5. Githany
Githany
That was intense. Chainsaw chasers aren’t new.
I don’t think I’ve ever not seen one in a haunted attraction.
I got whacked in the shin once as a kid going through a pitifully small scare house at a state fair.
The man expected me to jump when he swung the chainsaw at me.
I was looking at something else at the time.
He hit my leg but apart from the impact, it barely hurt.
There’s no blade on the chainsaw. That’s the rule.
It’s why the chainsaw part of haunted houses shouldn’t be scary.
Shouldn’t be.
Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me, or Reaper’s Playroom invested all their money into special effects in the very last room, he’s using a real, functioning chainsaw. It went straight through one of the fake trees.
I stop running, feeling more ridiculous by the second. I can’t believe I let that guy separate me up from the group. Here I am sprinting for my life in a room that smells like gym socks and fake fog.
A room that is much bigger than I realized.
Maybe the largest room here. Strangely large. They must have mirrors lining the walls. An illusion to make everything look huge.
I need to get back to the group. We were so close to the exit.
I squint in the direction of where I came in from. It’s so dark there. Not just haunted-house dark. It’s absolutely black, like something swallowed the light whole.
The chainsaw stops.
A quiet falls over the space.
Where did he go?
Movement over my shoulder has me whirling. Ghosts. Two with disfigurements that keep me from identifying age or gender. A third with a noose dragging on the ground behind him. The three of them amble past a Styrofoam boulder, and out of my view.
A few seconds later another ghost strolls past. Then another. They don’t even acknowledge me. I’m grateful, but suspicious. Where are they going?
Leave it alone, Githany. I turn back the way I came. The darkness appears to be coming closer. That pitch-black void merely feet ahead now. I can’t even see the trees I just passed.
Being a medium is beneficial at times. Right now is one of those moments. If I weren’t as sensitive, I wouldn’t have realized there’s more to the darkness than just the lack of lights. Something is in this darkness. As if the darkness itself is watching me.
There’s no sound from whatever is on the other side. Nothing. The darkness has swallowed up the sound as well as the lights.
My harsh, rushed breathing fills the space. I’ve heard there are only two things children are born afraid of. Loud noises and the dark.
This darkness, this living, breathing, watching entity overtaking the room is exactly why. Suddenly it’s not all so cheesy anymore. As if I’ve stepped through the strobe lights and cotton-ball webs and into an alternate reality.
The ghost who grabbed me in the clown room glides past me and behind the boulder like all the others.
Curiosity claws at my chest. Should I walk into an unnatural darkness that feels like it may devour me alive?
Or do I follow a bunch of dead people and find out where they’re hanging out? Decisions, decisions.
Oddly enough, the dead people are more enticing than the darkness.
Moving at a brisk pace, I turn away from the creeping shadows and dip behind the boulder. A dozen or more ghosts hover around a gaping hole in the wall. It’s dark in the hole, but not as dark as the wall of pitch black creeping up on me.
There’s writing above the arched entrance. “Sanguine effuses, bestias devorata.”
I don’t speak Latin, but I’m pretty sure sanguine means blood.
Is this some unfinished Dracula-inspired vampire room?
Vampire culture has its allure. I can understand the obsession.
A hot guy puts his mouth all over your body, bites you, giving pain while usually stimulating some kind of pleasure.
They need a lot of blood, though. I’m anemic no matter how much still-half-alive red meat I eat.
Something tells me I wouldn’t be a vampire’s favorite flavor.
The hole has drawn more spirits than the other rooms. I still can’t understand why the ghosts are peering inside.
I brush my fingers along the inner wall of the cavity. It’s cold. Damp stone. It’s not a painted prop, but a real rock tunnel. This must have been here since before the haunted house was built.
The dead continue to stare into it, ignoring me completely. What are they so drawn to in there?
A flutter of self-awareness gathers beyond my curiosity.
There’s always that part in scary movies when a character makes a decision that has you screaming at the screen for them to stop, turn around, go back, ignore the noise and run for their life.
As I step into a dark, cold tunnel that’s being studiously fixated on by ghosts, I’m painfully aware that this is one of those moments and I am that person.
Is this a good idea? No. But is it the most intriguing thing to happen to me in years? Oh, yes.
My phone flashlight would be ideal right about now.
Too bad I let Vic carry it in her Ghostbusters backpack.
I didn’t see the harm at the time. You’re not allowed to film inside Reaper’s Playroom and with my luck I would have dropped it in the dark and stomped on it in my haste to keep up with the group.
A few steps into the tunnel, I make an even poorer decision and look over my shoulder. The dead have moved to block the exit, their gazes now fixed on mine. Charming. At least they didn’t follow me in.
There’s a chill in the tunnel, just enough for me to pull down my sleeves and fold my arms. We’re on the back side of the haunted house.
It would make sense that this could be some part of the cemetery they built over.
Maybe it’s a long-lost mausoleum built by a grieving man for his beautiful lover.
Stone statues from days past never fail to stir something within me.
I shake my head, leaving my cemetery whimsy behind. I would romanticize this absolutely horrendous decision. Get a grip.
The stone above me dips slightly. I hunch forward, wishing once again that I had my phone flashlight. A breeze blows from up ahead. Scents of earth and fresh rain. That’s promising. Not the rot and putrefaction I was expecting.
The tunnel slopes again. My thighs are burning from the absolute duck walk I’ve squatted into. I’m practically sitting on the floor and the top of my head is still scraping against the stone.
Dropping onto my hands and knees provides my quads some relief. The tunnel is tighter now. My shoulders brush against the sides as I crawl. It didn’t look this small from the entrance.
Pain rips through my palm when I place it on the tunnel floor again.
“Fuck.” I clutch it to my chest as it throbs. There’s something sharp on the ground. I try to sit up to assess my wound but can’t. The tunnel has gotten too small.
Click click click. The strange sound reaches me from somewhere up ahead. I still, every muscle locking into place as I stare into the darkness. What was that?
The clicking comes again.
I need to get out of here. My shoulders and head lodge against stone as I try to turn myself around. The stone won’t give. It’s too tight a fit. I’ll have to go backwards.
The next time the clicking comes, it’s much closer.
Fuck, fuck. I have really fucked up.
I’m ready to admit that this was not my best idea. The weight of realizing I’m stuck in a dark tunnel with a thing that makes sounds I’ve only heard in creature features makes the tightness of the space feel even more crushing.
Why couldn’t this be like one of those washing machine fantasies?
You get stuck inside and your hot, tattoo-covered, non-blood-related stepbrother comes to get you out and rails you into oblivion.
I don’t have a stepbrother. Also, why am I sexualizing something so intensely unnerving?
I’m fairly certain the click-click-click thing is not a creature I want to be boned by.
Why am I even thinking about boning? A claustrophobic tunnel is nothing like a washing machine.
This is why people have sex when they’re stressed and scared.
We must be hardwired to seek pleasure when there’s an impending chance of a gruesome death.
Better to die with a final serving of good dick than empty and alone.
It better be good. Can you imagine getting screwed moments before a monster eats you and the guy is a terrible lay?
Note to self, keep a vibrator in your pocket at all times. That way you can ensure an orgasm before you perish at the hands of something that lives in a black tunnel beneath a cemetery.
Crawling backwards is about a thousand times slower than crawling forwards even with my adrenaline sky-high. Pain shocks up my hand every time it connects with the ground.
Click click click.
A desperate sound eeks out of me.
I raise my head again and again, testing the height of the ceiling and waiting for it to open up. I swear it wasn’t this small for this long before. Is the tunnel shrinking? Am I trapped? Is there even still an entrance to get out?
What the fuck was I thinking coming in here?
Back, back, back. The tunnel never expands. Something is very wrong.
A softness meets my injured hand the next time I press it to the ground. My fingertips dig in, recognizing moss. I raise my head. I’m outside the tunnel.
Keep moving. I’ve got to put as much distance between myself and whatever is in that tunnel as I can. My legs are Jell-O. My quivering arms are basically useless.
By some miracle I clear the exit and immediately take a massive breath. I sit back on my feet. Hell yeah. I made it.
Anxiety dampens my relief. The ghosts are gone. Why doesn’t that make me feel better? Have they fled whatever is coming this way?
In the midst of throwing my head back to briefly work the crick out of my neck, the words above the tunnel catch my eye again. They’re no longer in Latin.
I read aloud, “Blood spilled, beasts devoured.”
“A warning that should have been heeded from the start.”