DEKE
TWO HOURS LATER,“Like a Nightmare” by Deadset Society plays inside my SUV as I drive us to Silence. The sun has officially set, and we decided to go earlier rather than later to beat the crowd and traffic since it’s a Friday night.
Austin leans forward from the back seat and taps Cole on the shoulder. “Turn that down for a second, please?” He does as she asks, and she begins to read something to us off her phone. “Did you know they can touch you? I’m on their website, and it says that you should not wear open-toed shoes or nice clothing. That you may have to crawl, jump, or run to get free. And that you may havebloodthrown on you.”
Cole stiffens in the passenger seat at the mention of blood. And I wonder if he has the same thought as me.
Five months ago
Cole pulls up to the Lowes estate and doesn’t even bother turning his car off. He jumps out, and I follow him up the stairs, and he barges into Bruce’s house. Celeste, Austin’s stepmother, lies dead at the bottom of the stairs. Neither one of us gives her any thought.
“Austin?” Cole yells, pulling the gun out of the back of his jeans. I’m holding mine down by my side, and it’s ready with a bullet in the chamber. “Austin?” He shouts again, running down the hallway.
He follows the blood trail down the hall, and my throat tightens at what we’re going to find. It won’t be good.
He takes a sharp right, entering the kitchen. “Austin?” I hear him choke on her name, and my heart begins to pound. What did he find?
I enter behind him and gasp. “What the fuck?”
Austin lies in a pool of blood on her father’s marble floor. Fuck! She’s bleeding too much. Her shirt and her jeans are soaked. Her once sun-kissed skin looks pale, and the pool of blood underneath her slowly gets bigger. The smell alone almost knocks me off my feet. Kellan still holds the gun in his hand. Why did he shoot his best friend’s girl? I don’t understand.
“Take him,” Cole calls out, not looking up from her body. He goes to touch her but then pulls back.
She’s dead. I’ve helped him kill enough people to know what a lifeless body looks like. “She needs help,” I argue. Looking over her with narrowed eyes, I know there’s not much we can do for her at this point. Kellan killed the only thing Cole has ever loved. And Cole will make Kellan suffer in ways he can’t even imagine.
“Take him!” Cole barks this time. “Help is on the way.” He turns his attention to Austin, dismissing me.
I look over at Kellan leaning up against the countertop with a knife stuck into his side. He smiles, looking over at Austin lying on the floor. Fucking prick. I grab him by the back of his neck and rip the gun out of his hand, before yanking him away from the countertop.
I’m not sure how Cole would handle seeing Austin covered in blood again. Even if he knew it was fake.
“For the ones who think they are fearless, they have a ‘blackout’ attraction where you are given a glow stick to navigate your way out.” She goes on to read about Silence.
“Pass,” Becky says.
I smile to myself. She’s avoided me since I played with her in the kitchen back at the house. She stuck by Austin’s side while she got ready. It’s like she’s afraid to be left alone with me again because she doesn’t trust herself with me. Silly girl.Space won’t save you from me.
“I think that sounds like the most fun,” Austin argues.
I watch Cole relax into his seat and smile at Austin’s words.She isn’t afraid of anything.
“You have to sign a waiver for that, though,” Austin adds.
“I’m not signing shit,” Becky mumbles to herself.
“Silence was once an insane asylum that was shut down back in 1984 due to a patient being killed. She died by strangulation. She managed to get out of her straitjacket and hung herself by the straps.”
“God,” Becky whispers.
“Afterward, the place was bought by the Thompson family. Over the years, they have added new attractions to Silence, but the part that makes it stand out from all the other haunted houses in Texas is the fact that it is actually haunted.”
“I should have stayed home,” Becky whines.
Austin continues, “Silence sits on a hundred acres and has over 200,000 square feet of attractions. That does not include the original underground tunnels that the staff used to transfer dead bodies from one building to another …” She pauses for a second and then looks up at the back of Cole’s head. “I wonder if we get to walk in the tunnels.”
“You can’t be serious?” Becky asks.
“I mean, wouldn’t that be awesome?” Austin goes on. “If the tunnels were theblackoutattraction?”
