Page 7 of Stay Scared

I screenshot the sections Mark will want and send them. His reply comes almost immediately.

I hate this. Put my name down anyway.

His observer application still reads pending. I check the box confirming I have read the agreement, and the signature field opens. I write Salem Sterling with the mouse before moving the cursor over ACCEPT INVITATION.

The blocked text from earlier comes back with irritating clarity.

You still stay up too late.

I look at the clock, then click.

The page goes black. My reflection appears faintly in the monitor, the room behind me reduced to shadow and the chipped coffee mug beside my hand. A red gate rises from the bottom of the screen.

WELCOME TO FINAL GIRL PROTOCOL.

Arrival coordinates will be delivered twenty-four hours before entry and cannot be published. Your exterior production contact will receive separate instructions if approved.

Completion requires remaining inside Crimson Night until dawn.

A countdown appears beneath it.

FOUR DAYS, EIGHTEEN HOURS.

My phone chimes with a new email from NO REPLY: DECAY BRIGADE. The subject line asks whether I am sure, and the message contains one sentence in dark red type.

We remember everyone who says yes.

Chapter 3

The coordinates drag us off the highway, past a row of dark warehouses, then direct me onto a service road the navigation app insists isn’t there.

Mark’s production van stays close behind, his headlights steady in my rearview. Beyond the final warehouse, the pavement narrows and breaks apart. Weeds brush the underside of my car, and the steering wheel knocks against my palms every time a tire drops into another pothole.

A strand of dim red bulbs appears between the trees. There is no sign or employee directing traffic. The lights simply continue deeper into the property until the amusement park emerges behind a rusted fence.

A Ferris wheel rises above the trees with several passenger cars hanging at crooked angles. Its frame disappears against the cloudy sky until red light catches the corroded supports, and one loose carriage rocks in the wind.

Cold air carries wet metal and the faint sweetness of something left behind by the park. Caramel, maybe, though nothing nearby looks capable of serving food anymore. Damp leaves have collected against the fence, and beyond them, collapsed concession stands face an empty midway littered with fractured signs.

The entrance once read CARNIVAL OF JOY. Enough letters are missing that the remaining bulbs spell CARNIVAL O OY in weak patches of white.

“Very subtle,” Mark says through the hands-free connection. Equipment shifts somewhere behind him in the van.

“You knew where we were going.”

“I knew the address.”

“That is generous considering the road apparently doesn’t exist.”

Mark goes quiet for a second. “I still don’t like this.”

The joking tone from the drive disappeared about three miles ago, and neither of us has mentioned it.

I slow near a temporary checkpoint built across the service road. Two employees in dark red coats direct my car toward the participant lot while they wave Mark into a separate lane marked EXTERIOR PRODUCTION. His headlights disappear behind a row of shipping containers.

“You still connected?” I ask.

“For another twenty seconds on the phone. After intake, I get the approved earpiece channel whenever they leave it open.”