Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thirty years later, the tragedy still clung to the walls of Fun House.
It swelled with the events. If Zoe turned over a fallen prop, a trapped scream would escape.
If she pushed into the walls, blood would spill from the cracks.
If she sucked in a deep breath, she would smell something charred.
Which is why when she entered the house, she held her breath.
Her flashlight beam cut through the darkness, sweeping over the hollow-eyed mannequins left behind from the carnival days. Their plastic faces stared blankly, cracked with age, their faded costumes stiff with dust. The boards beneath each step groaned, the sound swallowed by the emptiness.
“Everything is so old,” Zoe commented.
“They never switched out the props,” Lisa said. “They upgraded the safety protocols.”
Zoe shifted uneasily. “Have you been here? For the haunted house?”
“Just once,” she confessed, sweeping her flashlight in arcs, searching for a clue. “I was eighteen and even then I felt horrible.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s despicable making a franchise out of this.”
Zoe headed to the stairs when it hit her. A smell. It was strong, sickly sweet, and metallic. She glanced around and the light passed over a shadow slumped against the far wall. At first she thought it was just another forgotten prop—until the light shone on pale skin, not plastic.
A woman.
Zoe’s skin prickled. Goosebumps dotted her arms. Slowly, she approached her, irrationally afraid that she would come back to life.
Jackie sat against the rotting wallpaper, her head tilted at an unnatural angle, her body stiff with the first stages of rigor. Her clothes were damp with sweat and something darker—a patchy spread of blood seeping into the warped wooden floor.
Her arms were lined with the purple bruises, just like Annabelle’s. Thermal injuries on her neck. Wounds on her face and feet. No scratches, no defensive wounds.
“No sign of a struggle or heat marks this time.” Zoe’s voice came out hoarse. She crouched on the floor next to her, using a handkerchief to plug her nose. Behind her, Lisa was already on the radio calling for backup.
She had been placed carefully. Legs stretched out, arms carefully arranged, head tilted just enough to look like she were staring at something across the room.
“Clothes torn in places but mostly intact,” she noted. “She’s covered in injuries from the darts. He hunted her down too.”
Another knock on the door—this time it was Ethan. “Pulling an all-nighter, are we?”
His smile was watery, his eyes frantic. “You have to see this.”
Minutes later, Zoe, Aiden, and Lisa were huddled around Ethan’s ancient computer. The grainy image on the screen kept flickering.
“They still make these computers?” Zoe asked.
“We don’t have the budget the FBI does,” Ethan retorted grumpily. “Lisa told me to get CCTV footage from Annabelle’s place of work.”
“The Harringtons turned over their security tapes?” Aiden cocked an eyebrow. “The court order only covered the victim’s laptop.”
“I didn’t need access to their cameras. A museum across the street voluntarily gave us access to their tapes.” Ethan’s finger hovered over a button. “Nothing on the day Annabelle disappeared. But this was two days before the disappearance.”
The images on the screen started moving again—albeit jerkily. Zoe had to squint to decipher faces. The camera faced the side of a street with people walking back and forth. The timestamp read 6 p.m. Annabelle appeared, stepping out of the building. She paced up and down, checking her phone.
“She’s waiting for someone,” Lisa said.
Two minutes later, a man approached her, his back to the camera. She turned around and they began chatting, animatedly. After a minute, Annabelle ushered him into a corner, disappearing from the view. The man followed, his side profile captured on camera.
If it weren’t for the thick glasses and the fact that his face was plastered all over the local news, Zoe wouldn’t have recognized him.
“Did he tell you that he met Annabelle two days before she went missing?” Zoe asked Lisa.
Lisa was taken aback. “He didn’t even tell me that he knew her.”
“Bring Adam in.”