Riding Light Halloween Horror Full Issue

He fought to stand up, the urge to empty his bladder overwhelming. He stumbled into the bathroom and shoved the door closed behind him.

Something thumped against the house as Paul was coming out of the bathroom. Glass tinkled, and the solitary front porch light went out.

Damn teenagers. Lyle better not be in on this. Paul reached into the closet just off the foyer and grabbed his twelve-gauge pump shotgun from where he‘d stashed it earlier. He retrieved a green metal ammunition box from the upper shelf and slipped several buckshot shells into the magazine. He seized his Stinger flashlight from its charger in the kitchen, turned off the hall light, and unlocked the front door. He cracked it, and then slipped out into the darkness.

He smiled to himself as he thought about the knowing grins on the faces of his coworkers when he told them tomorrow about how he‘d run those punk teenagers off his property.

The trees stood as stark sentinels in the moonlight, shadows of their former selves. A light wind sighed through the treetops. The jack-o‘-lanterns cast their eerie light into the yard. The mailbox sat askew on its post. He looked down. An ear of corn lay among pieces of shattered light bulb, its brown husk resembling a rolledup newspaper.

Paul lurched into the yard, leaves crackling under his feet. He jacked a shell into the chamber of the shotgun. He directed the flashlight‘s beam out over the rows of corn, steadying its movement as he swung it from left to right. He paused.

A lone pole stood barren in the center of the corn.

The scarecrow was gone.

Paul aimed the shotgun toward the moon and squeezed the trigger.

The barrel belched reddish-yellow flames. The blast rumbled off the house, reverberating through the woods. He pumped another shell in.