David Wisehart - Blood Alley

He didn’t answer, but opened the car door and stepped outside.

“Ethan?”

She went around to check on him. He was walking away from her. Dakota saw that his back was bleeding badly, all down his legs and onto the ground, but he kept moving slowly, stiffly, with jerky steps.

“Ethan, wait.”

Dakota went after him. She reached him easily, and was about to grab his arm, but thought better of it.

He’s hurt.

She stepped in front of him.

“Baby, where you going? You’re—”

Ethan backhanded Dakota across her cheek.

She heard it more than felt it, a loud explosion inside her head. Then her legs gave way and she was on the ground. The world went black and the stars came out and she was on her back in the dirt and looking up and the world throbbed around her.

Dakota tried to speak but her lips were cracked and numb and all she could manage was to spit and cough. It tasted like blood and tears and betrayal.

Ethan?

She heard a shuffling sound, and raised her head to see her boyfriend shambling away, heading towards— what?

The barn.

Dakota struggled to her knees, and fell, and got back up. The world shifted around her until she held out her arms to steady it.

Wait!

She stumbled after him.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Ethan had never hit her before.

He would never do that!

He was gentle and kind and sensitive.

The physical pain was nothing. She could bear it. It would pass. But what disturbed her most was—

His eyes…

That look Ethan had given her when he raised his arm and the blow came down.

When he’d looked at her, his eyes glowed green.

Claire gazed at the sepia photo of the young girl and the older man. They looked like a father and daughter. The man was in his forties or fifties. The girl was a young teen. The father looked proud, smiling. The daughter seemed camera-shy, nervous, with a tight smile and dead eyes.

She was hiding something.

Faking it.

“It could be my mother,” she said.

Trevor adjusted the angle of the photo. “The picture’s way too old.”

He was right, of course. Claire was born in 1995. Her mother was seventeen at the time. But this picture wasn’t taken in the nineties, or even the eighties.

Maybe the thirties or forties.

The people looked like something out of the Great Depression. Like in that dust bowl movie, The Grapes of Wrath . Their faces were hard and lean. The girl wore a simple country dress and black shoes. The man wore a long dark jacket and a slouch hat. He almost looked like—

“It’s that guy,” Trevor said. “That hitchhiker.”

“The Highwayman.”

“It’s the same dude!”

“Eldritch Fowler. This is his house.”

Trevor paced with excitement. The floor trembled under each step. “So the ghost we saw…is the guy who lived here…and he’s haunting this place…because…”

“He’s not haunting the house,” Claire said. “He’s haunting the road.”

“Why?”

Claire pulled the news clipping from her pocket. “Eminent domain.”

“What’s that?”

“When the government wants to build a road, sometimes they have to buy up the land from whoever owns it.” She had read enough of the article to know the basics. “Fowler owned the land around here. The state needed the land for their new highway. But Fowler refused to sell. The case went to court. Fowler lost, but he refused to leave. So they sent cops here to evict him. There was a standoff.”

“And they killed him?”

“I think so. That’s what they say about ghosts, right? There’s always a crime. Some kind of…vengeance. Something that ties the spirit to the place they’re haunting.”

“But Fowler was a murderer. He raped his daughters and killed his family.”

Claire shook her head. “A cover story.”

“You think they framed him?”

“There was a standoff, and Fowler got shot. Then they made him look like the bad guy.”

“They killed him for the road,” Trevor said. “And now…”

“Blood Alley is his revenge.”

Somewhere outside, Dakota screamed, “ Ethan! ”

Trevor muttered, “Oh no,” and ran from the room.

Claire followed, but couldn’t run as fast. Her leg hurt. She limped down the hall, through the living room, to the front door. She saw Dakota running to the barn. Trevor ran after her.

Someone needs to stay with Ethan.

She stepped gingerly down the porch stairs. A car door was open. When she reached it, she saw that Ethan was gone. There was blood on the ground. A trail of blood. It led away from the car, toward the barn.

What’s going on?

Claire was about to close the door when she noticed that Trevor had left the keys in the ignition.

Bad idea.

She grabbed the keys, then headed for the barn.

Trevor reached the open barn door just behind Dakota, who hesitated at the edge of the darkness within.

“Ethan?” she called out, pulling her long-sleeve sweater tight around her.

There was no answer but the echo of her own voice.

Trevor felt a chill coming from inside the barn. It was much colder than the air outside. The place smelled of old straw.

“Wait here,” he said, turning on his flashlight app.

Light fell on the dirt floor. Spider webs and farm tools hung on a wall—hammers and scythes, rakes and pitchforks. A tarantula crawled along the rafters.

In the middle of the barn sat a 1930s combine harvester-thresher. Part tractor, part thresher. Painted bright red, it looked like a demon. The eyes were glass panels at the front of the cab. The jaws were rotating blades.

Trevor raised the light and saw Ethan at the controls, behind the windshield glass. The boy had an odd stare.

What’s wrong with his eyes?

Dakota stepped into the barn. “Ethan—?”

The thresher roared to life.

Startled, Dakota and Trevor jumped back.

Trevor said, “Stop playing around.”

Ethan grinned. The thresher lunged forward.

Straight for Dakota.

What’s he doing?

Dakota just stood there, in the path of the moving blades.

Trevor grabbed her arm. “This way!”

They ran for the door.

The thresher chased them. Sharp blades spinning.

Behind them, Ethan laughed maniacally.

They were almost to the door when Dakota stumbled.

Trevor doubled back. Grabbed Dakota’s hand. Pulled her up.

They ran out the door just in time.

Once outside, Trevor saw Claire limping towards them. She was halfway between Trevor and the Hummer.

Behind Trevor, something crashed through the barn. The wall exploded in a shower of splintered wood.

He turned and saw the thresher bearing down on them.

Oh, shit.

“Run!”

Claire saw Trevor and Dakota run out of the barn door, panic on their faces. Something crashed through the wall of the barn. A giant tractor with spinning blades in front. A combine harvester-thresher.

She froze.

Trevor yelled, “Run!”

Claire ran back for the Hummer. Her leg hurt, but she didn’t care anymore. Her breath quickened. Her vision narrowed. All she could see was the car ahead.

Get to the car.

Now.

Run!

She had the car keys in her hand. They bit into her palm as she tightened her fists and pumped her arms and kept her legs moving. Claire reached the car and flung open the door and jumped into the front passenger seat, then slammed the door.

Trevor and Dakota were far behind, on foot, chased by some maniac in a giant tractor with blades that could kill. They needed her help. But what could she do?