Page 70 of Stay Scared

“I’m not leaving him until the medic tells me he isn’t going to bleed out behind one of your locked doors.”

Ash’s fingers close harder around the radio. “Cade, I need you at main control.”

“Then you’ll get me when the medic says he can take Evan.”

The channel cuts, and Ash lowers the radio slowly.

“Does he always ignore you like that?” I ask.

“When he believes the order is wrong.”

Owen closes the diagnostic window. “Main control has a physical lock board. If the network state is false, the mechanical system may still respond.”

Another distinction I would prefer not to need tonight. The screens can lie. The doors might not.

Ash reaches for his mask. “Then main control is next.”

He fits the black shell over his face without activating the white lines. “Owen takes the rear. Salem stays between us.”

I look at him. “You don’t assign me a position.”

The black mask turns toward me. “Someone entered your apartment. One of my performers was stabbed, and Mark is off-network. Stay within reach.”

His hand flexes once beside his thigh.

“I’ll stay where I can see both directions.”

“Within reach, Salem.”

I step toward the stairwell, and he follows.

Owen leads with the utility light angled toward the steps. Ash stays behind me, near enough that the movement of his coat gives away every time he checks our rear. The stairwell climbs beneath the midway. New cable has been run alongside the amusement park’s old conduit, but several access covers are missing.

At the second landing, Owen stops. The east maintenance door stands open, and a utility light lies on the floor beyond it. No technician.

Owen picks it up. “The housing is still warm.”

Ash touches his earpiece. “Main control technician, respond.”

Static answers, so we keep moving.

The maintenance hall stretches toward the center of the park. Staff doors line one side, each marked with painted numbers. The nearest stands open, costumes hanging untouched on rolling racks. Farther down, an employee break room holds paper cups beside an open first-aid kit. A coat lies near the lockers with one sleeve turned inside out.

No bodies. No struggle. No people.

“Where did everyone go?”

“If they evacuated, they should be at their assigned stations,” Ash says.

“You never ordered one.”

He looks down the empty corridor. The next passage is deserted too.

A ceiling monitor displays the prerecorded queue loop. Decoy participants stand beneath the broken CARNIVAL OF JOY sign while a recorded version of Cade prowls the barriers in his skull mask. The footage resets.

Owen looks up. “The corridor feed is looped too.”

The building has started lying about more than doors.