Page 3

“This is so sick!”

The next room was painted from floor to ceiling in black and white stripes. I had enough experience with haunted houses to know we weren’t alone. My gaze darted to each of the corners, hoping to see movement, so I would know where the actor was. Malcolm had gone from holding on to my jacket to gripping the bicep that had the bunny trapped beneath it.

I’d just passed through the door at the far end when a man wearing a striped costume jumped off of the wall and shrieked in Malcolm’s face. Malcolm screamed so loud my left eardrum rang. I pulled him through the door the rest of the way, into a pitch-black room.

“I don’t like this,”

Malcolm said, hanging on for dear life.

“Keep your eyes down. I’ll guide you through.”

Despite that reassurance, his grip tightened to the point of bruising.

As soon as the shadows in front of us shifted, I angled myself toward whatever was coming, putting Malcolm behind me and squaring my shoulders. An all-black creature lunged from the darkness with a snarl, its teeth gleaming as they snapped toward my face. I froze mid-step, my nose a hair away from its jaws. Its foul breath washed over me like a gust of hot air, as wretched as the clown’s had been.

The creature receded into the blackness with a disappointed hiss.

I reached behind me and grabbed a handful of Malcolm’s shirt, shoving him through the nearest door.

“Oh fuck!”

“What’s wrong?”

I had my answer the second I stepped through the doorway.

The room was full of mannequins. Not just run-of-the-mill, department-store mannequins, which were creepy enough. These were decaying, zombie-like mannequins, all dressed up in various versions of the demented clown that had been bugging me. And I knew at least one of those bastards was going to move. The question was, which one?

We picked our way through the maze of bodies like a minefield, trying not to touch them, and keeping our eyes peeled for the slightest twitch.

My heart raced in anticipation, the blood rush in my ears making it almost impossible to hear. Where the fuck were they? What were they waiting for?

A dark tunnel yawned up ahead, screams and hysterical laughter echoing down the corridor. I nudged Malcolm toward it.

The rotting clown lunged at me from the right, his bony fingers digging into my arm. I tried to jerk away, but his broken, dirty nails clenched harder, dragging me to the darkest side of the room. As much as I didn’t want to go with him, I’d expected something like this to happen sooner or later, based on the sign the headless ballerina had pointed out when we first walked in. My only hope was that Taylor had caught up with Malcolm and the two of them would stay together for the rest of the haunted house.

As soon as the clown stepped over the shadowy line, disappearing into the blackness, a giant knife slashed downward from the other side.

The blade cut clean through, severing his arm above the elbow. Blood sprayed from the stump, gushing to the floor like someone had turned on a faucet. Hot sticky droplets landed on the side of my face. The vice-like fingers loosened and the clown’s hand dropped uselessly to the floor while the clown howled, almost inhuman.

The masked man stepped out of the black void, blood dripping from the end of the machete. His free hand had balled into a fist and his dark brows slanted sharply over his eyes as he regarded the clown, his chest rising and falling rapidly. When Bane’s gaze shifted to mine, it didn’t linger as it had before. It swept over me from head to toe and back again. I smiled at him, grateful for the “assistance,”

but also impressed as hell. The effects in this place were out of this world. They must have used a prosthetic limb or something to make it feel so real when the clown grabbed me. Even the blood smelled real, that hot, metallic scent I’d grown accustomed to when processing fresh game.

Snatching his dismembered arm from the ground, the clown snarled like an animal at my rescuer and disappeared into the darkness.

“Thanks,”

I said at last.

The masked man took a step closer, his head tilting as his dark eyes roved my face. His brows—and his breathing—had gone back to normal. Aside from his costume and all of the blood, he didn’t look quite so murderous anymore.

“You guys really go all out,”

I added, feeling the need to fill the silence. By silence, I meant him not speaking. There were plenty of screams and evil laughs echoing around us, though, surprisingly, no one else had entered the mannequin room.

Wiping his bloody hand on his jeans, Bane reached for my face. I eyed it as it came closer, but I didn’t move, even as my heart skipped a beat, or ten.

Swiping his thumb over my cheekbone, he wiped it clean against his thigh. I, stupidly, touched my face and looked down at my fingers. There was nothing there anymore, though, for a moment, I wished there was.

“Thanks,”

I murmured again, unsure whether I should stay or carry on my merry way.

As if he could read my mind—or the uncertainty on my face—the masked guy took two steps to the right and used the edge of his stained machete to push a black curtain open. Beyond it, more neon colors glowed in the dark, marking out a hallway.

Not wanting to thank him for a third time like an idiot, I nodded and stepped past him. A whiff of dark earthiness flooded my nostrils. Rich and mossy with a hint of smoke. I glanced behind me as the curtain swished shut. Bane was gone.

Outside, I found Malcolm and Taylor standing under one of the leaning light poles, hands flapping, clearly in the midst of an argument. As soon as he saw me, Malcolm glared and turned his wrath on me. “You said you wouldn’t leave me, you dick!”

“I was—the dude grabbed me! It’s not like I did it intentionally.”

I gestured helplessly at the haunted house, staring at him like he’d managed to have a lobotomy in the past few minutes. “And I thought Taylor was right behind you!”

“Nah, some Harley Quinn-looking chick herded me in the opposite direction.”

Taylor shrugged, swinging the tail end of his stuffed snake around, already bored with Malcolm’s bitching.

“Let’s just chill for a bit.”

I clapped Malcolm on the shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. “Come on. I haven’t eaten yet. Remember?”

“Fine.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes and spun on the ball of his foot, marching back to the food area. As we walked, I offered him my stuffed rabbit.

“Do you want to hold him?”

“Or do you want to hold my snake?”

Taylor wagged his stuffed snake at Malcolm suggestively.

Malcolm scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fuck off. Dicks.”

“I’ll hold your snake,”

I replied with a grin, elbowing Taylor.

“Of course your gay ass would,”

Taylor laughed. “Sure we can’t get you a fried pickle while we’re here? Or one of those corndogs?”

“Ooo baby. Now you’re speaking my language.”

“Anything for a little meat in your mouth, huh?”

“You know it.”

“Oh my God,”

Malcolm whispered to himself, hunching his shoulders, like he could physically block out the conversation.

Taylor and I laughed, jabbing him from either side with our elbows. “Lighten up, bro! We’re supposed to be having fun.”

Malcolm gave him a sour look.

“Are those ribs?”

I asked, jutting my chin toward one of the tents. “Oo, I know what I’m getting.”

“You better suck ‘em clean, too,”

Taylor said, making me laugh and Malcolm sigh.

I lengthened my strides as nonchalantly as I could to get in front of my beleaguered friend. Once I’d gained the lead, I let the rabbit fall from beneath my arm, suddenly very interested in the creepy cloud formations overhead. They might have obscured the moon, but it wasn’t going down without a fight. It continued to glow brightly behind the menacing black shapes.

“Hey, your—”

Malcolm stopped and picked up the stuffed animal, dusting it off. He did not, however, make an attempt to hand it back, which was fine with me. I had ribs to eat.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,”

Taylor huffed as he joined me in line. “Not this guy again.”

For a moment, I dreaded the one-armed clown was creeping up on me. Turning, I saw it was my skeleton-masked savior, staring at me once again as if I was the only person there. The back of my neck grew hot and my stomach did a little loop.

“I think he does like you,”

Malcolm chimed in.

“It’s multiple guys in the same mask. The same character, or whatever,”

I said, doing my best to ignore them—and him . It was one thing when Taylor and I were teasing each other to make Malcolm uncomfortable; it was another when they were being serious. Being one of the only known gay people in a small farming community usually wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Needless to say, my experiences with other guys were normally on the down low and not so… blatantly obvious.

“I don’t know,”

Taylor said, his voice trailing off theatrically. “I haven’t seen any other duplicates running around. Have you, Malc?”

“Nope. Just him.”

We shuffled one step closer to the front of the line and I doubled down on my efforts to ignore them. And the guy in the mask. Looking at him would only prove their point. Maybe if I feigned disinterest, Bane would lose interest and find someone else to stalk for the night.

An irrational pang of anger shot through me at the thought. On the surface, his attention was unnerving. But if I dug deeper, I kind of liked it. It was the thrill of the chase, of being hunted relentlessly by a masked stranger. What would he do if he caught me? Kiss me, or kill me? Since we weren’t in a horror film, I hoped it was the former—though the remote possibility of the latter continued to make my heart thump harder. Itinerant carnival workers didn’t seem like the most stable lot, especially at this carnival.

Darkness moved in my periphery. I looked up quickly, heat curling down my spine as I watched Bane stalk forward through the crowd. The observant people scrambled out of his way. The less observant were slammed into as if they weren’t even there, left reeling in his wake like chum in the ocean.

Bane’s steps slowed as he came closer and closer. Too close. Invading my personal space so we were nearly chest to chest, he tilted his head and circled me slowly, dark eyes unreadable as they locked onto mine.

I moved with him like a dancer, matching each of his steps, trying to keep him from getting behind me to do whatever the fuck he might have been trying to do. As intriguing as he was, I hadn’t lost all sense of self-preservation.

Out of nowhere, he took a large step forward, forcing me back. I stumbled out of line to avoid a collision, simultaneously irritated that he was getting between me and food, but also curious as to what he was doing.

The machete hung at his side, as usual, but in his other hand, he held a short stick with a small black ball-shaped thing on the end. Presenting it to me like a flower, he continued to stare at me with zero explanation.

I tore my gaze from his and took the stick hesitantly. It was a candy apple of some sort, impaled on a sturdy twig, which couldn’t have been the most sanitary option but it fit the creepy carnival’s aesthetic.

The bright red skin of the apple peeked out beneath a mirror-black finish of whatever it had been dipped into. Probably some kind of sugar or dyed caramel, even. Regardless, it looked delicious and my empty stomach grumbled appreciatively.