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“I swear, Landon, if you try anything crazy I’ll be so pissed!” Alice exclaimed but there was a hint of a smile. Alice hated scary things.

Landon grinned. “No promises.”

Alice slapped his shoulder playfully. I wished I could have that kind of relationship with Brandon. Maybe then I wouldn’t be latching onto a murderous monster who kidnapped me.

But he also showed kindness. He wasn’t just a monster.

I had to play along, tonight. I had to be good. Brandon wanted me to be good, Landon and Alice would be watching, and I didn’t want anyone to see the rot wriggling under my skin. I had to keep it together.

We joined the line at the haunted house. It was a mess of older teens, adults, everyone drunk on the dark. Porch lights flickered orange and purple. Clouds rolled over the moon, swallowing it whole. The wind howled louder.

Landon laughed in front of us. “Holy shit, this place looks intense.” He jabbed Alice in the side, making her squeal and shove back. Their hands laced together.

The people around us edged closer. A sea of masked faces, blank, hungry for violence. Power. The thrill of being made into prey.

I hated them for it. Fear was not fun. Fear was waking up to a chained wall. Fear was being trapped in a house with a monster.

Brandon’s fingers dug deeper into my waist, and I forced myself not to flinch. He liked standing in the middle of all this fake horror while being the only real thing I should be afraid of.

Alice looped her arm through mine. “It’s okay if you’re scared, just hang onto me. I’ll protect you.” She squeezed, her warmth so different from the men clawing at my throat my whole life.

I looked at the dark mouth of the entrance and felt my stomach turn. Everyone else was walking into fake horror. I brought my monster with me. My real horror.

We entered the dark.

The world vanished behind me. Every sound was stolen by the fog, eaten by the pitch. I barely saw Landon and Alice ahead, their shapes swallowed up by black.

Brandon shoved me forward, his fingers digging into my ribs. “Move.” His voice low, just for me.

Cold rushed in. My lungs wouldn’t work right. Shadows spread along the floor, poured down the walls. Haunted paintings watched us with white, blind eyes. Something slithered from the ceiling—a sound I couldn’t place, creak, drip, a soft breath right below hearing.

I hunched my shoulders and kept low. It was safer that way.

Fake spiderwebs clung to my face. I batted them away, but it felt just like a million hands closing in. Chills burned up my spine.

A scare actor jumped out from behind a blood-splattered curtain. Alice screamed, high and shrill, clinging to Landon. He laughed, shoved her back. She cursed at him.

We went deeper into the fogged up halls. Men in monster costumes jumped out from every fucking corner. I was being shoved everywhere, my feet stumbling.

Alice and Landon disappeared around the corner, swallowed by fog. The house was a mouth, hungry, swallowing everyone who stepped inside. The dark pressed up against my eyes, smearing my vision.

I couldn’t see Alice or Landon, not even shapes in the black.

Brandon? Brandon? My voice was just a ghost in the thick air. Nothing answered. He was right by me a moment ago, then he was gone. There were multiple groups around us, and the atmosphere was incredibly disorienting with fog, dim lights, loud noises, women screaming.

The wall oozed red. Hands darted out from a hidden hole. I was shoved deeper and deeper until I was lost. I came upon a larger room and looked around.

A shape stood in the corner.

He looked like something that had crawled out of the woods wearing a man’s body underneath it. His clothes were torn workwear, the kind an old miner might have died in, black shirt shredded at the sleeves, suspenders cutting over his broad chest, pants stained with mud and something darker.

Everything on him was dirty. The gloves. The boots. The pickaxe in his hand. Even the skin on his arms looked smeared with earth, like he had just dug himself out of a grave. Though despite the filth, I could tell his arms were nicely muscled. The veins were still showing clearly through skin.

The deer skull sat over his head, bone-colored and cracked, antlers reaching high into the dark. It swallowed his face completely. The hollow sockets were too black, too empty, and when he turned toward me, every sound in the maze seemed to fade behind my pulse.

Everyone else screamed and laughed.

I didn’t, because the way he looked at me did not feel like an act. All the other actors were trying too hard to scare vulnerable women. This one wasn’t. He just stood there and watched me.