4. Ivy Jade
Ivy Jade
Deep breath, Ivy Jade. Deeeeeep breath.
My idea of fun included glamor shoots to catalog every single piece of designer clothing I owned, or flying to Paris with friends on a whim in Papi’s jet. But this… this was atrocious! Who in their right mind volunteered to be scared out of their body?
“Ow! Come on, Ivy! Stop dragging! We’re barely past the entrance.”
“Tallulah! You know I’m only doing this for you, but I can’t switch my fear off,” I told her, digging my nails into her elbow as if my life depended on it.
Someone in the distance screamed bloody murder, chainsaws buzzed near my ears, and even creepy, psychotic brides with rotting teeth came to smile right at my face.
I screamed my entire head off! How was I supposed to survive an entire night of this?
My heart beat triple time, and I swear, if it beat any faster, I’d be on the floor like the crawling baby monsters coming our way.
I pushed Tallulah forward. “Tal! Please!? Is there something else I can do, like, not be at this park?”
“No, come on! Do this for me, please?” Tal begged. “You can hold onto me. Just not that tight. Your stiletto nails are as vicious as your heels. Why didn’t you change into some sneakers?”
I blinked at her. “Sneakers? Ugh. As if! You’ve seen my closet. I don’t own a pair of sneakers! Besides, Gustav rushed us out! I had no choice.”
“You had plenty of time to change.” Tallulah laughed, actually laughed at me. “Anyway, the best part is about to happen.”
“What’s about to happen?” I shrieked.
“The big door is about to open.”
“What’s behind it?” I dared to ask. There was no chill in my voice, only in my bones.
I looked at her, and her smile was deviously large, like she was the devil coming down to make tonight miserable for me.
I saw the door, a massive thirteen-foot gate of bones and wood that stood at the end of the cobblestone path.
String lights and banners swayed in the breeze, as laughing children ran away from its direction.
It was indeed a big door—a monstrous portal with rollercoaster lights and howling wolf noises that echoed from its confines. I was gagged.
“Stop it, you creep! What’s behind it, Tal!? I need to know right now! My anxiety is rising, and I don’t like when that happens!” I said, ready to rip her arm off with my squeezing grip.
“You’ll see,” she whispered, haunting-like.
A loud creaking of double doors opened just a yard up from us, clouds of thick fog slithered around, and out came hundreds of ungodly monsters headed straight to me!
Up ahead, a tall man stared right at me.
Knife in hand, hoodie hovering over his ultra freaky-creepy mask.
Matcha tea latte rose in my throat, and I was about ready to hurl all over Tallulah’s black, curly hair.
I couldn’t even breathe, and I couldn’t look away until he started briskly walking my way.
“Tal! I cannot do this!” I released my grip on her elbow to run, but she grabbed onto me tightly. “That guy is gonna kill us!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. We’re going into the haunted house over here.”
I shook my head, still trying to push past her. “I can’t, I can’t—”
“If you get through the haunted house, then you’re relieved from all your nightly activities. I swear!” Tallulah forced me to face her, as we both stopped right in the middle of the walkway. “Just keep your eyes on me, Ivy Jade. They’ll ignore you if you don’t look scared.”
“But there’s literally a madman with a chainsaw, right behind me!”
“It’s not real. This is all for fun. Look around you. Even the kids are laughing and enjoying themselves.”
Loud zombies walked brokenly toward me with their dark, gaping mouths wide open.
I shut my eyes so hard I saw stars everywhere, the darkness turning bright white.
“Okay,” I said, holding my pinky out, expecting to be magically transported back to my room at home.
“No more horror stuff at night for me if I get through this…” I said half-heartedly.
“It’s a deal!” she said, holding onto my pinkie, then taking my hand to guide us to the haunted house where the rest of the party waited.
Circus music played; horns blared as if it were funny–it wasn’t.
While we waited in line, a really terrifyingly large clown head above the entrance stared straight into my soul, laughing uncontrollably. His whole mouth was the entrance we were supposed to go into? Yikes!
The loud noises kept me on my toes, and the only thing I could do to keep myself sane was to rotate my head as much as I could to stay aware of my surroundings.
I hated this so much, but I did have to put on a brave face.
That’s what Mami told me when she waved goodbye to us earlier.
It was always easier to comfort others when you weren’t going to experience the monstrosities I was being sent into.
“You’re up.” The clown attendant waved our entire party of thirty inside.
“Don’t be nervous,” Hollie, one of the bridesmaids, told me. She had very pretty and bouncy, long blonde hair with butterfly clips at the top. “You gotta remember, it’s just humans in costumes. At least that’s what I tell myself to get through these things.”
Hollie and Tallulah met through a book club they joined a few years back.
I wasn’t invited, but that was because my taste in books was different, so whatever.
They read mostly horror and some romance, maybe dark romance.
I loved reading historical romance novels almost exclusively, and, obviously, 'Unmasking My Bright Knight' was a bit of an obsession for me. Any criticism of it would feel like an attack on my soul, though I bet Hollie would’ve enjoyed it, since she was the sunshine of the group.
I heard she could read over two hundred books in a single year, which was pretty cool, actually.
“You willingly put yourself through this?” I asked, horrified. “Why?”
“I love horror novels and movies, but horror amusement parks were never my thing. Anyway, I do it for Tallulah. I’m getting kinda used to it,” she said with a sweet but nervous smile. “Wait, is this your first time at one of these?”
“How could you tell?” I took five inhales and exhales in line as they corralled us like cattle to the front. I fanned my face with both my hands, feeling flush.
“You can wear my lucky rainbow scrunchie on your wrist to keep you safe! It always helps me.” She took it off her wrist and handed it over.
I stared at her for a long five seconds before looking down at it. Was a scrunchie really going to keep me safe from all these evil clowns running rampant around the park and inside this house? I don’t think so. Still, I took it because believing was better than not.
“Thanks,” I said, as the clown’s laughs grew louder and louder, and the mouth entrance grew darker as we stepped inside.
“Don’t worry; there are exits if it gets that bad. Oh, and watch out for the big clown on stilts!!” she said, then left me and her scrunchie all by our lonesome.
Did I mention I hated clowns? Their makeup, their clothes, their… entire aura. They gave me the creeps! Nobody smiled that big, not even my mami could, and she was the best smiler of them all.
The bright, colorful strobe lights blinded me on the way in, and I was thinking… maybe that was a good thing. I appreciated the blind spots for censoring the horror of hanging guts and spilled blood in front of me. There was fog galore everywhere, and I could hardly see my cutie shoes.
“Fuck!” I screamed because one of the freaking animatronic clowns popped up on my right and left simultaneously. I hated cursing, but in this instance, it was forgivable.
“I don’t look like that!” I yelled at a real human clown who showed up to mock my terror-stricken poses. He squeezed a little toot horn, and… let’s just say my body was numb with nerves, like when your foot fell asleep, except it was my entire body.
By the time I walked through the third door and huddled close to one of the bridesmaids, I tilted my head up to the biggest clown I'd ever seen. He popped right out of a Jack in the Box, all ten feet of him, running towards me.
Now I was the one screaming bloody murder, running as fast as I could in the opposite direction!
I practically body-slammed the black door with the red exit sign hovering above it, and I was free at last. But just as I was taking a deep breath, another clown ran right towards me, and I couldn’t help but run off.
That’s when everything went dark. The last thing I felt was the tip of my heel snagging the edge of concrete.
The park lights spiraled in a whirl as I somersaulted forward, spinning and tumbling down a hill into the surrounding forest until I landed roughly in a ditch.
There was a loud snap. My Louboutin heel cracked in half, and I was officially living my worst nightmare.