They rode downhill in silence, their horses at a gentle trot rather than canter or a full gallop. Dread coiled in Thom’s belly as he stared at the half-finished walls and some of the burned-out shells of buildings. There had been people here, and they’d been getting by since the end of everything.
What happened to them?
He closed his eyes for a brief moment and swallowed the bile that crept up in his throat again.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
But it was.
A lonely bell clanged, as if worried by a wind off the lake. Thom shivered despite himself.
It’s a ghost town.
“I’m not seeing any of those people you said you saw, Jay,” Cameron said, shifting uneasily in his saddle. “Are you—”
“No, I’m not sure they weren’t ghosts,” J.T. growled. “And no, I’m not entirely positive I saw them—but I thought I did.”
Thom glanced sidelong at his friend, trying to keep the frown from his face. He knew J.T. had seen something, otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned it. But if he’d seen ghosts instead of the living in the village…
I wouldn’t want to consider it, either. Thom looked at Seamus. “Do you see anything?”
“There’s something moving there,” Seamus said, his words quiet enough that the wind nearly stole them away. “Around the edge of the building there, the second one in.”
There weren’t any gates to stop them from entering the protective circle of the silent village’s walls. The wind whistled through the buildings that were left, looking worse up close than they had at a distance.
“What the hell burned this place?” Thom murmured, reining in a few feet inside the wall.
“No idea,” Cameron said, passing his reins to Thom before swinging down from his horse’s back. “Not sure if we’re going to find any answers to that question, either.”
“Something’s not right,” J.T. said. “Cam, get back on your horse. Something’s not right.”
Click.
A flash left all four men blind.
