Page 31 of Death Rydes Shotgun

Ryder is gone. The imposing shadow that had been stalking my every footprint for the last hour has completely vanished into the sea of carnival-goers.

A strange, hollow pang strikes the center of my chest.

My eyes frantically search the crowd, scanning over heads, looking for the dark hoodie, looking for those lethal eyes. I actually find myself looking for him, my heart sinking just a fraction when I realize he isn’t there.

Then, the absurdity of my reaction hits me.

I shake my head, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh catching in my throat.

This is a gift. This is the exact opportunity I needed to make my clean break and get out of here before things spiral out of control.

I turn away from the building, tucking my hands into my pockets, and start heading briskly toward the main exit gates.

A high-pitched, blood-curdling shriek of pure horror tears through the night air. The sound cuts through the music of the carousel and the roar of the crowd.

The flow of people around me halts violently.

Gasps and panicked shouts erupt from the dark path leading behind the old wooden seating area.

“Oh my God! Call the police!” a woman shrieks. “Somebody help him!”

A natural human instinct would be to turn and run toward the safety of the parking lot. But I’m not built like other people. Plus, it could be Ryder.

The sudden spike of chaos, the raw scent of terror in the air has me moving faster toward the commotion.

I change direction, pushing my way through the gathering crowd, using my elbows to carve a path through the frozen onlookers until I break through to the open space behind the grandstands.

The scene before me is absolute, carnage-soaked horror.

Standing beneath the flickering amber light of the string bulbs is Marcus Knight.

Or what’s left of him.

The former history teacher hangs vertically against one of the thick wooden support beams of the stand, held in place by zip ties. With wide, glassy eyes protruding unnaturally, his gaze remains frozen in a terrifying expression of absolute agony.

Marcus’s throat grins at me through the horrific ear-to-ear gash in his neck, with dark blood steadily flowing down his chest.

His stomach has also been completely opened up.

A jagged, brutal incision runs from the base of his sternum down to his groin. His abdominal cavity has been carved open with savage precision, his slippery, pinkish-red intestines spilling out over his lap and coiling in a steaming, wet pile on the sawdust at his feet.

Blood—thick, bright red, and arterial—gushes down his legs, pooling around his leather shoes and filling the air with a suffocating, metallic stench that makes half the crowd turn and vomit into the grass.

It is a gruesome, artful masterpiece of violence. Raw, visceral, and unyielding. The kind of brutal butchery that turns a quiet town into a living nightmare.

The crowd around me is hysterical—people screaming, parents pulling their children away, deputies shouting over their radios as they frantically push through the crowd with drawn weapons.

I stand completely still in the center of the chaos, my eyes locked on the dripping pile of gore at Marcus’s feet.

Then, a sudden intuition pulls my gaze away from the body.

I look past the flashing lights, past the frantic deputies, straight toward the deep, unlit shadows at the edge of the woods bordering the fairgrounds.

Standing in the pitch-black tree line, thirty yards away, is a figure.

Ryder.

He stands motionless in the gloom, his dark hood pulled low, the sharp neon lights of the carnival catching the hard, unblinking angles of his jaw.