Page 6 of Shattered Souls

Someone screams in the distance, and Eleanor grabs onto my arm for security. We inch towards the lights, still unable to see anything, when suddenly two shirtless men with axes and executioner masks charge at us.

“Shit!” Eleanor screams and drags me to the right. The lights fade and reveal the entire park in its horrifying glory.

This place is huge.

There’s too many different houses that you can enter. The main focal point being Shattered Souls manor, the park's signature Victorian style house. The other houses are The Morgue, Slaughter Barn, The Dollmaker, and The Basement. Each one has a different face, and lines that vary in size.

There’s a sign that points towards the Terror Maze, and all I can see is strobe lights and tall hedges. No, thanks. There’s carnival games, with prizes that look like human appendages, as well as voodoo dolls. And, of course, there’s a whole area dedicated to grossly named food trucks.

The Main Street is lined with lampposts that do hardly anything thanks to the thick fog that refuses to let go of my feet. Shirtless men and other scare actors dressed anywhere from clowns to farmers roam the streets, jumping at unsuspecting victims.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” I suggest. “I haven’t had anything all day.” I was too nervous for my first outing with friends that I forgot to eat anything. My stomach has been cursing me since I pulled into the parking lot.

They follow me as I step up to a truck called, Bloody and Buttery. I grab a bag of red candied popcorn, and let the girls take as much as they want while we walk around and take in the sheer size of this place.

“Hey!” Allie yells towards us, her arm snaked through Karla’s. “We should go see what that is.” She points down the street to a large mesh sphere that sits on top of a stage. There’s a small crowd that has gathered around the base.

Eleanor tugs at my arm and my feet finally push against the fog, towards the stage. A girl dressed as a bandaged nurse growls as she runs towards us. Screaming, we jog the rest of the way towards the crowd.

The crowd splits in the middle due to ropes making a walkway for whatever shall enter that large cage. Somehow, my body ends up being pressed against one of the ropes, giving me a perfect view of the stage.

“I’ve heard of this before,” Eleanor cranes her neck to see the stage better. “That’s a cage of death. They put motorcycles inside there and let them circle each other.”

Who in their right minds would do that?

Eleanor steals a few more pieces of my popcorn, followed by Karla and then Allie. The lampposts near the stage flicker for a second before shutting off completely. A red spotlight shines to my right, down the roped off walkway, and out emerges two masked men.

One has a gas mask while the other has a plague doctor mask. Both are shirtless with blood dripping down their chests. The gas mask man has a fucking flame thrower, while the doctor carries a butcher’s knife.

I sink back into Karla and Allie a little when the heat from the flames lick at my skin, even at this distance. The air fills with the hiss from the fire along with screams coming from every direction.

The two men pass me without looking our way, and I almost deflate with relief. The men enter the stage and one of them grabs a microphone.

“Welcome to the opening night of Shattered Souls!” The doctor growls into the mic. The crowd erupts into screams and hollers of excitement. “In honor of opening night—we want to introduce our sickest duo.” He points his arm to the end of the walkway. I turn my head.

“Hyde and Seek!” Two men stand at the end of the walkway. Their chests rise and fall in a way my body likes far more than my mind—or maybe my body enjoys the masks they have.

One has a muzzle across the lower half of his face, and blood thickly covers his chest, trickling down to the dip in his abdomen, a metal meat hook dangling lazily at his side.

The other.

The other has a mask that looks like a porcelain face that's cracked over his left eye, and bloodied hand prints cover the sides of the mask like someone gripped his face before cracking it. More blood on his just as sculpted body. A machete sits rested on his shoulder.

They walk towards the stage—well, that is, until they reach their first victim. The muzzled one charges at a man that has his head turned away from them, and the woman he’s with screams in a way I’ve never heard before.

The one with the porcelain mask walks towards our area with a causal gait that almost screams danger in itself. He passes me and my eyes follow. His back tenses as he freezes just a few feet in front of me.

“Shit.” Eleanor whispers beside me.

He takes one large step backwards.

“Double shit.” Allie pitches in, her chest pressed firmly against my back.

He slowly and almost robotically turns his head and looks directly at me. He has white contacts in his eyes which send a shiver down my spine. He turns to face me fully, the other one joining his friend.

I shrink under their gazes.

The one with the muzzle turns his head to the side in an animalistic fashion as his eyes, one red and one white, take me in from head to toe. The other one reaches out and grabs some of my hair, brings it up to his mask, and inhales deeply.