“The idea is for you to find someone who encourages you and helps you build, not someone who tears you down. And notsomeone who acts like—” I pull away from both of them mid-way through Mads’ lecture, turning to justlookat them.
“No, not tonight,” I insist, though there’s a pleading note in my voice I wish I could get rid of. “Not tonight, okay? Not this month, not next month. I’m…” Reaching up, I drag my fingers through my hair, tousling it as I scrape my nails against my scalp for comfort. “I’m past it, but that doesn’t mean I’mpast it,”I force myself to say.
At their shared look, frustration-covered envy bubbles to life in my throat. Ihatehow envious I am of their relationship, and just how natural it is. But it isn’t their fault, and I know they just want to help me, that they’re just trying to push me to take chances instead of being the house gremlin who’s chronically online with only two real friends.
But it’s not their fault, and they don’t deserve for me to say something unkind due to my frustration.
“I’m going to walk ahead. Neither of you is afraid of this place.” It’s a fact, even though Madison likes to clutch onto my arm. “Meet me at the end? Just…give me a few minutes, please. Let me pretend to have some space. I’m not mad. I just need?—”
“We get it,” Brynn interrupts. But she turns a glare on the zombie who’s not-so-subtly eavesdropping on our conversation. “Shouldn’t you be playing dead?” she asks as she rounds on him with her hands on her hips, pulling a grin to my face.
“Love you guys.” Really, I could nevernotlove them. They don’t get mad when I need space to regulate myself, and they’re good with most of my stupid plans or last-minute waffle cravings.
I’d definitely set a man on fire for either of them, no matter the context.
My steps take me outside, through the cemetery and into the greenhouse, where a moss-dotted woman with yellow contacts talks about her garden and wields a little trowel at me. It makesme smile, but the room itself is small enough that I pass through it quickly.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the floor is all static rooms and settings. Sound effects play from speakers poorly hidden in corners, but the scenes are more detailed than some of the better haunted houses I’ve been to. I stop to study the details of a girl’s bedroom, trying to read the scrawled notes written in ‘blood’ on the mirror while picking my way around spots on the sticky carpet. Maybe this is an advertisement for the terrors of being a teenager, since I’m not sure what else there is to be afraid of with mannequins torn apart and an ax sticking out of the pillow.
Back out on the landing, I glance down the hallway to see a little commotion at the foyer, wincing in sympathy as the guy taking money gets chewed out by a man gripping the shirt of a boy who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. I hesitate, not that I can do anything, but from my vantage point, I can see an angry-looking woman who seems authoritative enough to be the manager, stalking toward them both with murder in her eyes and a walkie-talkie clutched in her hand like a weapon.
She definitely has this covered, I decide. Still, I watch for a few moments, long enough to see her lean up on the balls of her feet so she can spit threats in the man’s face. I have to cover my smile with one hand before striding up the flight of stairs against one wall marked with handwritten signs proclaiming ‘danger’ and ‘do not enter’ in fake blood that’s sticky and thick on the paper. Caution tape is wrapped around the banister, but I make my way up without really using it as a grip. Fog pours from machines against the walls, but the path here is clear, with only one door open and strobe lights beckoning from the first bedroom.
I don’t expect it just to be a static scene, but the room with fake, dangling body parts and hanging plastic animal corpses is abandoned. Music plays quietly, and the fog machines arecranked up so high that it’s starting to fill the room. Not to mention, I cansmellthe chemicals used to generate the smoky aura around me that inhibits my vision. Walking deeper in, I end up with my hand pressed over my face to breathe without my eyes watering, though it doesn’t quite work.
When I can no longer see my hand in front of my face, I end up with one arm stretched out in front of me, fingers outstretched and looking for anything in front of me as I edge along. “This is ridiculous,” I mumble, mostly to myself. I understand using what you can to give off an eerie atmosphere, but this feels absolutely ridiculous.
Movement in the fog makes me jump, but I just end up glaring at where the smoke is parted and rolling in wisps. “This is kind of over the top,” I call, voice sounding muffled behind my hand. “Can you at least tell me where to go? Is something malfunctioning, or—” My words stutter out when fingers wrap around mine, trying to tug me forward. But I don’t move. With my feet splayed under me, I stand there in surprise as the hand gently pulls me forward again, encouraging and helpful.
“Okay, so like, your fog machine is totally on the fritz,” I murmur, still blocking my nose with my hand. The fog isn’t so awful now that I’m used to it, but my eyes are still watering, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the smell of the fake fog out of my nose after tonight. “I’m coming.” The music and sound effects are loud enough that I suddenly wonder if the actor had tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him with the way everything pounds and thumps relentlessly against my ears. Music and spooky ambience seem to echo around the room as I’m led blindly through the fog, their fingers tugging mine and movements confident.
It’s a good thing the actors know this place well enough not to need to be able to see. I pass through a door with them, my other hand up to tap against the frame, but I still can’t see anything inthe billowing fog. In this smaller room, the fog seems even more oppressive, and somehow even more impenetrable.
Seeing more than an inch in front of my nose quickly becomes a joke, and I stumble a little when the volunteer in front of me suddenly comes to a stop. Both of my hands come forward looking for support, and the pads of my fingers brush against the rough fabric of the person’s coat. I grab at it like a lifeline and stumble forward until the sight of a familiar mask looms at me through the too-thick fog.
A wolf-skull mask.
I jerk back a little, lips parting in surprise. It has to be a coincidence, I tell myself, though the mask really appears to be exactly the same as the one from Nightmare Ridge. Fog billows between us, and as he looms closer, I can’t help but stumble back a few steps. My back hits the wall of what I now realize is a slaughterhouse scene, as plastic chains sway back and forth on either side of me. He pushes one out of the way, the chain brushing against the black of his coat, before leaning his arms against the wall on either side of me to trap me against it.
My heart flutters in my chest, and I have to blink rapidly to stop my eyes from watering in the fake fog. “Your fog machine is…really cranked up,” I murmur to the actor quietly. I can hear the softness of his breathing behind the mask, and as my eyes try to adjust, I think I see the same black coat and hood he wore at the mental asylum.
This can’t be the same guy.
He moves, one hand coming up, and I jerk back when I catch the shine of metal in his grip. The knife he holds isn’t like the cheap plastic props I’ve seen littering this haunt, and my chest tightens at the sight of it.
“What are you…?” But the words die in my throat as he taps the blade against my lower lip, silencing me as an anxious cloud of butterflies erupts into flight in my stomach and chest. Theblade is cold and heavy; sharp against my skin. My hands curl against the wall behind me, and I press back as hard as I can, trying to become one with the wood panels.
But he only moves closer, leaning in with a sound like a soft chuckle, and the sharp edge of thevery realknife trails down my lip, over my skin, and down my throat. The movement pulls a gasp from me, and all thoughts of what I would actually do in a horror movie to prevent being the first one dead suddenly evaporate as my eyes close, trying to shut out the situation.
“No, pretty thing.” His voice is soft in my ear, and the material of the mask is slick against my cheek. “Open your eyes. I want you to see.”
“It’s not a real knife.” I force myself to do just that, prying my eyes open as my heart slams against my ribs. “It’s not real. This isn’t real. You’re…”
“Not real?” He tilts his head to one side, like a curious puppy, and leans back to tug off one glove, wiggling his fingers in my face. “Are you so sure about that, babe?” His voice is barely audible, but it still sends a shiver down my spine. As I watch, he draws the blade of the knife across the pad of one finger, causing a dark red, almost black, bead of blood to well to the surface when he presses down hard enough to part the skin.
“Oh, my god. What are you—” I break off when he suddenly reaches forward, gripping my chin with his fingers and stroking his now-bloody thumb over my bottom lip.
His blood iswarmandwetand very real. The world seems to stop around us as he spreads it from the pad of his thumb across my lip like some fucked up lipstick. All I can do is stare at him, my lips slightly parted and my mind completely blank with confusion, and something else.
