Page 16 of Bite Me

I made my way down to the basement and toward the entrance, where a guy in a zombie costume stood. “Sure you want to go in alone?”

I glanced at him, impatient. “Yeah, I think I can manage some plastic sheeting stapled together by hungover freshmen.”

The guy threw his head back and cackled, waving me through. “Sure thing, boss. Go ahead. I’d tell you to scream if you lose your way, but…” He leaned ominously close. “No one will hear you.”

“Uh-huh.”

The moment I stepped into the haunted maze, the air thickened with fog, wrapping me in a chilly embrace. It was at least ten degrees cooler down here, which I appreciated since the mass of bodies upstairs had me sweating earlier. Flickering LED candles cast ominous shadows on what I guessed were Styrofoam walls painted to look like stone. In the distance, I heard the buzz of chainsaws and startled screams.

Okay, maybe I’d spoken too soon about the plastic sheeting and drunk freshmen. I’d never been into the frat scene, but I had to give the Sigmas credit: they knew how to throw a party. As I moved deeper into the maze, instead of some slapped-together shit, I encountered a full-scale horror production almost worthy of Universal Studios. The scent of sulfur made my eyes sting. There were gnarled branches I had to duck beneath, foam gravestones, thick ropes of cobwebs that brushed my hair and neck every few feet, and while I did spot plenty of black plastic sheeting, it wasn’t just tossed up haphazardly.

A strobe light pulsed erratically, and the thick fog was disorienting. Two mechanical skeletons bursting from coffins got me good. I jumped back, heart in my throat, then rolled my eyes at myself.

A couple of minutes later, a chainsaw revved and a handful of people sprinted past me, shrieking but clearly delighted.

I rounded a corner and another dude in zombie makeup lurched out from a blind corner, mouth smeared in blood. Definitely not Mark, though. He got a couple of inches from my face, let out a guttural groan, then burst into a laugh when I juststared at him. “Dude, you’re no fun,” he said, before shambling off to scare someone else.

I passed a backlit corridor lined with glowing, disembodied hands reaching through slits in the walls. When one actually grabbed my elbow with a cold, gloved grip, I jumped, swearing under my breath. I briefly considered whether it was Mark, but he wouldn’t have grabbed me somewhere so innocuous. He’d have gone straight for my balls or ass.

“Alright, asshole,” I muttered to myself. “Where are you hiding?”

I pushed past another crew traversing the maze together and grew increasingly restless with adrenaline, anticipating the moment he’d appear.

Halfway past a door dripping with fake blood, a prickle raced up the back of my neck. The fog was heavier here, felt like it was shoving itself into my lungs and sticking to my skin. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

I whipped around, expecting Mark or some other Sigma goon in a mask, but there was nothing there but the flash of the strobe and emptiness.

The feeling of being watched persisted as I turned forward again and continued on, a moving target at this point. I kept expecting a hand to shoot out, or more skeletons or ghosts or zombies to pop up, but nothing came. I rubbed the back of my neck against the sensation of someone breathing down it, but whenever I tossed a glance over my shoulder, there was nothing there.

The corridor narrowed into a hall of mirrors that threw warped reflections of myself back at me. Something tapped my shoulder, and I whirled around so fast I nearly face-planted into my reflection. Not exactly my finest moment. I stared at my face, wide-eyed and a little wild. Goddammit, I was actually scared.Just a little. Not full-on terror, but it was eerie as fuck standing there all alone yet knowing I wasn’t.

Then, from behind me, came a chuckle that was all too familiar. I’d heard it in the bedroom before, sometimes accompanied by hands around my throat. My dick hardened, way too fucking attuned, as arousal surged through my veins.

“I know you’re in here, Farrow,” I said, straining to listen for the sound of footsteps, breathing, anything that would give his location away. There was nothing but another rumble of directionless laughter that made my balls tingle as it scraped down my spine like nails.

I was pretty sure I was walking in circles now, like an idiot with a tent pole beneath my toga. Mark had to be loving every second, too. Fuck you, Farrow. I bit my tongue before I said it, though, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.

This time when he laughed, it was close enough that I should’ve felt him. And then I did. A palm snaked around my wrist, sliding up my bare arm in a tease, and I froze.

“Don’t turn around,” Mark said, the heat of his body pressing against my back as his nails scraped along the ridge of my collarbone. It felt so damn good I was tempted to obey him, to just stand there and let him do whatever he wanted to me. That wasn’t my style, though.

But when I whirled to face him, he was gone.

My jaw clenched in frustration, and I pushed lightly on the mirrored panels, looking for some give, a secret doorway.

“Having trouble?” Mark called out from somewhere just beyond my reach.

I closed my eyes and let my brain process the sound, zeroing in. “Not even a little,” I fired back, already moving.

I knew Mark. We’d gone head to head on the court since we were kids, and even though this definitely wasn’t a basketballcourt, patterns were patterns. Mark would try to double back and flank me. So I darted left, then right, nearly eating shit on a loose gravestone. Dodging a skeleton that dropped from the ceiling, I cut another left around a corner and glimpsed chestnut hair lit up by a strobe before Mark strafed sideways and disappeared.

Fuck yes. I chased after him, grinning like a maniac. He stayed just out of reach. For every move I made, he had two, just like back in our basketball days, and now I was too horny to think. My toga rode up, and every time the bastard laughed, I got closer to snapping. It felt like he was everywhere, all around me, lurking in sightlines I couldn’t hold.

I slowed to a prowl and wiped sweat off my upper lip. “You like making me chase you.” I meant it as a question, but it came out as an accusation because I already knew it was true.

Mark’s voice slid from the darkness, just out of reach. “Like it better when you catch me.” There was a devilish smile in those words, a dare layered under the cockiness that spiked straight to my core.

I broke right, then feinted left, and the fucker finally miscalculated. Mark tried to dart away at the same time I slammed a palm against his shoulder and whipped him around hard. He grunted as my weight threw him into one of the mirrored glass panels, instinctively putting up his hands for leverage and trying to shove me off of him. Grabbing his hips, I muscled him backwards again until he was the one gasping, my cock full and aching as I rolled my hips against him.