Chapter 3

Hannah's POV

I shot back, annoyed, "I was talking to Maddie! And her groom, Wyatt! They were both standing right there in the bathroom!"

"You're crazy... you're entirely out of your mind!"

Mrs. Ruby’s walnut-wrinkled face instantly drained of color. Her bony hands, like eagle talons, clamped down on my forearm. She shook violently, her voice raspy like a saw on wood: "Listen to me, girl. The second this ceremony ends, you run. Don’t you stay a single second longer!"

Before I could ask anything, her face turned ashen, she let go of me, and she stumbled backward, pushing open the restroom door and fleeing toward the banquet hall like she was running from the plague.

I stood frozen, my stomach churning.

Fighting down my panic, I clutched the manila envelope to my chest, returned to the dead-silent hall, and found an empty seat in the back row.

"Hannah? Oh my god, it really is you!" a low voice gasped beside me.

It was Brittany, Maddie’s former coworker. She had blonde curls and long acrylic nails, and was staring at me, hands covering her mouth.

"Brittany?" I said, grabbing onto her like a lifeline, keeping my voice low. "What kind of freak show is this? Maddie's been missing for two years, and now she’s having a midnight wedding?"

"You don't know?!" Brittany's eyes widened. "She never quit! She just vanished two years ago! I got this midnight invitation in my email yesterday out of nowhere!"

"Missing for two years and she does a shotgun wedding?" I frowned. "What happened to Jesse, her assistant manager fiancé?"

Brittany scoffed, leaning close and whispering the truth like a rapid-fire machine gun:

"Called off. Maddie’s bloodsucking mother, Darlene, tried to force Jesse's family to cough up fifty grand in 'compensation' to bail out her junkie son who got busted for drunk driving again. Jesse's mom went ballistic. She practically called them beggars right in the middle of church and forced Jesse to break off the engagement."

My blood ran cold—that was the exact same week I had lent the money to Maddie.

"When Darlene realized she wasn't getting the fifty grand, she went psycho, smashing things up at home. Maddie finally snapped, left a voicemail for Jesse, and disappeared," Brittany shook her head. "Jesse is a wreck now too. He downs whiskey all day, lost his job, and walks around like a total zombie."

It hit me like a bolt of lightning.

The stench of rotting flesh in the bathroom that didn't belong to the living, that piercing coldness, Mrs. Ruby's reaction...

I pulled out my phone. It was well past midnight, but the stage remained entirely empty. The dozens of gloomy guests around us paid no mind, just staring blankly at their plates, mechanically chewing cold, hard meat.

"What a joke!" Brittany finally lost it. She kicked her chair back and stood up. "A midnight wedding? The bride and groom haven't even shown their faces! Are they playing us?!"

"Brittany, shut up!" I panicked, reaching up to pull her down.

Too late.

A burly man from the front row, wearing a soot-stained flannel shirt and a menacing glare, stalked over. Earl.

His eyes were vicious, his tone brutal. "This is a wedding between the Thorntons and the Reeves. Outsiders sit and watch. If you breathe out of line again, neither of you is leaving here alive."

"Who the hell do you think you—" Brittany snapped.

"Earl! Let them go!" Mrs. Ruby suddenly squeezed through like a ghost, planting herself squarely between us. She turned and glared at me, her hushed voice laced with undeniable terror. "Get out now! Before the hosts come to clear the tables!"

I didn't dare hesitate for a second. I grabbed Brittany's arm, practically stumbling as we slammed through the church doors.

The freezing autumn wind hit my lungs like ice. In the parking lot, we quickly exchanged numbers before Brittany, cursing the whole way, started her beat-up Honda and floored it into the pitch-black mountain roads.

I grabbed my car door handle and with trembling hands, twisted the key.

The engine let out a pathetic sputter. It refused to start. Here in the deep mountains, my cell signal showed a glaring red 'X'.

I locked the doors, curled up in the backseat, and resolved to wait until dawn to find a way out.

I don’t know how long passed before a heavy metallic clatter jolted me awake.

Through the car window, the moonlit scene before me made my blood run cold—

By the side door of the church, Earl and a few other heavy-set men were violently shoving two massive, black-tarp-covered objects into a black van.

A gust of mountain wind blew back a corner of the tarp.

They weren't human at all.

They were two life-sized effigies stitched together from blackened burlap, rusty wire, and dried, rotting vines.

The one dressed in shredded white lace had Maddie’s heavy silver cross tied tightly around its neck. The other had a crushed, bloodstained miner's helmet shoved onto a head made of weeds.