His face contorted in rage, Archibald screamed, “Did you really think I would stand by and allow you put an end to my revenge without a fight?!” The older man clenched his fists at his sides and raised his hands before him, then slowly grinned as a deadly scythe appeared clutched tightly in his grasp. “I can assure you it will not be as easy as you thought.”

Knowing that in her present state, Susan was unable to protect herself, Justin slowly inched over to stand between his still unconscious wife and the lethal blade. His eyes searched the undergrowth for anything that he could use as a defensive weapon. With each step he took toward his injured wife, Archibald swung the menacing scythe, the bright morning sun reflecting off the razor-sharp edge of the blade as it arched through the air. As Justin got closer to where she lay, Archibald’s attacks came more rapidly, and the young man dodged the wild assaults while still franticly looking for a weapon.

Justin jumped back quickly to avoid an especially deep swing of the blade and he spotted it; laying just a few feet away and partially hidden beneath the prospering weeds, was an old shovel. Waiting for Archibald’s next attack before acting, Justin ducked to avoid a swing aimed to take off his head and lunged to the right, rolling as he hit the ground. He grabbed up the shovel and used its long handle as a shield against the next crashing blow from the scythe.

When his heavy blow was abruptly stopped, the resulting impact pushed Archibald off balance and caused him to rock backward on his heels, allowing Justin the few moments he needed to regain a standing position and close the distance between himself and Susan. He was just taking a defensive position in front of her, when he heard a strangled moan from her, followed by the sound of something wet hitting the ground. After dodging the next attack, Justin turned his head slightly and saw Susan struggling to sit up, and she was spitting blood out of her mouth from a split lower lip.

“You okay?” he asked, as he refocused his attention on the spectral attacker just in time to avoid his next attack. Out the corner of his eye, Justin saw Susan’s nod and he began drawing Archibald and the scythe away from her.

Once he was sure there wasn’t a possibility that Susan would be the target of any fatal blows, Justin went on the offensive and swung the shovel head around and narrowly missed cutting Archibald with the rusted edge. The older man’s smile faded when an upswing with the pan of the shovel head connected with the underside of his jaw, knocking his head backward.

Before Archibald could recover from that blow, Justin quickly swung the jagged edge of the shovel at his thighs. Archibald jumped backward to avoid the blade, but not far enough, as the sharpened edge sliced through skin and muscle.

After finally being able to move into a sitting position, Susan stared and watched the battle taking place just yards away from her. She gasped when Justin was unable to completely avoid the sharp curved blade of the scythe and it sliced through the shoulder of his jacket and shirt, a thin line of blood appearing across his exposed skin. Susan glanced down at her shattered arm; although the skin was intact and the fracture did not appear to be dislocated, the extent of the break left her hand and forearm completely useless to assist Justin.

Tears rolling down her cheeks from the terrible pain, she watched as Justin once again went on the offensive, slicing and hacking at Archibald with the flat head of the shovel. Susan was so engrossed in the fight going on in front of her that when her name was spoken from behind, she started and nearly fell over onto her face. Looking around, searching for the voice, she was shocked to see Emma standing between the graves, motioning to her.