Page 7 of Haunt

And on this side, the door is just as loud as it slams closed behind me, making me jump and causing Doll Mask to giggle in my ear. “So jumpy, aren’t you?” Her fingers twine with mine. “You’re just so easy.” She sounds so pleased with herself. Like she’s done something to be proud of that she can’t get over and wants the whole world to see.

In a way, she reminds me of a cat presenting their owner with a dead mouse.

“I’m not trying to be,” I admit, twining my fingers with hers in return. The action seems to shock her, judging by the way she looks down at our hands for a few seconds. But then she shakes her head and looks at me again, her black dress stiff in some places with what looks like dried blood.

“We’ll go see Banshee first.” The way she says it is conversational. “She does such creative things in her room.” She swings her arm, gripping my hand so I’m forced to swing mineas well as I walk side-by-side with her down a hallway with multiple doors lining either side. It’s maybe not quite what I was expecting, but dread makes my stomach twist when she stops in front of a pink door.

Demurely, Doll Mask knocks, waiting for something I can’t hear before twisting the handle and opening the door to the room beyond it.

Lights assault my eyes instantly, causing me to blink away the spots that dance in my vision after going from the dark hallway to the brightly lit…circus tent?

That’s what it looks like, anyway. But it takes a few seconds for my brain to recognize what I’m seeing, and I lock my teeth together tight to remind myself this isn’t real.

None of this is real. But the point is to make me think it is, so as long as I keep reminding myself of that, I might actually last five minutes in here.

A wheel spins lazily against the far wall, and from it hangs the most realistic looking fake body I’ve ever seen. Knives stick out of the man’s body, pinning his hands and feet to it and sticking out of his abdomen like a pincushion. There’s a bag over the man’s head, preventing me from seeing what his face looks like, and when Doll Mask tugs on my hand, I turn to look at her, not as freaked out as I was expecting.

Until I see the other girl, who’s wearing a clown mask, sitting on top of a plastic picnic table. She runs her fingers over the circular saw in her lap, covered in blood from head to toe. When I gasp, she looks up at me, hopping off the table to prowl toward me with the saw.

“You’re so lost,” she murmurs when she’s close enough. “Here.” She grabs my free hand and rests the blade of the circular saw against my palm, not letting me pull away as she slides the bloody flat of the blade against my skin. “Is it still warm? Everything’s always so cold to me.”

“No,” I whisper, eyes on the blood as carnival music plays softly in the background. My hand shakes as she strokes the edge of the blade along it, and I can’t help noticing just how keenly Doll Mask watches her do it.

“Don’t cut her,” my companion murmurs. “Don’t mix their blood.”

Clown Girl glances her way with a quiet scoff and lets go of my hand so I can drop it back to my side. “I’m not like Blight.” Her voice is thick with scorn. “I won’t break your pretty friend. Come here.” She reaches out, tangling her fingers in the strings of my hoodie and dragging me across the room. “Look at what I did.Look how pretty they are.”

Against the far wall, two more bodies are slumped on the floor. They’re very clearly dead, or faking it more likely, with their heads covered by clown masks and blood pouring from the eyeholes that are pierced by long metal skewers. Clown Girl kneels down beside them and drags me down with her until my knees hit the concrete floor and something wet soaks into the fabric.

It’s not real blood,I tell myself, repeating the sentiment over and over again.It’s so not real blood.That’s what I have to remember about this.

Doll Mask kneels behind me, arms wrapped around my shoulders as she watches Clown Girl reach forward, her fingers teasing at the end of a skewer. “Would you like one?” she asks offhandedly, and before I can tell her no fucking thank you, she rips the metal stick out of the clown mask, the bloody end of it nearly turning my stomach.

I lurch backward into Doll Mask, who giggles and holds me relatively still. Blood and viscera drip from the end of the skewer, where the remains of the fake eye dangles precariously. God, it looks so…real.

“It’s not real,” I tell myself in a whisper as Clown Girl holds the skewer closer to my face. “Fuck, that looks so real.” Not that I know what my eye would look like in this…condition.

“It isn’t? We’ll have to tell her that.” Clown Girl sidles closer to the masked body and reaches out to tap her shoulder. “Hey, Hannah?” she hums. “Your eye isn’t real.Noasaid so.” Her use of my name makes me shiver, and I try to stand up only to be held down by Doll Mask. “So you’re okay with me taking it, right? Actually…”

She stands up and Doll Mask drags me up as well. “Why don’t you take it, Noa?” she chirps.

“No, I don’t…That’s okay,” I reply as my heart races nervously in my chest. “I think maybe you should keep it.”

“I have three more. Five more, if I want to take his.” She looks at the wheel and reaches out to grab my wrist, her bloody hand sliding over my skin and leaving a red swipe behind. “I said take it, didn’t I?” she asks, forcing my fingers to close over the end of the skewer where the fake eye is, even as I yelp in protest.

But I can’t stop her from making me crush it between my fingers, the fake eye squishing like jelly and seeping out from between my knuckles in a way that makes me want to puke. The moment she lets go, I jerk back, staring down at my hand in revulsion while Doll Mask just giggles and rests her head against my arm. “This is so gross,” I whisper, shaking my hand and causing the viscera to spatter against the floor. Looking around, I look for anything to wipe my hand on, even as Doll Mask tugs me back toward the door.

“She likes to have alone time after,” the girl whispers in my ear while I surreptitiously wipe my hand on the fabric covered wall. “She’ll get mad if we don’t leave her alone.”

“Oh, you won’t get an argument out of me,” I assure her with a forced, nervous smile. Honestly, as gross as the fake eye on theskewer was, it feels…tame. I’d expected to be hauled around or tied up. Hell, I’d even prepared myself for waterboarding.

Relief uncurls in my chest as Doll Mask pulls me out of the room and down the hallway. It occurs to me that if this is going to be more me looking at things and having to put gross shit in my hand…and circular saws…maybe I can do this after all.

“If you want to keep her”—Clown Girl’s voice rings out down the hallway and I turn to see her leaning on the bright door of her room, mask tilted in our direction—“take her somewhere Rav won’t find her.”

It’s just part of the act, I remind myself again as Doll Mask glances back at her coworker. She gives a small nod and turns to another door, this one a pristine white…except for the blood smeared over the surface near the knob.

“Let’s play,” she whispers, and drags me inside as my stomach twists and I ask myself why the hell I did this to myself.

---