The egg left my hand even as my fingers curled in to stop it, slipping past my fingertips and sailing in a hard arc toward the rundown mansion’s front door. I’d had misgivings about this from the start—it wasn’t that it was a big deal, not really, just throwing some eggs at the door and maybe tossing some toilet paper up in a tree if we found a good one, but it still felt mean-spirited rather than fun. The Mercer House had been in decline before me, Pat and Jasper were even born, and seeing it in person, even at night, was like walking up on an unburied corpse in a graveyard. I felt scared and sad at the same time, and more than a little like we were kicking someone or something that was already down.

“Come on, we did it, now come on.”

Pat smirked at Jasper before looking back to me. “Don’t you still have three more eggs?”

I frowned at him. “Yeah, and I’m done. If someone still actually lives there, they’re going to have to clean this shit up. So let’s go get some beer, get drunk, and watch scary movies.”

Jasper nodded. “You know, that does sound like a solid plan. I’m behind this drunk scary movie plan.”

Pat grimaced. “Fine. Whatever. It’s not like they’ll notice the mess.” He gestured at the overgrown yard and the massive wall of hedges behind us. When we’d come up the driveway through the gate, the black wall of leaves had been the first thing I’d noticed. It had supposedly once been a huge hedge maze, but it must’ve grown into an even larger twisted monstrosity in the decades since the property stopped being kept up. Just from what we could see, it must be thirty feet tall in spots.

Shrugging, I glanced back at the front porch. There was no light there other than a single glowing jack-o-lantern, and no sign that anyone had noticed the seven eggs we had thrown against the door. Such a stupid, petty thing to do. And why? Because we were bored and too cheap to go to a regular haunt or something? “It’s still shitty of us. Let’s…let’s just go.” Turning toward the driveway, I didn’t wait to see if they followed, but I figured they would. Jasper was as tired of this as I was, and to be fair, it was my car hidden down the road from the driveway. If Pat didn’t want to walk then he…I slowed to a stop as I rounded the corner of the hedge maze and looked toward the driveway gate. It was shut now.

“Guys, isn’t this the way we came in?” I looked behind me to see Jasper approaching with a concerned look with Pat sullenly following behind. “I mean, isn’t this the driveway we used walking up?”

Jasper looked at me and then the gate and then back to me. “Shit, I thought so. But it wasn’t closed before.” He glanced back as he hissed out a nervous whisper. “Pat! The gate is closed!”

Frowning, Pat picked up the pace and rounded the corner with us. “What the fuck? Nah, this must be the wrong way. Stupid brick wall around the whole thing and it being dark and shit, we must have gotten turned around. Must have come in the other side.”

I felt my chest tightening slightly. “Or someone shut it behind us.” I pointed to the wall. “We can’t get over that. Or the gate if it’s locked.”

He rolled his eyes. “Or we messed up. It’s dark and…”

“It’s not that dark. The moon is full or close enough. Someone could have left the gate open and then closed it when we came in.”

“Why? So they can trap us for Halloween? Good fucking luck with that. I’ll beat their ass if someone comes and tries to mess with us, and we can always call for help.”

“No, we can’t.” Jasper’s voice was slightly jittery and shrill. “Jesus, I told you this afternoon. There’s no signal up here. Iron deposits in the area or something. I don’t know. But I never had a signal when I drove by before and…” He checked his phone with an anguished look. “Yep, still nothing.”

I could tell that Pat was getting scared too, but it only seemed to make him angrier. “Whatever. The gate probably just blew shut. Bet it’s not even locked. Let’s just go open it and leave.” Not waiting for a response, he stalked off toward the gate with us following behind. When he reached it, it only took a couple of hard yanks to see that it wasn’t opening, and looking closer I saw the steel rods slid down into the ground under the gate.

“What the hell? This isn’t just some old gate that blew shut. This is high-grade shit. Magnetic locks with titanium bolt mechanisms. I worked on a couple of jobs with my dad that had stuff like that.” Jasper brushed a shaky hand over the brown grapes and leaves wrought into the gate face. “None of this is old. It’s just painted and made to look that way.” He met my eyes. “What is this place?”

A loud crackle filled the air, making us all jump. Then the voice, rich and deep and warm-sounding even through the tinny distortion of hidden speakers both near and far, all broadcasting the same message.

Sorry, boys. Gate’s been closed for the night. If you don’t want to spend Halloween here, you best get to steppin’ through the maze. The entrance isn’t far from where you just were, and on the far side is a gate that leads back out to the driveway on the outside. And that gate will stay unlocked until sunrise.

Pat slammed a balled fist into his thigh. “This is bullshit!” He turned toward the house and then back to me. “We should just go up there, beat on the door, and tell him if he doesn’t open the gate we’ll come in and do it for him.”

I felt a surge of anger as I stepped toward him. “No! Are you fucking high? I don’t want to get arrested for trespassing and vandalism, and I sure as shit am not getting arrested for home invasion or because you decide to be an even bigger asshole than usual.” I glanced at Jasper. “So we’re going into this fucking maze or whatever. We’ll either figure it out or we’ll push through it until we get to the other side.”

Pat lowered his gaze, but I could tell he was still furious. “And what happens when we find the other gate locked or that there is no other gate?”

Jasper spoke up. “Then we can climb the hedge shit and get out over there. It has to be easier than trying to climb walls here. There’s nothing out here to stack up or stand on, and that gate…” He gestured behind us. “…higher up the vines have thorns all over them.” He looked uneasy. “I don’t like any of this either, but I also don’t want to be here any longer than we have to. Let’s just try the maze. If it’s too overgrown or whatever, we can always try something else.”

Pat looked between us, his face falling. “Fuck it. Let’s just go then.”

---

The entrance to the garden maze was only twenty or so feet down from where we had been egging the house, and peering inside, neither the moonlight or our phones’ flashlights showed any sign of the maze being impassable or fully overgrown. Nothing about it looked tended, but the ghost paths of white crushed gravel were still there, faint and glowing in the meager light. And while the walls of the maze were thick and twisting, we could always see a way forward as we took our first tentative steps inside.

We came to a stop when we reached our first branch. Forward or left.

Jasper’s voice sounded thin in the dark. “Which way do ya’ll think?”

Pat sniffed. “Left. I read one time that you always go left in a maze and you won’t get lost.”

I stared at him. “That makes no sense. It would depend on the maze.”

He shrugged. “Then you pick. This is your big idea.”

I fought the urge to yell at him, to tell him that this was classic Pat. Pushing us into some stupid idea and then blaming us when it backfires. But no. It didn’t matter now, and he didn’t hold a gun to our head anyway. We were all idiots, and now we were going to get bit by a snake or something because some crazy old guy wanted to punish trickers and…fuck. I sighed. “Left.”

We went left, and then left again, but then the next two times we had to go straight because there was no left option. I thought we’d been walking about five minutes, and based on that, I figured we must be getting to the middle of the maze. How big could it actually be, after all?

As though to confirm it, we reached a larger courtyard. Along the edge of the square were rusted wrought-iron benches, and in the middle was a massive white fountain, though much of it was covered with dirt and patches of vines from decades of disrepair and disuse. Pat bumped into me and I turned to see him staring up at the top of the fountain’s third and tallest tier.

“Is that a dinosaur up there?”

Following his gaze, I pointed my light up there and squinted. “Um, I think it’s an alligator.”

I felt warm wet spray hit my back a moment before I heard the muffled snap of something behind me. The screaming didn’t start until I was halfway turned, and by then I could already see that it was Jasper making that horrible sound.

He…he was five feet up in the air, jerking back and forth sideways, held by something unseen that was shaking him, crushing him, biting him. He let out another wail, and I saw more blood squirt in a dozen places from his lower legs to the middle of his chest. I was staring in silent horrified shock, but Pat was squealing beside me like a boiling tea kettle.

“Ohgodgodgodgod! It has him! Ooooh it has him!”

I took a step forward to help him, but I hesitated. What was to stop this hidden thing from taking me too? And what could I really do to help? Jasper was already twisted and broken, and his cries, while still loud, were growing weaker. Another crushing bite down and a spray of blood hit me in the face, causing me to flounder back and fall down. Some instinct immediately surged through me, saying I had to get up, I had to keep my feet or I was dead. I had to get away or I was dead. And in that moment of terrifying clarity, I thought I saw a shadow of what the thing was that had my best friend.

It had a long snout and a flat, ridged head. Deep, red eyes and a muscular body that was impossibly long and thick and huge. I thought it might have looked at me while it bit down harder into Jasper, but then I couldn’t see it anymore and I was up on my feet again. Grabbing Pat’s arm, we ran out of the square and around the corner of the next path.

That’s when the speakers sprang to life again.

I see you’ve met Beauregard. Now don’t you worry. While he does have a rather rapacious appetite, he is judicious in his meals, as they come along so rarely these days. I wager he will savor his meal before seeking another.

As for what he is? Well, there’s no need to bore you with the grisly details of my family’s past, but suffice it to say, there was a time when my ancestors were quite a force in this area. We were one of the founding families of the town of Empire, as a matter of fact. By the time my great-grandfather came along, he had the family’s wealth, but only a portion of his predecessor’s talents. His greatest accomplishment, other than siring my grandfather, of course, was binding Beauregard to this place.

Spirit binding is not an easy thing. My great grandpap spent many years trying to bind the spirits of various people and animals to his will, to various places or objects…some showed promise, but most were an abject failure. That is until he got a group of big game hunters to run down and trap the biggest, meanest gator they could find in Louisiana. Got shipped all the way here on a freight train and it’s been told that it barely fit, though I don’t know if that’s true. In any case, he spent the best part of a year enuring that beast so that when he did the final rituals, the thing’s true self would be left bound to the place you’re in. The man died just a few years later despite his attempts at longevity, and for the longest time poor ol’ Beauregard was just left to run the maze by his lonesome.

He can’t leave it, you see. He’s bound to my family’s blood and to that maze. So…because I’m a nice fella and all, I try to give him entertainment when I can. I don’t know that a ghost gator has much need for food, but damn if he doesn’t seem to like the taste.

We were still running, but it was just panic driving us, with no sense of finding a way out or keeping track of where we’d been. I could feel myself tiring out, and I was about to ask Pat if we should stop for a second and try to get our bearing when I heard a hundred snaps in the hedge wall just behind me. Letting out a cry, I turned around just in time to see a dark shape lunge out of the dark and bite off Pat’s head.

“Oh Jesus! Oh fuck!”

Oooh! I guess I misspoke earlier about the measured pace of his consumption. It has been awhile since we’ve had visitors up here. Just like me, he must get lonely.

Pat’s head was just…gone, and as I slowly backed away, I saw half his chest disappear before the rest of him fell to the ground, red and black pouring out across the white stone path. Above that growing stain, I could hear the invisible thing chewing.

I kept backing up, terrified beyond all reason and knowing that running would do no good. It would run me down and eat me just like my friends, and that sick fuck would sit up in that house all safe by himself, laughing his ass off that his pet monster that his family trapped…

Wait a minute.

Forcing myself to stop was the second hardest thing I’ve ever done. Kneeling down on the path while that unseen thing ate more of Pat was the hardest. I had no way of knowing if this was going to work, but I didn’t know what else to do or try. And if I was going to try, I needed to do it now. He’d just finished Pat’s left leg.

Keeping my voice low, I leaned forward. “I…I don’t know if you can understand me. Maybe you can’t. Or maybe you can, but you don’t care. But…well, I didn’t know that ghost alligators were a thing before tonight, and I don’t have any better options than to try.” Speed up, speed up, he’s swallowing the last foot, oh God…

“So you’re trapped here. So am I. We’re both trapped because of that asshole,” I pointed a finger into the air in the general direction of where I hoped the house might be. “And his asshole family of magicians or necromancers or whatever the fuck they are. And…and…and I think I have a way of getting us both out, if you’ll just hear me out.”

What’re you doing? Praying? How droll. My little gator will make you scream.

I felt cold air blow into my face, thick with the smell of blood and rot. Forcing down my urge to vomit, I took it as a good sign that I still had a face at all. And I started talking again.

---

WHACK “Come out, fuckface.” WHACK “I want to talk to you.” CRACK

The front door of the house splintered away at my last kick and bounced off the far wall. Looking inside, the house looked even more rotten and ramshackle than the outside, with peeling wallpaper and mounds of trash littering the hall.

“Where are you, fucker?”

“How did you get out of the maze?”

I gritted my teeth into a grim smile. I was still terrified, but I was also so fueled by anger and adrenaline that I was pushing past all that fear for the moment. I had to keep going before I thought too much about anything. Sprinting forward, I turned right toward the voice I’d heard. The man was hiding around the corner, a wooden softball bat in his hands. Snatching it from him, I jammed it into his stomach.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, fucker? Tell you what. Come with me and I’ll show you.”

“No…no…I called the police!”

I snorted. “I doubt it, but even if you did...how does that really help you?” Throwing him down in front of me, I glanced around the room. It was filled with computer monitors, most of them showing camera feeds of the grounds and the maze, though one was paused on a video of children hitting a piñata. Oddly enough, in the corner of the room I saw a craft table where a turkey piñata was halfway to being made. I stared back down at him.

“What kind of weird fuck are you?”

The man looked like he was in his sixties, with a fringe of grey hair and a potbelly barely covered by a stained t-shirt. Wet-eyed and trembling, he looked up at me pleadingly. “I…I have money. And…and I can get you whatever you want. Anything.”

I smiled coldly at him. “That’s good. Because the thing I want most is the sick fuck that killed my best friends. I want him to come with me for a little walk.”

“No….no, don’t….”

I hit him in the shoulder hard enough to feel something give. “I’m not fucking asking.”

Grabbing him by his other arm, I pulled him up and drug him outside and down the porch steps. He tried to resist at first, but when he saw I would just drag him, he started begging again. Promising me things, threatening me. I ignored it all, and by the time we got to the entrance to the maze, he was just sniveling quietly.

“It…it’s not fair. I didn’t hurt your friends. It did.”

Grabbing him by both arms, I turned him to face me, his back to the opening of the maze. He let out a painful moan as I pressed into his broken shoulder. “Oh, man. I never thought of it like that. What a persuasive argument.” I shoved him hard, taking him off his feet. When he landed he was inside the maze. “Make it to him and see how he likes it.”

The old man was surprisingly quick to get back on his feet, and was in the middle of leaping clear of the maze’s threshold when a shadow snatched him back and started to tear him apart. It may have been my imagination, but Beauregard seemed to be chewing especially slowly this time.

“See, I figured out that your family is probably what’s keeping him here. And if we get rid of you, maybe that’ll get rid of whatever power you have on him.” I let out a shaky laugh before continuing on. I had to scream to hear myself over the man’s wet and weakening cries, but it was worth it. “See, he had to trust me and hope I was right. Lead me back out of the maze and wait for me to get you. Bring you to him. I guess he’s desperate. I guess you made both of us pretty desperate tonight.”

Just like that, the noise was gone. The man was gone, swallowed whole as he screamed his last scream. Stepping back away from the maze, my heart began to hammer again. What if it didn’t work? Or what if it did work and he ate me anyway once he was out? My breath caught as I saw a dark shadow pass through the maze threshold and into the outer dark of the yard.

There was a brief moment of silence, another stir of cold, fetid air, and I could feel him looking at me. Weighing what to do, maybe. I’ll never know. Because the next second it was gone, and around the corner I heard a colossal screech of metal. Running around the edge of the maze, I saw the gate lay twisted and broken outside the wall.

Blood loud in my ears, I ran for the driveway and then through the gate. I was still terrified and terribly sad, but there would be time for that later. For now I had to follow the driveway down to the county road. Turn right and get to my car. Get home and decide what to tell people and what not to. Running down the moonlit path, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude amid all the other emotions. I was still here. I was alive.

I was free.