Page 3 of A Very Gay Halloween
Cooper scoffs. "Of course you are."
I throw my hands up. "Are you going to help me?" I half-whisper. "Or are we just going to hang around until they catch up?"
He makes a show of shining the light on his face, making sure I don't miss his eye roll before he finally moves, without a word.
I follow him through the maze, and make sure to step on the hem of his robe, making him lose his balance. Twice.
He doesn't acknowledge my antics and turns another corner, where he stops abruptly, making me crash into his back. God, I hate him.
Cooper points his light to the corner I recognize as my final spot. "There. Will you make it from here? Or do I need to walk you?"
My mind produces a 'la la la' to drown out his smugness as I march past him, body-checking him as I do. He takes a sharp inhale, to say something dumb again no doubt, but a clipped scream reaches us from where we've just come from, signaling the group is getting close.
"Try not to fuck up next time," he says and walks away, black robe rustling as he does.
Once he's gone, I take a deep breath to ground myself.
It's not fair.
And yes, IknowI'm the one who's in the wrong.Again. But it doesn't stop the lead ball from rolling around in my stomach, my heart hammering against my ribs, radiating hatred.
One of those days. One of those days, something will happen, something will finally go my way, and I'll have the upper hand for once. And then I'll show him where to shove it.
I'm spiraling so hard I register a horde of footsteps at the very last second and duck behind a piece of plywood just as the tip of a good-for-nothing flashlight appears from around the corner.
Yeah, one of those days. Today, I have a job to do.
Chapter 2
THIRD TIME'S THE charm, or so they fucking say.
The last group's giggles echo from somewhere deep in the maze, which means I've got about ten minutes before they reach my last station—the grand finale. Ten minutes to get my ass in position, scare the shit out of people one final time, and then I can peel off this blood-soaked apron that's starting to smell like a morgue in July.
I stretch my neck, hearing it crack like old floorboards. The fake blood has dried into a crusty mess that pulls at my skin every time I move, and there's probably cobweb shit stuck in my hair from all the low-hanging decorations. At least the warehouse is cooling down now that the sun's gone completely dark. October nights in this part of the state don't fuck around.
The ambient sounds pour through the speakers like a horror movie soundtrack—wind that sounds like it's carrying the voices of the damned, crows that could be announcing the apocalypse, hinges screaming their death rattles. It's all very dramatic. Very Cooper.
I push off from the plywood wall and start navigating toward my final position. Left, then another left, past the corridor where Justin does his psycho killer bit—I can hear himpracticing his maniacal laugh even now—then right past the fake cemetery setup.
Or at least, that's where I think I'm going.
The thing about mazes built in the dark is that they all look the same when you're running on adrenaline and spite. Shadows from the few strategically placed candles twist everything into weird angles, making familiar corners look foreign. The black plywood walls seem to shift when you're not looking directly at them, like they're playing some kind of fucked-up optical illusion game.
I pause at what should be a familiar intersection and squint into the darkness. There's supposed to be a rusty gate here, the one with the blood dripping from the hinges. Instead, I'm staring at a solid wall decorated with what looks like props I don't remember seeing during any of our rehearsals.
A mannequin head with its eyes gouged out sits on a makeshift shelf, grinning like it knows something I don't. Below it, there's a collection of fake severed hands arranged around a Ouija board that definitely wasn't part of Jason's original design. The whole setup screams Cooper's particular brand of overkill.
"Fuck," I mutter, turning in a slow circle. Every direction looks wrong. Every shadow looks like it's hiding something that wants to eat my face.
The distant sound of the approaching group gets a little louder—they're moving faster than the first two groups did. Probably getting braver, or maybe just more eager to get this over with. Can't say I blame them.
I pick a direction and keep walking, telling myself I know where I'm going even though I clearly don't. The candlelight flickers across more unfamiliar props—a collection of oldmirrors that reflect distorted images, making my blood-smeared face look like something out of a fever dream.
That's when I hear the footsteps behind me.
Not the group. These are different. Singular. Measured. Deliberate. Like someone's following me.
I glance over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of black fabric disappearing around a corner. The hem of a robe, maybe. Or just shadows playing tricks on my paranoid brain.
