Page 64
My stomach turned.
The mallet struck the barrier behind me with a metallic crack.
I flinched but kept moving.
Grant was breathing hard now.
“I gave the sheriff exactly what he wanted after that. I used your room and your knife. I smeared Justin’s blood on the prop and left it there so they’d look at you.”
I reached the last bend in the rear lane.
Grant’s boots pounded behind me.
The rear exit waited a few yards ahead.
Damien and I had walked it together Friday.
I had pulled the bell cord while he stood beside me.
Remember where that is.
The memory came so clearly I could almost hear my own voice.
The ordinary rope hung beside the frame.
Grant was behind me.
Damien was coming from the outside staff path.
I sprinted the last few yards.
My hand closed around the rope.
I yanked it with everything I had.
The bell exploded overhead.
Behind me, Grant’s boots hit the boards.
Chapter Six
The bell rang somewhere ahead of me, its iron clang cutting through the wind and carrying over the corn.
I was already running.
Sybil’s last radio call had put her in the rear lane, heading for the exit we had walked together Friday. The outside staff path curved tightly behind the enclosed sets, where the ground had turned slick beneath a layer of crushed leaves and damp dirt. With the show lights out, the buildings beside me were mostly black shapes, but pale emergency light spilled through gaps in the scenery and gave me enough to keep my footing.
The bell sounded again as its clapper swung down.
She had reached it.
I rounded the back corner of the structure and saw the narrow exit ahead, framed by rough timber and the washed-green glow of an egress light. Sybil came through it at a run, one hand catching the post when her boot slipped on the boards. Her hair had come loose around her face, and there was mud across the knee of her jeans, but she was moving under her own power.
Grant Bellamy appeared behind her with the mallet raised.
Everything in me narrowed to the distance between them.
“Sybil, keep coming.”
