Freakin’ creep.
“My first kill.” He smiled.
My stomach dropped out to my feet, and I stared in shock.
He’d…
All this time, I’d wondered. I’d prayed to find the killer.
And he’d just, what…fallen into my lap?
That wasn’t possible.
“What do you mean, my first kill?” I asked.
“Your friend Mary would be my sixteenth.”
“What?” I almost screeched.
He’d killed Mary and my mom?
“I knew the moment you came back into town—you’d only been once before—that I had to take this opportunity. You nearly saw me that night. I had to know if it was just my imagination or if you’d actually seen something. I had to know. And well, Mary was a convenient target.” With that, he swung the axe above my head.
I flinched when a mirror broke across from me. Or beside me.
Hell, I didn’t even know anymore.
I did see glass hit my foot, though, so that meant he had to be close enough that the glass could reach me.
I took another turn, and another, until I could no longer see him.
But he followed, his axe slamming into the next closest image to him.
It hit with a solid thump, glass skittering across the floor once again.
“How did you kill Mary?” I asked.
My phone was in my pocket.
If I could just get it out…
It hit the floor with a solid thump, and I shakily reached for it as he answered.
“Saw her out one night at a show when I was visiting a friend. I saw her, then saw you, and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. So when y’all shut it down in that town, I had a little fun and locked her up in the trailer. I didn’t realize y’all were taking two weeks off, though. That was unusual. Thought maybe I wouldn’t get you here after all. Then boom—the call,” he answered.
Wow.
Just wow.
“I didn’t recognize you,” I said. “So this was all for nothing.”
Bright reached forward and banged his axe head into the next mirror, breaking it but not shattering it.
I closed my eyes and pressed “call” on the last phone number that I’d dialed.
I heard it ring and heard a male’s voice answer.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“F-fun House,” I answered Keene.
“We’re on our way,” he answered.
“You might want to bring backup,” I called out.
“Who are you talking to?” Bright asked in a rage now.
He didn’t like that I was talking to anyone and that my attention was divided.
He got off on it all being on him.
It threw him off that it was split between him and Keene, and he started swinging in earnest now.
I moved forward, now on my hands and my knees, my gaze completely and fully on the floor in front of me—it was solid black—and not on the mirrors.
If I didn’t look, maybe it would help me figure out how to get out of here faster.
Right?
Wrong.
Because somehow, I’d picked the exact perfect way that led to the dead end in the middle of the fun house, leaving me with nowhere to go and him swinging that axe like a crazy lumberjack intent on felling a tree.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Over and over, the axe hit until there was so much glass coming my way I had no choice but to close my eyes and pray he couldn’t get to me before my brother got there.
My hands were slick with blood as I scrambled further into a ball, my palms having been cut by shards of glass that I’d crawled over the top of to escape him.
My heart was now pounding so fast and hard that I could practically feel it in my throat.
And I could also feel the telltale signs of a migraine sneaking up on me.
Wouldn’t that just be perfect? My head pounding so hard that I couldn’t see or move.
Light exploded above me, and what was once light was now dark.
The shards of the light bulb rained down into my hair, and I was slightly terrified to know that he was right above me with that swing.
Then, as if he didn’t notice that he’d missed the mirror and gotten the light bulbs above my head—literally above my head—he moved past me, his right foot barely grazing my left knee.
He shuffled forward with an evil laugh.
“You know, your mom ran like this, too,” he said. “I saw her for the first time holding those same goddamn balloons you had tonight. The next night I came, she was feeding an elephant and scooping up shit, and the illusion of her beauty was shattered. She’d betrayed me in a single night, so I had to kill her.”
Bright’s words only served to let me know how utterly messed up he was in his head.
So because she was scooping up elephant shit, she’d betrayed him? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“The third night is the night she was dressed as a clown. And one thing to know about me. I don’t like clowns.” Bright swung and hit another mirror. “They give me the creeps.”
Well, he gave me the creeps.
My poor mother.
“Do you know how easy it is to get away with murder when you’re the one controlling the crime scenes?” Bright laughed. “It’s easy. Plus, all people need is a logical explanation. Hiking accident. Crazed bear. Car accident. Glass shard to the carotid from a broken mirror.”
His gaze looked at me pointedly as if that was his exact plan on how I’d die.
“I watched and waited until she was found,” he paused for a breath, leaning heavily on the axe handle. “Wow, this takes a lot out of you.”
Axe murdering tended to do that…
“It’s good that you came when you did,” he said. “I was starting to feel that familiar itch again, and there’s only so many times you can do it in your own hometown before it starts to get suspicious.”
You don’t say…
“Why’d you stop talking?” he asked.
His eyes were a bit crazy looking as if he wasn’t altogether there when he finally made eye contact with me.
Just as I was thinking he was willing to do just about anything to kill me, possibly even stay there all night and get caught by the others, I realized I had to do something.
But just as I decided to pick up a shard of glass and swing when he got close again, he twisted his head toward the entrance as we heard Melinda call out.
“Guess I was in here longer than I meant to be. Be right back,” he sang.
Then, as if he knew the way all along, he walked right out of there to the entrance of the building and disappeared out of it.
In a scramble, I chose to head for the exit on the other side.
Again, I hit the dead end in the middle and cursed.
“Stupid fucking Fun House,” I grumbled to myself. “Why would anyone find this fun?”
It also broke my heart that my mother’s last memories were of this place as well. This place that is so fucking stupid. She was trapped and killed, and Bright likely played with her like he’d done to me.
He knew exactly where I was the entire time, that I was sure.
“All right,” Bright called. “I’m back.”
He was.
“And sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I need to skedaddle.” He walked right through the entire Fun House, stopping, I thought, directly in front of me. Or if he wasn’t in front of me, he was close enough that I could hear the air waft by me. “Now, let’s get this finished, shall we?”