“That was kind of a shit show,” Caroline said as they trudged down the dirt path through the woods

  Laura and Graham trailed along towards the rear of the group while Brett led the way at the front.

  “No kidding,” said Nate.

  Having three long range fighters was an awful lot of overlap for a group of five people. And no one in their party had chosen short range weapons as their class, which could potentially be a problem.

  “I didn’t see you contributing,” Brett said to Caroline.

  Caroline looked down to where Brett was rubbing the bite on his arm and then crossed over to the other side of the path.

  “I told you, the bites don’t turn people into zombies,” Brett said irritably, holding his arm.

  Caroline dropped back to walk beside Graham.

  Right now all they could see were bare trees and red and orange leaves littering the ground all around them. That and the occasional small clump of mob corpses like a massacre of trick or treaters.

  “That’s morbid,” Caroline had said when they first encountered the creepy sight. She’d rubbed her arms and shivered.

  “Yeah, mobs take a while to regenerate,” Brett had said. “So sometimes you have corpses lying around for a while.”

  “We really need something other than rocks,” Laura said as Caroline fell into step next to Graham.

  “Well maybe if we could have prepared you all wouldn’t have had to fling rocks like a bunch of monkeys,” Caroline said.

  “Wouldn’t have mattered,” Brett said, detouring around a large branch. “Anything we had that could have been a weapon was gone once we got through.”

  “That explains the slingshot,” Nate said, trailing behind Brett.

  “But we could have at least had some supplies, like pain killers, food, water,” Caroline said.

  Laura’s stomach growled loudly. Caroline turned around to look at her. Then she fished out a small packet of candy out of her pocket and threw it at her. Laura caught it.

  “That’s all I have,” Caroline said.

  Laura looked questioningly at her. Caroline rolled her eyes. “I’m mad at you, not your baby.”

  “It wasn’t like that candy would have gone very far split five ways anyway,” Graham said, patting Caroline on the shoulder.

  “When we get to town we can visit Charlie,” Brett said.

  “Who?”

  “You’ll see.”

  After another solid hour of trudging through woods, Brett said, “We’re almost there.”

  “How can you possibly tell that?” Caroline asked, out of breath. “All of this forest looks the exact same.”

  On Laura’s map she could see dots labeled with their names moving along the road but the rest of the map ahead was still obscured.

  “I recognize that pile of mob corpses.”

  “Oh.”

  “Plus I can see it on my map.”

  After several more minutes of walking there was a break in the monotony of trees and they were finally able to see something other than the forest.

  If Witch’s Hollow as a theme park had been a recreation of something that had never existed then this was the real thing. The buildings looked taller, older, like everything had been there a while. The large pumpkin house on the far right end was usually covered in obviously fake cobwebs. Now they looked very real. Laura shuddered and decided to steer well clear of there if she could help it.

  Brett’s head was on a swivel as they stepped out into the open and onto the paved road.

  “Anything we should be worried about?” Nate asked. He moved so quietly his footsteps were nearly silent.

  “Not really. Mobs seem to be concentrated around specific buildings and areas here.” They stepped up onto the center green and walked across the grass. Brett headed towards a snack kiosk. “The main square thing has been pretty empty. Still, doesn’t hurt to be careful, right?”

  A sudden thud made him jump. A popcorn ball had impacted and exploded against the lamp post right next to Brett’s head.

  “Goddamnit, Charlie!” he yelled. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  A deep hoarse laugh, like a creaky old door, came from the food stall a few yards ahead. All Laura could see was one of those skeleton decorations standing behind the counter.

  Then the skeleton moved.

  Everyone except Brett and Nate shouted and jumped back.

  “Hey, gotta keep myself amused somehow,” the skeleton said, leaning an arm bone on the counter with a dry clack.

  There didn’t seem to be anything malicious about him. As far as she could tell he was a completely benign facet of the system.

  Laura stepped closer, fascinated by the floating amalgamation of bones that was looking at her. Or she assumed he was looking at her. His empty eye sockets were pointed at her, so it seemed a safe assumption.

  “What can I get ya?” Charlie said to Laura.

  Laura looked at the display case. It had all the Witch’s Hollow classic “spooky” treats:

  eyeball popcorn (which was really caramel corn), cupcakes with “fingers” on them, worm filled bread, (spaghetti stuffed in a garlic bun), etc.

  The menu board listed two categories of food—regular and special. Special items came with specific advantages, like healing a certain amount of HP, curing specific debuffs, or giving temporary buffs of various types. Special items started at 2 tickets for a basic healing snack.

  “Worm bread, I guess,” Laura said, choosing from the normal food section. Her ticket counter dropped by 1.

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  Charlie reached into a compartment and pulled out a steaming bun. He wrapped it in some wax paper and pushed it across the counter.

  He stared at her while she picked it up. He was so eerily still she had to remind herself that he wasn’t just a prop, that there was actually something sapient looking back at her.

  Laura lifted the bun and took a big bite. She tasted salty liquid and dirt and gagged violently. Something was squirming in her mouth. She doubled over and spit out a mouthful of worms that writhed when they hit the ground.

  “Dude,” Brett said.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said, raising both hands. Having a skull for a face meant he was always smiling, but his tone sounded genuine. “I’ve been stuck here for a while. You have to find ways to entertain yourself.”

  He snapped his fingers and gestured to the bread. “Try it now. I promise, no more tricks.” He drew a bony forefinger diagonally in a cross across his rib bones with a sound like a marimba.

  Laura tentatively peeked inside the bitten off corner of her bun and saw strands of spaghetti. Nothing moved. She took a tentative bite. Then she ate half of it in one big bite. She tried to ignore the slippery texture of the spaghetti and focused instead on savoring the warm cheese and the slightly spicy, herby sauce. She relaxed. “Good lord, I needed this.”

  Caroline leaned in to look. “I’ll take one too,” she said, stepping up to the counter.

  Caroline buried her nose in the warm bun and smelled deeply, almost reverently, like it evoked some kind of nostalgia. She took a large bite, and sniffed. Her eyes were wet.

  Laura held out a napkin.

  “Thanks,” Caroline said around a mouthful of food, and took the napkin from her.

  “Woah,” Brett said, distracted. “They’re out.”

  “What?” Laura said.

  “Oliver and Agnes, they’re out of the maze.”

  “You can see them?” Laura craned her neck around but couldn’t see anyone else around them.

  “Not here, on my map. I can see these two little dots outside the maze.”

  “What are they doing?”

  Laura’s map had now expanded to show the square and shops, but she couldn’t see any details of the areas farther ahead that they hadn’t been to yet.

  “Nothing, they’re just sitting there.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “How should I know? All I can see is they’re just sitting there.”

  “Can you send them a message?” Laura asked, growing frustrated.

  “Like I told you, if I can, I have no idea how to.”

  “Super helpful,” Caroline said, shooting Laura a look.

  They all looked at each other. Nate had gone up to the counter and was now demolishing a worm bread. “Guess we should go check on them,” he said around a mouthful of food.

  Caroline wiped her mouth and cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said. “Brett, you’re up. Where’s this maze thing?”

  He pointed to the far side of the square on the opposite end from where they’d entered. “Just keep going that way. You can’t miss it.”

  “What, you’re just going to stay here?”

  Brett shrugged. “Well yeah. If you all want to find it yourselves, be my guest.”

  “What if they’re in trouble?” Caroline said.

  “Not sure what you think you’re going to be able to do about it.”

  “Maybe we should at least try to level up here first?” Laura said.

  “Well was there anything dangerous around the entrance of the maze?” Graham asked.

  “Nah, it should be safe enough,” Brett said, then shrugged. “I mean if you go inside the maze then you risk getting stuck. But we were fine staying on the road.”

  “Okay, let’s go then,” Nate said.

  The group, minus Brett, started to walk towards the far side of the square.

  “Hey 6,” Caroline yelled at Brett, “last chance—you’re really going to let a bunch of 1s and 2s wander off on their own?”

  “Is nobody an adult anymore?” Brett said. “I already told you how to get there, what do you want from me?”

  Caroline gave him the finger and Nate gently prodded her to keep walking. “Come on,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Just a little walk to check things out, that’s all.”

  Towards the far edge of the square the cultivated street turned into a dirt road again. They walked out past the last row of shops to a more agricultural area with open fields. It was like leaving one film set for another. The dirt road wound ahead cutting through sprawling fields. A blanket of clouds had gathered so the sky felt like it was pressing down towards the ground.

  On the left side set back from the dirt road and across a large stretch of grass was a sprawling pumpkin patch that almost ran up to the backs of the shops. Tangled vines swallowed up at least an acre of land, and large orange pumpkins dotted the greenery. Towards the middle was a carved jack o lantern set on a human figure. Its features flickered with fire. As they walked along the road and made their way past the pumpkin patch, the jack o lantern head slowly turned to track their progress. Caroline looked horrified.

  “Don’t look at it,” Laura said.

  Brett had sent them a message giving them a heads up about the pumpkin man not long after they’d walked away.

  Like they had to be told twice. They weren’t sure how literally to take Brett’s instructions to ignore him, so they erred on the side of avoiding even looking at him.

  “Hell of a thing to forget,” Graham said as they walked past the pumpkin patch.

  Only a few hundred yards farther ahead, the road dead ended at a wall of corn.

  The wall didn’t stretch out forever, they could see the ends a ways in the distance. But up close it felt like forever. The corn was so tall it easily dwarfed the tallest of them. A few crows hopped around near the entrance. One was perched on a sign near a break in the corn that said:

  Recommended for level 7 and up.

  Oliver and Agnes were sitting on a couple of bales of hay near the entrance. Joel wasn’t there.

  Oliver was now a level 8, and Agnes a level 7 (barely). Laura couldn’t see any more than that. Oliver had what looked like a small blood spattered wooden oar propped up on the bale of hay next to him.

  Both had some injuries, but Oliver looked the rougher of the two. He had a long jagged cut on one arm and was covered in blood from the knees down. Agnes, who had her back to them, handed Oliver something to eat that looked like it had come from Charlie’s stand. Agnes poured water over the cut on his arm revealing a much shallower scrape than had probably been there before he ate. She re-assessed the damage and then started to bandage it up.

  Oliver finally noticed them. “Hey look, fresh blood,” he said, darkly. He nodded to Laura. “Didn’t expect to see you in here.”

  “It wasn’t exactly by choice.”

  “No kidding,” Caroline said, giving her a look.

  Oliver clearly noticed the look.

  “How’d you know we were here? Or is it just our lucky day?” Agnes asked wryly as she wound the bandage tighter.

  “We ran into Brett,” Nate said. “He saw you on his map.”

  “And he is?” Oliver asked, wincing as Agnes secured the bandage.

  “Still back at the square.”

  “So he’s a level 6 but he let you wander over here on your own? Typical.”

  Even though she herself had been reluctant to explore this direction on their own, Laura still wasn’t sure she appreciated the way Oliver was talking about them like they were unsupervised kids.

  “What happened?” Graham asked, gesturing to Oliver and Agnes.

  Agnes poured more water and all the blood ran off Oliver’s legs. Unless that food had worked a miracle, a lot of that blood hadn’t been his to begin with.

  “Joel’s dead,” Oliver said. “The scarecrow…the boss of the maze, its weakness was supposed to be fire. Joel was so angry and upset. We couldn’t hold him back. He tried to burn the scarecrow by igniting a fire with his hands using some spell book. But the scarecrow just gutted him and stomped on his hands before Joel could even touch him.”

  The blood on his legs must have been Joel’s blood. It was already turning brown, mixing in with the mud on the ground.

  Laura felt cold and nauseated.

  “Where’s the first group that went into the parks?” Graham said. “Have you seen them?”

  Agnes shook her head. “We have no idea. Some mobs in town were already dead when we came in, so clearly they got at least that far. But we haven’t seen them.”

  Laura looked back towards the pumpkin patch. The jack o lantern head pointed in their direction. The vines slowly writhed and undulated, so the pumpkins looked like round ships on a green sea. She could almost hear the rustling.

  “Does anyone else hear that?” Nate asked.

  “Yeah, like a dry rustling sound?” Caroline said, standing up.

  Two deer erupted out of the corn stalks. Each deer had a twisted crown of antlers that ended in wickedly sharp points. They thrashed their heads around and pawed the ground.

  Deer of the Corn: Level 5

  “I guess they don’t like us hanging out here,” Caroline said, backing up slowly as the deer lowered their heads and pressured the group away from the wall of corn stalks.

  Graham must have taken just a little too long to back up because one of the deer bellowed and charged at him. He stumbled out of the way and managed to avoid the deadly looking antlers, but tripped and caught a glancing blow on his ribs from its front hooves. His health bar dropped by a third.

  Nate yanked him up and pushed Graham behind him. As an unarmed fighter Nate had a slightly higher constitution, but even he would probably be taken out by a head on blow from one of the things charging at full speed.

  Caroline wasted no time putting as much distance between herself and the deer as possible. “Come on!” she yelled at Laura, but Laura felt rooted in place as the second deer stared her down.

  Oliver hefted his wooden oar and charged the deer that was staring down Laura. He swung the oar, then winced as the movement aggravated his wounded arm. The oar twisted in his hand, so it only knocked the deer in the head. The light blow just seemed to annoy the deer, but at least it got it’s attention off of Laura. Laura scrambled over to Caroline and started scanning the ground for rocks. “We really need actual weapons,” Caroline said as she hopped in frustration. One of the crows nearby hopped and cawed at her. It was like it was laughing at them.

  Oliver had quickly recovered and now took another harder swing, but the deer tossed its head, knocking its antlers into the oar. The oar flew out of Oliver’s hands.

  Agnes had grabbed a set of knives that had been resting on the hay bale and was sneaking around behind the other deer, setting herself up for a shot at it. She swiveled and instead threw a knife at the deer that was gearing up to charge Oliver, and it went down, knife buried in its chest. Its health bar dropped to zero.

  The sound alerted the deer that Agnes had been trying to sneak up on, and it whirled around and slammed its antlers into her chest. Laura screamed. Oliver shot her an annoyed look, then picked up his oar again and sprinted at the deer. He pulled back and followed through with full force, smashing the oar across the deer’s head, spraying blood all over Agnes’ face.

  The deer slumped to the ground.

  Agnes’ health bar somehow was only halfway down.

  Oliver stood breathing heavily. Agnes sat down on a hay bale, shaky but seemingly intact.

  Oliver turned to the rest of them.

  “We need to level you all up, and fast.”