Page 171 of Time Stops With You

We walk to the parking lot, and Nardi keeps glancing at me without saying anything.

“I brought my car today,” I explain.

Her eyebrows twitch in surprise. “Really? Why?”

“Because I wanted to drive you to the hospital.” I check my phone screen for the time. “Since you have a few hours before your appointment, would you come somewhere with me?”

Nardi observes me for a beat and, I’m pretty sure she’ll say no. But she surprises me by nodding and walking ahead of me to the car.

We don’t speak much on the way. Nardi takes control of the music and bobs her head to the songs. The music is an eclectic mix of R&B, pop, country and a drum-intensive sound native to Belize.

Sometimes, she croons along with the soulful singers screaming about love and heartbreak. At other times, she mumbles along with famous rappers, missing half of the words and then blasting out the few lines that she knows by heart. But I really like when she sings to the Belizean music. Her hips start moving in her seat and it seems that, at any moment, she’ll break out into a full-on dance.

She’s far more comfortable around me today than she was yesterday, and I smile the entire trip.

But Nardi’s smile disappears when she sees where we’re going.

“Is this a haunted house?” Nardi gives the giant, creepily decorated mansion an incredulous look as I find a parking spot. “You wanted to come to a haunted house?”

“This place opened up last year and I kept saying I’d go when I have the time, but I never had an opportunity.”

“I didn’t know you liked horror,” she says, looking nervous.

“Not particularly.” I shrug and un-do my seatbelt. “My mother loved horror movies when I was growing up and she always said we’d go to one together but…” I let the words trail. “Anyway, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Nardi gives me another studying look and then she inhales a deep breath. “Alright, let’s do it.”

We enter the creepy mansion and we’re met by a woman dressed like a vampire. She has us sign waiver forms confirming that we don’t have heart conditions and relieving the establishment of all responsibility even if we were to die inside.

I almost crack a joke about that to Nardi but, after seeing how much she trembles while signing her name to the form, I hold back. Death might be a close friend of mine, but Nardi wants to stay far away from him, and I understand that.

The first room we enter is darkly lit with a lone, flickering bulb. Nardi stays close on my heels, hunkering behind me. Hereyes dart left and right, searching for a threat. There’s nothing truly creepy in this room except for the music. However, she’s already so terrified that I can’t resist messing with her.

Turning to her without warning, I lower my voice and rasp a menacing, “Boo!”

“Ah!” Nardi screams and jumps on top of me, hanging from my neck like I’m a tree she wants to climb.

I laugh against her soft brown skin.

She realizes that there’s no danger and promptly drops flat on her feet. “Not funny, Cullen.”

“We’ll be fine,” I assure her, still laughing. “Just remember that none of it is real.”

She gives me an ‘I’ll kill you for that’ look and I fight a smile. This woman packs so much into her expressions that if I snapped a picture for every look, I could probably make my own Nardi dictionary.

The next room steps it up a bit with animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling, even louder creepy music and blood spatters on the floor.

“Ah!” Nardi screeches and grabs my arm, pasting herself against me. “I just saw that eyeball move.”

I glance in the direction she’s pointing and laugh. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “It’s a robot eye.”

“Do people seriously find this fun?” Nardi grumbles, sticking to me like a shadow as we move on to the next room. There are human heads—obviously made of material other than human flesh—floating inside a greenish fluid and stored in clear glass jars.

“I heard the company that owns it is opening another franchise,” I answer. It’s hard to focus on my creepy surroundings when she’s holding me tightly like that. I smile down at her. “So the answer is yes.”

In the dimness of the room, I see Nardi roll her eyes and mumble, “I can bet it’s not black people keeping this place open.”

I chuckle and step over an old-looking box in the middle of the ground. “I’m a little unimpressed. This isn’t that scary—ah!Ah!” I release the most un-manly scream in my entire life as a bony hand grabs hold of my ankle.

---