Then Lacey’s picture rips in two, replaced by three others: Brooke, Katrin, and me. Theirs are class photos, but mine is a candid, with my face half-turned from the camera. A chill inches up my spine as I recognize the hoodie I wore yesterday when Ezra and I walked downtown to meet Malcolm and Mia at Bartley’s.
Somebody was watching us. Following us.
Horror-movie laughter starts spilling from the speakers, literal mua-ha-has that echo through the tent as what looks like thick red liquid drips down the screen, followed by jagged white letters: SOON. When it fades away, the Bloody Big Top is utterly silent. Everyone is frozen, with one exception: Meli Dinglasa from Channel 5. She strides purposefully onto the stage toward Coach Gagnon, with her microphone outstretched and a cameraman at her heels.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Malcolm
Saturday, September 28
The text from Declan comes as I’m walking against the departing crowds at Fright Farm Saturday night: In town for a few hours. Don’t freak out.
I almost text back I’m at the scene of your alleged crime. Don’t freak out, but manage to restrain myself to a simple What for? Which he ignores. I stuff the phone back in my pocket. If Declan’s been paying attention to the local news, he knows about last night’s pep rally turned stalker sideshow. I hope he was in New Hampshire surrounded by people when all that went down, or he’s only going to make the speculation worse.
Not my problem. Tonight I’m just the chauffeur, collecting Ellery and Ezra after work. No way is their grandmother letting them walk through the woods after what happened last night. To be honest, I’m a little surprised she agreed to let me pick them up, but Ellery says closing is two hours past Mrs. Corcoran’s usual bedtime.
I expect the House of Horrors to be empty, but music and laughter spill out toward me as I approach the building. The entire park was built around this house, an old Victorian at the edge of what used to be another wooded area. I’ve seen pictures of it before it became a theme park attraction, and it was always stately but worn-looking—as if its turrets were about to crumble, or the steps leading up to the wide porch would collapse if you stepped on them wrong. It still looks like that, but now it’s all part of the atmosphere.
I haven’t been here since I was ten, when Declan and his friends brought me. They took off when we were halfway through, like the assholes they were, and I had to go through the rest of the house on my own. Every single room freaked me out. I had nightmares for weeks about a guy in a bloody bathtub with stumps for legs.
My brother laughed when I finally stumbled out of the House of Horrors, snotty-nosed and terrified. Don’t be such a wuss, Mal. None of it’s real.
The music gets louder as I climb the steps and turn the doorknob. It doesn’t budge, and there’s no bell. I knock a few times, which feels weird, like, who do I expect to answer the door at a haunted house, exactly? Nobody does, so I head back down the stairs and edge around to the back. When I turn the corner, I see concrete steps leading down to a door that’s wedged open with a piece of wood. I descend the stairs and push the door open.
I’m in a basement room that looks like it’s part dressing room, part staff room. The space is large, dimly lit, and cluttered with shelves and clothes racks. A vanity with an oversized bulb mirror is shoved to one side, its surface covered with jars and bottles. Two cracked leather couches line the walls, with a glass-topped end table between them. There’s a closet-sized bathroom to the left, and a half-open door in front of me that leads into a small office.
I’m hovering a few steps inside, searching for a way upstairs, when a hand pushes open a frayed velvet curtain on the opposite end of the room. The sudden movement makes me gasp like a scared kid, and the girl who steps through the curtain laughs. She’s almost as tall as I am, dressed in a tight black tank top that shows off intricate tattoos against brown skin. She looks like she could be a few years older than me. “Boo,” she says, then crosses her arms and cocks her head. “Party crasher?”
I blink, confused. “What?”
She tsks. “Don’t play innocent with me. I’m the makeup artist. I know everybody, and you are trespassing.” I half open my mouth to protest, then close it as her stern look dissolves into a wide smile. “I’m just messing with you. Go upstairs, find your friends.” She crosses over to a minifridge next to the vanity and pulls out a couple bottles of water, pointing one toward me like a warning. “But this is a dry party, understand? Whole thing’ll get shut down if we gotta deal with a bunch of drunk teenagers. Especially after what happened last night.”
“Sure. Right,” I say, trying to sound like I know what she’s talking about. Ellery and Ezra didn’t say anything about a party. The tall girl sweeps aside the velvet curtain to let me through.
I climb a set of stairs into another hallway that opens into a dungeon-like room. I recognize the room immediately from my last visit inside, with Declan, but it looks a lot less sinister filled with party guests. A few people are still partly in costume, with masks off or pushed up on their foreheads. One guy’s holding a rubber head under his arm while he talks to a girl in a witch’s dress.
A hand tugs at my sleeve. I look down to see short, bright-red nails and follow them up to a face. It’s Viv and she’s talking, but I can’t hear what she’s saying over the music. I cup a hand to my ear, and she raises her voice. “I didn’t know you worked at Fright Farm.”
“I don’t,” I say back.
Viv frowns. She’s drenched in some kind of strawberry perfume that doesn’t smell bad, exactly, but reminds me of something a little kid would wear. “Then why did you come to the staff party?”
“I didn’t know there was a party,” I answer. “I’m just picking up Ellery and Ezra.”
“Well, good timing. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” I eye her warily. I’ve seen Viv almost every week since I moved into the Nilssons’, but we’ve barely exchanged a dozen words the entire time. Our entire relationship, if you can call it that, is based on not wanting to talk to one another. “Can I interview you for my next article?” she asks.
I don’t know what she’s angling for, but it can’t be good. “Why?”
“I’m doing this ‘Where Are They Now?’ series on Lacey’s murder. I thought it would be interesting to get the perspective of someone who was on the sidelines when it happened, what with your brother being a person of interest and all. We could—”
“Are you out of your mind?” I cut her off. “No.”
Viv lifts her chin. “I’m going to write it anyway. Don’t you want to give your side? It might make people more sympathetic to Declan, to hear from his brother.”