I’ve never experienced cardiac problems in my life. According to my health checkups, I’m considered a healthy and average twenty-two-year-old woman with no underlying issues or risk factors. Yet, as I stand in the hall, listening to Nancy’s screams, I feel my ribs constrict and send a twinge of pain. My sternum aches with the pressure lying on my chest, almost as if it were close to imploding on itself and crushing everything in its path.
Time drags around us as if someone had pressed the slow-motion button on the film to focus on the details, which is the same thing my mind does to process the scene unfolding in front of me.
Jen bangs her fists harder against the wood. Thumps echo in my skull, vibrating against the soft tissue of my brain. Sparks of adrenaline erupt in my nerves, making my muscles twitch.
“Nancy!” my friend bellows, her voice cracking with emotion. “Are you okay?”
“Stop being dramatic,” Steve interrupts with a pitch of annoyance. “You’ll see her again soon. She isn’t actually getting killed.”
The reminder is as sharp as a knife when it slices through the walls of panic around my mind.
This isn’t real.
Nausea sways in my stomach.
It isn’t fucking real.
Slashed is messing with my head. I can’t even separate reality from fiction, though I’m unsure if this classifies as fictional. We’re getting the same emotions as if we were experiencing the fear and horror of being chased by a killer. It doesn’t matter if people are being killed or not because our feelings are valid. That’s the whole point of this haunted attraction being so acclaimed and feared. They do their best to put us in the throes of the experience.
Heat burns in my veins, scorching the vessels and boiling my blood with anger.
Who does he think he is?
We’re allowed to care for our terrified friend who got left behind, thanks to his douchebag buddy. He grabbed her by her ankle and dragged her. She might be hurt if she fell down the stairs.
And Nancy was scared.
Even if this isn’t real, it doesn’t erase the fact that she was screaming and completely petrified. I made her come here because it was meant to be a fun experience for us friends to laugh about later.
It’s not the same without her, and no final girl title will be enough to compensate or lessen the guilt jittering in my system for letting go of her. It wasn’t my fault, I’m aware, but my guilt still wrenches in my gut.
“Shut the fuck up,” I spit out, almost hissing the words as they slip through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to call us dramatic for caring about our friend.”
Steve rolls his eyes.
Now that his buddies are gone and my defenses have cracked, his true colors swoop in. He’s as douchey as the rest of them, like I knew he was. I’m not surprised, but it’s disappointing, nonetheless.
Men often are.
“Are you stupid?” Jen asks him. “Your little buddy attacked our friend.”
“I wouldn’t say he attacked her. He reacted to the scare actor abusing him,” Steve responds, jumping to a defensive tone. His chest puffs out and his shoulders straighten. “I’m not sure it’s legal.”
I roll my eyes.
“He signed the same waiver as we did. He consented to be chased and scared.” I jump in Silver Mask’s defense, even when I don’t know him. “What Ty did was pull our friend by her leg so he wouldn’t be eliminated alone. That’s fucked up, and we could file a complaint about your buddy if we wanted to.”
Guessing we’re not letting this go, Steve lifts his hands in the air.
Good. He will not be winning this fight.
“Whatever.” His head shakes with disregard. “What’s that thing you kept saying earlier? We don’t have to stick together.”
Oh, he wants to part ways now. After they have eliminated his entire friend group? That seems like the smartest choice, I can’t help but think with sarcasm. I couldn’t care less if he goes off and gets wiped out around the corner. At least he won’t be able to use us like Ty did with Nance.
Bitterness stabs my ribs as I think back to the expression on her face as her hand slipped from mine and she fell. Even worse when Steve decided to lock her away.
We’re better off without him.
“It’s not like you’re doing anything productive here,” I mumble.
I don’t turn to see which direction he heads in, or if there’s more than one. I haven’t had the time to analyze where we’re at. Nancy is my only concern.
“Let me call her,” Jen announces and pats her pockets.
Sourness coats the length of my tongue.
“There’s no point,” I stop her. “I have her phone, remember?”
What a stupid thing to do.
I hadn’t thought about getting separated when I took it. I wanted my friend to enjoy something I believed would be fun. This is possibly the last time she’ll ever trust me to choose an activity. I’m sure they’ll never even ask me to pick a movie after this. To be fair, I don’t think I’d trust myself either.
Jen groans.
“Nance,” she calls out again, slamming her open palm on the door. “Are you okay?”
A beat passes and realization washes over me.
“Wait, it has gone quiet,” I notice, perching my ear against the wood. The sounds are muffled, but the screams have ceased. There are some huffs and noises I can’t decipher, but no cries. That’s a good sign. “I think it stopped now.”
Her sigh is loud and full of defeat.
“I don’t like this,” she says, her tone straining into a whine. “We’re never doing another haunted house again.”
I scoff, feeling my shoulders loosen with the lighter tease.
“We’ll see.” I dig my elbow into her ribs. “Where did Steve go?”
Spinning on my heels, I glance around to take in the space. The lighting is dim, visible enough to allow me to look at the archways and exits of the vast hall, but not enough to say everything is crystal clear. I try to not let my imagination take control, imagining what could be lurking in the darkened corners of the room.
Since we came from the basement, we’re back on the base floor, but not near the foyer. This is a rough guess, but I’d say it’s somewhere near the middle of the house. We walked—or ran—out of the end of a hall that stretches in front of multiple entrances. Each room glows with a different neon color that bleeds into the floor in front of me. Red, purple, and pink meet into a gradient that ends in the subtle darkness.
I don’t love the idea of having multiple options, mostly because we don’t know if we’re going to walk into a trap like in the basement when not all the doors opened. We would’ve gotten trapped in the second room if it weren’t for me. However, now we don’t have as many people as we did then. It’s us against a lot of unknown territory, jump scares, and actors waiting to chase us.
My skin itches as my thoughts drift to Silver Mask.
It wouldn’t be that crazy if he found us again, right? He’s been after us from the moment we entered the house, always appearing in the corners, seeking, hunting. Silver Mask a predator looking for its prey, and I’m waiting for him to catch me.
Not that I would go down easy—I like to think I can make him struggle—but I’d surrender in the end.
To him, only to him.
“I didn’t see, nor do I care.” Jen’s voice breaks my fantasy with her sassy tone. “He can get fucked.”
The corners of my lips tilt up into a smirk.
“I don’t care either,” I assure her, purposefully dragging my words. “Though, if I may say something competitive, I don’t want him to win. There’s only three of us left, and between us and him, I’d prefer if you and I won.”
Jen chuckles. “Yeah, me too. Hope a scare actor gets to him soon.”
Maybe Silver Mask will.
A girl can only hope he does.
If the odds function in our favor, he’ll go after him first, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I don’t know exactly how the logistics of the scare actors work here. For all I know, he’s confined to the basement, and we’ll stumble upon other actors soon. Though, now that I think about it, we’ve only seen him.
I shrug away the thoughts.
“Let’s finish this. I’m sure Nancy will be waiting for us outside,” I say, nodding toward the open hall.
“If there are spiders in the next room, I’ll fucking sue,” she jokes, but I catch the tremble in her words as she stares at the empty space, cautious of everything. Her shoulders are visibly tense under layers of clothes. She hasn’t shown her fear the same way Nance and I have. She hides it in silence, keeping it contained in her frame.
I snort, trying to keep the ambiance light.
We need it after the stress we’ve been under in the past… how long has it been? I’ve lost track of time. I think it’s been around an hour. Maybe less, maybe more. Who even cares? The longest we can spend inside is a little over an hour, and that’s with bigger groups. So, it’s less than sixty minutes, that much I’m sure of.
“Let’s continue.” I nudge at her elbow. “I’ll protect you from the spiders.”
She rolls her eyes with annoyance, and I know I got her back. She’s broken from the spell that kept her tense.
“Which way?” Her pointer finger moves through the air, swaying among the options. “It’s clear you can’t trust my judgment.”
“We can go upstairs. I doubt we could get out of here without going through everything. Part of the game logistics and all,” she mentions, moving her hands around.
“Okay.” I dip my head in a nod, and we start walking.
The rooms along the hall are empty of people, though they’re full of furniture.
The silence is threatening. My pulse thumps in my ears with every step I take, like a bomb ticking before it blows up. As the entrance becomes clearer, I can’t spot anything particularly scary outside the normal spooky décor of the place.
They all look like regular living rooms. It’s strange that there could be three of them so far inside the house. I won’t wreck my brain attempting to put together the logistics of this architecture arrangement. It’s probably disorganized on purpose to confuse the attendees.
The closer we get to the last archway, white noise buzzes in my ears, and it’s not until I step inside that I see where it comes from. The room has a box TV from the early 2000s atop a stand against the wall. It’s on one of the input channels where it only has static. A second later, I realize it’s imitating The Ring, and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach.
“If a girl crawls out and starts chasing us, I’m tapping out,” Jen mentions.
I shake my head and look for an exit before we’re caught by anyone else. Thankfully, everything is clear and empty.
Interesting.
You would’ve thought that a place like this, a haunted attraction, would have multiple actors working at the same time. I get that the principal theme is the slasher subgenre, but they’ve included other psychological elements. Maybe they only have one actor per group because it’s easier to play with people’s minds. Either way, it doesn’t ease the anxiousness coursing through my system.
Something will happen soon. I feel it in the pit of my gut, a tremulous warning that causes my insides to churn.
When I spot the exit, it directs us to a new archway that opens to the main foyer. We’re back at the beginning.
Jen and I venture deeper into the vestibule. The basement entrance is closed, so only the imperial staircases are left. Given the circumstances and after what we’ve been through, I can’t help but think they’re a serious safety hazard if people have to run up and down them while being chased. I don’t know how someone hasn’t sued them already because they fell.
Perhaps it’s why they have us sign the waivers before we enter. Too many risks for the sake of fun. They sell an experience, after all. I bet people, similar to us, have been shocked to find out their warning is more than a few words on paper to keep us on our toes. They mean them.
We’re too stupid to notice the truth before it’s too late.
I’m too caught up in my thoughts when it happens, when the heavy and sturdy body slams into my back, pushing me forward with the force of a train. It’s a miracle I don’t fall to my knees in that instant, and it’s probably because I’m too tangled up with the person to let my frame plummet down.
My reflexes work overtime as a scream erupts from the end of my throat, scratching the tissue of my larynx. My hands, fiddling with the lack of balance and panic, struggle to push the weight of the man who collided with me.
I have a one track of mind: breaking free. There’s no fucking way this will be the way I’m eliminated from the game. Not when we’re so close to finishing this thing. Dios mío, couldn’t they go after Steve first?
Annoyance knits my face into a deep frown. As much as they state we shouldn’t attack scare actors doing their jobs, I’m not sure I should be allowing them to trample me either. Literally. Hell, he rammed into me first. I’m not a genius, but the no-attacks policy should work both ways. Getting tackled by an employee doesn’t seem like it’d be part of their contract.
I have a right to defend myself when prompted to.
I shift, attempting to untangle myself from the person.
My instinct is to hide the wristband behind my back, so he can’t use the scanner on it, but I make it worse for the rest of our limbs because we get even more tangled with each other. We’re a knot of body parts and panic, causing us to lose what’s left of our balance and collapse.
Our bodies hit the hard ground, and I feel a pounding pain spread across my left hip. The tenderness pulsing in my muscles ignites a fresh wave of anger. This wasn’t a slam made with finesse, and if it was done by a staff member, I’ll have a fucking problem with the administration.
While moving, I catch a glimpse of a varsity jacket, and it snaps me back into reality. This isn’t a scare actor lacking agility in his performance.
The man above me is no other than stupid Steve.
“Let go of me, cabrón!” The insult slips out of me before I choke it down. There’s a different type of anger that only your mother tongue can satisfy, and I have it boiling in my system. Packs a solid punch and power, and this is one of those situations where I find myself returning to my roots because there’s no other way to soothe the rage and annoyance I get from seeing Steve’s face again.
He blinks; confusion clouding his expression. His eyes travel over my face, taking in the features as understanding washes over his, softening them.
“You scared the fuck out of me!” he exclaims, rolling off me with a thud.
Steve gasps for air, putting his hands over his chest as if he were holding his heart hostage.
You got to be fucking kidding me.
I can’t believe he left before us and we ended up in the same place.
“How are you still here?” I question, standing up from the floor.
My hip throbs with pain, but I do my best to ignore it. I’m too angry to worry about the parts I will have to ice tonight.
“He’s upstairs.” His eyes drift up for a split second, almost paranoid.
This is far from the cocky man who was shit-talking to us a few minutes ago. How did he go from being overconfident to this? I shake my head a bit. I don’t care about what has him distressed.
“Who is upstairs?”
“The guy from the basement. The scare actor,” he adds in a hushed tone. “I don’t know how he got out. There was only one exit, right?”
“I’m sure they have secret passageways, dumbass,” Jen provides, irritated. “And he probably knows where we are now.”
It’s almost as if destiny has it out for us because her mouth hasn’t finished pronouncing the words when he appears at the top of the stairs. The knife in his hand looks different. Same structure, but dripping… blood? Fake blood, I correct myself. His shirt has more splashes of red, too. An effect to stun people after eliminating many in the same way the killer of a slasher movie would. Again, kudos to the staff team for being so efficient with their special effects.
“Fuck!” Steve grits out, stands from the ground, and breaks into a sprint, leaving Jen and me behind.
Amazing. I didn’t trust him before, but after running away twice, he’s becoming a problem. Especially when Silver Mask is closer than ever.
Shit, he might win this stupid thing.
Taking a small step back, I grab Jen’s arm to catch her attention.
My mind is racing, thoughts flood my brain with the strength of a tsunami. Survival, even in a fake scenario, rules my body. How can I find a way out of this situation? If this were real, what could I do? There are no places to hide this time, no visible rooms with locks, no exits.
All that’s left are us girls and him.
“We have to split up.” I wait a second to think things through, in case there’s another option, but this is the smartest choice. If I choose to trust my intuition, I know this is the only alternative. This is the dumb moment of the movie where the main character thinks they can sacrifice themselves for the greater good and it fails horribly. “Look, there are two of us. If we split ways, we maximize our chances.”
Her brown eyes stare deep into mine, trying to check if I’m serious about this.
“You sure?”
I nod and order, “Run.”
Slowly, Jen backs away from me and after I dip my head again, she runs in the opposite direction from Steve.
Instead of taking a chance and running from him too, I stand still, observing him. He remains unmoving, staring and analyzing me.
I was hoping he would immediately rush to me, but he didn’t.
Silver Mask simply stares. Tilting his head in amusement, almost like he’s waiting for me to make the first movement, he points at the foyer behind me with the blade of his knife. Another silent message sent my way, one I can read clearly.
He’s expecting me to flee, too. I dare say he’s giving me the chance to do it. No, he’s not waiting for me to escape. I get what he demands.
He wants me to run, so he can chase and hunt me like prey.
After all, this is what the entire night has been leading up to. To the instance when we were alone in the room with no one else to cause a distraction.
It’s just us.
He and I.
“Are you coming after me?” I dare him, loud enough for my voice to carry through the space. “Or after them?”
Even though I know the answer. When presented with the choice, he’s going to choose me. It might be self-centered of me to take a risk like this, but I’m the only person in front of him. Hell, I’m practically throwing myself at him, so he better make the right call.
I’m counting on it.
Silver Mask doesn’t use his voice to respond. Instead, he points at the other stairs with the knife.
A slight frown appears on my forehead. Does he want me to go up, but not from this side? Unsure of what his message is, I step forward and see him shake his head. Okay, so he wants me to use the other one.
Wetting my lips with the tip of my tongue, I nod as I cautiously move along the length of the foyer to reach the rail. The smooth surface welcomes the touch of my hand, and I anchor myself to it to keep myself focused. I take a step and, from the corner of my eye, see him mirror my acts in the other direction.
My feet go up, his go down.
Frowning with confusion, I halt mid-step. He does the same.
Is he imitating what I’m doing?
I thought he planned on capturing me as soon as I reached the top, but now I fear he’s doing the opposite. What if he goes after Jen? Tricking me into going upstairs so he can have a clear path to follow the others.
A knot appears in my throat—thick and hard. I struggle to swallow the dryness scratching inside of my mouth.
Hesitantly, just to test a theory, I climb another step and analyze what he does.
Like I predicted, he mimics me. The higher I go, the lower he steps, but his focus is entirely on me. The silver mask faces straight in my direction, never once looking down his path to see where he’s going.
His movements are instinctual, animalistic even, like a hungry lion waiting to hunt his prey. But they’re also graceful—confident. Different from mine in every sense. My actions are clumsy and insecure, faltering when I misstep.
A waltz of danger and excitement forms between us. No, a waltz would be too slow and bland. This dance we form with our auras isn’t made of the classic swaying. Instead, it’s stealthy, transcendent, intense, and… passionate. Tension thickens, changing our dynamic as the desire slips past our defenses. The way we glide can only be compared to a tango. That’s the perfect description of our parade around the foyer.
When I reach the top, Silver Mask approaches the bottom of my stairs and waits there. His patience is admirable.
He gives me a shallow head movement. Once again, his message is crystal clear. A single notice that our game has begun, and I break into a run, without knowing where to go. I just move my legs as fast as my body allows me to while not paying attention to my surroundings, which might be the stupidest decision I’ve ever made in my life.
Instinct drives me. I don’t bother to check if he’s following because the heavy thumps of boots behind me are noticeable enough. He is chasing me.
Hunting me.
My heart hammers against the sternum, threatening to break it with every passing second.
Ay, Dios.
Even my face tingles with the surge of adrenaline rocking me like I’ve never felt before. The danger, though fake, feels so imminent that my senses are in overdrive. Everything is heightened. The faint scent of smoke from the fog machine sneaks past my nostrils, distracting me for a split second and forcing me to notice the low cloud lingering on the floor.
I take a left in the first hall, then a right.
The front of my thighs burns with the force of my strides, and one of my shins tightens. I turn again at the next corner and promptly realize my mistake.
“No, no, no,” I whisper between rapid pants when I reach the end.
The wall is solid when I touch it, with no creases of hidden passages in sight.
Carajo.
Being so focused on escaping clouded my judgment because I’ve found a dead end. And I can’t backtrack because I hear the footsteps approaching behind me. They’ve slowed down but have grown more confident.
Think, Sadie.
Blowing out the air from my lungs, I regain my control. There’s a way to outsmart him; I just have to find it. But…how? Looking down at the front of my top, I realize what I can use to escape. Discretely, I lower my shirt to show more cleavage, even when my breasts are half out of the bottom of the bra cups. Running with desperation will do that to a girl. Sweat drips down the length of my neck, and it’s not an attractive sight by any means.
Oh, well. I’ll manage with what I have.
Right now, what’s left is my looks. I’m not a traffic-stopping beauty, but I’m self-aware that I’m beautiful enough to grab people’s attention. After all, I already had his while I waited in line. This can work.
I’m confident it will.
Arming myself with the last bits of my charm, I spin around to face Silver Mask. However, I keep my wristband hidden behind me, in case my lame seducing attempt doesn’t give me the results I wanted. I’m not ready to let go yet.
He moves even slower now, deliberately cornering me. Being this near to him, I notice his mask is made of rubber. The silver comes from paint, and it seems flexible enough to bend.
I lift my chin to look at him properly.
God, he’s tall.
I’m not small, but I wouldn’t say I’m tall either. Average is the right word. I’m average in comparison to him, and he’s… extraordinary.
I don’t need to see his face to know there’s beauty behind the mask. Or maybe I’m fooling myself into thinking that a handsome man is hidden in the stoic devil disguise. Delusion might be my coping mechanism, but fuck. His entire essence radiates good-looking energy.
“You’ve caught me,” I whisper, using my lower register, hoping to sound sultry. Though it shouldn’t take much for me to do so, not when desire is already deepening it. “What are you going to do now?”
In a swift motion, he leans in and pins me against the wall with his torso. It’s so sudden that my breath hitches. Then, he presses one hand on the panel behind me and with the other, he leads the prop knife to the delicate curve of my neck, grazing the skin with the edge. I mold my back to the flat surface, stiffening under the layers of tension.
My chest heaves with the air that enters and abandons my lungs. It seems to catch his attention because his chin lowers. Though I can’t see what his eyes are staring at, I guess my choice to expose the valley of my breasts was a smart move.
With no other sounds to fill the space, his heavy pants behind his mask echo in the inches between us. And I wonder… is he as affected by my nearness as I am with his?
I shouldn’t find being pinned by a stranger so hot, but I do. I’m absolutely depraved because his tall frame towering over mine has my mouth going dry.
Heat accumulates in my cheeks, and I’m grateful for the dim lighting of this area. It’d be too embarrassing if he could see the way my body reacts to him, to his actions. There’s no doubt I’m not the first person to flirt with a scare actor, but arousal awakens inside me so strong, it should be concerning.
Should is the keyword.
Because I can’t find it within myself to care about what I should be doing. Logic has no place left in my brain. The visceral lust growing in me clouds all rational thoughts.
My gaze flicks down to his wrist where the knife’s hilt meets the end, and I suck in a breath at the threat of the weapon. Fake, but it tricks my mind all the same. It’s part of the fantasy, to be put in a dangerous situation. I cannot believe I’m turned on.
I don’t think he’s noticed that one of his thighs has lodged itself between mine and that if I were to rock my hips, I’d be able to rub my core all over the length of it. The thought almost makes a whimper break free. I imagine what it would feel like, how it would send shivers down my spine when the seam of my jeans dragged along his muscles, hitting the spot every single time.
I want him. So badly, I can’t even focus on what’s happening. I forget all about the circumstances and where we are. Nothing matters anymore. I just want him closer.
His chest inflates and deflates at the same speed as mine—deep, constant, erratic. Tension grows, wrapping us with a thick rope that only our bodies colliding and uniting can dissolve.
I glance up at the mask, and I wonder… does he want me, too?
Gulping, I allow the adrenaline and desire to take control of my entire being. The rest happens on its own. I’m not sure what pushes me to do it, but I use a hand to grab the hem of his shirt and pull him toward me. With the other, I lift the end of his mask, exposing full lips, and before I can process what I’m doing—maybe it was him who did it—, I crash my mouth against his.
