Page 22 of Hell's Fear

“Ali!” Blaze roared, and I stopped screaming.

“That was a clown! In the walls! There’re clowns in the walls!” I squealed, and Blaze winced.

“Calm down,” Blaze demanded, standing.

Terrified, I shook my head at him. As soon as he was upright, so was I and attached to his back. Blaze adjusted my arms and patted my leg.

“Stick together,” Tiny ordered.

Razor was already whimpering.

“Just hold on man, we’ll get you out,” Nando soothed as he took point.

We began walking and discovered that as we approached a see-through section, it would turn opaque to confuse us. Several times, we banged into dead ends because the walls stayed clear.

As we turned a corner, a clown popped out of a wall. Razor stiffened in fear but didn’t react because we had realised that the clowns were images in the walls. Except this one wasn’t. Razor barged straight into him, and the clown grabbed him.

Petrified, Razor screamed in his face, and the clown shrieked back.

Razor screeched again, which the clown copied.

Nando reached for Razor, who turned on him, flailing and throwing punches. Razor was so past logic that it took Tiny andNando to flatten him, and Nando pulled out some zip ties as Razor became comatose.

“Damn, you carry them everywhere?” Booth demanded as Nando tied Razor’s hands.

“Yeah. They’re not weapons,” Nando rationalised.

“Wow, okay,” Booth snickered. “What we gonna do with Razor?”

“Well, we can’t leave his stupid ass. We’ll have to take turns carrying him,” Tiny replied as Nando lifted Razor. Then Tiny bent and grasped Razor in a fireman’s carry. “Come on.”

“Wait till that fucker wakes up,” Blaze muttered as I gripped him even tighter. “Baby, if you don’t loosen your grip, I’m going to choke out. And then the clowns will have you!”

I immediately relaxed my grip.

We kept walking, taking wrong turns and crashing into dead ends. More than one of us bounced off an invisible wall. We were soon walking with our arms outstretched to save us from any more bumps and bangs.

Rather abruptly, we stumbled into a large room with four exits, and we all looked puzzled.

“The centre of the maze?” Diesel asked as he rolled his shoulders.

Alice rubbed them for him, and Diesel offered her a grateful glance.

“Yeah, I think so, look,” Nando said and pointed as everything turned clear again.

We could see we were halfway across, and we could spot the exit now. A timer displayed an hour and a half remaining to reach the door. No sooner had we spotted it than the mirrors changed, and several clowns rushed at us.

I screamed and took off, and Blaze yelled my name.

In my panic, I kept running, bouncing off of walls and screaming all over again as clowns appeared in front of me.

“Ali-kat!” Blaze thundered, but he’d lost me, and I was alone and being chased. I barrelled into someone and screeched in their face, and Nando grabbed hold of me and dragged me back the way I came.

We passed Razor looking frantic and being bounced on Booth’s shoulder. Razor was bellowing at Booth to run because a clown was chasing them. It was sheer chaos.

Alice let out a shrill shriek, which made me panic even further. Nando kept a tight grip as we joined with Blaze and Razor and then found Tiny with Alice. Booth and Diesel were both missing.

“Keep moving,” Tiny said, carrying Alice.

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