Page 65 of The King of Halloween
Yeah, it was. He’d worked on that movie and tons of others. None of it mattered anymore. People wouldn’t come to see their favorite movie props in a haunt that didn’t work. “Adam, I think you should find—”
Movement. A shadow disengaged from the wall. Raj craned his head to find a rail-thin figure with long arms and a massive brimmed hat walking down the hall.
“Excuse me,” he called out to the scarecrow. “Actors are supposed to stay in place.”
Whoever it was had to have heard him as they glanced back. But then they turned and took off running.
Raj rose to his feet. Maybe it was the desperation, or the abject failure, but one person disobeying him set him off in a way he’d never felt before. “Hello!” Raj shouted, taking off after the errant actor. “Can’t you hear me? You’re not supposed to be here!”
He rounded a corner and spotted the scarecrow standing next to one of the fuse boxes. It pried open the casing and started to play with the switches.
“Stop that!” Raj shouted.
The scarecrow jerked up and stared at him. For a beat, red eyes glowed below the aged burlap. Then, whoever it was, bent in half and vanished into the darkness.
Damn it all. Raj started to give chase into the next part of the haunt, before he paused. No doubt that kid just screwed things up worse. Biting down on his flashlight, Raj flung open the fuse box and started to inspect everything. It all looked the same. Maybe he hadn’t done anything to…
No. Oh, god. It couldn’t be that simple. Raj looked at the box schematic, then the switches. Growing more certain, he pressed his finger to one of the fuses and flipped it.
Everything came to life.
The whole haunt lit up from the tiny winking bat eyes to the projected fires roaring in the woods.
“Raj? Is it working on your end?”
“Yes,” he cried out. How did he miss that? Somehow, he’d created a feedback loop, causing one circuit to feed into the other. It was a good thing it kept shutting down, or else the whole place could have burned to the ground.
Skidding feet pulled him from the fuse box just as Adam leaped and wrapped his arms around him. “Congratulations,” he breathed against Raj’s ear before squeezing him tighter in a hug. “Was it the plug thing?”
“There was a circuit that wasn’t…” Raj blinked slowly, a smile rising along with the weight on his chest. He had an unfairly handsome man hanging onto him in celebration. And to think Raj almost told him to go home and forget him. “Yes.” He cupped a hand to Adam’s cheek and pulled him close. “It was a plug thing.”
“I knew it. When in doubt, check the plugs.”
“Why do I get the unsettling feeling I’m going to have to get used to you being right a lot?”
“Accept your fate. Fighting will only make it…harder.”
A gasp slipped from Raj as his personal phantom didn’t just cup over his pants, but reached under the waistband. There wasn’t much to grab, at first. But just a graze from Adam’s fingers turned him rigid as a gravestone.
“If you think you can get another performance out of me without—”
Adam pressed his teeth against Raj’s cheek, rolling his eyes back. “I was hoping for more of a duet this time,” he whispered and brushed his lips against Raj’s.
“Uh, boss man?”
Fuck, there are kids here.
Both men sprang apart and tried to adjust their hair while struggling to hide away the guilt.
The vampire from the blood bath scene stared at him after glancing at the vanishing Adam. “Are we good?”
“We are.” Raj called over the intercom, “Everyone. We’re going to reset the haunt and open in two minutes. Get to your places and…scare the pants off of them.”
An excited cry rose from the people he paid to sit on their asses in latex makeup and costumes. Raj only had to flip a few switches, and the lights dimmed. “You’d better go too,” he said to the vampire girl. She was staring a little too long at Adam while he tried to cover half of his face.
“Okay. Nice to see you, Mr. Stein.”
“You too, Viola,” he said.
