He gives me a menacing grin, and I know instantly we’ve found our girl.
“She looks like an ear piercer,” he says.
“The hell is an ear piercer?” I ask, cocking my eyebrow up at him.
“Someone who screams so hard they’ll pierce your ear drum,”
I whack him on the arm. “You’re an idiot.”
We watch from the shadows, hidden from sight, but still able to see the other guests start to arrive.
There’s a couple from Australia that looks like they’re more brother and sister than husband and wife, a bunch of frat bros who probably won’t last the night, and a few other people who aren’t memorable enough for me to pay attention to. Blood is blood. It doesn’t matter how I get it, as long as it hits my fangs, I don’t care much else about the details.
The brunette struggles to get her backpack on her shoulders and I can’t help but smile watching her. She’ll be so fun to chase. I bet she’s the type that trips and falls, making it easy to pounce on. Sure enough, she drops something, making her fan come tumbling off her neck as she bends over to pick it up. My eyes go straight to her ass, taking in its round shape.
Oh, yeah, this is going to be fun, I think as I adjust myself in my pants.
Heading back into the house, I jog up to my room.
In the fall, these rooms serve as a place to inflict terror on the masses who roam these halls. But once the gates close, and the screams stop, they revert back to our personal spaces. At least for us vampires. Some of the other monsters prefer the woods, or in the lake. The witches have built their own community underground, using tunnels they made with their magic. These campers come here under the impression that they’re going to be staying for the week, consenting to round the clock jump scares guaranteed to evoke the best frights any place has to offer. Only they have no idea that the scare actors are real monsters that get off on hunting the depraved.
My body aches from digging traps all night. There are several now stationed and hidden throughout the woods. If any of the campers stray from the main paths, and let’s be real, they always do, they’ll be likely to fall into the 8ft holes. There are many that have been outfitted with large wooden spikes, designed to kill on impact, turning the guests into human shish kabobs.
“What are you doing in here?” Hendricks asks leaning on my open-door frame.
“Just looking for something,” I reply, digging under my bed.
My fingers grip around the small innocuous black box. Bingo.
“What are you doing with that? You think this one, is it?”
I cock my eyebrow up at him with a smile splayed on my lips as I tuck the box into my jean pocket.
“I know she is.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and nods. “I felt it too.”
“This is it. Let’s go make that girl our bride,” I say, wrapping my arm around his neck. We head into the darkening forest, ready to stake our claim on her soul and make her ours forever.
Chapter 3
Lydia
“Follow me, please! Have your ID’s and souls ready to sign over,” a woman with an alarmingly high black ponytail that swishes back and forth as she walks says, gesturing with a clipboard to walk over to her. She has a skeletal mouth and black eyes that show no white, which I assume are contacts. Her outfit looks as if she got into a fight with a tiger because every piece is ripped and appears to be hanging on by nothing more than a few strong threads.
The ride here was easy and ended with all of us belting our lungs out, off-key mostly, toThe Spice Girls.Wannabeis still stuck in my head like the brain worm it is.
“Souls?” Stephanie asks, grabbing her pack. It’s tie-dye, bright neon, and easy to spot from a mile away.
“They have to say that to make us afraid,” I say, trying to use logic to scare away the fear that’s been slowly accumulating the entire ride. We stand in line, feeling the unforgiving sun beating down on us. Sweat is gathering on my lower back, soaking through my thin tank already. Lovely. I hope this place has showers at least. Those have to be off-limits for scare actors, right?
“Next!” The black-haired woman yells out.
“Oh, right. That’s me,” I say.
I hand over my license and sign on the dotted line, trying to ignore the fine print. Especially since I’m pretty sure I saw the word ‘death’ mentioned multiple times in there. It’s probably just a precaution and not what my anxious brain is busy conjuring up.
It’s just a scare camp, Lydia. Nothing more,I tell myself.
