From "The Phantom Horseman of Holland Farm"
No longer in a party mood, Kyrie Carter slipped quietly out the front door of the farm house to stand on the front porch. This evening had ceased being fun hours ago, and she was tired of putting forth a brave front. Her fiancé, Spook Steele, had stood her up after promising a big surprise that would make this a Halloween she would never forget.
Kyr turned away from the jack o’lanterns grinning through the windows and walked over to the side of the porch, her eyes drifting to the yard below. Ghost- and skeleton-patterned luminaria cast eerie shadows along the path to the orchard. The full moon soared just above the orchard, its orange hue gleaming through the smoky haze in the air.
Movement in the orchard caught her attention, and she squinted into the darkness. A spectral figure stood just inside the treeline. Was it…could it be…a man on a horse? Her pulse quickened as she recalled the host’s story about Holland Farm’s phantom horseman.
Suddenly the horse stepped forward just outside the cover of the trees, and the rider turned to face her. Both horse and rider glowed greenish-blue in the moonlight. Slowly, the man raised his arm and beckoned to her. A chill that had nothing to do with the frosty night air settled around her bare shoulders, but she was intrigued. She did love ghost hunting, after all.
Kyr crept off the porch and picked her way quickly but carefully up the rocky path. Once or twice she stopped and looked back towards the house; was she crazy? She didn’t know who or what she was walking towards. It could be the ghost, or it could be a psychopath. A sudden thought made her heart race with excitement–what if it was Spook? He had promised a surprise. She lifted the long skirts of her princess costume and started to run, but she turned her ankle on a stone in the path. Cursing under her breath, she kicked off her shoes and tossed them aside.
When she started towards the mysterious rider again, she realized that he had moved back under the cover of the trees, luring her into the orchard. She stopped again and glanced back towards the house. The steady thump-thump-thump of the sound system still came from inside; even if she screamed at the top of her lungs, no one in the house would hear her. She turned back to look at the horseman again; he had moved another ten feet or so back into the trees, shimmering even more ghostlike in the darkness. The horseman raised his arm and beckoned to her again.
Kyr took a few more steps forward until she was underneath the cover of the trees. A single moonbeam filtered down through the branches where the horseman stood, and she saw the unmistakable glint of metal. Her eyes widened in horror, and she realized that she had been stupid to come alone this far from the house.
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