Page 154 of Property of Bob

*

The haunted house looked a hell of a lot different with all the lights on.

I’d spent enough time inside the place that none of it bothered me. I knew where every fake body dropped, where the air cannons blasted, and which walls moved.

Ramona didn’t.

Skull unlocked the front door and stepped inside first.

“Lights?” Ramona asked.

“No,” Shay said immediately.

Skull looked back at her. “We’re checking security,” he reminded her.

“We can check security in the dark.”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Why?” Shay whined. “This place isn’t near as scary with the lights on.”

“Because I don’t feel like scraping you off the floor when you trip over something,” Prime droned from behind us.

Shay crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t trip.”

Skull flipped the lights on.

Ramona stepped inside beside me. Pearl, Prime, and Shay moved ahead with McKayla while Skull locked the door behind us.

I stayed beside Ramona. We moved through the first section slowly.

Skull checked the emergency exit while I looked at one of the cameras mounted near the ceiling.

Nothing looked wrong. No damaged locks. No wires cut. No obvious sign someone had been here, but that didn’t mean shit anymore.

The killer knew our cameras. Knew our routines. Knew when we were standing in his fucking office.

I didn’t trust anything.

“That’s disgusting.”

I looked over.

Ramona was staring at a fake corpse hanging upside down from the ceiling.

“That’s Gary.”

She looked at me. “You named him?”

“Piney did.”

“Why Gary?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

She stared at the corpse. “Hi, Gary.”

Shay was telling McKayla where one of the actors normally hid when Pearl stopped in front of a coffin.