Page 10 of Stay Scared

The skull mask turns back. “You think laughing makes you look tough?”

The man’s smile falters.

The performer leans close enough that the painted teeth nearly reach his cheek. “Keep doing it. Makes you look like you want me to come back.”

Then he keeps walking.

He never needs to raise his voice. His body does the work. The temporary barriers seem less reliable when he passes them, and the tactical gear only adds to what is already there. He moves with the certainty of a man accustomed to deciding how much space everyone else gets.

Near the end of the barrier, he changes direction.

I know which foot will turn first.

My fingers curl against the edge of my jacket. I don’t know where I’ve seen that walk before, but my body flinches like it already knows.

The skull performer looks toward the press lane and sees me.

One boot stops half a stride ahead of the other. The hesitation lasts too long. Gray eyes watch me through the uneven openings of the mask, and red light catches a scratch beneath one eyehole where the paint has worn through to darker material. The aggression remains in his posture, drawn tighter around him now.

My heel shifts back before I stop it.

He has every reason to know who I am. Decay Brigade invited me personally. Anyone assigned to Final Girl Protocol would have received a photograph.

Recognition should not feel like this.

He looks at me as though the photograph was unnecessary.

A staff member opens another section of barrier, and the crowd moves between us. For several seconds, I see only the upper half of the skull through coats and shoulders. When he appears again, he is beside a group near the ordinary entrance.

He drives one palm against the barrier beside a guest’s hand, making the metal shake. His arm withdraws exactly the way I knew it would.

I watch him longer than I mean to.

I have never seen this man before, but my body is becoming difficult to convince.

I turn toward the abandoned ticket booths and notice another performer standing beside the fence beyond them. His mask is plain white, without a painted mouth or decoration. Narrow openings conceal most of his eyes. He wears dark work clothes beneath a long coat, his hands loose at his sides.

He never interacts with the line. He watches it instead, tracking the staff access points and the cameras beneath the old park signage, then returns to the crowd. Each time he reaches me, he lingers.

The skull wants people to know he can put his hands on them. This man makes me think about his hands without moving either one.

His eyes drop to the body camera strapped over my chest.

The harness has dragged my shirt tight beneath my jacket, one strap pulling across my ribs while the clasp of my bra presses into my spine. Neither problem is visible to him, yet the weight of his stare makes me suddenly aware of every breath moving against the straps.

My next inhale catches, and his head tilts slightly.

I resist the urge to straighten my jacket. Adjusting it would admit he has gotten beneath the layers without touching me, so I leave everything exactly where it is and let him look.

The harness stops feeling like camera equipment. With him watching, it feels more like something fastening me in place.

Then the white mask turns sharply toward a camera mounted above the entrance. Its lens has shifted several degrees away from the queue, and he forgets me immediately.

I hate how quickly I notice.

He studies the camera. When he looks back, I am still standing exactly where he left me, and something about the angle of his head makes that feel expected.

I move closer to the ticket booth and pretend to check the body-camera angle in its dirty glass. The reflection shows the queue behind me, warped by grime and old adhesive from removed posters. The blank white mask remains near the fence, his body still while his head follows me.