Chapter 8 #2
Back out on the landing, I glance down the hallway to see a little commotion at the foyer, wincing in sympathy as the guy taking money gets chewed out by a man gripping the shirt of a boy who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
I hesitate, not that I can do anything, but from my vantage point, I can see an angry-looking woman who seems authoritative enough to be the manager, stalking toward them both with murder in her eyes and a walkie-talkie clutched in her hand like a weapon.
She definitely has this covered, I decide.
Still, I watch for a few moments, long enough to see her lean up on the balls of her feet so she can spit threats in the man’s face.
I have to cover my smile with one hand before striding up the flight of stairs against one wall marked with handwritten signs proclaiming ‘danger’ and ‘do not enter’ in fake blood that’s sticky and thick on the paper.
Caution tape is wrapped around the banister, but I make my way up without really using it as a grip.
Fog pours from machines against the walls, but the path here is clear, with only one door open and strobe lights beckoning from the first bedroom.
I don’t expect it just to be a static scene, but the room with fake, dangling body parts and hanging plastic animal corpses is abandoned.
Music plays quietly, and the fog machines are cranked up so high that it’s starting to fill the room.
Not to mention, I can smell the chemicals used to generate the smoky aura around me that inhibits my vision.
Walking deeper in, I end up with my hand pressed over my face to breathe without my eyes watering, though it doesn’t quite work.
When I can no longer see my hand in front of my face, I end up with one arm stretched out in front of me, fingers outstretched and looking for anything in front of me as I edge along.
“This is ridiculous,” I mumble, mostly to myself.
I understand using what you can to give off an eerie atmosphere, but this feels absolutely ridiculous.
Movement in the fog makes me jump, but I just end up glaring at where the smoke is parted and rolling in wisps.
“This is kind of over the top,” I call, voice sounding muffled behind my hand.
“Can you at least tell me where to go? Is something malfunctioning, or—” My words stutter out when fingers wrap around mine, trying to tug me forward.
But I don’t move. With my feet splayed under me, I stand there in surprise as the hand gently pulls me forward again, encouraging and helpful.
“Okay, so like, your fog machine is totally on the fritz,” I murmur, still blocking my nose with my hand.
The fog isn’t so awful now that I’m used to it, but my eyes are still watering, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the smell of the fake fog out of my nose after tonight.
“I’m coming.” The music and sound effects are loud enough that I suddenly wonder if the actor had tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him with the way everything pounds and thumps relentlessly against my ears.
Music and spooky ambience seem to echo around the room as I’m led blindly through the fog, their fingers tugging mine and movements confident.
It’s a good thing the actors know this place well enough not to need to be able to see.
I pass through a door with them, my other hand up to tap against the frame, but I still can’t see anything in the billowing fog.
In this smaller room, the fog seems even more oppressive, and somehow even more impenetrable.
Seeing more than an inch in front of my nose quickly becomes a joke, and I stumble a little when the volunteer in front of me suddenly comes to a stop.
Both of my hands come forward looking for support, and the pads of my fingers brush against the rough fabric of the person’s coat.
I grab at it like a lifeline and stumble forward until the sight of a familiar mask looms at me through the too-thick fog.
A wolf-skull mask.
I jerk back a little, lips parting in surprise.
It has to be a coincidence, I tell myself, though the mask really appears to be exactly the same as the one from Nightmare Ridge.
Fog billows between us, and as he looms closer, I can’t help but stumble back a few steps.
My back hits the wall of what I now realize is a slaughterhouse scene, as plastic chains sway back and forth on either side of me.
He pushes one out of the way, the chain brushing against the black of his coat, before leaning his arms against the wall on either side of me to trap me against it.
My heart flutters in my chest, and I have to blink rapidly to stop my eyes from watering in the fake fog.
“Your fog machine is…really cranked up,” I murmur to the actor quietly.
I can hear the softness of his breathing behind the mask, and as my eyes try to adjust, I think I see the same black coat and hood he wore at the mental asylum.
This can’t be the same guy.
He moves, one hand coming up, and I jerk back when I catch the shine of metal in his grip. The knife he holds isn’t like the cheap plastic props I’ve seen littering this haunt, and my chest tightens at the sight of it.
“What are you…?” But the words die in my throat as he taps the blade against my lower lip, silencing me as an anxious cloud of butterflies erupts into flight in my stomach and chest. The blade is cold and heavy; sharp against my skin.
My hands curl against the wall behind me, and I press back as hard as I can, trying to become one with the wood panels.
But he only moves closer, leaning in with a sound like a soft chuckle, and the sharp edge of the very real knife trails down my lip, over my skin, and down my throat.
The movement pulls a gasp from me, and all thoughts of what I would actually do in a horror movie to prevent being the first one dead suddenly evaporate as my eyes close, trying to shut out the situation.
“No, pretty thing.” His voice is soft in my ear, and the material of the mask is slick against my cheek. “Open your eyes. I want you to see.”
“It’s not a real knife.” I force myself to do just that, prying my eyes open as my heart slams against my ribs. “It’s not real. This isn’t real. You’re…”
“Not real?” He tilts his head to one side, like a curious puppy, and leans back to tug off one glove, wiggling his fingers in my face.
“Are you so sure about that, babe?” His voice is barely audible, but it still sends a shiver down my spine.
As I watch, he draws the blade of the knife across the pad of one finger, causing a dark red, almost black, bead of blood to well to the surface when he presses down hard enough to part the skin.
“Oh, my god. What are you—” I break off when he suddenly reaches forward, gripping my chin with his fingers and stroking his now-bloody thumb over my bottom lip.
His blood is warm and wet and very real. The world seems to stop around us as he spreads it from the pad of his thumb across my lip like some fucked up lipstick. All I can do is stare at him, my lips slightly parted and my mind completely blank with confusion, and something else.
“Are you scared yet?” the man asks. His attention on me is so intense that I can’t bring myself to look away. “Do I frighten you, Scaredy Cat?”
Something stirs to life in the back of my mind, some kind of realization about this situation, but I can’t quite figure out what it is with my brain moving so sluggishly.
I am afraid of him. I’m scared of this man who’s now shown up at two haunts, carrying a real knife, and has painted my mouth with his blood.
But something in me rebels, and I jerk backward, one hand coming up hesitantly to shove his away.
I can’t bring myself to lie, to tell him I’m not afraid, but whatever he sees in my expression and the set of my jaw has him scoffing out a chuckle before he slams both hands against the wall on either side of me once more.
“So we’re going to play this game, are we?
That’s okay.” He looms closer until there are only scant inches between us.
“I don’t mind a little lie.” Without warning, he moves one hand, jerking his mask to the side so the lower half of his face is revealed.
All I can see is a grin, a sharp baring of teeth, before his mouth is on mine, one hand in my hair to prevent me from going anywhere at all.
His kiss is an attack of teeth and tongue, of dominance demanding me to give in from the start. To say I’m shocked is an understatement, and my paralysis is enough to allow him entry between my lips. His tongue must taste his own blood before pressing the sharp, metallic taste deeper into my mouth.
My hands come up, fingers gripping his heavy coat, and I swear I mean to push him away. I know I need to push him away, yet my mind is too focused on the taste of his blood and the feeling of his tongue.
On the soft sounds he’s making, like purrs and growls, as though he’s quite literally turning feral for this kiss.
Instead of pushing him away like I should, my hands sink deep into the heavy black coat he wears, and I have to lock my arms to stop myself from pulling him closer.
This isn’t okay. This is fucked up in every way, and I should be trying to scream for help.
Not reveling in the taste of him on my tongue.
The fog in my brain evaporates when he jerks me back by my hair, and as our mouths separate I can feel his blood smeared across my mouth as I gasp in surprise.
The knife is back a second later, drawing a line down my cheek as he pants, both of us dragging in air after our prolonged kiss.
My lungs ache for oxygen, but I can barely do more than shudder in a breath at the touch of metal on my cheek.
“You’re afraid of me.” With the mask still skewed to one side, his voice is no longer muffled. It’s soft, charming, and not what I expected from the man holding the blade. “You don’t have to admit it, babe. You’re terrified.”
I don’t admit it.
I won’t.
“But I can make you admit it,” he goes on, stroking the knife over my bottom lip. “I can make you tell me anything I want.”
My chest aches to speak, to tell him either what he wants to hear or to go to hell. He deserves the second, and it would make me feel better, but I’m too afraid to piss off this man when he has a knife pressed to my skin. A knife he’s proven is very real by cutting his own finger.
“Persy?” The voice sounds distorted and far, thanks to the thickness of the billowing fog. “Hey, you up here? Are you done with your alone time? No offense, but we’re kind of bored.” Madison’s voice rings sharply, though not unkindly, and the man grins instead of looking disappointed.
“I was done anyway,” he tells me, pulling the blade away from my face. “But this was fun, don’t you think?” He steps back and adjusts his mask, obscuring his face as the fog starts swirling around him, filling up the inches between us.
“Persy!” Now Brynn is calling my name, though neither of them is quite close enough for me to see. Not that I could even if she were within reach, with the fog so thick.
“See you soon, Scaredy Cat.” The man offers me a mock salute and backs away; quickly fading into the fog and becoming completely invisible in the strobe-light lit room.
“What…?” I can’t even form a sentence. I stand there feeling stupid until the figures of Madison and Brynn appear, cutting through the fog with their shirts up over their noses.
“This is ridiculous. Come on.” Brynn grabs my hand without really looking at me, towing both of us through the smoky room made to look like a slaughterhouse.
I barely notice. I barely see anything at all as I stumble along, until we’re finally back out on the landing, having completed the underwhelming top floor of what was supposed to be a child-friendly haunt.
“There was some kind of electrical issue, or something,” she tells me.
“They want everyone to leave. Did you not—”
“You’re bleeding!” Madison’s gasp cuts through Brynn’s words. She steps closer, lifting her hand to hover anxiously near my face. “What the hell? Persy, did you—”
“We need to go,” I breathe, finally easing out of the fog that’s invaded my mind. I’m starting to feel like a real person again, instead of a mannequin, and I blink a few times, eyes burning from the fog. “We need to go. Right now.”
“What—”
“Nope. No questions. Just movement.” Already I’m tripping down the stairs, taking them too fast. I don’t stop, my gaze fixed on the door where other guests are filtering out from the smoky depths of Dusk House into the yard beyond.
I have to get out of here, is all I can think as I nearly push my way out. I have to get out of here, and I have to tell someone.
Anyone, as long as they believe me.