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Then again, his absence tonight probably saved my sanity.
Molly
“See, we’re having fun without any boys!” Kyla screeches in my ear, stealing the last of my cheddar waffle cone out of my hand.
“Hey!” I snatch an extra sugary piece of funnel cake off her plate and stuff it in my mouth.
“Did you hear from Torch?” Darcy asks me, as she also picks off a chunk of Kyla’s funnel cake. Kyla slaps her hand away.
No need to check my phone again. “Yeah, he’s not coming.” My voice sounds as disinterested as my heart feels.
Hayden snickers into her giant cup of cherry icy slush. “He’s probably terrified Griff will kill him.”
Is Griff the reason Torch canceled on me at the last minute? He’d sent me the original “probably won’t make” it text when I was home. Griff was there too, not out terrorizing Torch into breaking our plans.
“I don’t think so.” I didn’t tell them about my earlier run-in with Griff. But I haven’t stopped replaying it in my head either. I should have invited him to come with us.
“Well, Wade blew me off too,” Hayden says.
“I’m glad it’s just the four of us.” Kyla wraps her arm around my waist.
I lean my head on her shoulder. “Me too.”
“Don’t let me forget to bring a bag of cotton candy home for Jenn,” Hayden reminds us for the fifteenth time.
“We won’t,” Darcy groans. “Why don’t you just get it now?”
“Nah,” I say. “It’ll be all melty and gross by the time we leave.”
Hayden sucks the rest of her drink down in one long, noisy rush. “All right. Let’s check this place out.”
The carnival is larger than I expected. The Millers let whoever runs the thing use a lot of their acreage. Or maybe it seems huge because it’s dark and overwhelming.
We find our way into a circular area of booths housing dozens of typical carnival games. Except, these aren’t typical. Each one is horror themed. And the prizes range from decks of Tarot cards to cute and creepy-looking stuffed animals.
“Ewww,” Kyla squeals. “Zombie Brain Toss looks revolting.”
“I think that’s the point.” I stop and watch some of the players use a mallet to launch little jiggly “brains” into the open skulls of giant Zombie mannequins. “It looks hard too. There’s no good way to aim that thing.”
“These games are always rigged,” Kyla says.
“Yeah, but we’ve seen people walking around with stuffed animals and goldfish all night.” I nod to a group of younger teenagers carrying a huge stuffed unicorn skeleton.
“I guess,” she sighs.
We pass Frankenstein Operation where you have to put organs back into a giant Frankenstein strapped to a bed. Graveyard ring toss, zombie shooting alley, and finally one that looks like something I might be able to actually do.
Skeleton Ball. The prizes are all stuffed and squishy animals with creepy eyes and little colorful stitches.
“Oh!” Kyla points to a row of black plush bats and kittens. “Look at the bat. He’s so cute.”
The operator of this game is probably a few years older than us. He’s tall and almost thin enough to pose with the row of animated skeletons behind him. His jet-black hair sticks up in shiny spikes. As he approaches us, he bites on a small silver ring through his bottom lip.
“Greetings, ladies.” He holds out a ball shaped like a skull. “Would you like to sink the bone in the hole?”
Ewww.
Behind him, I spot a lone black, cartoonish-looking, stuffed rabbit with long black ears and a red X for one eye. The perfect mix of macabre and adorable. I point at it. “What do I have to do to win the bunny?”
