Page 26 of Halloween Haunting
“There are lots of people,” she murmured. “How are we supposed to find one person amongst all of them? How are we even expected to getinsidewith these long lines? I’m just…I just don’t know…”
Bryant twisted in his seat to face her as much as he could. “Are you nervous?”
“Nervous?” she repeated with an exaggerated scoff. “Look at all the kids here! W-What’s there to be…what’s there to be nervous…about…” Bryant’s persistent stare and the haunted house were enough to render her into nothing more than a ball of nerves. And as she tried to brush it off with a fib, Grace found that she sounded evenlessbelievable, if that was at all possible. With a sigh, her shoulders fell and the mask shattered. “I’m terrified.”
Not of the haunted house, but of what she was doing. Working with the police. Following up with sources. On an actualmurder.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s go over it again, then.”
Grace met his stare. It was obvious that he was trying to reassure her, even if he wasn’t all that emotionally capable of really saying so. She gratefully took it all the same, nodding her head and waiting to hear the information get passed to her once more.
“We’re looking for Clint Hayes,” Bryant explained. “He is one of the many people who bring the holidays to life in the Hollow. This year, he volunteered to work at the haunted house. We got multiple eyewitnesses pinning Clint to the costume party and they all say he was wearing a monster costume. The same witnesses say they saw Clint getting into a pretty gnarly argument with Tommy earlier in the evening.”
“What for?”
Bryant’s eyes glinted amusingly. “Apparenty, Tommy thought it wouldn’t be a problem to start dating one of Clint’s ex-girlfriend’s. And did I mention that they’re best friends?”
“Verysmart,” Grace teased.
“He left around the time Tommy would’ve been killed.”
Grace’s blood chilled and she shivered. “So Clint Hayescanbe the killer.”
“He could be.”
“You don’t seem very convinced.”
“I never am,” Bryant replied. “Not until the cards start adding up. Nothing points to Clint being the same killer from ten years ago. Till that starts adding up, you’ll find that I’m a pretty skeptical guy.”
Grace glanced out the window, eyeing the long line of people waiting to get admittance into the popular haunted house. A part of her felt the need to rub her eyes, to pinch her sensitive skin and demand to be woken from the dream she had been pulled into. There was no way this was her reality. Grace wasnota psychic consultant to the police department, she did not stumble across a dead body, and shecertainlydid not live in a town full of the supernatural.It has to be impossible.
But it wasn’t. No matter how many red marks were left along her arms, Grace did not wake up. The world around her remained unchanging. Bryant was still in the driver’s seat, stillwatching her, still waiting expectantly. Grace pulled her gaze away from the window and snatched the door handle.
“Well,” she breathed, “Killer’s not gonna catch himself, will he?”
Bryant raised a brow before he grew amused, as though he didn’t quite believe her willingness to keep going through with it. Either way, they both tumbled out of the car, and made their way toward the haunted house’s front doors.
The long line stretched around the parking lot's borders, where families and teens and young adults waited for their turn to be scared out of their minds. Bryant wasted no time in cutting through the line, earning a few angry looks and petulant shouts before he had the chance to flash his badge to the people in line, quieting them in an instant. At the front of the line, right before passing through the shadowy doors, was a small table, where a young girl with jack-o-lantern face paint sat with a box of tickets.
“No entry without –” she started her memorized script.
Bryant’s golden badge caught the moonlight, scattering across the girl’s surprised expression.
“Oh,” she mouthed before curiously leaning forward. “Is this about Tommy Briggs? Itis, isn’t it?”
“Can you tell me where we can find Clint Hayes?” Effortlessly, Bryant avoided the girl’s question and steered the conversation. There was no doubt about who was the commanding speaker, the one who wielded all the authority.
Excitement rolled down Grace’s spine, but she was quick to swallow it.
“Clint’s been assigned to the graveyard room,” the girl murmured, her eyes wide. “Follow the main hallway till the third left. You…you shouldn’t miss it. Or him, for that matter.”
The girl’s words were weirdly ominous as Bryant led the way into the haunted house. Grace’s eye stuck to the girl as she passed her by, quickly catching the humorous glint inher mischievous gaze. Grace stepped over the threshold, and darkness swallowed any ounce of light that dared to follow them.
The haunted house was the most elaborate Halloween event Grace had ever seen. Sure, she had attended plenty of haunted houses back in the day, but they were never as well-done as the one she was in now. She was used to plastic skeletons, bats sticking to the walls, fake spider-webs overtaking the shadowy corners. There would be teenagers dressed as ghouls, wielding their scythes and whispering across the air. Shouts and screams would be had, but by the time it was over, no one was ever worried about the monsters following them out of the house.
Grace was frozen in place.This is terrifying.Lights flicked in and out periodically, revealing a crooked face leering at them from a doorway. Hands stretched out and grazed her before disappearing again, as if they were never there in the first place. Mist crawled across the floor, swallowing her feet and leaving the deafening sensation of a damp coolness on her bare skin. Screams echoed from down the hall, at first too far away to be concerned, before barreling toward her all at once.
“Grace.” Bryant’s voice cut through the darkness.
