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“Ok. I can handle that.”
As we walked, Taylor tore off another piece of cotton candy and handed it to Malcolm.
Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, I looked over. Horrified, I smacked his hand, dislodging it. A clump of wispy black and white hair fell to the ground.
“What the fuck?” Malcolm glared at me.
Taylor shoved my shoulder. “What was that for?”
“It’s fucking hair!” I picked up the tangled locks and shook them in front of their faces, the silken strands waving with the movement.
“You’ve lost it, bro.” Taylor swiped the candy out of my hand and flung it into the air. The wad of hair drifted to the ground slowly, landing in the dirt. Shaking their heads, Taylor and Malcolm stepped over it and continued on their way.
I stared at the bi-colored clump on the ground. It still looked like hair, but I knew it was impossible. I was tired, that was all. First, cutting my finger at work, and then not eating for most of the day? It was no wonder I was hallucinating.
I shook my head at myself and took another bite of the apple, hoping the extra sugar would wake my ass up for the remainder of the evening.
By the time we reached the funhouse, I’d finished the surprisingly filling piece of fruit. Taylor had finished his cotton candy too, or simply threw it out to avoid any more potential issues. While we waited in line, I chucked the stick and the apple core into the cornfield on the edge of the carnival. It’d make some field mouse’s night.
The yellow stalks bobbed in the night breeze like the corn agreed; their dry leaves scratched and scraped against each other, begging for more. My gaze skipped from row to row. Still-rotting skeletons dotted the field, hidden in the stalks. The remaining strips of decomposing flesh peeled away from the yellowed bones like curling leaves. Their slack jaws hung open in silent laughter—or screams.
I blinked hard.
Nothing but corn stood before me. No corpses. Nothing except a neglected harvest.
A shiver raced down my spine regardless.
Like all Midwestern horror fans, I didn’t trust the corn. More specifically, I didn’t trust what could be lurking in it, ready to devour the unsuspecting idiot who wandered through the suffocating golden rows.
Taylor grabbed the front of my t-shirt and tugged. “Come on, Griff!”
I let him take the lead, falling into step behind Malcolm as a guy in a demented scarecrow costume ushered us inside the funhouse with an impatient wave. His hand wasn’t a hand,though. It was a bundle of bloody twigs, gleaming in a beam of moonlight that managed to pierce the cloud cover.
The scarecrow’s beady black eyes bored into mine as I passed. The burlap that made up his mangled face twisted and crinkled, like a sneer. He smelled like rot and decay, like something that had been buried and dug up again after a month. I had to hand it to the carnival, they’d gone all out for an immersive, sensory experience.
I held my breath and hurried past, into the twisting labyrinth of the funhouse.
The first part of the maze was filled with bodies hanging from the ceiling, all shrouded in white, save for the splashes of blood. Some of them were still dripping. The pathways between them were so narrow that you couldn’t help bumping into things, which only aggravated the situation. The wrapped bodies twisted and swayed, jostled by other people trying to squeeze through the maze and find the door. The floor was slick from all of the blood and I slipped more than once on the metal flooring.
I kept waiting for one of those bodies to grab me. Surprisingly, they never did.
Sliding out of the shroud room, we entered another where there wasnoescaping the things dangling from the ceiling. Thick, heavy cords hung everywhere, gray and rubbery, dripping in even more blood. The stench clung to my nostrils, sharp and familiar. Offal. I’d gutted enough animals in my life to know fresh intestines when I saw them—or smelled them. The carnival’s dedication to realism was both impressive and more than a little disturbing.
“What is this shit?” Malcolm asked, swatting a plump cord out of his face.
“Rubber tubes or something,” I lied, nudging him forward. “Just keep going.”
The red-and-gray fringe parted to my left. By the time my head whipped in that direction, I only caught a glimpse of a bare, muscular shoulder and a black mask. Bane?
Metal slid against metal, almost sensually, like someone was honing a blade nearby. I spun in a circle, trying to see them through the swaying curtains of entrails, but I couldn’t make out anything beyond what was right in front of my face.
Something touched my fingers from below, soft and furry, as if a dog had randomly wandered by. I jerked to the side, yanking my hand upward for safety. A low growl rumbled behind the red fringe. The hair on my arms stood on end.
The guts swung wildly, ripping out of the ceiling by something big tearing their way through.
The sound of a knife slicing through the air ended in a high-pitched yipe and a painful snarl. The snarl ended abruptly in a wet gurgle. A rush of bright red liquid seeped over the floor, creeping closer to my shoes.
I scrambled backward, following the tug on my sleeve. Malcolm, eyes wide, yanked me through the last few feet of entrails.
