The air turned thick and musty as we stepped over the threshold and drafts hit me, like there was fake fog. My friends immediately started laughing and making surprised sounds, but since I couldn’t see what they were seeing, I had to rely on everything else to get a picture of the atmosphere in my head.
I absorbed the scent of water on rocks, like a cave, and the echoes of muffled screams, howls, and cries in the distance. Some of it was sound effects, but others clearly weren’t.
And somewhere, far off, the merry, child-like tune of a carousel pierced the windy night.
Something touched the top of my head, and I ducked, my heart leaping in my chest as I laughed. They had people in the rafters.
Coldfield was a Halloween attraction that popped up a couple of years ago, and no one knew who owned it, but everyone seemed to love it. Overnight—every September thirtieth—the old warehouse on the outskirts of town was finally put to use and transformed, now attached to an array of sheds, nooks, and outbuildings. Some people missed the parties they had out here on Devil’s Night, but most loved the new haunted theme park, especially with The Cove—the old amusement park up the coast a few miles—now shut down and abandoned.
“Pray fooooor the dead, and the dead will pray for youuuuuu,” a creepy-ass voice said, and I felt a plastic bag blow into my body with a breeze. “They will pray for you and they will prey on you.”
A cackling laugh followed, and I pushed the huge plastic sheet away from me, but as my hand dipped into the plastic, it hit something solid, and then…a male growl followed, the plastic was all over us, and arms and legs attacked through the sheet.
“Ah! Ah!” the girls screamed, scrambling away as I tightened my grip on Isa’s arm.
My stomach flipped, and I breathed out a small laugh.
I inched toward the far wall to get away from the huge guy behind the tarp and felt a hand poking out of the wall. I jumped back, but it grabbed for me, and we all were laughing as a dozen or more hands reached for us out of both sides of the hallway now.
We moved from room to room, some of it—like the evil operating room—going over my head, because there weren’t many sounds or screams or anything to give away what was actually going on, but I liked the juggernaut and his sledgehammer, pounding the floor ahead of us and chasing us into one room after another. My heart beat so hard, but it was thrilling to be chased, because I knew I was safe. I wasn’t as scared as the other two when people came out of the portraits, because obviously, I couldn’t see them following us with their eyes.
The spiral staircase almost made me pee my pants, though, single file and being chased up the tiny and steep incline by Jason Vorhees. You didn’t want to be taking up the rear in a situation like that, and of course, I always did, because I had to follow instead of lead.
It was fun, though. And I was too distracted to be worried about the shitstorm at my house.
“Oh, shit!” Isabella shouted.
“What?” Jade asked.
“There! When the light flashes again, look.”
I gripped Isa with both hands, huddling behind her and waiting for whatever was coming.
“Oh, shit!” Jade yelled.
What? What was going on?
They laughed. “He’s getting closer every time the light flashes!” Jade squealed.
And then I heard it.
The fucking chainsaw.
I groaned, my knees shaking. I hated Leatherface.
Laughter and shrieks, and then we all stumbled as several chainsaws raced in, chomping at our legs with their harmless, chainless saws. I hopped from one leg to the next, trying to keep hold of Isabella as we all struggled to tear away from our attackers. She grappled for my hand, but all of a sudden, the wall behind me gave way, I fell through, losing my grip on her arm, and freefell backward onto the hard cement before I heard a door close, and all the screams and chainsaws faded away.
I was suddenly in silence.
I pushed off the cold floor, held out my hands, and walked back in the direction from where I fell. What the hell?
At least, I thought it was the direction. I might’ve gotten spun around as I fell into the room.
“Isabella!” I called out, my hands landing on a wooden wall. I patted around for a door knob or hinges—anything to tell me where I was at or how to get out.
“Jade!” I bellowed.
But everything sounded distant. The cries and yelps. The music beyond the walls and down other hallways.
“Hello?” I said. “How…how do I get out?”
I only fell a few feet. Where the hell was I? My friends were right on the other side of one of these walls.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Help!”
Was I alone in here? I trailed down the walls, feeling for a way out. God, I hope so. I wanted my friends, but I didn’t want anyone else. I was having a blast a minute ago, but now… This changed things. How would I get away? Or find my frickin’ way out?
A clink pierced the silence behind me, and I froze.
“Hello?”
Was I alone? That sounded like a chain.
I shuffled down the wall, searching for the door—if it even was a real door and not a trap door—and a chill crawled up my shoulder. I pulled up my sweater to cover the bare skin, but it just fell down again.
I sucked in a deep breath, belting out, “Isa! Jade!”
But then, behind me, a chain clanked with another like there was wind, but I didn’t feel a draft.
I whipped around, shooting out my hands.
“Hello?” I demanded. “Who’s there?”
Are you going to hurt me?
I don’t know.
Do you want to?
Kind of.
A silvery sting throbbed between my legs, and I clenched my thighs to get control of myself. Fuck.
Safe word. What was the safe word?
Quarter. I let out a breath, relieved I’d remembered it. Thank God.
I took a few steps into the room. Maybe there was a hallway, and it connected to another part of the haunted house. There was a whole line of people outside. Isabella, Jade, and I weren’t the only customers in here.
But then I brushed cool metal, and I jerked back on reflex, hearing the chain chime as it hit another one. Hesitantly, I waved my hands in front of me again, sending several chains swinging. They were hanging from the ceiling?
I let out a little laugh. Maybe it was just a draft, after all.
But then I heard chains clink again, and my smile fell. It was a lot of them, and not a little tinkling that comes with a breeze. It was …purposeful.
I opened my mouth, but my voice was barely working. “Hello?”
Boo, I heard Damon that night in my head. I’d known someone was there.
And I knew I wasn’t alone now. There was someone in here.
“Qu…w…” Bile burned my throat, and my mind raced.
It’s not real. It’s just a game.
Except the last time this happened, I said the same thing and I’d been wrong.
I pawed the air in front of me, brushing chains but stilling them to keep from making noise, so I could hear the room.
But it was complete silence.
My pulse thundered in my ears, and sweat cooled my neck as my breath blew a strand of hair hanging in my face that I was too afraid to budge an inch to move.
I could hear him breathing.
I knew he was there.
I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, but instead of uttering the safe word, I drew in a breath, feeling his eyes on me. Every inch of my skin became sensitive and aware of my clothes suddenly chafing my skin. My lacy bra and sweater irritated the points of my breasts, and the skin of my thighs stuck to the leather pants, my belly quaking and heat settling between my legs, making me throb.
My heart filled my throat, and I was so scared, but I…I wanted to yank my sweater down and be rid of it. It was hot, and it was like every hair on my body vibrated. What the hell?