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Back Gallows Hill Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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Her path to the front door was clear. She moved forward, preparing to slip past the Watcher, but felt a sharp tug on the leash.

Marsh had backed up. His eyes, normally so gentle and warm, had turned as hard as slate. His back was raised, fur prickling up around his neck and spine.

“Marsh?” She gave him some slack on the leash. He backed up farther, and his lips peeled back from his teeth. A low, rumbling growl echoed from deep in his chest.

Margot looked back to the hallway, her own chest feeling the press of dread. Moonlight flowed through the open door, pouring across the floor and rising over part of the Watcher. Long shadows trailed behind the effigy. Across from it was the kitchen, darker. She could barely make out the glint of the fridge’s edge in the distance.

Low, rumbling growls continued to flow in a continuous stream from Marsh. She couldn’t hear any of the dead. No thumping footsteps in the hall. Nothing from the porch except the constant, low creak of old rope. Her light didn’t pick up any kind of movement.

“What is it?” Margot whispered. She kept her hold on the leash firm as she lowered herself to Marsh’s side. His eyes barely flicked toward her. She traced his gaze and saw he was staring at the Watcher. “You don’t like the statue? Your owner made it, you know.”

He wasn’t calming. The fur across his flanks grew tenser. More teeth were exposed as the warning growls became deeper.

She switched the mobile to her left hand, holding it awkwardly around the cast, then tucked her good hand’s fingers underneath Marsh’s collar. She could feel his prickling fur on her knuckles as she led him toward the hallway. “Please, Marsh. We have to go.”

He obeyed this time, but with each inch they gained, the growls grew louder. Lines of saliva ran from the corners of his mouth. The pitch-black eyes were as cold as ice as they fixed on the effigy.

Margot had barely gotten through the archway and into the hall when her feet faltered.

Marsh was here before. He watched me drag the effigy across the room. He lay down with it ten feet away without making a peep. Why now?

She turned, the press of dread in her chest growing heavier, to face the massive sculpture.

The dark pits in the deer skull were no longer empty. Clouded gray eyes stared out at her.

38

The effigy’s body had been hollow, made up of a convoluted mesh of wires and braced shards of driftwood. Now, though, it held something solid inside. A body. Wrapped around by metal. Pierced through by metal. The dead eyes stared through the holes in the deer skull mask as its long, twitching arms reached toward her.