Ghost Hunters

by Sam Witt

  Tickticktick.

  The sound came from above Amy, echoing through the stone. She hurried, scrambling on all fours, trying to get away from whatever was making the noise. Her jeans were worn through at the knees, and the skin was torn and bruised. She imagined a hundred hideous diseases worming their way into her abraded flesh. Even if she made it out of here in one piece, with her luck, she’d come down with Dengue fever or chikun-fucking-gunya. “Goddammit,” she growled, and scrambled forward.

  Tickticktick.

  The slope was ending; Amy could see the tunnel leveling off up ahead, the purple glow lighting showing her the way. Once she got off this incline, she’d take off running. She’d keep the rifle over her shoulder and just tear ass down the tunnel, get some distance between her and the ticking monster.

  Her hand slipped as she neared the top of the slope, and Amy lunged forward to keep from tumbling back down the stony incline. She crashed onto her belly, face smeared with greasy black slime. The wind rushed out of her lungs, leaving her gasping and dazed.

  Tickticktick.

  “No,” she coughed, throat burning as she gulped air laden with an ammoniac stink. Amy knew she had to get up, had to run, but her body was cramped around her bruised stomach and aching lungs. She crawled a few feet, gulping air like a drowning woman, but couldn’t get her body to obey any further.

  Tickticktick.

  It was close now, over her, in the ceiling. Amy looked up, in time to see her doom falling on her.

  A pale face with a smudge for a nose and a mouthful of razor blades fell out of the darkness. Hands like albino spiders shot out of the darkness and latched onto her hair and throat, dragging her off the floor. Fingers squeezed her trachea as nails dug into the soft flesh under her chin, tearing the skin away to reveal the throbbing network of veins and arteries beneath. It wrenched Amy’s head back as it dragged off her feet, the weight of her body a painful anchor. Lodged into its spider hole in the ceiling, the monster was hauling Amy into the darkness.

  Blood coursed down Amy’s chest, plastering her shirt against her skin. She struggled with the rifle, hands clumsy with shock and rapid blood loss. The thing glared at the blood painting the front of her body with burning hunger, and lifted her neck to its mouth.

  It sucked at her wound, and Amy felt the pull in her veins as the monster gulped her blood. She tasted vomit; she couldn’t go out like this, a snack for a subhuman freak. As her strength faded, she got the rifle twisted around on its strap and jammed the muzzle into the hollow just below the monster’s ear.

  Amy pulled the trigger, and her world became a furious swirl of blood and thunder. The shot rang in her ears as the thing’s head burst apart. It fell out of the ceiling and dropped her to the floor, crashing on top of her. Its limbs spasmed, and its mouth jerked open and closed like the severed head of a rattlesnake.

  Amy struggled under the bat-faced monster, wriggling from beneath it even as her life dripped from her ravaged throat. She got up by leaning against the wall and pushing, rifle doubling as a cane. Once back on her feet, she checked to make sure she hadn’t clogged the barrel and found its gaping black maw clean and empty. It was hot to the touch, and the outside of it was painted black with scorched blood, a nightmare of steel and death.

  She walked on, pushing herself against the gauzy barrier of unconsciousness that threatened to swallow her up. Dick’s face, smug and handsome, came to her unbidden. Her rage-fueled revenge fantasies gave her the strength she needed to push on.

  Ahead, she could see the mound of skulls they’d passed on their way in. She was getting close.

  But she could hear the monsters coming, too. They’d heard the rifle shot and were on their way to investigate. She had to beat them. It wasn’t far now to the rope ladder. Not far at all.

  She pushed on, blood painting her footsteps red.

  19

  Dick ran from the rifle shot, pushing himself along the narrow tunnel as fast as he could manage. He didn’t know anyone else had a gun, but it had to be Amy. Dick was impressed and dismayed at her resourcefulness. That was all right, she could give those fuckers a fight. Dick just had to beat her to the surface and make sure she didn’t crawl out after him. There was only room for one hero in this story.

  He squeezed out of the narrow tunnel and back into the main passage that led back to the ladder. The camera’s light died as he emerged, but that was all right. He could see the end of the tunnel up ahead, the cold gray light of morning pouring into the earth. He let loose a raw, primal sob. He’d made it. He was out of this hell hole.

  Dick stumbled forward, cradling the camera to his chest. The footage was his baby, the offspring of his desperation and desire to succeed, the fruits of a labor that had destroyed everyone who’d stood in its way. Like all great art, it was born of the torture and misery of its creator. It was steeped in blood and horror, and it was going to buy Dick a ticket to the good life.

  He stopped at the bottom of the rope ladder to secure the camera. The strap was too loose, he had to twist it around and loop it over both shoulders to secure it. “There,” he muttered, and started climbing.

  Dick had gone up three rungs when he fell back to the bottom of the pit. There was something wrong with his arms, they were limp and useless at his sides. A sharp crack echoed down tunnel, followed by the Dopplering whine of a ricochet.

  He couldn’t catch his breath, and he was so cold. He tried to get up, but only managed to lift his head. There was blood all over his chest, bubbling out of a hole on the left side.

  Amy limped into the light, a battered rifle clenched in her hands. Her shirt was red with the blood spilling out of her throat. She grinned at Dick, and fresh blood gushed from the red ruin of her throat. Amy pointed her finger at him then crashed down, her face smashing into the stone floor so hard her front teeth bounced out of her mouth and rattled across the stone.

  Dick tried to curse his dead co-host, but blood flooded his mouth and spilled out over his lips, drowning his words. He closed his eyes and never opened them again.

  20

  Liz stood at the top of the hole, staring into the gloom. The gunshot made her jerk her head back, but she knew the bullet wasn’t meant for her. She puffed on her cigarette, struggling to hold her hand steady enough to get a good drag. She needed something stronger to wash away the horror of her escape. She shuddered at the memory of her and her sister’s headlong flight through the darkness.

  Nancy held out her hand, and Liz tried not to stare at the deep burn on her sister’s thumb. Nancy had held her lighter on through their escape, even as it had charred her flesh. “Gimme a light.”

  Liz didn’t hand over her lighter, but instead flicked it to life and held the flame to the tip of Nancy’s cigarette. Or tried to - they were both shaking so badly the fire never quite made contact with the tobacco.

  Nancy snorted in frustration and grabbed her sister’s hands between her own. They finally managed to get the cigarette lit, and Nancy sucked on it like a drowning woman at an air hose. “Fuck us, huh?”

  Faint howls and angry screams reached Liz’s ears. She couldn’t quite see the bottom of the pit, but she imagined movement down there, pale-white things dragging the dead away. She didn’t want to know what had happened down there, didn’t want to carry the burden of those images with her when she left. She flicked the smoldering butt of her cigarette into the hole and took her sister’s hand.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  They found the van’s spare key in a little magnetic box under the front bumper, and drove away.

  21

  Randall struggled to keep up with the woman, but he didn’t fall. Whenever he fell behind, someone shoved a burning crystal in his face or rammed a snort of powder up his nostril. Randall had never done drugs before, and he had to wonder why he’d avoided them. He felt alive, electric, for the first time in his life.

  The woman eventually fell back, letting her companions lead. She stared at him with questionin
g eyes. “Why?”

  Randall struggled to find the words. They walked in silence for a bit, then the woman jabbed him in the ribs with a sharp fingernail. He jumped and then spit out the first words that came to his mind. “I wanted to live.”

  She smirked. “You’ll regret that.”

  They walked in silence for what felt like hours. Randall drifted in and out of a dreamy fog, pain anchoring him to earth before the drugs wafted him away again. By the time they left the cave, it was late afternoon, and the fiery autumn sun was crawling down behind the sloped backs of the Saint Francois Mountains.

  There were near to a hundred of them: men, women, even a few children scattered around. All deformed and marked by their time beneath the earth, all burning with an intensity that frightened and thrilled Randall. He was one of them now, part of their tribe.

  A caravan of vehicles stood ready to accept them. Randall nodded toward the cars and vans and pickup trucks that were being loaded with heavy jugs. “Where are we going?”

  The woman shielded her eyes from the burning sun and bared her fangs in a smile that made Randall look at his feet. “Away. To find a new home, for the Haunter in Darkness. And for us.”

  Randall met her eyes again. “And then?”

  Her grin split into a full smile, wide and terrible. “Then there will be blood aplenty for all believers, and a tide of fire and pain for our enemies.”

  Randall shuddered, arms wrapped around his gut. He followed the woman into the back of a van. The rumble of the engine and the sound of the tires lulled him to sleep.

  He dreamed of a dark new world and smiled in his sleep.

  Get a Pitchfork County book for free, learn about new releases and receive early notice of exclusive promotions by visiting the link below:

  http://www.samwitt.com/free/whg-amz

  Also by Sam Witt

  The Pitchfork County Series

  Half-Made Girls: A Pitchfork County Novel

  Ghost Hunters: A Pitchfork County Tale

  Night-Blooded Boys: A Pitchfork County Novel

  Witch Hunt: A Pitchfork County Tale

  Dead-Eyed God: A Pitchfork County Novel

  The Armageddon Thrones Season 1

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 1

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 2

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 3

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 4

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 5

  The Apocalypse Hive: Episode 6

  The Apocalypse Hive Has Opened

  The dead rise to seek vengeance on the living. Swarms of glittering emerald wasps spread violent madness through their stings. A black rain falls and spreads a mysterious disease. The end of all things is at hand.

  What will you become to survive?

  Start reading the new post-apocalyptic thriller from Sam Witt - for free! Visit the link below to get the first episode.

  http://www.samwitt.com/armageddon-thrones-s1

  About the Author

  Sam Witt writes dark thrillers infused with the supernatural. Informed by a rural Midwestern childhood and a big city adulthood, he combines downhome folklore and legends with a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners writing style.

  His Pitchfork County series follows the dark and twisting lives of a family intent on using their own cursed abilities to protect the place they call home from all manner of threats, from mad gods to meth cults.

  For more information about current and future projects, as well as other cool stuff from Sam, check out his website here:

  http://www.samwitt.com

  Stay in touch:

  www.samwitt.com

  Shit the Author Says

  Sometimes, ideas come to me with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of roses and request I lovingly craft them into intricate novels with tons of subplots and interlocking character motivations.

  Ghost Hunters wasn’t that kind of idea.

  It showed up on my front door with blood on its hands, a knife in its teeth, and all the intensity of a bad meth binge. It woke me up out of a dead sleep and I wrote the whole goddamned thing over the course of the next two days.

  While I poured it out of my head and into the keyboard, it kept whispering that it wasn’t just a novella. It was a peek through the cracks of the world of Pitchfork County and what I saw in that little sliver of darkness was crazy.

  You’ll see the fruits of that frenzied writing session in the coming months and years. Pitchfork County is where it all started, but even that godforsaken swath of the Midwest can’t contain the whole nasty story.

  Those bat-loving cultists? They’re on the road. While the Night Marshal deals with the aftermath of what he’s started down in Pitchfork, the Haunter’s boys and girls are taking their show on a non-stop splatterpunk tour of the good ol’ US of A. Who knows? Maybe they’re headed to your town right now.

  If you like the darker side of the Pitchfork you won’t want to miss these stories.

  Don’t worry, there’s more coming from the Night Marshal, too. Pitchfork County is a lovely little place. Y’all come back soon, now.

  —Sam

  Acknowledgments

  All books, including Ghost Hunters, are products of teamwork. I’ve been lucky to have the greatest team in the world working on this book, and everything you liked about Half-Made Girls is because of them. Here are the folks to thank:

  My alpha readers, who read the worst bits so you didn’t have to.

  My serial fans, who helped me sharpen the edges and smooth out the curves.

  Jason Whited, @saltyscribe, who edited the hell out of my drafts.

  Without these people, Ghost Hunters wouldn’t be half the book you just read.