The place was called Bloody Ranch. During the Halloween season, anyway. For the rest of the year it was just Nettle Ranch. It was a hay farm - the farm that supplied her own family’s cattle and sheep farms - and one of the oldest farms in the county, having been around for almost 200 years. Over the last 30 years, the Dobson’s - who had purchased the ranch in the 1970′s - had converted some of the old buildings into haunted houses.
This included a rebuilt version of the original farmhouse that had burned down in 1922, as well as two empty barns and an old tractor shed. They also had a haunted hay ride through the nearby woods and a haunted maze made specifically for children in the hay fields.
Annie had been coming to this haunted house every year since she was five. The first few times she’d gone along with her parents, but when she was 12 her parents allowed her to go with just her brother Will.
Will had never been the greatest chaperone, but he was leagues better than either Miguel or Cian. Usually Will would drop her off at one of the houses and then make his way over to the food stalls until she was done. Not great for when she needed a cuddle afterwards, but far better than the devil duo who would do their best to make her experience as awful as possible.
This time, however, Will wasn’t available. But, someone else was...
“Oh, c’mon! Please?” she begged the man who had finally agreed to visit her family’s ranch. “You wont even have to go inside any of the houses!”
