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Taylor and I laughed, jabbing him from either side with our elbows. “Lighten up, bro! We’re supposed to be having fun.”
Malcolm gave him a sour look.
“Are those ribs?” I asked, jutting my chin toward one of the tents. “Oo, I know what I’m getting.”
“You better suck ‘em clean, too,” Taylor said, making me laugh and Malcolm sigh.
I lengthened my strides as nonchalantly as I could to get in front of my beleaguered friend. Once I’d gained the lead, I let the rabbit fall from beneath my arm, suddenly very interested in the creepy cloud formations overhead. They might have obscured the moon, but it wasn’t going down without a fight. It continued to glow brightly behind the menacing black shapes.
“Hey, your—” Malcolm stopped and picked up the stuffed animal, dusting it off. He did not, however, make an attempt to hand it back, which was fine with me. I had ribs to eat.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Taylor huffed as he joined me in line. “Not this guy again.”
For a moment, I dreaded the one-armed clown was creeping up on me. Turning, I saw it was my skeleton-masked savior, staring at me once again as if I was the only person there. The back of my neck grew hot and my stomach did a little loop.
“I think hedoeslike you,” Malcolm chimed in.
“It’s multiple guys in the same mask. The same character, or whatever,” I said, doing my best to ignore them—andhim. It was one thing when Taylor and I were teasing each other to make Malcolm uncomfortable; it was another when they were being serious. Being one of the only known gay people in a small farming community usually wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Needless to say, my experiences with other guys were normally on the down low and not so… blatantly obvious.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said, his voice trailing off theatrically. “I haven’t seen any other duplicates running around. Have you, Malc?”
“Nope. Just him.”
We shuffled one step closer to the front of the line and I doubled down on my efforts to ignore them. And the guy in the mask. Looking at him would only prove their point. Maybe ifIfeigned disinterest,Banewould lose interest and find someone else to stalk for the night.
An irrational pang of anger shot through me at the thought. On the surface, his attention was unnerving. But if I dug deeper, I kind of liked it. It was the thrill of the chase, of being hunted relentlessly by a masked stranger. What would he do if he caught me? Kiss me, or kill me? Since we weren’t in a horror film, I hoped it was the former—though the remote possibility of the latter continued to make my heart thump harder. Itinerant carnival workers didn’t seem like the most stable lot, especially atthiscarnival.
Darkness moved in my periphery. I looked up quickly, heat curling down my spine as I watched Bane stalk forward through the crowd. The observant people scrambled out of his way. The less observant were slammed into as if they weren’t even there, left reeling in his wake like chum in the ocean.
Bane’s steps slowed as he came closer and closer.Tooclose. Invading my personal space so we were nearly chest to chest, hetilted his head and circled me slowly, dark eyes unreadable as they locked onto mine.
I moved with him like a dancer, matching each of his steps, trying to keep him from getting behind me to do whatever the fuck he might have been trying to do. As intriguing as he was, I hadn’t lostallsense of self-preservation.
Out of nowhere, he took a large step forward, forcing me back. I stumbled out of line to avoid a collision, simultaneously irritated that he was getting between me and food, but also curious as to what he was doing.
The machete hung at his side, as usual, but in his other hand, he held a short stick with a small black ball-shaped thing on the end. Presenting it to me like a flower, he continued to stare at me with zero explanation.
I tore my gaze from his and took the stick hesitantly. It was a candy apple of some sort, impaled on a sturdy twig, which couldn’t have been the most sanitary option but it fit the creepy carnival’s aesthetic. The bright red skin of the apple peeked out beneath a mirror-black finish of whatever it had been dipped into. Probably some kind of sugar or dyed caramel, even. Regardless, it looked delicious and my empty stomach grumbled appreciatively.
“Don’t eat that,” Malcolm said, popping up next to me like the angel on my shoulder, clinging to my rabbit.
“It’s just an apple.” I shot my friend a look before returning my attention to Bane, a “Thank you” on the tip of my tongue. But he was gone. Spinning in a small circle and scanning the crowd, my brows furrowed. “How the fuck does he keep doing that?”
“Doing what?” Taylor asked as he moseyed up to us, stuffing a wad of black and white cotton candy into his mouth.
“The guy. The… Bane, guy.” I searched the edges of the crowd where he tended to lurk, but all I saw were excited patrons andundead ghouls terrorizing them. Shrugging, I looked at the apple in my hand and took a bite out of the gift.
Sweet and sour exploded on my tongue at the same time, more intense than any apple I’d ever eaten before. I didn’t know which was responsible for what flavor, the apple or the coating, or some combination of the two. Whatever it was, it was fucking delicious.
“There could be a razor in there,” Malcolm said, peering at the bright white flesh. It had been streaked with black from the candy coating.
“That’s an urban legend.” I licked the sticky sweetness from my lips, hoping they weren’t stained, and took another bite.
“What next?” Taylor asked, unconcerned in the slightest that I was one mouthful away from certain death. “Another haunted house? I think I saw one that’s, like, a funhouse.”
“Is that the kind with mirrors and shit? Like a maze?” Malcolm asked.
“Yeah, probably.”
