By the time they reached the edge of the forest, the sky was purple and swollen. Seth crouched beside a pine trunk and looked out into the wide clearing. A big industrial building sat amidst an expanse of cracked pavement. The building had steep cinder block walls and a metallic roof that was stained red with rust. No wonder the slaughterhouse was named Rusties.

The gravel road stretched beside the slaughterhouse, and beyond that was another field of corn. Or perhaps the same field as before. Seth couldn’t tell. He watched the road for a moment. Riles had claimed David was waiting for them, but Seth saw no sign of him.

Alex tapped his shoulder. She pointed into the cornfield, and Seth followed her finger to a lone figure standing within the corn. Goosebumps prickled at his skin. Thin clouds of mist hovered over the field, and dusk’s gloom shrouded everything in shadow. Even so, Seth realized what the figure was, and he let the tension out of his shoulders.

“It’s just a scarecrow,” Seth said.

“Oh. Wait, those are real? I thought they were just Halloween decorations.”

Seth shrugged. “Halloween wasn’t too long ago. Do you think this place ran a pumpkin patch? You know, haunted hayrides and stacks of hay bales and that sort of thing.”

“I doubt it.”

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, the coast looks clear. I’m going to get a better look.”

Alex nodded, seemingly content to stay hidden in the forest. The coward. Rescuing Will was her idea, but it seemed Seth would have to do all the work. Again.

To be honest, he didn’t mind. Seth was the one with the gun, so it made more sense for him to go anyway. All he had to do was check the slaughterhouse, see if Will was inside, and most importantly, find their car.

Seth scooted down the side of the hill and stepped onto the pavement. The old parking lot was coated in grime and pocked with dark puddles. A few cars were parked at the end of the lot, but they were old and rusted to shit.

Something splashed to his left. Seth jumped at the sound, and he crouched down, his revolver raised. It was just an old spigot jutting from the ground, fat drops of water gathering on the rusted pipe.

He turned back to the forest and tried to find Alex. He could barely see her in the darkness. She held out a hand and waved a thumbs up at him. Real helpful, that was.

From this side, Seth only saw one entrance to the slaughterhouse. An open door, beyond which was pitch black. Next to the door rose a large propane tank, and opposite that was a generator with some jerry cans stacked beside it. The generator wasn’t running, and he saw no lights within the building. The place looked truly abandoned. Were they sure Will was here?

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Either way, Seth didn’t like the look of that door and the darkness beyond. He decided to look for another way in. A slaughterhouse ought to have a big door for driving in the cattle, right?

Seth made his way to the back of the lot and peered behind the building. The flat wall stretched all the way to the end, with no discerning features other than some pipes and a gutter running into the ditch. He started along the wall, careful to keep his steps soft along the pavement.

A chain link fence jutted from the center of the building, blocking the way forward. But it wasn’t a real obstacle, Seth just had to step into the ditch to get around it. That was a mistake. His foot sank into thick mud, and a cloud of flies stirred around his jeans.

The smell brought his attention to a thick sewage pipe that ran into the ditch. It stank of rotten meat, and Seth quickly pushed his way through the mud and scrambled back onto the pavement. He shook the muck off his leg and carried on.

The front of the slaughterhouse held a wide bay door, half the size of the building itself. That was more like it, though the thing had to be motorized. There was no way Seth could pry that open. However, just beyond the bay door was a series of smaller garage doors. If their car was inside the building, it would be behind one of those.

Seth looked out into the front lot, then the gravel road and the field beyond. Still, he saw no one watching. No movement at all, besides the waves of mist. Coast clear, he hurried to one of the garage doors.

The door had a metal handle at the bottom, and Seth grabbed it and heaved upward. The metal rumbled, moved up an inch, then struck something with a hard clank. Seth winced at the noise, but he tried pulling again, this time harder. The door didn’t budge. It must be locked.

He moved to the next door. Also locked. As well as the final two doors. Shit. Not only did he waste his time, he’d made a hell of a lot more noise than he’d wanted. Still, he didn’t hear any movement from inside. Seth doubted Will was even here. Why interrogate someone in a place like this?

He moved on to the final side of the building. But it was much the same as the one opposite it, just another flat wall. Which brought him around to the back lot, exactly where he’d started. He squinted into the woods, found Alex. He shook his head, indicating he’d found nothing.

The dark doorway beckoned to him, a black rectangle against the painted cinder blocks. With no other choice, Seth crept up to the door. Up close, he could discern blocky shadows in the darkness. Pillars or internal walls, the skeleton of the abandoned building. He took a deep breath, then stepped into the shadows.

A man was waiting by the side. He was thick and stocky, his chest as wide as a barrel. He wore denim overalls over a plaid shirt, and a bushy mustache drooped down the side of his face. His eyes blazed bright yellow.

Seth reeled back just as the man raised a sledgehammer and slammed it against his skull. The world flashed white. Seth’s bones turned to jelly, and he collapsed in a heap.

The man grunted, dropped the sledgehammer. A lance of pain shivered down Seth’s spine, but it felt distant. The world blurred around him, darkness closing in. He tried to move, but all he could manage was a wild spasm that sent fire seizing through his nerves.

The man grabbed Seth, lifted the dead weight with ease, and slung him over his shoulder. He carried Seth into the darkness of the slaughterhouse, and everything turned black.