Page 16 of Stay Scared

The mask tilts, but he doesn’t answer.

A speaker activates above the stairway.

“Salem, leave the service corridor and return to the marked route.”

It is the same male voice that directed me away from the chained exit.

The beaked man turns his head toward the speaker.

I keep my eyes on him. “Your performer is standing between me and it.”

No answer comes through the speaker.

The man beneath the beak straightens, and the small adjustment lands harder than a lunge would have.

The overhead light dies. Red emergency strips illuminate the floor as the fourth man steps fully into the corridor.

My body-camera indicator changes from green to white. A soft mechanical click comes from the housing against my chest. I look down as the light goes dark, taking Mark with it.

When I raise my head, the beaked mask is closer.

Chapter 5

The body-camera light dies against my chest.

A panel snaps open beside me before I can reach for the harness. Red light cuts across the service corridor and catches the edge of the beaked mask. The fourth man backs away, there one second and swallowed by darkness the next.

A gloved hand closes around the strap at my shoulder and pulls hard enough to drag me sideways. My boot catches the raised threshold, and my palm lands against padded vinyl instead of concrete. The panel slams behind me, followed by bolts driving into place outside.

Movement shifts near the far wall.

Whoever pulled me in stayed.

The room is roughly square and covered in red padding from floor to ceiling. One chair waits beneath a recessed panel overhead, its metal frame bolted to the floor. My body camera remains strapped to my chest, but the indicator is dead.

“Mark, can you hear me?”

Static washes through the earpiece.

I move to the door and press my fingers against the seam. Cold air reaches my knuckles from the corridor beyond, but there is no interior handle. Whatever controls the bolts sits somewhere outside this room.

I test the chair with one boot. It barely moves.

“Isolation room,” I say, mostly because hearing my own voice is better than listening to the static. “Fixed chair. No visible interior release.”

A speaker activates overhead. “You’re still reviewing the room.”

I look toward the ceiling. “I review everything.”

“You measure exits before you sit down.”

“I’m not sitting.”

“We noticed.”

Movement reaches me through the padded wall beside the entrance. More than one person is outside.

I look down at the dead camera. “Did you cut the feed?”