At the entrance of a town in bumfuck New England, Samuel Burtwhistle stopped.
The horse stopped.
Lily stopped.
But Corn kept jabbering.
“That’s why I don’t think Washington’s really dead after—”
“Shhh,” Samuel said to the boy still seated atop Oats. The kid went quiet, his face soar with confusion.
The three weary travels were at the mouth of a humble main street. Eight buildings lined its dirt road. Every shutter was drawn. Not a sound graced the air. And though the sun had nearly set, no lamp lights burned.
“It’s kind of spooky,” Lily whispered beside Samuel.
After riding Oats all day, the child’s legs had gone pins and needles as twilight fell. So for the last hour she’d been prancing around Samuel, Corn and the horse picking honeysuckle from the side of the road and whistling children’s songs out of tune.
“Can we just go to the next town?” Corn asked, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
Samuel shook his head. “We can’t travel the roads at night.”
“Because of… bandits?” the boy said with a subtle, innocent smile. It was the kind of smile only a child who’s heard of bandits in heroic tales would give.
“Because of monsters,” Samuel replied, pointing at the darkening sky. “It’s a new moon tonight, so the roads will be especially dangerous.”
“I thought full moons were the dangerous nights?” Lily said
“Yeah,” Corn added, “That’s when werewolves come out.”
“That’s a myth,” Samuel replied. “Night creatures hunt best when they don’t cast shadows.”
“Oh…” said Corn. He lifted the collar of his tattered frock coat closer to his neck.
“Can I get back on Oats?” Lily asked with a pinch of panic.
Samuel lifted the girl with a huff. He placed her sideways on the horse, then wrapped his left hand around the reins before sliding his other hand over the stock of his holstered pistol. He knew its chamber contained a silver bullet, however the last time he’d checked its gunpowder he wasn’t sure.
“I see an inn’s sign in the center of town,” Samuel said. “If the place is deserted, we’ll sleep there tonight and bar the door.”
He slowly led Oats, with the two children huddled on its back, through the vacant, windless town. A crow cawed ominously on a nearby rooftop. Lily shooed at it, but it just watched her with black, unblinking eyes.
“Why would everyone leave?” Corn asked.
“Did the book do it?” Lily said, to which Samuel gave her a stern look. Corn still didn’t know about what happened in Cherrytown, and Samuel wanted to keep it that way.
“The war could have pushed people away,” Samuel said. “It’s not uncommon for people to flee for a spell and return when things—”
Suddenly, a flash darted across the road. The children shrieked. Oats stepped backward and grunted. Samuel fumbled for his pistol, but found it caught in the flaps of his Easter pontiff cloak. After a moment’s struggle he finally drew the weapon and aimed it where the thing had disappeared around a corner.
“Did anyone see it?” he said.
“No,” the children replied in unison.
“Can we camp nearby?” Lily asked.
“Yeah,” Corn said, “I don’t like this place.”
“We have to stay here tonight,” Samuel said. “It’s the only safe place once the sun sets.”
But the truth was that he needed a drink, five drinks, one hundred drinks. His head had throbbed since morning. His ears rang. His belly lurched, threatening to spill his innards. The kids hadn’t noticed, but the man was in rough shape. And at this moment it dawned on him that if this town was truly empty, he’d have the run of the tavern with plenty of bottles to spare for the rest of the journey.
He quickly led Oats to a post below the inn’s sign, tied the horse to the banister then turned to the inn’s door.
“Don’t leave us!” Corn cried.
Samuel blinked. The anticipation of deserted whiskey casks had blocked all other responsibilities from his mind. He turned and helped the children off the horse, then knelt.
“Stay close” he said. “And Lily, keep watch behind us. If you see anything, just tug on my trousers but don’t yell. We need to stay quiet now. No screaming, or crying, ok?”
“I wouldn’t cry,” Corn said, his face already in a pout. Samuel rolled his eyes, then stood.
He cocked his pistol, prayed there was gunpowder inside its chamber, then slowly creaked across the inn’s front porch. He studied the door for any signs of forced entry — claw marks, bullet holes, splinters from an ax’s blade — but the wood was pristine. He leaned over to a window and peered through dark glass.
“It looks empty,” Samuel whispered.
He jiggled a cast iron knob, and opened the tavern’s door with a creak, making sure to point his pistol through the widening gap. With tense shoulders he stepped into the lightless inn.
The tap room was dark and silent. He listened for a moment, standing in the doorway with the children just behind him. Suddenly, something leapt from the shadows beside him and latched onto his arm. Samuel’s trigger finger flinched and the pistol exploded into sparks, blinding him for a moment. Corn and Lily screamed. The shadowed figure, now also screaming, released its grip on Samuel. Then more screams wailed from the surrounding dark.
The tavern door slammed shut behind them. Samuel felt Lily and Corn yanking on his trousers, but he couldn’t see a thing. He wrenched his wooden stake from his belt and slashed wildly through the air, shouting obscenities.
“Stop!” a voice cried. “Everyone quiet!”
Shushes filled the air as a single candle burst to life behind the inn’s bar. Samuel readied his wooden weapon while grasping for the children. They were safe, as far as he could tell, all pressed against the closed door.
“We mean you no harm,” a man’s voice said behind the candle. “We’re only hiding.”
“Explain yourself!” Samuel said. “Who grabbed me?”
“That was Barneby,” the voice replied. “Please, we’re just scared and jumpy.”
“Who are you?” Samuel said.
“Please,” said the voice, “Everyone light your candles.”
One by one the slender flickers of a dozen candle flames lit the room in a soft, orange glow. Samuel squinted, trying to discern who held the little things. Through shadowed faces he saw mothers, old men, a couple fathers with peg legs and eye patches, along with three small children no older than Corn or Lily.
“We hide here every sundown,” the voice behind the tavern bar continued.
Its candle inched toward Samuel, revealing a man in his mid-forties garbed in an apron and blood-speckled shirt and trousers. His hair was a curly, reddish-gray and his face was disarmingly handsome. Shadows danced beneath his rigged jaw, a jaw which Samuel quickly noted was slathered in salt and pepper stubble.
“I am Liam,” he said, “inn keep and de facto mayor of this hamlet.” Then, with a big, lovely hand he gestured to the dozen shadowed faces tucked behind candle light. “We are all who remain.”