Page 2

She could see several ancient graves in the churchyard, behind a couple of which were zombies leaning over the graves or pretending to climb out of the ground. She pulled into a little car park and couldn’t resist going for a wander around the yard, but thankfully no one in costume jumped out at her.

Still, it was a pretty impressive set of decorations, so she snapped a few pictures, hoping that her boss would be impressed.

Kelly, just twenty-two and straight out of journalism college, and only six months into her first job at The Brentwell Daily, was keen to make a good impression, particularly after being warned in her last meeting that cuts were on the way, and that only the most valuable members of the reporting team would be retained.

That night she had stood in front of the mirror and delivered a sermon to herself.

‘I will do a good job. I will not get fired, and one day, I will work on Fleet Street, or at least somewhere close by, and hopefully not just in a coffee shop where all the famous reporters hang out.’

Her boss claimed a week in Briar Speckles was the perfect opportunity. Plus, with it being the village’s one-hundredth-year anniversary of its Halloween parade, self-proclaimed as one of the oldest in the UK, the newspaper needed someone young enough to handle a few jump scares.

She headed back to her car only to find that someone had draped fake spiderwebs over the doors and put a jack o’ lantern on her bonnet.

Carefully removing it and putting it on the bench outside the church, she turned back to her car to remove the plastic spiderwebs.

Three children in clown masks jumped out from behind her car, cackled with laughter, and then ran off up the street.

Kelly, heart thundering, could only stare and wait for the shock to pass.

If this was what she had to put up with for the next week, she was thankful that she was in good health because her heart was certain to take something of a battering.

Carefully removing the spiderwebs and draping them over the bench next to the jack o’ lantern, sure that the kids would return later on to claim them and perhaps trick some other unsuspecting passers-by, she got into her car and followed her GPS up the road between a line of equally creepy-looking houses, some of which appeared to be abandoned or had been decorated to appear so.

And there, at the end, conveniently on the corner of a crossroads with a spooky wooden sign at its centre, upon which the raven—maybe the same one, she wasn’t sure—was now perched, stood her lodgings for the night.

The Howling Gail Inn.

Gale misspelled as G-A-I-L, as though referring to a screaming woman.

Kelly pulled into the little car park, where mock gravestones marked each space with a number and then the letters RIP engraved underneath.

She got out, turned, and nearly had to face her heart exploding out of her mouth as a man dressed as what she could only describe as a vampire stood behind her, so close that he could either move extremely fast or had just appeared out of thin air.

‘Good evening,’ he said, putting on his best Dracula accent. ‘Welcome to the Howling Gail Inn. You must be Kelly from the newspaper.’

‘That’s right. My name’s Kelly Tunwick. It’s nice to meet you. And you are?’

‘My name is Martin,’ said the vampire. ‘Martin Longtooth. I am the proprietor here at the Howling Gail. And on behalf of all the residents of our dear village, both living and dead, I welcome you with all of my long-expired heart to Briar Speckles.’

2

At the Howling Gail Inn

‘Please come this way,’ Martin said. ‘Your car will be perfectly safe here. It is not known for the ghouls to come so close to the inn. Our dear Gail keeps them away, you see.’

Kelly grinned and muttered her agreement, wondering how long the act would continue. It was certainly entertaining, and probably something that Martin did for all his guests, but she wondered if at any point he would break character.

‘Do you dress like this all year round?’ she asked. ‘I mean, that kind of cape must be quite hot in summer.’

‘Ah, but the flesh of the undead is always cold,’ Martin said, which brought a smile to Kelly’s face. ‘Although, on especially hot days, even a vampire could be forgiven for donning a simple pair of black trousers and a T-shirt.’

‘But isn’t it true that you’re supposed to dislike sunlight?’ Kelly said.

Martin gave a little start, as though his act had been caught out.

‘Ah,’ he said, giving her a grin that suggested she was in on the joke. ‘You’d be amazed what kind of sunblock you can get these days. Particularly on the glorious bastion of hell we lovingly refer to as the internet.’ As Kelly couldn’t help but laugh, he continued, ‘Now let me show you to your room, and then I’ll have one of our maids bring you a fresh glass of blood-red grapefruit juice and some biscuits carved into the shape of pigs’ hearts.’

He led her through an ornate entranceway into the hallway of the Howling Gail, well decorated for Halloween with jack o’ lanterns on table by the door, and strings of orange fairy lights shaped like pumpkins, ghosts, and bats hung along the walls.