.

He especially didn’t want to be here alone. He didn’t even see a sign of this old house they were supposed to be exploring. It was so dark out here in the woods that he could barely
even see the trees. To heck with being quiet and secretive. He wanted to know where the three other guys had gone.

“Sammy?” he called out in the darkness. “Where are you? Nick? Jim? Come on, Sammy!”

Nobody answered. Unless that faint sound he heard was laughter. That was it, Sammy and the boys, playing one more joke on old Kenny.

Sammy, Jim, Nick and Kenny, the four track stars of Oxrun High, and the school’s four best practical jokers. Or so they were always trying to prove, especially with each other. And all
Kenny had done was fill Sammy’s underwear with shaving cream after their last track practice. Kenny guessed he deserved it. Except that he didn’t find being left in the woods all that
funny.

The woods were so thick here that they blotted out any light that might come from the moon and stars. The only way Kenny could walk around was with his arms outstretched, to feel for trees and
bushes in the almost total dark. He wondered if he could find his way back to the car. They had parked up by the quarry, in the mouth of a dry stream bed. Sammy had led them up the stream for a
hundred feet or so; then they began to climb. Since then, they had been walking uphill almost all the way. So, Kenny figured, if he just felt his way back down the slope, he should find the car
sooner or later.

That is, if the car was still there. Kenny got a sinking feeling deep down in his stomach. Sammy and the others wouldn’t take off on him, would they? Kenny could still remember how mad
Sammy had been at the white foam filling his jockey shorts. Somehow, that little joke didn’t seem quite so funny after all.

Where the heck had the other guys gone, and so fast, too? Sure, they were all pretty good at running the quarter mile, but at night, in the woods? He thought about calling out again, but decided
he wouldn’t give the others the satisfaction.

Instead, he decided to walk downhill. If he couldn’t find the car, at least he could find the road back into town. He didn’t think they could be more than five or six miles outside
of Oxrun Station. Somebody was bound to recognise him on the road and give him a ride.

His sneaker caught a rock, almost tripping him. He stumbled away, twisting around to keep himself from falling. Ha ha, guys, he thought, when he finally managed to stop his staggering down the
hill. He tested his weight to make sure he hadn’t twisted his ankle. No, the ankle was a little sore but he was all right, no thanks to Sammy and the others. Ha ha, he thought again.
He’d have to come up with something really good to get them all back for this.

He moved really slowly now, always heading down the hill, feeling both with his outstretched hands and the toes of his sneakers for anything that might get in his way. He couldn’t hear any
other sounds besides the noise of leaves and twigs beneath his feet. It sounded like Sammy and the others were long gone. Ha ha, guys, he thought again.

“Hey, you’re just as bored as I am,” Sammy had said, “sitting around boring Oxrun.” He should have seen right through it. “We’re seniors now.
Isn’t it time for a little excitement before we blow this town?” What a set-up. But Kenny was the perfect patsy. Oxrun Station was boring nine months of the year, and visited by nosy,
noisy tourists the other three. And he was a high school senior, after all. It was time for a little excitement.

Or a little practical joke. Ha ha, Sammy.

The moon appeared between two of the trees above. It was almost full, and Kenny felt like he had suddenly stepped out into daylight. The woods were thinning here, and he could actually see where
he was putting his feet. He hurried down the rest of the hill, and spotted the dry stream bed only a moment later.

He stopped when he stepped onto the dry shale of the stream bed and looked around to get his bearings. There, no more distance than the length of a football field, sat Sammy’s car, at the
edge of the moonlit lake within the quarry.

Kenny smiled. He had a better sense of direction than he’d thought. He didn’t see any of the others, either. Maybe he’d somehow beaten the other three guys back. Maybe he could
even play a little practical joke – payback time – on the others.

He jogged down the stream bed to Sammy’s old Chevy. The door was open on the driver’s side. Hadn’t they closed and locked the doors when they went up the hill? Maybe Sammy and
the others were around here after all.

“Sammy?” Kenny called softly as he approached the car. “Jim?” He circled around to the open driver’s door, half expecting the other three to jump up with a yell to
scare him.

But there was nobody inside. In fact, there wasn’t even a front seat. He could see all of the car floor, a carpet with spaces where the seat had once been bolted to the frame. The worn
carpet shone silver in the moonlight. The back seat was gone too, and he could see straight into the trunk.

It wasn’t until he stuck his head into the car that he realised the steering wheel was also gone. It was as if somebody was taking the car apart, piece by piece.

Somehow, Kenny didn’t think this could be part of the joke. Even Sammy wouldn’t go this far, would he? To his own car?

He turned his head to look at the dashboard. Even half-lost in shadow, he could see that someone had smashed all the dials.

Someone was destroying Sammy’s car, breaking it up and pulling it apart. Kenny didn’t think they had been gone for much more than thirty minutes, and already the car was half
gone.

And that probably meant that whoever was destroying it was still around.

Kenny pulled his head out of the car. He wondered now if any of his friends were in trouble. How could he find them? Maybe, he thought, it would be better if he ran out to the main highway and
flagged down someone to take him to the police.

“I should never have listened to you, Sammy,” he said, half to himself.

Kenny heard an answering noise from down by the lake. Except this time it wasn’t a laugh. It sounded more like a groan.

What if it was one of the other guys? Kenny knew he had to go and look. He was a track star, after all. If anything really bad was happening, he couldn’t just run away.

“Sammy?” he called softly as h. . .