Ollie blinked, before quickly pulling his phone from his pocket. He winced when it didn’t actually turn on, and instead just flashed the dead battery sign. “Ugh…”
“Forgot to charge it during lunch, didn’t you?”
Pocketing it, he wrinkled his nose. “Maybe…”
She giggled, before asking almost absently, as her gaze traveled past him to the zombies, “So, how’s everything going?”
Ollie smiled. “Good, we haven’t run out of candy yet, but then, I did buy more than last year. Though…” He glanced down into the two deep tubs in his cart that were both half empty. “It looks like I’ll need to fill my cart up after I finish this refill run.”
“Pretty sure the numbers have already beat last year’s record,” Jahla said as she moved closer to the display.
“I think so, too. Elias will no doubt have the numbers for us next week.”
“The question is…numbers in relation to what? Visitors? How far we blew past our budget? Or possibly, once again, how much money you are losing by not going through insurance for that fire damage?”
He scoffed. “Likely all three.”
Ignoring Elias’ endless efforts of annoying him into compliance about the fire thing, the fact was, Halloween brought in a lot of two things: donations and…expenses. It was always up in the air as to whether they’d make a profit or not. Mainly as there was a mix of free events and paid. Though the paid ones were always just a small fee, and those had all happened earlier in the week.
“Hard to believe these things are really real,” Jahla said with a sigh after a moment.
He blinked, eyeing the display.
“I'm guessing you are talking about witchy related things and not the wax figures. Though…” His gaze was drawn to the one in the middle again. “These things sure as hell look a lot more real than last year’s.” Ollie poked the reaching hand of the one in the middle, wrinkling his nose at the dry texture that reminded him far too much of real skin. “Doesn’t even feel like wax anymore.”
She frowned, poking the one nearest her. “Feels waxy to me.”
He touched the one she had, frowning on finding that it felt like it should—textured wax, just like touching a shaped candle. When Ollie touched the one on the right and found it was the same, his frown deepened. “Why does the middle one feel so diff?—"
Ollie’s scream was echoed by Jahla’s as the middle zombie suddenly moved, letting out a high-pitched grating screech from hell.
Red jumped, dropping his lantern, as he heard two very real screams in the distance mixing with the fake and almost whispered ones playing over the library’s PA system. Eyes widening when he recognized both screams, he took off running in the direction they were coming from, his witch hat falling off as he did.
“To this day—”Noble’s words were cut off when he heard what sounded like Ollie, and if he had to guess, Jahla, screaming.
He stared wide-eyed at the group in front of him, who seemed to not realize the screams were real, before blurting, “And to this day, on stormy nights, the sounds of scraping chains can be heard throughout the Grand Chester House. This marks the end of the Local Haunted House Ghost Tour. You can find a pamphlet about the Grand Chester House, along with a list of all the books that have been read on the tour, at the circulation desk. Have fun, bye!”
Not bothering to wait for a response, Noble took off running without another word.
“Shit!”Ollie squealed as he yanked the back of his blouse free of the zombie’s grasp, with the help of Jahla, as she grabbed his hand and tugged him forward, not letting go. His bells jingled with each step he ran, ensuring there was no chance of hiding or escape. Ollie found himself starting to gasp for air as he attempted to keep up with his friend’s longer stride, which helped her, but hurt him.
Running through the halls with a used-to-be-wax zombie chasing them wouldn’t be the best idea under normal circumstances, but it was much worse given how crowded the damn library was.
Thankfully, the zombie didn’t seem interested in anyone except them, and his bells, or possibly the zombie’s constant screeching, seemed to alert people to move just in time, as they turned to look at the sound. As they maneuvered around, people—some gasping and others screaming when they spotted whatwas chasing them—generally got out of the way. Nobody made any effort to help, however, as they all likely thought it was fake.
Taking a right down the stairs, Ollie rasped, “Where are we going?!”
“Away from it!?” Jahla choked out.
“We can’t go outside!”
“Office! Your office!”
“It’s locked!”
“Then run faster!” she snapped breathlessly as she sped up, which caused Ollie’s legs to burn more than they already were.
On reaching the bottom of the steps, they were spotted by a group of teens. And as they ran around the corner, by the main circulation desk, heading towards the large hall that led to the back, one yelled out, “That’s epic, Ollie! I didn’t know you had added costume actors this year!”
