All Hallows' Eve Read Online Free PDF Page B

him—good-looking boys, the talk went, though of course the original news coverage had been way before her time. And she had never paid attention when, every so often, there would be a retrospective in the newspapers, usually on the anniversary of the day Roehmar held police at bay for almost twelve hours before a police sharpshooter had picked him off from where he'd barricaded himself on his front porch. Even as the coroner carried his dead body out, the dogs the police had brought into the house had gone frantic, finding the two bodies the girlfriend had told the police might be there, but still the dogs wouldn't settle down till they found another. Then another. Then another. Five bodies all told, or six—Ashley couldn't even remember. It was a story for campfires, for Halloween, for parents to warn their kids with, saying, "Even here, in a quiet place like this..."
    The boy Ashley had glimpsed had been good-looking, what she'd seen of him before he'd dropped into a defensive crouch.

    She tried to remember the details. She remembered the high school runner, because there was a picture of him still up in the trophy case outside the gym all these years later. This hadn't been him. The migrant worker? He hadn't seemed dark enough, but maybe. She thought there'd been a younger boy, twelve or thirteen, tricked by Roehmar asking for help finding a lost puppy—but that might be confusing two stories into one. And she was drawing a total blank on the other two, or possibly three, guys.
    The only face she could truly remember from the papers was Roehmar's—he'd been in his fifties, kind of jowly but clean-shaven. Not much hair on top of his head, either, and what was there was gray. Ashley had always thought there was an intrinsically evil look about his eyes, but maybe that came from afterward, from knowing what he did, for he didn't seem to have trouble fooling people. Somehow or other—and he had different ways for the different boys over the several years and several counties he'd done this—Roehmar tricked his victims into trusting him long enough to overpower them, then he tied them up and strangled them with electrical wire.
    No wonder this kid was acting terrified. The last few minutes of his life must have been awful.

    Which was no reason for him to hang around frightening her.
    But she couldn't get his words out of her head: "Please don't hurt me."
    There'd been nobody to help him then. Could she help him now?
    There's nothing you can do,
she told herself.
    Nothing to save his life, obviously. But why was his spirit—his ghost, whatever (she felt silly even thinking the words to herself)—still here? Something must be wrong.
    Well, duh.
    Something
beyond
that he'd been killed in a terrible way.
All
the boys had been killed in a terrible way. Why was this one still here—she again cringed at the wording—haunting?
    No matter where Roehmar killed them—and the police suspected it hadn't been at the house—afterward he brought the bodies back to the farm, cut them into manageable pieces, wrapped them in plastic bags, and shoved them into the basement's crawl space. Even when the police had come in response to the girlfriend's complaint, they had originally just been going through the motions required to follow up on her accusation—not taking her seriously until Roehmar freaked out.

    But he
had
freaked out. And so he had been killed. The bodies had been brought out of their hiding place, identified, buried. Though their murderer had never been brought to trial, he
had
been brought to justice.
    Ashley flicked the beam of light away from the door, revealing the kid once more. He had sat down on the floor, his arms encircling his knees, which were drawn up to his chest. He was rocking back and forth, watching her. Unable to stand it, Ashley aimed the flashlight directly at him again.
    She could get a priest, she thought, to come out here and bless the place.
    Yeah, right. And she would get the priest out here by