They waited for her in the shadows of the oldest gravestones, avoiding the moonlight, impatience and excitement written across their faces in equal measure.

  “Am I late?” Annie took off her jacket, threw it over a nearby gravestone. Perhaps she’d dawdled, her mind full of Tam, her Tam…

  “As usual! We’re ready to begin!” snapped Nick from his cross-legged perch on the tallest gravestone. He always brought a ladder to get himself up there with some dignity. Irritably, he clapped on his horned head-dress, meant to represent his namesake, Satan himself. Annie always thought that a ridiculous pandering to Nick’s monstrous ego. Tonight she’d meant to tell them so, tell Nick he was a silly old fool and that Sadie had more wisdom and power in her little finger than Nick had ever possessed. Now it didn’t seem important. Nick wasn’t important.

  The witches moved in, young and old, male and female, forming a circle around Nick. With Nick’s cue, they began their chant of observance, walking slowly round the circle, keeping its shape. It seemed more moving than normal, maybe because it was Hallowe’en. Magic was in the air, bringing endless possibilities, breaking down everyday barriers. Annie liked that. Emotion rose up in her throat as she reached out both hands to join with Sadie and May. Raising her face to the moon, she let its pale glow flood her, slid her fingers along the waiting hands and gripped.

  Sadie and May cried out, trying to wrench free of her grasp. Surprised, Annie glanced down and saw something like electricity crackle between their hands. It felt strong and powerful, a buzzing energy. Annie laughed. It burned, but not with pain, only power, so she held on to the struggling women. Sadie quieted quickly, but it took Nick’s excited “Proceed, damn you!” to still May’s frightened struggles.

  The ritual went on. They lifted their joined hands, swaying in rhythm with their chant, and Annie thought of her body swaying against Tam’s, of how his cock pushed inside her, over and over. Nick’s candles blew out. One of the middle-aged witches squeaked in alarm, many gasped, but the chant went on until a mist began to form around them, like an ethereal veil. Annie wasn’t afraid. They had gotten this far before.

  Nick got out his flute and began to play. This was another of his little ego-trips, but in this case, it fit. They needed the music to dance, to draw the spirits. Below Nick, a thicker stream of mist was forming, rising upward from the ground, swirling, taking form. Peering into it, Annie could see only a long, rectangular box, which seemed pointless until she realized its familiar coffin shape. It looked almost solid.

  Its lid burst off and another stream of mist spiraled out, quickly forming into a white, emaciated human figure. The fear and excitement of the witches rose up into the mist, joined with it, swept with it around the graveyard till everywhere, streams of ectoplasm appeared, shooting up from the ground, some with coffins, some with shrouds they had to fight their way out of.

  Nick’s tune stumbled but didn’t stop. It grew in volume and in speed, and from habit, the witches followed the rhythm in their dance. So did the ghouls. With weird, jerky, mostly impossible movements, they began to dance across the graves to join the party.

  “We did it!” yelled Sadie, “we did it!”

  Annie laughed and hugged her. This was power! For what, she neither knew nor cared. It was just so wild, so intense, that she had to dance. The others felt it too, throwing their bodies around in abandon. Nick’s tune had taken on a new dimension, a new echo, so that now it sounded to Annie like several instruments, all playing together some crazily alluring song. Annie could swear there were electric guitars in there. She could even make it sound in her head a little bit like Tam’s band.

  Beside her, May was getting down and dirty with Craig from the garage, their every movement still in perfect time with Nick’s rhythm. Dancing was a great way to have sex, but while some of the others groped, Annie just couldn’t stay still enough. She caressed her own breasts, her own hips and thighs as she danced with wild sensuality among the others, a constant whirlwind of motion, graceful even to her own eyes among the jerking of the ghouls who danced with her. One spun his arms and legs right round. One was break-dancing at her feet, his limbs all bent at impossibly grotesque angles. Annie didn’t care, she leaned over him and shook her body, then spun off through the embrace of Bill the butcher to leap up onto one of the table gravestones. Lifting her arms in sheer exhilaration, she danced.

  * * *

  Tam hadn’t left with the band. Nor he had gone back to his mother’s house, where he was fairly sure the media still camped on her doorstep. He’d driven around the village on his motorbike, remembering, letting the feel of the place wash back over him. Constricting, stultifying as it had once seemed to him -- he had been desperate to get out of here -- now he found himself remembering the fun of it. He knew those memories to be equally distorted, but that didn’t stop him roaring off out of town to gaze at the big house he’d noticed for sale over the hill.

  Returning now, he cut the engine and got off. It was too quiet and he had no wish to draw the attention of whatever journalists still skulked around the place. On the old hump-backed bridge, he paused, staring down into the fast flowing River Doon.

  He’d grown up with folktales of the river. Hallowe’en had been fun here, guising all over town -- singing, playing, telling jokes for sweeties and peanuts and the odd few coins -- then home to someone’s house to scare each other silly with tales of the ghouls and witches and demons who supposedly haunted Alloway. Apparently, evil couldn’t pass running water, so you just had to get half way across the river to be safe from them.

  In the mixture of lamp and moonlight, Tam could see his own twisted smile in the dark water. Straightening, he turned back to the road and pushed the bike onward to the other side of the bridge. Safe from all pursuing ghouls and witches.

  Except that girl, Annie. She stayed with him, haunting him with desire. It had been a wild encounter -- years since he’s done anything crazy like that, and even then the couple of times it had happened had been with “groupies,” girls he already knew, had already fucked less publicly. With Annie it had been more spontaneous, indescribably more sexy. And not just because fidelity to Kate was becoming a bind. Not just because Kate herself was a bind, more constricting by far than this place had ever been. Kate’s constant concern for image irked him beyond endurance. If he’d refused to conform to Alloway’s narrow strictures, why the hell should he bow to Kate’s, which were based on nothing more than self-centered obsession?

  She had a hell of a body, of course, and knew what to do with it. Although that over-groomed, perfect look just wasn’t as sexy as it had once seemed, not compared to the careless, quirky beauty of Annie, for example, with her proud, challenging eyes and her abandoned laughter… and her spontaneity. That’s what his life had missed in the last few years. Annie hadn’t given a toss who he was, just surrendered to the crazy desires of the moment.

  And Tam knew who she was now. He could find her again.

  Even if nothing else ever happened between them, he knew now he had to end everything with Kate. In any meaningful way, it had been over for months.

  The Old Kirk came into sight. As kids they used to come here at Hallowe’en, looking for the ghosts and witches everyone said haunted the place. He’d never seen any, not even as a teenager when he’d been out later than he should and he and his mates had got pissed in the graveyard on cheap beer and Buckfast.

  Someone else seemed to be pissed in the graveyard now. He could hear voices, uninhibited laughter, and behind it all some distant, insistent music. Tam paused at the gate, but he couldn’t see anything but shadows. The people seemed to be farther round, out of sight.

  Abandoning the bike at the side of the road, Tam sprinted round the churchyard wall where the noise was louder, then pulled himself up till he could sit on top of the wall. Now he could see them.

  Tam blinked and shook his head. He rubbed his eyes, but the vision before him stayed firmly there. There were people dancing and cavorting, sure, but among them were other, curiously insubstantial figures that seemed to swirl like mist, and yet who also danced. They were like reflections, holograms, some weird special effect… yes, that’s what they were.

  Relieved by this triumph of common sense over the instinctive fears of Hallowe’en, Tam let his amused eyes rove over the rest of the party. Some twit with Devil horns was parked cross-legged on top of one of the stones, playing the flute. Tam couldn’t see the other musicians. But he could hear them. They sounded quite good. Maybe there were other musical possibilities in Alloway now.

  But the guests at this party were weird. Most of them were old -- that is, over fifty. Good on them! And capering away in a way that confirmed their own sexuality. In fact, was that not two people having sex against that stone?

  Hell, good on you again! Don’t fancy her much myself, but you knock yourself out, my friend! This town is certainly livelier than it used to be! Or did I just have my eyes shut? Oh, wow… is that…? Jesus, it is!

  The girl, by far the youngest and most beautiful of the revelers, was unmistakably Annie. Dancing on the big table gravestone, she was sensational, graceful, sensual, sexy as hell, so deliciously aware of her own body that Tam couldn’t not be. He began to harden uncomfortably, even while he shook with silent laughter. What a crazy party for her to go to, but he loved that difference about her!

  And hell, it was a party. Without further thought, Tam dropped down off the wall into the graveyard and began to walk toward the revelers.

  She saw him coming. Just for an instant, she paused, then she laughed, a long, clear sound of pure joy, and leapt off the stone. She began to dance toward him, shimmying past one of the weird projections -- where was the equipment for that? It was bloody effective. Maybe they could do something similar on stage…

  She came right up to him, her eyes shining. She was mesmeric, hypnotic, the most beautiful, sexy thing he had ever seen and she danced straight into his arms. He heard her breath catch as she simply reached up and fastened her mouth to his. Her body still swayed against him, driving him wild as her hard nipples poked through her dress and his T-shirt to make sensual contact. She rubbed herself blatantly against his cock, against all of him, and yet her arms remained free, constantly moving in graceful rhythm. Tam held her sexy, writhing little body him and kissed her back. He ran his hands down her back to her buttocks and heard her moan with pleasure. Still not touching him with her hands, she broke the kiss and danced backward in his hold, Tam her willing follower, till she came up against one of the smaller table stones.

  She smiled at him, blatantly seductive, still swaying to the music. She was the most exciting thing Tam could ever remember. Pressing his aching cock against her hip, he leaned his upper body slightly back so that he could run his hands over her breasts. She smiled again, covering his hands with her own, pressing them harder into her breasts, caressing yet still dancing. Tam caught her mouth in his once more -- he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He slid his hands down her sides to her thighs and tugged up the short dress. He groaned aloud and swept his fingers up between her legs to the hot wetness that waited for him. Unable to wait longer, he lifted her onto the stone. She laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck at last. And when he opened his fly, she thrust herself forward against his stiff, naked cock. But Tam had his own ideas now. He turned her till she knelt with her back to him, her hips and buttocks gleaming palely in the moonlight. Then he yanked down the shoulders of her dress until her breasts swung free and he could reach around her and cup them while drawing her back against his body. Like that, he entered her, and the music took over.

  They danced. Her arm wound back over her head to reach around his neck so that she could see his face, her own vivid and blazing with passion. To Tam, the music almost sounded like the band, as if his own songs played in his head to this astounding event.

  Though they were hardly alone, no one paid them any attention. Everyone was dancing or screwing, or both, among the grotesque, jerking projections of the ghouls, and the whole scene was weirdly arousing, exhilarating. Tam pulled on her nipples as his climax threatened, her moans mingled with the music in his ears, urging him on. He swept one of his hands down to her pussy, pressing over her pubic bone as he thrust into her. She gasped and moaned, higher and higher until it was a scream of joy that went on and on while he fell into his own orgasm and shot his seed deep within her.

  They collapsed onto the stone face down, with Annie underneath him. It still felt sexy as hell, but unwilling to squash her, he reluctantly withdrew after a minute and turned her so they could lie together. Her face looked so beautiful, so soft and cloudy with satisfied passion, that he groaned and slid his hand between her legs. Gently he pushed two fingers inside her, stirring, while his thumb circled her big, swollen clitoris until she came again. He loved making her come. He wanted to do it all night.

  Surprising him, she crawled up his body and straddled him. With a wicked gleam, she impaled herself on his re-awakened cock and rode him to another spectacular release that pleasured them both to the point of insanity.

  This time it was she who collapsed on him, and that felt more relaxing.

  Idly stroking her hair and smiling like the sated cat he was, Tam murmured, “You are the sweetest, sexiest little witch.”

  “Witch,” she repeated contentedly. Then she froze. “Witch!” Leaping up, she gasped, “Tam, you have to get out of here!”

  Chapter Three

  He wanted to laugh at her, but there was genuine alarm in her eyes as they gazed almost fearfully past him toward the rest of the party. Her words at the gig came back to him.

  “Or you’ll have to kill me?” he said wryly.

  “Oh, not me, Tam, not me…” On her knees beside him, she yanked her dress back into place before she seized his head in both hands. For a second, she stared into his face, her own wild and troubled. Helplessly, he tried to think of words to comfort her, but before he could speak, her lovely brown eyes softened. She bent her head, touching her forehead to his in a gesture of quite unexpected tenderness.

  “Oh, Tam, I have been so lost,” she whispered. Wonderingly, aching with emotion he couldn’t understand, he touched her hair, her cheek with fingers that shook. But she slid out of his hold. “Go now, Tam, quick before they catch… oh, Christ.”

  Twisting around, Tam saw the man in Devil horns pointing furiously at Annie and himself. He observed something else too that made him frown. “Annie? Do these projections look more… solid to you now?”

  “Oh shite, Tam, they’re not projections! Haven’t you realized that? I did it, mostly, and I think you and I together just made them stronger!”

  Tam stared. The misty swirling ghouls now looked like dead people, dripping with the spilled gore and dirt of their past lives. But the fool with the flute had stopped playing it. At some point, the music had fallen silent, and the ghouls no longer danced, merely stood there, idly spinning their limbs in their sockets and bouncing their heads off their chests and back like some weird bat and ball game. Waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

  Tam swallowed. Giving in to Annie’s insistent tug, he slid off the table stone and pulled on his jeans. But Annie was moving away from him, back toward the… whatever these things were. Jesus Christ, he had thought the evening surreal before he’d come here. Maybe he was out of his head on something? Why couldn’t he be out of his head?

  “Annie,” he said hoarsely, but she ignored him, swaying back to her friends. Still the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, never mind fucked…

  “A stranger! She brought a stranger!” Devil Horns shrieked. Surely Tam knew that voice?

  Annie laughed. “Hell, I didn’t bring him, he came on his own!”

  “Get him!” yelled the Horned One, pointing straight at him. The ghouls turned their heads -- a few turned their bodies too -- and looked straight at him. Tam’s blood turned to ice.

  Bad trip. Bad, bad trip. Time to come down now.

  As one, the ghouls began to advance on him. Instinctively, Tam took a step backward, and another. The Horned One leapt off his tombstone like a maniac, screaming, “After him! Kill the stranger!”

  And with the wild old devil in the lead, everyone began to run at him, witches, ghouls and Annie, who said she’d conjured them… Jesus Christ, what was she? What had he done with her? Without a backward glance, she’d rejoined her old friends against him!

  Then all coherent thought stopped, and Tam did the only thing possible in the circumstances. He took to his heels and ran.

  Somewhere in his brain, he was aware that if he ever got out of this, he might find it funny. He must have presented a hilarious sight, leaping over gravestones, veering round trees, and vaulting over the graveyard wall with, literally, all the fiends in hell after him. He might even have laughed now, had not Annie been one of those chasing him.

  As he threw himself on to his motorbike and stamped it to life, he saw the witches pouring out of the gate behind the horned man, while the ghouls poured over the wall as if it hadn’t impeded them in the slightest.

  Tam wrenched the throttle and roared off down the street. Only then did he wonder where in hell he could go. He couldn’t run to his mother’s house with this lot after him. The witches might be shamed into shoving off -- and if they weren’t, Tam didn’t feel incapable of dealing with them. It was Annie’s ghouls that bothered him. How the fuck did you get rid of them? What did they do if they caught you? Kill you, suck out your soul, your mind? When did they stop? When the sun came up?

  When they come to running water.

  The bridge. He had to get over the bridge.

  Of course it was old wives’ tales. The whole thing was legend come true, so he had to trust the antidote too. Roaring round the corner, Tam made for the river, and still the fiends followed. They floated and stomped in among the witches, their faces dead and eyeless, skin and insects dripping from their bones, grotesque pieces of shroud trailing behind them.

 

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