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The cave was fun, a good warm-up. But this year? This year is the next level.
A corn maze.
From the road, it looks harmless—just another seasonal attraction slapped together for families and bored teenagers. Rows of tall cornstalks rising under the night sky, all of it framed by cheap string lights and crooked wooden signs. But I know what’s waiting inside. Emma and I have gone through every path, every blind corner, every dead end. We’ve mapped out where the ground dips, where the stalks thin, where sound will carry, and where it will be swallowed whole.
We’ve spent months going over every detail, making sure this night runs smoothly and that we only hurt the people who deserve it. The ones who come in are already poisoned on the inside. The ones who think they’re untouchable. The ones who laugh too long at the screams because they assume the world is still safe for them.
Emma finally cuts the engine, and the car falls silent. For a second, the quiet presses in, heavy and expectant. Then the night seeps back in; distant music from cheap speakers, the low murmur of voices, the crunch of tires rolling over gravel.
I look around the land stretching out in front of us—acres of it—grass for miles, the kind that looks almost silver under the moonlight. The air is cool and damp, carrying the faint metallic bite of the rides, the sweet burn of kettle corn, and underneath it all, the earthy, wet smell of freshly turned soil.
Mud cakes the staff’s shoes as they move around the lot with lazy, practiced efficiency, waving cars into neat, controlled rows. It must have been raining recently; the ground looks soft, dark, just begging to swallow footprints, to blur tracks, to hide whatever stains we decide to leave behind. I wouldn’t know for sure. I haven’t left the house in a week. We’ve been preparing for too many little things, like going outside, to matter.
Preparation is everything.
I unbuckle my seat belt and let it snap back into place, the sound loud in the enclosed space. I pop the door handle, the latch giving way with a metallic click, and push the door open. Cold air rushes in, biting at the heat on my skin. I swing my legs out and plant my feet on the ground. My boots sink slightly into the mud, a wet, sucking sound rising as I shift my weight.
The mud splashes up the sides, dark and thick. It’ll hide the first stains easily.
I straighten, rolling my shoulders back, and my gaze lifts to the maze. Even from here, it’s impressive. The cornstalks loom high, their dry leaves whispering secrets to each other whenever the wind passes through. The entrance is framed by a rough wooden arch with a hand-painted sign, the letters jagged and uneven in a way that screams ‘homemade’ and ‘authentic’ to the average idiot.
Would you believe we had to lock this in a year ago? It’s not easy to convince people to hand over their land, even for one night. Permits, contracts, safety inspections—all the tedious bullshit that keeps most people from doing what they really want to do. The other guys handled most of that,
They never see her teeth beneath the sugar. I have to say, it’s taken us a lot of time. Meetings, site visits, late nights poring over blueprints and aerial photos. We measured every path and marked where the emergency exits would be if we actually planned to use them. We tested the lighting, the sound, the blind corners where someone could scream their throat raw and still not be heard from the main path.
But hell, I won’t be mad when I get to stand in the dark and watch people take one wrong turn. One step too far into the wrong corridor. One moment of hesitation. And then they’re mine. Mine to do whatever the fuck I want.
I take a few slow steps forward, the mud pulling at my boots, and head toward the ticket booth. The structure is small, more like a shack than a building, with peeling paint and a single dirty window through which light spills in a weak, yellow glow. A hand-painted price board leans crookedly against the side, numbers smudged where fingers have traced them.
The closer I get, the more details sharpen: the chipped wood along the counter, the stack of cheap paper maps folded and ready to be handed out, the faint smell of stale coffee from a half-empty mug someone’s abandoned in a corner.
Red pin = Death
No pin = Safe
The red pin is for the ones who signed the deeper waiver. The ones who checked the little box that said they consented to ‘intense, immersive experiences’ and didn’t bother to read the fine print. The thrill-seekers. The assholes. The ones who laughed when they saw the warning signs and said, ‘It can’t be that bad.’
Emma and I have free rein with anyone who holds a red pin. Free to stalk, to isolate, to drag deeper into the maze where the corn grows thicker and the screams don’t echo as far. Free to decide, in the moment, exactly what they deserve.
I can already feel my pulse slowing, settling into that familiar, predatory calm. The parking lot is just noise. The real night starts in an hour, when we open. Until then, it’s all about preparing.
They have no idea what bravery really costs.
CHAPTER 6
EMMA
“Oh, the old man sailed down the ship, he went right to left and back again, then bam, a shark came out and bit him,” I sing, half off-key, half possessed, skipping my shoulders in a jerky rhythm from the driver’s seat. My voice comes out high-pitched and creepy; the kind of voice that makes kids cry in horror movies. My fingers tap the steering wheel in double time, drumming out a beat only I can hear.
Adrenaline ripples through my body, hot and bright, flooding into my veins like a drug. It feels like electricity is licking under my skin. If it were a thing you could actually buy—if there was some shady back-alley guy selling syringes of pure adrenaline—I’d be the first in line, rolling up my sleeves, begging him to hit me again and again until my heart explodes. Instead, I make do with what we’ve got. Max jumps out of the front, goes to the trunk, yanks the bag, and comes back to the car.
I yank open the worn black backpack. The zipper coughs and sticks, teeth snagging on a loose thread, and I give it a hard tug. Inside, the familiar smell hits me: sweat, plastic, metal, the faint chemical tang of pills that have been handled too many times. Nestled between a crumpled hoodie and a rolled-up balaclava is a small plastic zip-lock bag with four chalky white pills, each one stamped with a faint little logo that’s halfway rubbed off.
My hands are already shaking as I pull it free—the plastic crackles. I slide the pills out into the center of my palm, their powdery edges catching in the sweat on my skin. Two for me, two for Max. That’s the deal. That’s always the deal.
Without looking at him, I reach over and drop two into Max’s open hand. His fingers close around them like they’re nothing but sweets. We both lift them to our mouths at the same time, practiced, automatic. We press them onto our tongues—bitter, chemical, like licking a battery—then swallow them down dry.
No water. No chase. Just raw.
