Page 13 of Into Pitch

Easing forward, I pick it up between two fingers and look to the little plague doctor that looks back.

Imogen is going to lose her shit.

I click it to my bracelet, earning my first charm, and a lock disengages behind me.

Ripping around on my heel, I look to where the glass has given way across the room to a shadowed corridor.

Right—the only way out is forward.

Gathering what is left of myself, I march forward.

The strobe lights are back, and beyond the mirrored room is only more disorienting. A scream ricochets in my ear and I spin on my heel to try and locate it. The hallways no longer make sense, and everything I encounter seems a little too real.

I pick up my pace, crossing into another room and stalling out when I find a group of bodies tangled on a large bed that takes the center of strobing lights. Is everyone just screwing each other here?

I hurry past, not looking for a second entanglement after the mental mind fuck the last one was.

The next room a staffer pivots me toward has me sliding to a halt, blinking in horror at the scene unfolding before me. A pained bellow pierces the air before it chokes off into a sob from the man strapped on an old operating table, his head tipped back to me as someone saws into his wrist. Seeking comfort I am too shellshocked to give.

“Won’t be touching kiddies no more will you?” The woman doing the sawing cackles and I flinch at the spray of blood that erupts across the tiled floor.

This place is insane.

That can’t be real… can it?

The woman looks up as if she is just realizing that she has an audience, her face twisting in distaste. She’s dressed in a nurses uniform complete with the strange little hat atop her head you’d see on Halloween. This outfit certainly looks like one you’d find on a shelf at Spirit Halloween.

“This room ain’t for you,” she snaps and I couldn’t agree more.

I stumble, pushing forward into the next hall and falling into a group of girls that scream and look to me with eyes rounded in horror. One of them holds a bloodied bandage over her eye that is leaking with realism.

“Is—is that real?” I croak.

She sobs and her friends begin to shove themselves down the hall. Panic spikes and I spin to the sound of a chainsaw starting up behind me.

“No fucking way,” I hiss and stumble back when I find a man rounding the corner toward me and the gaggle of girls falling apart at my back.

“Absolutely-fucking-not,” I hiss and dart to where random shit is piled in a corner, shoved aside by whoever had cleaned this cesspool for whatever this event really is. I pick up the pipe and heft it in my hand as the girls at my back beat at the iron door that leads to wherever else this labyrinth of hell is supposed to take us.

He hefts his chainsaw higher and the sound screeches right alongside the girls at my back.

“You want some?” I snarl, lifting my pipe higher.

Like hell am I going out hacked to pieces. He chuckles behind his mask and the click of a lock disengages behind me, the sudden lack of bodies at my back has me moving. I don’t dare turn my back to the man matching each of his steps to my own. I stumble through the newly opened door behind me, flipping the chainsaw-wielder off before slamming the door between us. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turn to face what comes next and find this hall absolutely empty.

“What the…?”

Where had the girls gone?

I blink, the light doesn’t strobe but paints everything a deep red. The white walls. The white tiles beneath my feet. The doors that are closed along it and painted with numbers.

I need to find Imogen and get the hell out of this place.

I don’t dare relinquish the pipe in my hand as I move down the near silent corridor. My breath held as I pause outside one door and lean toward it, frowning when I hear the unfiltered sounds of pleasure coming from inside. A very clear picture of indulgence beginning to paint Pitch.

I could start kicking in doors, but part of me knows Imogen would have kept moving forward. Would have followed the rules just in case she was searching for me as well. My heart is in my throat as I carefully pass each door, pipe raised in defense as I take a bend and freeze when I find another staff member in that nondescript black mask.

“I swear to fuck if you send me into a murder den, I will break every rule and come back to personally paint you all over these walls.” I hiss, officially up to my ears with how done I am with this place.