Page 89 of The Dead Don’t Scream

A deep bell tolls across the farm. Once. I run.

RHYS

Sloane knows the maze now. That makes her more difficult to hunt. It also makes her reckless. She cuts through a service path concealed behind the northern wall, ducks beneath the old bridge, and disappears into the carnival section before Dante can intercept her. He curses through my earpiece.

“She cheated.”

“She adapted.”

“She showed me her ass on camera.”

“I saw.”

A pause.

“You saw?”

“We all saw.”

Callum’s voice enters the channel.

“Stop talking.”

Dante laughs.

“Jealous Scarecrow.”

“Find her.”

I remove the earpiece. Tonight’s rules are slightly different. Sloane approved them herself. She may use the hidden passages. We may not. She receives a three-minute advantage after each capture. We take the ribbon representing us only after she gives permission. The hunt ends when Callum takes the final gold ribbon. He insisted on being last.

Sloane agreed far too quickly. That concerns me. I enter the corn. The skull mask narrows my vision but sharpens everything else. A broken stalk. A footprint in the mud. White lace caught on a thorn. Sloane wants me to find her.

She simply intends to make me work for it. I follow her trail toward the equipment shed where I caught her last year. The door stands open. A strip of black ribbon lies across the threshold. Not the one from her wrist.

A decoy. I enter. The room is dark. The padded table has been moved against the wall. One lantern burns in the corner, illuminating a message painted across the floor. TOO SLOW, REAPER. The door slams behind me. I turn. Sloane throws herself from the shadows.

Her hands strike my chest. Her momentum forces me backward one step before I catch her wrists. She attempts to twist free. I turn her and pin her against the wall. Her laughter fills the shed.