Marcus DeWitt could not wait to get the hell out of Maple Hollow. Every second in this backward, racist, redneck shithole of a town felt like someone was rubbing sandpaper over his skin. He was the only Black kid in his senior class. The only one. And that meant the jokes never stopped.

  The old white folks still talked like it was the fifties. They said "colored" with a straight face. Some even dropped the n-word when they thought no one was listening. Hell, some old bastards said it while looking him right in the eye, daring him to make a scene. The teenagers were just as bad, only sneakier. They coughed slurs into their hands. Sent him cartoons with monkeys and watermelons. Said he was sensitive when he got pissed.

  Maple Hollow had always been racist like this. Back in the day, they had Whites Only signs in restaurant windows. The diner near Main Street used to have a colored entrance around the back. Civil rights did not really make it here until the early eighties. Maybe.

  In 1965, a Black man named Jeremiah Cain got lynched on bullshit charges. They said he raped a white girl. He did not. Everyone knew he did not. It did not matter. A bunch of good old boys dragged him out of his shack one night, beat him with chains, and strung him up from a tree near Miller’s Pond. The sheriff at the time, Everett Brandt, was there too. Holding the rope. Laughing about it. Nobody was ever arrested. Nobody was ever charged. The local paper ran a story calling Cain a dangerous rapist. Old folks still talked about the men who killed him like they were heroes. Pillars of the town.

  Marcus had read about it in a brittle old newspaper he found in the Maple Hollow Library basement. The archive smelled like mildew and secrets. The librarian, Miss Edna Bales, a crusty white woman with stiff gray curls and breath like spoiled milk, tried to stop him. Told him it was best not to dig up ghosts. That only made him read it twice. Then he made copies and took them home. Just in case someone tried to make it disappear.

  Six more weeks. That was all he had left in this shithole. He had been accepted to a decent college out of state. Not Ivy League, but solid. Diverse. Real people. Real culture. No Confederate flags hanging out of pickup trucks. He was going to walk across that stage at graduation, take his diploma, and flip this entire town the bird on the way out.

  He leaned against the side of his busted Honda Civic behind the school gym and lit a cigarette. The sky was pink-orange, one of those pretty sunsets the town always bragged about. Like scenery made up for everything rotten underneath.

  Marcus took a long drag and exhaled slow. He wondered if he should bother going to prom. Probably not. But then again, maybe he could have some fun before he skipped town. Maybe he could go out with a bang. Literally. Ask a white girl, just to piss everybody off.

  Cassie Juno came to mind.

  White, blonde, blue-eyed, captain of the cheer team. She was the walking definition of small-town hot. The kind of girl country songs were written about. Every racist white boy's fantasy. Hell, her tits had showed up often in his jerk-off fantasies too, and he had no shame about it. She had a rebel streak. Wore cutoff jeans and bared her midriff. Had legs for miles. Said things just to rile her churchgoing mother. She had that hot preacher's daughter vibe. The kind of girl who moaned the loudest when she sinned.

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  Marcus had jacked off more than once thinking about Cassie Juno riding him. Her mouth full of gasps and contradictions. Her tits bouncing while she shouted his name. No shame in that. Every guy in school had jerked off to Cassie at least once. But he liked to think he added a little something extra to the fantasy. The kind of scene that would make the old white men in town die of aneurysms.

  Maybe she would say yes if he asked her. Maybe she had a thing for danger. For pissing off her parents. Maybe she wanted her first time to be unforgettable. He could make it unforgettable. He would be her first and last black cock before she ran back to her little country life.

  Maybe he would get lucky. Prom night was tradition. If you had a date, you were supposed to get laid after the dance. Cassie did not have a boyfriend. Rumor said she was still a virgin. Marcus could change that. Take her v-card. Introduce her to something long and black she would never forget. That alone would make the old men of Maple Hollow grind their dentures to dust.

  He laughed just thinking about it. Some of them still acted like a Black boy touching a white girl meant the end of the world. Like the ghosts of their slave-owning ancestors were still rocking on the porch with shotguns in hand.

  Or maybe he would ask Amber Griggs. Petite brunette. Big brown eyes. Wore thick glasses. Daughter of Principal Griggs, the guy who always stared at Marcus like he wanted to search his backpack. Amber had a secret pervy streak. Marcus had caught her watching him in gym class once, biting her lip while he changed.

  Or maybe Fiona Mallory. Redhead. Pale skin, green eyes, body built like a lingerie model. Daughter of Mayor Mallory, the most conservative man in Maple Hollow. A man who once said multiculturalism was a communist scam. Yeah, that would be poetic. Take his princess to prom, fuck her in the back seat of his Civic, and make her scream so loud the neighbors called the cops. Fiona was a Celtic beauty with a bloodline going back to Ireland. He could introduce a bit of diversity, a bit of Africa into the bloodline.

  The perfect little princesses of crusty old white men. Take one of them to prom, bend her over the hood of his beat-up Honda, fuck her brains out, and wreck every old bigot's dreams for a month. Then leave town and never look back.

  He was still grinning when something hit him from behind.

  The world blinked out before he could turn around.

  He woke up freezing.

  His arms were numb, stretched tight behind him. Something rough cut into his wrists. Rope. His legs were bound too. He was lying on his back on something hard and cold. Stone. His whole body hurt. His skin burned.

  He looked down and screamed.

  He was naked. Tied to an altar in the woods.

  Trees surrounded him in a black ring. The wind whispered through the branches like laughter.

  "No" he shouted. "Help"

  Something rustled in the shadows. A figure stepped into the clearing. Tall. Covered in a black robe. A goat mask on its face. Not a plastic one from a Halloween store. This looked old. Real. Horns twisted up like black snakes. Eyes hollow.

  The figure said nothing.

  It raised a switchblade.

  "No" Marcus screamed again, thrashing against the ropes. "Please. Please don't"

  The blade came down.

  A sharp pain sliced across his neck. His scream choked into a gurgle. Blood poured out of him like someone knocked over a pitcher.

  His vision blurred.

  The last thing he saw was the goat mask leaning in. Watching him die.

  Then the world went black and still.

  Far off, in the night, something laughed.

  Something ancient.

  Something that had waited a long time to be fed again.