Chapter Eighteen
Kristy lurches through the trees ahead of me, her phone’s beam bobbing between trunks.
“There should be red lanterns marking the staff trail,” I whisper. “Think someone removed them?”
Kristy doesn’t answer.
“Hey … you okay?”
She lets out a bark of a laugh—manic-sounding, teetering close to that edge again. “Good. Peachy-keen.”
“We should take a breather.” Before you hyperventilate.
Another crooked laugh. “Yeah. Good idea.”
Her legs give out. She crumples.
I drop into the dirt with her, arms banding her shaking frame. She stiffens before turning her head slightly, her cheek against mine.
“Thanks for finding me.” I swallow the ache. I’d be dead without her. “For believing me even if it sounded completely messed up. I don’t know what would’ve happened if—”
“Hey,” she murmurs. “Don’t forget I got you those shoes.”
My own laugh cracks me wide open.
Kristy’s fingers dig into my back. Her breath hitches against my neck. Not crying. Not yet.
We stay like this—two shattered old friends clinging to each other’s wreckage.
“Amanda,” Kristy says. “Mia. Those college brats. Think they’re okay?”
“We have to warn them.” If they’re still alive. “Let everyone know what’s out here.”
Not just another hunter.
A real monster—slicing players open and hoarding their tags.
Kristy pushes to her feet and hauls me up. “Let’s go.”
The words sound brave. Almost steady.
But her hand is ice around mine.
We move fast, ducking branches and crunching leaves like we’re trying not to bleed noise.
Kristy seems to remember the map with her bones. Left past the toppled log. Right by the tree with the burl carved into a permanent scream. I swear it’s watching us stumble past. The faint orange shimmer ahead could be a fire, or lanterns strung up, or just my brain making shit up.
“Almost there,” she says. Not to me. To herself.
The air shifts as we cross some invisible threshold.
Base camp.
We made it.
Beyond a chain-link fence wrapped around the compound is freedom. Our cars. Civilization. The sweet promise of ugly-crying into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s while pretending this was simply an immersive haunted-forest experience.
Except the gate’s closed.
And the whole security building’s dark. Only the floodlights are working.
“Fuck,” Kristy breathes. “Where is everyone?”
I scan for movement, sound, anything.
Something’s pinned to the bulletin board by the stage.
I inch closer.
A torn scrap of paper. Stabbed into the cork with a long, curved blade. No doubt one of the Ghostfaces’ knives. Words scrawled in Sharpie.
“Fucking psycho,” Kristy mutters over my shoulder. Then she makes a sound like a stepped-on bird. “Is that …?”
Blood.
A perfect teardrop under the smiley face.
Kristy’s flashlight slices through the dark. The beam trembles. “We’re breaking the gate.”
“With what?”
We stare at each other. She’s got her phone. I’ve got the pepper spray. Unless that fanny pack of hers doubles as a SWAT kit, we’re screwed.
“Then we’re climbing it.”
“It’s ten feet tall and probably electrified,” I mutter.
“It’s fucking pitch-black. Which means the power’s out.”
“Yeah, but what if it isn’t all the way out?”
Kristy laughs—short, frayed. She glances back at the board. “Then what? We can’t just wait around for his ‘finale,’ whatever the hell that is.”
I nod at the security building. “Maybe there’s someone in there.”
“Yeah. Your Mr. Ghostface-Next-Door.”
“He was in the trailer. He couldn’t have gotten here before us.”
“Maybe he’s already gutted the staff. I’m not walking into a trap.”
My stomach plunges.
“Fuck it.” Kristy stuffs her phone in her fanny pack. “We get out. Drive until we get signal. Call 911.”
Sounds like a plan. Good one.
Kristy hoists a leg up, fingers threading through the chain-link. Like that’s something she’s good at.
I give her a boost—and slip, nearly taking us both down.
A few more attempts.
“It’s climbable,” she pants. “Just don’t look down. And if there’s barbed wire? Aim for the gaps.”
One little slip and my knee smashes into the links.
“What gaps?” I wheeze, hovering below Kristy, blinking against the pain.
No answer. She’s now halfway up, feet skidding and hands fumbling over the metal that’s slick with dew—or blood or fear, who knows anymore.
She reaches the top.
And freezes.
“Shit,” she breathes. “It’s got coils.”
“Barbed?”
“Razor. I can’t—there’s no …” She shifts left. Right.
Oh, shit. Oh, no. She’s going to fall. On me.
Her shoulder hits the fence.
I catch her—sort of.
We slam down. Tangled. Neither of us moves. Don’t know if I can’t or too scared to look.
Then Kristy groans. Cradles her arm. There’s blood darkening her crop top, blooming from a gash just beneath the shoulder seam.
“Okay,” she gasps. “Not climbable.”
No shit. Pain in my side where I landed. Elbow throbs. Skin’s raw.
I push up, hands shaking. “You okay?”
Kristy spits hair out of her mouth. “Yeah. Let’s go find a key. Or a phone that works. Or a fucking chainsaw. I’m not picky.”
Thanks to the floodlights, the security building’s like a theater. Blinding on one side. Black on the other.
The door creaks open. We edge in. Shoulder to shoulder.
The smell hits like a bad hangover. Mildew in the drywall.
The hallway splits two ways.
Kristy nudges me. “Got to find those cameras.”
I nod.
We round the corner—and someone steps into view.
We scream. Kristy stumbles back, barely catching herself.
The figure’s about the same height as Kade.
Same build. Same way he holds himself—shoulders tense, like he’s bracing for impact.
My heart lurches. No. No, it can’t be—
I raise the pepper spray as her phone’s beam hits him in pieces:
Black CREW hoodie. Sleeves shoved up over muscular forearms.
A lanyard swinging from his neck. The ID’s slightly crooked.
A face straight out of a ski trip brochure. Sharp jawline. Day-old stubble. Dark, mussed hair.
I exhale. Not Kade.
“Whoa, whoa, what happened? Are you two lost?”
I almost laugh. More like traumatized. Possibly on a serial killer’s to-do list.
What did Kade say in the trailer? ‘Oh, you’re so dead, little fox.’ Except now he sounds less sexy and a hell of a lot more deranged.
Kristy doesn’t bother with subtlety. “Who the hell are you?”
The guy raises both hands. “Vahn.” Those blue eyes flick to the canister in my grip. “Derek Vahn. I work here.”
“Yeah? This place fucking sucks,” Kristy snaps. “What’s going on? Why’s the power out?”
“I was gonna check the servers. Then I heard screaming outside.” His gaze drops to Kristy’s arm. “Shit. That needs stitches.”
She doesn’t lower her phone. “Someone’s killing people. A guy in a mask.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “What? Who—”
“One of your fucking hunters,” Kristy cuts in. “My friend’s dead, okay? We need help. We need to call the cops.”
“Three people are dead,” I add. “Lana Whitaker. Jessica Langley. Vanessa Graves.”
He does that thing. Same look I’ve been getting all night.
My grip tightens around the pepper spray. “Call us liars and I’ll light your ass up.”
“Okay. Okay. Calm down.”
I lower the spray. “Can you open the gate and let us out?”
He nods, suddenly all business. “It’s locked down with the outage, but I can override it from the control room. Plus, there’s a landline in there. We can call the cops, yeah? You wanna wait here while I—”
“No,” Kristy and I snap in unison.
She shoots me a glance.
I nod.
“We’ll follow you,” she says. “But try anything and I’ll stab you with this.”
She holds up her keys.
“Duly noted.” He lifts his hands, as if she’s pointing a bayonet at him, then throws a nod left. “This way.”
Kristy and I fall into step behind him, her head cocked in silent question: ‘If this goes south, you’ll blast him, right?’
‘Abso-fucking-lutely.’ I waggle the pepper spray.
He doesn’t buy your story, a little voice hisses.
Why should he? If I’d met two strangers babbling about some psycho hunting victims in the woods, I wouldn’t believe them either.
But that’s the thing—after a whole damn night of screaming killer, someone other than Kristy and Lana is finally listening. Not rolling their eyes. Not brushing me off.
Almost makes me want to stash the pepper spray and thank him. Almost.
Maybe everything’s going to be okay. Maybe we’ll make it out. Maybe, when this is over, Kade will be hauled off, and life will return to normal.
Minus Lana.
“We’ve got a first-aid kit, by the way.” Derek turns. “Between us? Whole setup’s glitching like crazy tonight.”
He strides ahead, waving us on. “Watch your step. Janitor’s been slacking on the mopping.”
The door opens to a surveillance hub—monitors lining the wall. And what the hell—it’s freezing in here. The whole place smells like a bachelor pad—stale energy drinks and something sweet-rotten beneath lemon disinfectant.
Kristy rubs her arms. “Ugh, who pissed off the thermostat?”
“Server room’s gotta stay cold.” Derek taps at a keyboard. “Is your phone working?”
I glance at Kristy—trick question? We were supposed to surrender our phones pre-hunt, and this guy hasn’t even asked why she’s still got hers.
“No,” she mutters.
“Figures.” He grabs a receiver, punches in numbers. “Shit. Landline’s down. Weather’s messing with the system, I guess.”
Kristy barks a laugh but says nothing.
Derek turns back to the computer and starts typing—fast, focused.
One by one, the monitors shift from static to fragmented camera feeds. Most show nothing but empty halls or wind-blown trees, glitching like they’re being pulled apart frame by frame.
“C’mon, c’mon …” he murmurs. “I just need access to the gate override panel.”
Kristy leans closer, watching the screens with narrowed eyes. “Can you pull up the woods? The main trail? Or the spot near the Sanctum of Solace trailer?”
“I’ll try. Some feeds are down. Probably the storm.”
“There’s no storm yet,” she says flatly.
Derek glances over his shoulder. “Right. Barometric pressure’s enough to mess with reception out here sometimes.”
I hover near the wall.
Half the screens are dead. The rest flicker. Shadows. Trees. Or something else. The AC’s cranked so high my teeth ache.