Page 4 of The Knucklebone Brothers

I followed, my eyes scanning the shadows. The decor was a mess, homemade horror. A mannequin in a tattered dress hung from a rafter, its face painted with crude, smeared red lipstick. A cardboard cutout of a witch sat in a corner, her broomstick broken, surrounded by piles of dried corn husks that rattled in the draft.

But then the feeling started. A prickle at the back of my neck, a cold pressure. It felt like eyes on me, but not the wide, plastic eyes of the mannequins or the bored, glazed-over eyes of the teenage actors. This was different. This was heavy.

"Rory?" Lacey's voice called out from the next room, muffled by the thin wall. "Are you comin’ or what?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold your damn horses," I muttered, turning to look back down the hallway. Nothing. Just the fog and the flickering of a single red lightbulb.

I pushed through the next curtain, stepping into a room that was supposed to be a haunted nursery. A crib sat in the center, its bars rusted and bent, with a doll inside that looked like it had been stuffed with rags and had a face made of porcelain. That's when I saw him. In the corner of the room, where the shadows were deepest, stood a figure. He was tall, and he wore a creepy smilin’ clown mask, the kind that looked too happy, too wide. He was dressed all in black, long sleeves hiding any skin. He wasn't moving, just standing there, watching me.

My first instinct wasn't fear. It was annoyance. I narrowed my eyes. "The hell you lookin' at?" I muttered to myself.

"Rory!" Lacey called out again. "You okay?"

"Peachy," I called back, not taking my eyes off the corner. But then I blinked, and he was just… gone. Just an empty corner and the lingerin’ smell of popcorn and something else, something wild and earthy.

I shook my head, a slow grin spreading across my face. Well, now. This was gettin' interestin'.

I walked on, my steps were a little lighter, my senses on high alert. I was no longer just a bored spectator. I was part of the game. I could feel I was being circled, a presence just at the edge of my vision, a shift in the fog that was too deliberate to be random.

I pushed through another curtain, into a room that was supposed to be a butcher's shop. Fake body parts hung from meat hooks, and the floor was covered in fake blood. Lacey was already across the room, laughin’ at a particularly gruesome display. And there he was. This time, it was a different one. He had on a burlap mask. He was standing in the doorway, his tall frame blocking out the light from the next room. Dressed all in black, just like the other one. He was just standing there, a silent, menacing thick shadow.

My heart started thumpin’, but it wasn't from fear. It was from excitement. This was a real hunt.

I didn't run to Lacey. I didn't scream. I just stood there, staring back at the figure in the burlap mask, a slow, challenging smirk on my face. "You gonna just stand there all day, or you gonna make a move?" I whispered, knowing he could barely hear me.

He didn't move. He just stood there, watching me. And then, just like the other one, he was gone with a flash of the light.

I was starting to get a real good feeling about this. This wasn't part of the show. This was something else. And it was a hell of a lot more fun than a corn dog.

I sauntered over to Lacey, grabbing her arm. "Alright, let's get outta here."

"What? Why? We're not finished," she said, her face a mask of confusion.

"I'm bored," I lied, my voice smooth and steady. "Let's go get another beer."

I didn't tell her about the figures in the masks. I didn't tell her about the feeling of being watched, of being hunted. And as I walked out of the haunted house, I could feel their eyes on me, a cold, heavy presence that promised me that this wasn't over.

Chapter 2

The haunted house had left a buzz under my skin, a low thrum of adrenaline that the cheap beer couldn't touch. Hours had bled by, the carnival lights dimming as families packed up their sticky-faced kids and headed home. But the night wasn't over. Not for us.

"Please, Rory, come on," Lacey begged for the tenth time, her voice a whiny, desperate singsong. "The bonfire party is where the real fun is. Cody will be there."

I groaned, leaning against the fender of my truck. "Lace, Cody's a boy with the IQ of a fence post and the personality of a wet sock. What in God's name do you see in him?"

"He's got a truck," she said, like that explained everything. And in Mercy Ridge, it kinda did. "And a great smile. And he asked me to meet him there. Please, Rory? I can't go by myself."

I looked at her, all done up in her tightest jeans and a low-cut top that made her look like she was trying to win a prize. Her hair was perfect, her makeup was flawless, and she was vibrating with a hope so pure it almost made me sad. "Fine," I grumbled. "But if he starts playin' his guitar and singin' Jeff Buckley, I'm leavin' you there."

The party was out in the backwoods, down a dirt road that threatened to rip the muffler off my truck. We found it by following the orange glow against the sky. A massive bonfire roared in the middle of a clearing, throwing wild, dancing shadows across the faces of a couple dozen kids from town. They were all laughing, drinking, and passing around a bottle of moonshine that probably tasted like gasoline and regret. The air smelled of woodsmoke, cheap perfume, and the faint, sweet scent of weed. The music wasn’t much better.

Lacey spotted Cody the second we got there. He was exactly the same as always: tall, lanky, with a backwards cap and a smile that was all teeth and no substance. He was leaning against his truck, a beat-up F-150 that was lifted so high it looked like it was on stilts. The second he saw Lacey, his face lit up, and I swear to God, I could practically hear the cartoon hearts popping out of his eyes.

They were on each other in a second. Lacey giggling at something he whispered in her ear, his hand possessively on her ass, her fingers tracing the lines of his stupid tattoo. It was a nauseating display of puppy love, a clumsy, desperate dance of hormones and hope. I watched them for a minute, a bitter taste in my mouth, before turning away.

I found a spot on a fallen log, far enough away from the noise but close enough to the fire to feel its heat. I cracked open a beer, the cold glass a welcome relief in the humid night air. I stared into the flames, watching them lick at the dark, watching the sparks rise up into the black sky like little escaping souls.

And just like that, I was back there.