Free Ghost Walk by Brian Keene Page B

carved jack-o’-lanterns. Their eyes and mouths flickered with an orange glow as candles burned inside them. Other than the pumpkins, the houses seemed deserted. No lamps or television lights. She passed only a handful of other cars. It was like she’d driven back through time. This part of the county seemed divorced from the rest of civilization. She felt like an astronaut exploring a different planet. In locales like this, it was easy to understand why primitive man had been so afraid of the dark.
    The radio was on. Warm 103, the local easy listening station, played softly in the background. Whoever programmed the station relied heavily on songs from the sixties, seventies, and eighties—almost as if elevator music had died after 1989. Maria hated the selection, but for some reason the only other channel she could pick up in this remote area featured a preacher screaming at his audience. She tried again, scanning the dial, but found more of the same.
    “ Luke tells us, in chapter twenty-three, verses forty-four and forty-five, that there was a darkness over all the earth and the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in the midst. DARKNESS, brothers and sisters! It engulfs the world .”
    “That’s wonderful news.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.
    “ And in that darkness ,” the sermon continued, “ only the light of the Lord can shine. All other lights will be snuffed like a candle flame. Only the Lord’s light shall prevail. Can I get an amen? ”
    There was a chorus of amens, and then the preacher continued.
    “Great,” Maria said. “My choices are hellfire and brimstone or Whitney Houston and The Righteous Brothers.”
    Sighing, Maria turned off the radio and drove in silence. She found it preferable to the preaching. Although she considered herself a spiritual person, Maria had little patience for organized religion or its spokespeople. At her father’s insistence, she’d been raised in the Islamic faith, albeit a watered-down Western version. She didn’t know what she was anymore. She disliked the agnostic label and she didn’t consider herself an atheist, but she didn’t believe in the Muslim, Christian, or Jewish versions of God, either. She’d always felt that God, if He or She existed, was probably more of a personal, singular deity—a God that was specific to the believer’s current needs rather than beholden to the dictates of an entire world. A personal Jesus, just like in the Depeche Mode song, or an instant karma, like John Lennon had sung about. She’d never told her parents this. If she did, she’d never hear the end of it. While neither of them were particularly religious behind closed doors, they were all about keeping up appearances—doing what was expected of them by the community and their peers. They expected the same of Maria. It wouldn’t do for the Nasrs’ only child to be labeled a nonbeliever, especially in times like this, when Islam was so misunderstood by so many others. She was supposed to embrace her Jordanian father’s Muslim heritage, not turn away from it—even if she didn’t truly believe.
    Her attention was drawn to something black and red lying in the road. Her headlights flashed off it. Her nose wrinkled at the sharp, pungent smell of a skunk. She swerved around the dead animal and sped up.
    Eventually, Maria found some roadside signs for the Ghost Walk. Simple and crude—block letters and crooked arrows spray-painted onto cheap plywood: GHOST WALK —3 MILES . Following them, she turned onto another winding road, then off the road and into a massive field. The terrain was bumpy. She bounced up and down in the seat. Her teeth clacked together.
    “Jesus…”
    Fragile wisps of fog swirled in her headlight beams. A paunchy man with a flashlight appeared, waving her in and directing her to the parking area. Maria smiled and nodded, indicating that she understood. Then she realized that he probably couldn’t see her in the dark, so she waved