“Where’d the others go?” Kass asked Indi as they walked down the main street. It was late in the day and there were fewer people out and about now. The temperature had gotten colder as the sun dropped closer to the hills behind them.

  “Up into the forest I think. Falco said he saw Zeph and Arianna up that way.”

  Kass nodded. That was the other direction. She’d kind of half been hoping they might run into them and then they could share the search, but that would also have meant telling them what had happened.

  “Do you know if anyone had a plan for dinner?” Indi asked.

  “Uh, I think we were going to eat at the bar. It’s almost 4pm now so another hour before we have to meet.” Kass’s gaze swept the street looking for any signs of children. Her ears listened carefully for the sound of laughter or screaming but the town was eerily silent.

  “I’m starving,” Indi groaned.

  Kass saw it first before Indi did, and when she did she knew she needed to make sure Indi didn’t see it. But when she turned to look at Indi, she knew it was too late.

  Indi’s eyes widened. “Oooh, how about some pre-dinner candy? We haven’t been into the candy store yet.”

  “You’ll spoil your appetite,” Kass warned her. “How about we take a walk and save the candy for tomorrow?”

  Indi pouted. “It looks like they’re closing anyway,” she grumbled in a tone full of regret.

  Indeed, when Kass looked again, she could see someone flipping the sign on the door.

  Indi’s tone quickly turned positive again though and she chatted away as they walked. Kass gave as few replies as were needed. They met up with the stream and followed it along a winding path downriver.

  They were just coming around a bend hidden by a bunch of large willow trees when Kass heard some shouting coming from up ahead.

  “They run right through my vege garden they did. That boy of yours is a menace,” said a man’s voice.

  A shrill sounding woman replied, “Ain’t his fault. It’s the Hanson’s daughter Victoria. She’s bewitched them. I swear, with hair colour like that, that girl never should’ve been allowed out of her mother’s womb. My Tommy’s a good boy.”

  “He was the one chasing the other three,” said the man.

  “Only cause he would’ve been chasing that girl. She bewitched him. She bewitched them all and it’s high time something was done about.”

  “She weren’t the one acting all rabid though. I’m telling you. It looked like Tommy was the one after them. He ran right through my fence like it wasn’t even there. Look! It’s completely ruined.”

  “That fence needed replacing anyway.”

  “I just had it put in.”

  “Well it was ugly.”

  Kass and Indi walked around the bend to see an old man and a stout woman standing at the edge of the dirt road, next to a small vege patch beside a white stone cottage. The half-sized wicket fence had been broken in two separate places.

  As they walked toward them, the man and woman parted ways with ‘harumph.’ The woman continued off down the road in search of Tommy.

  “Tommy?” she called loudly as she went. “Tommy?”

  “Hello,” Indi said to the man. Her smile was wide and welcoming, fang-baring wide.

  “Fangs!” Kass hissed under her breath.

  Indi’s smile dropped as she realised her mistake. She quickly regenerated it, this time with a closed mouth.

  But it was too late. With a wary wide-eyed look, the man took a step back. Then another. Then he turned tail and fled inside his house, slamming the door behind him.

  Indi looked sadly at his door. “Maybe I should...”

  Kass shook her head. It was pointless trying to explain the fear out of the man. Better to just hope he didn’t tell too many others. “Come on.”

  Kass could see the woman further down the street. The lady had been joined by more people. They were pointing and talking loudly, arguing perhaps. And then a large wail sounded from the woman. She ran into a nearby field and fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically.

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  Not waiting to see if Indi was following or not, Kass took off toward the group at a slight jog.

  As she got closer she could see two men holding a young red-haired girl between them, one holding each arm. The girl was struggling. She looked to be about Lily’s age, maybe a little older. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! He was chasing me! He tried to bite me. Then he tripped.”

  The pant and puff of breathing at Kass’s side indicated Indi had joined her. Together they watched as the two men half-walked, half-dragged the girl past them.

  “Where are they taking her?” Kass asked an elderly woman with long stark white hair.

  “Don’t worry dearie. She is going to be cleansed. They’ll make sure to claim her before the fair folk do.”

  Indi looked to Kass with worry. “Should we do something?” she whispered.

  Kass shook her head. “We shouldn’t interfere with their practices. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Kass wasn’t sure though. The way he had said cleansed... the mention of claiming her before the fair folk. Kass knew her history better than most. She also knew they likely wouldn’t hurt the girl right away. Although, if the girl had been bit... She could check that out later.

  Where was the boy?

  More people had gathered in the field where the woman was sobbing. A dark lump was clutched in her arms. Kass got closer. Indi remained at the roadside, staring after the girl they’d dragged off.

  As Kass drew closer, it quickly became clear that the shape in the grass was Tommy. The boy’s head was twisted at an odd angle. His neck was clearly broken. Near his feet lay a fence post, likely what he had tripped over. He hadn’t been able to stop his fall. That was common for a zombie, they lacked the reflexes of someone alive.

  As the woman rolled her son over, still heavily sobbing as she did so, Kass could see there was blood on the boy’s face, around his mouth. The girl’s blood maybe? It didn’t look to be his own.

  Two victims, thought Kass. Three if you counted Lily. More when you considered the lives lost at the facility. Much much more. But these two had been preventable. If they hadn’t brought Lily to Witchaven...

  Amanda had done this. She’d brought the child here on a fool’s errand. It was likely there was no man they’d been going to meet. Why pick such a place to bring a zombie?

  And yet... if that were so, why had the soldier been here? Had she followed them? Known they were going to be here? Or was she here for some other reason? For someone else?

  A million thoughts ran through Kass’s mind as she stood and watched them take the boy away. Eventually, she was the only one standing there, just staring at a fence post lying in the ground, feeling like she was missing something.

  What was a fence post doing out here anyway?

  Her gaze fixed on it. It was lying on its own, far from a fence line, half hidden by grass that had been growing over and around it, and yet...

  With a frown, Kass reached down and rolled the fence post over.

  The grass underneath was fresh and green. There was no indication that the fence post had been lying there for some time. In fact, it looked like it had been placed there recently. But why? It was such a random spot. And it was so well-hidden. At first glance it had looked like the surrounding grass had grown over it but if it had just been dumped there, the grass wouldn’t have been over it as much as it had been. Someone had made space for it. Someone had placed it there recently and made it look older. But why? And in such a convenient spot. The perfect spot to break little Tommy the Zombie’s neck?

  Kass scratched her head. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.

  “Kass?”

  Indi’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Yeah? Sorry.”

  “Everyone’s gone.” Indi was looking at her with a worried expression.

  A glance around showed she was right. Everyone had moved on somewhere else.

  “They went to that tall building over there.”

  Kass looked where she was pointing, back along the road, down at the end of a side track that ran through an open field. “A church,” she remarked. It was old world style, a square white building with a steeple.

  Without speaking, both Kass and Indi walked along the road to where it sat.

  It was set out along one side of a sort of square, separate from what looked like another little gathering of houses and more shops. Was this the town centre? There were less buildings here than there had been on the other side of the main road, but they were more orderly and they all looked newer.

  The dirt square everything had been built around was obviously older though, and in the middle were a bunch of metal poles.

  “They’re like lightning rods for a dragon,” Kass remarked wondering in confusion what they could be for. There was some risk to having them even though they were small.

  “Maybe actual lightning rods?” Indi suggested. “The soil looks burnt.”

  Kass didn’t think they were lightning rods. The poles were only about two metres in height each, but Indi was right. The earth around them was scorched a dark black.

  They had paused outside the church. Indi turned her head to look up at the steeple.

  “I thought new world and old world humans had different religions,” Indi remarked. “But their churches look the same.”

  She was probably referring to what she’d seen in worldjumped movies.

  Kass nodded. “They are different, but they share a similar history. Most religions do if you go back far enough. Truth is, these people probably have a religion that’s closer to the old old world religions. Given the smaller size of the human communities this side of the splice and how isolated they are, they tend to be more traditional.”

  “You don’t think the rumors are true do you?” Indi eyed the metal poles in the center of the large square. “That they still burn witches.”

  Kass looked at the same place. She felt a slight chill run down her spine. Unfortunately the other downside of the isolation meant there wasn’t much written in detail about the individual human settlements on this side of the splice, but surely they couldn’t be pyre stakes? Witches weren’t exactly fond of humans and people loved scary stories. Surely the HPL wouldn’t allow it? Surely it was just a story?

  “It’s probably just a bonfire, a reenactment or something,” Kass replied. There was something else that was bothering her though. If this place had so little written about it then surely the inn being completely full wasn’t actually that common? She didn’t trust the innkeeper not to embellish their popularity. She didn’t doubt the place was full up now, but she expected that was unusual. So who exactly was in each of the rooms? Maybe it was time to check it out.