Kyle’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m on the ninth step…”

James started to worry a little. They couldn’t have these dumbasses charging off in all directions in the dark. “Siddown!”

“I’m on the tenth step…and now I’m walking down the hall…I’m outside your door…I’m pushing it open…cree-eeaa-kkk!”

It sounded sorta dumb, James thought, the way Kyle did it, but it sure as hell did the trick. The kids started scattering like cockroaches, shying away from the dirty old statue of that lady, screaming and blubbering. James and Kyle started laughing. They couldn’t help themselves. That ratcheted the boys to near hysteria, and Mikey stumbled right into the statue-the idiot-and knocked the damn thing to one side. The bulldozers had been at the site. The school was being razed and they were taking down the maze as well. That’s why Kyle had come up with the idea in the first place. One last spooky hurrah where they could scare the snot out of the little kids.

“Moron, you knocked over the old lady,” James said in a long-suffering tone.

He went to pick up his younger brother while Kyle corralled Tyler and Preston, who were crying like the babies they were. Mikey had practically turned to a statue himself. He stood frozen, staring. He slowly lifted one hand as James approached, pointing toward a mound of earth that had humped up when the statue tilted.

“Bloody Bones,” he whispered, his finger quivering.

James looked in the direction he was pointing. From the ground a skeletal human hand lay upturned, its bones both dirty and oddly white, its fingers reaching upward, as if for help.

James’s eyes bugged out. He started shrieking like a banshee and couldn’t quit.

Kyle gazed on in raw fear. “Shit,” he quavered.

Little Mikey grabbed James’s hand and hauled them both out of the maze. The rest of the gang thundered behind them. They all ran for their lives, the cold touch of Bloody Bones feathering their napes all the way.