Praise for Patrick C. Greene and His Haunted Hollow Chronicles Red Harvest “Greene has brought a brilliant level of complexity and humanity to a horror novel.” —Book Nerd’s Brain Candy “I found myself getting completely lost in this sleepy little farm community and wishing I could live in a town like this…until the killings started, of course [. . .] Patrick C. Greene doesn’t hold a single thing back.” —Cameron Chaney, YouTube Books by Patrick C. Greene The Haunted Hallow Chronicles Red Harvest Grim Harvest Demon Harvest Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation Demon Harvest The Haunted Hollow Chronicles Patrick C. Greene LYRICAL PRESS Kensington Publishing Corp. www.kensingtonbooks.com Contents Books by Patrick C. Greene Demon Harvest Contents Copyright Dedication Author’s Note Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Epilogue ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Chapter 1 About the Author Copyright To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018 Copyright © 2020 by Patrick C. Greene All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use. Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647. Lyrical Underground and Lyrical Underground logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off. First Electronic Edition: September 2020 ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0832-9 (ebook) ISBN-10: 1-5161-0832-9 (ebook) First Print Edition: September 2020 ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0835-0 ISBN-10: 1-5161-0835-3 Printed in the United States of America Dedication This book is dedicated to my mother, Daisy Juanita Jones, who kept my brothers and me out trick or treating far later than was reasonable. Author’s Note We live in a world of wonderful and amazing technology that gives us instant access to each other and the rest of society. Ember Hollow is not in that world. No cell phones, no internet. Its residents need wit and courage to survive. Quite often, that won’t be enough. Prologue Cronus County, Eastern North Carolina Modern day “Such beautiful country,” Maisie commented, smiling over the edge of her half-open window at another of countless farm fields. Most were desolate and weed-pocked. A few, like this one, were dotted with orange spheres. “Forgive me, Ysabella, but I wish you were wrong.” Ysabella Escher nodded, staring across a similar field from the passenger side of her Mercedes. She had removed her sunglasses and let her window all the way down a few miles back, happy to accept the scents and sounds carried on this October day’s warm wind. The elder witch clutched her left hand in her right, knowing it was a giveaway. No sense in hiding it. Maisie had surely read her growing unease by now. Maisie slowed the Mercedes. “Is it…?” “Getting stronger,” answered her elder. “Worse.” “I’m turning around.” “No, Maisie!” Ysabella raised her trembling hand to her neck. “Just stop. Here.” Maisie pulled off the road, pained to see Ysabella fumbling with the door handle before the car was even fully stopped. Yet, even in physical distress, the sixty-two-year old’s grace was admirable. Ysabella stepped to the edge of the pumpkin field and dropped to her knees, just as a thick stream of crimson fluid burst from her mouth like a firehose opened full-throttle. Maisie clamped her mouth to silence a pained gasp as she watched her elder witch jet-vomit across a quintet of pumpkins and surrounding soil. The red fountain flowed in an impossible volume of fluid. Maisie ran to Ysabella, kneeling beside her teacher, despite her revulsion at the spill. She rubbed the old woman’s shaking shoulders and spoke words of comfort and healing under her breath. At twenty-four, Maisie had already seen a lifetime of strange, wonderful, heartbreaking and terrifying things. But it was never easy to watch her mentor suffer. A minute later, as Ysabella began to gulp shuddery breaths, Maisie held the petite enchantress tightly to keep her from collapsing. Ysabella allowed her weight to rest in Maisie’s arms. The younger woman stroked the elder’s gray-streaked brown curls out of her pained face. Hearing a rising hiss, Maisie dared a glance at the jagged line of smoking and charred ground—like a spent gunpowder fuse—rising from Ysabella’s violent regurgitation. The splashed pumpkins lay collapsed, rotted, disintegrating. It was small comfort for Maisie that it wasn’t actual blood her teacher had spewed, but an etheric by-product of her visions. The crone took Maisie’s hand. “It’s much worse than I could have foreseen here,” she weakly croaked. “This town. This…evil.” Maisie traced a sigil of vitality on Ysabella’s back with her finger. “And you won’t let me take you away from here. No matter how I beg.” “Call…the others,” Ysabella said. “Get them here now.” “Ysabella, respectfully…we…we’re not complete. We need to make our coven whole before we—” “No time. It’s too close to Halloween,” said Ysabella, eyes blazing blue with late-day sun and earnest wisdom. “Samhain. If we don’t start now…no number of us will be enough to save this place.” Chapter 1 American Witch Ember Hollow settlement Circa 1670 Hezekiah Hardison smiled at the memory of childish fear that had descended upon him like a vulture the first time he made this nocturnal sojourn back in midsummer. On this night, the half-moon provided more than enough light for him to traverse the footpath between fields and forest from
