Page 38 of Girl, Haunted

‘Nocturne House? Which one’s that?’

‘Mercia Lane. Edge of town.’

Redmond fidgeted with something on the other end of the line, then, ‘No eyeballs on that one. Had someone watching it last night but I needed him somewhere else.’

Ella glanced at the dashboard. One-fifty-eight PM. Two minutes to go, and they still had three miles of road ahead, according to the dwindling numbers on the GPS screen.

‘What’s at Nocturne House?’ Redmond asked. ‘A suspect?’

‘Roland Pierce. He’s working there.’

‘Pierce is there? I can be there in ten, fifteen tops.’

Ella said, ‘Step on it. I’ve got a good feeling about this, and if Roland’s our man, we’ll need to sweep every inch of Nocturne House.’

'Got it.' Redmond hung up without a sign-off. It seemed to be a pattern amongst small-town sheriffs.

‘Hold on tight,’ Luca said. ‘I don’t watch NASCAR for nothing.’

Ella felt the car lurch as Luca floored the accelerator. He took a turn hard enough to leave half the tread on the asphalt. Ella braced herself against the door, wondering if this was how astronauts felt on reentry. The GPS squawked at them to make a right, and then the Oregon wilderness whipped by in a dizzying blur of greens and browns.

‘What’s the plan? What if there’s punters in there?’ he asked.

‘Catch Pierce. Don’t hurt the punters.’ Ella said as she mentally spat out the worst-case scenarios. Pierce with a hostage. Pierce with a gun. Pierce with a hostageanda gun. Ifany of these scenarios turned out to be real, then Ella had her work cut out for her. Deluded psychopaths weren’t known for their leniency, especially ones in the throes of capture.

As they crested a hill, Nocturne House suddenly came into view. It wasn't the Gothic nightmare Ella had half-expected, but rather a large, utilitarian complex that looked more like a repurposed warehouse than a house of horrors. The exterior was painted a deep, matte black, with ‘NOCTURNE HOUSE’ emblazoned across the front in glowing purple neon. A sprawling parking lot, already half-full of cars, stretched out before it.

‘Looks like the place is in full swing,’ Ella said.

‘Good. Our guy only strikes when places are empty.’

Ella wasn’t so convinced. If history had taught her anything, it was that serial slayers tended to up the ante on the third kill. More confidence meant more risk, and more risk meant killers might strike in busier areas.

Luca slammed the brakes and stopped the car inches in front of a giant red door. Ella jumped out with her hand pressed to her Glock and made for the entrance with Luca in tow. They found themselves in a plush lobby that boasted that distinct kindergarten-classroom smell. A bored-looking woman sat behind a ticket counter, separated from them by a sheet of bulletproof glass thick enough to stop a tank round. She barely glanced up from her computer as they approached.

‘Welcome to Nocturne House,’ she droned, clearly bored of reciting from the same old script. ‘Where your darkest nightmares come to…’

‘FBI,’ Ella cut her off as she pressed her badge to the glass. ‘We need to shut this place down. Now.’

The woman blinked, her brain visibly struggling to process this deviation from her usual spiel. ‘I… what? Shut down?’

‘You heard her,’ Luca chimed in. ‘Kill the lights, stop the ride, whatever you gotta do.’

The ticket-taker's eyes darted between them, confusion morphing into something closer to panic. ‘I can't just... I mean, there are people inside. I don't have the authority to…’

‘Is Roland Pierce working here?’ Ella cut in.

‘Roland? I’m not sure. I think so. I’ll just need to check the…’

Ella was two seconds away from punching the glass. ‘He’s a giant teddy bear. Ring any bells?’

'Oh, the teddy bear. Yeah, he's in there. Nightmare Forest Zone. Why?'

Beyond the curtain that Ella presumed led into this horror maze, she heard muffled screams punctuated by bursts of laughter. Not the desperate cries of genuine terror, but the exhilarated shrieks of thrill-seekers getting their money's worth. But that could change in a heartbeat if Roland decided to go off-script.

‘That's all we needed to hear,’ Ella said, already moving towards the entrance. ‘Hawkins, we're going in. Ma'am, I strongly suggest you start evacuating this place. Now.’

‘Going in? You can’t. You’ll ruin the… flow.’

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