Page 8 of Carnival of Crows

“She reviews haunted attractions, Halloween events, abandoned places⁠—”

“Real haunted places,” Daniele added.

“She’ll spend the night in an abandoned prison if someone tells her it’s haunted.”

“My kind of crazy,” Jack said.

Something tightened beneath my ribs. I looked at Jack. My baby brother. The same kid I’d watch eat dirt on a dare when he was seven years old. There was absolutely no justifiable reason for the sudden urge to tell him to shut the fuck up.

He hadn’t even said anything. Not really. ‘My kind of crazy.’ That’s it. It was harmless. He’s probably going to forget he even made the comment before the conversation is over.

Still, I didn’t like it. Some irrational part of my brain had decided that I didn’t particularly care for my little brother thinking Luci Addams was his kind of anything.

Daniele smiled. “Her older videos are actually really charming. They’re very Blair Witch Project.”

She mimed holding an old camcorder.

“It’s just Luci, one of those girls over there, and an ancient handheld camera with terrible audio.”

She covertly pointed toward the group of them.

“They call themselves the Boo Crew.”

I glanced across the tent. The blonde one had somehow acquired a second bag of popcorn. The brunette that had pulled Luci aside earlier was taking pictures of everything that didn’t move. The one with curly reddish brown hair was deep in conversation with Luci. It was normal. Comfortable. Like they’d been doing this together for years.

“They’re in a lot of her videos,” she continued. “They’re kind of part of the brand.”

There it is. They’d been talking her up, I knew there had to be a catch. Sure enough, she was too good to be true.

“So…” I folded my arms, annoyed with myself. “She’s an influencer.”

I couldn’t quite hide the skepticism. The word had started leaving a bad taste in my mouth sometime around our third season. The bigger Graves Park became, the more emails Carrie forwarded to us.

We’ll post if you comp tickets.

Can my boyfriend come for free too?

I’ll tag you if you upgrade us to VIP.

Some people genuinely loved horror. Others only seemed to love it if it came with free admission. And, I understood we had to play the game the right way. Despite my utter disdain for social media, I knew it served its purpose for the business. As much as running this park was a labor of love, Sidney, who spent no time in the park and all of her time behind her computer worked just as hard in her home office as we did during haunt nights.

“She is,” Cassie confirmed, holding my gaze. “But she’s different.”

“Uh huh,” I said, ready to move on. I had been intrigued, but clout chasers were never going to be attractive to me.

“No, seriously,” Cassie said, still defending her. “She genuinely loves horror. She has a horror book club. They pick a new book every month to read and then she hops on a Zoom call with everyone that wants to discuss the book. I’ve read a few of them in the off-season. On Friday nights, she goes live and reviews classic horror movies. She raises money for local animal shelters for black cats every Halloween. She was doing this long before she had a huge platform… I know I sound like a fan girl, but she’s the best kind of person to get a platform like the one she grew.”

I looked at her. “You’re serious.”

“I’m serious.”

Then, a slow smile spread across her face. The kind that immediately made me suspicious.

“What?” I questioned.

“Oh, nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

“Cass.”