by Blair Merrin
“I… I’m really sorry about that, Sarah. I have no idea what’s gotten into him.” I’ve never seen Dash act that way, and it definitely freaks me out. You don’t spend your whole life in Bandit Hills without assuming the worst about a situation like this. “I’ll go talk to him, and I’ll get the amulet back for Donovan.”
“Please do,” Sarah says gravely. As much as I want to ask why, my desire to go after Dash is higher on my list of priorities, so I hurry toward the rear door and push into the dark corridor.
CHAPTER 5
The rear part of the sanitarium is dark and empty. It looks like the Scream Asylum set up in the front half of the old building, and the long corridors that run the length of the back of the place along the southern wall are eerily quiet. The thick walls drown out the sounds of music and laughter, much like they once drowned out the sounds of screams and shouts from patients.
Sounds creepy, right? Honestly, that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. I’ve been haunted before, and I’ve been in the sanitarium at night before. I know darn well that this place is home to several spirits, and they can moan and groan at me all they want. It’s living people that freak me out.
“Dash?” I call out. “Yoo-hoo, Dash? Where’d you go?” I should have brought bread crumbs. The maze-like corridors branch out into intersections every fifty feet or so, and I have no idea which route to take.
I hear footsteps and turn quickly, but there’s no one there. From somewhere nearby comes a faint sigh—not so much a sound as it is a feeling that sends tingles up my spine. I’m not sure what kinds of stuff went down in the sanitarium before it closed, but I imagine they weren’t terribly pleasant. That’s about when it occurs to me that despite the fact that I’ve been in the sanitarium before at night, I’ve never been in the sanitarium alone at night—and in this dank, dark corridor, I feel very much alone.
I hear a high-pitched giggle down the hall and the sound of light, pounding footfalls. I strain to see in the darkness, but I can’t see a thing.
“Alright,” I say aloud. “I get it. You’re messing with me. But I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.” The giggling echoes again, and I suck in a sharp breath. “That’s enough out of you,” I say sternly to whoever—or whatever—is down the hall.
As much as I’d love to get back to the party, I know I can’t just leave Dash out here, so I keep going. After about ten minutes of searching, I finally find him—or rather, I trip over him.
“Oomph!” My foot hits something soft and I sprawl forward, catching myself just before I fall flat on my face. I take out my cell phone and turn on the flashlight app, scolding myself for not thinking of that in the first place. Dash lays on his side, his eyes closed and his mouth open, the fake beard slightly askew on his face. “Dash?” I shake him. “Dash!” I check him over for signs of injury, but I don’t see anything.
“Huh… what?” His eyes flutter open. He puts up a hand to shield them from the bright light from my phone. “Cassie? Uh… where are we?”
“You don’t remember acting like a colossal jerk and running off into the sanitarium alone?”
He suddenly sits bolt upright, his eyes wide. “We’re in the sanitarium? Alone?”
“Sort of… we’re in a part of the sanitarium alone.” I shake my head in frustration. “We’re at the grand opening party? For the Scream Asylum? Don’t you remember?”
“I… don’t know. I remember… the party. Yeah. I remember coming in. And the…” His hand goes to his chest. “The amulet. I put it on, didn’t I? Where’d it go?”
We both notice at the same time that the amulet is gone. “Did you drop it somewhere?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Alright, come on.” I help him up and we head back toward the cafeteria. Along the way I try to jar his memory by recounting what happened before he ran out, hoping that he didn’t fall and hit his head.
“Jeez, I was a real jerk. I need to find Sarah and apologize.”
“No, you need to get your head checked. You might have a concussion.”
“Really, I feel fine. My head doesn’t hurt at all. I think I… passed out, or something.”
“Hello?” A male voice calls out to us in the darkness. “Cassie? Dash?”
I shine my phone light down the corridor and see Carl squinting back at us, standing near the rear door to the cafeteria. “We’re here,” I call back.
“Oh, good. Sarah said you went this way. Listen, we’re about to officially start the first tour of the Scream Asylum, and Sarah put you both on the special-guest list. Are you coming?”
“Yeah, we’ll be right there!” Dash tells him.
“Are you sure?” I ask Dash. “I’m worried about you.”
“Cass, I’m telling you, I’m fine now. I think I was just really hungry and got a little moody. Come on, let’s go see the haunted house.”
* * *
Carl leads a small group of us out of the cafeteria and to the foyer of the sanitarium. Aside from me and Dash, there’s Bonnie, her son Steven, and surprisingly, my mom.
“Mom, I didn’t know you were going to be here!”
“Bonnie invited me as her guest,” Mom answers. She wears a bandana over her hair and a Harley Davidson t-shirt, with a black goatee painted on around her mouth. “At least someone thought to invite me.”
“Sorry, Ma. I didn’t think Halloween was your thing. Are you a… biker?”
“Yeah! I made the costume out of stuff around the shop. Isn’t it great?”
“Uh…” I’m about to make fun of her, but then I remember that I too crafted my costume largely out of things from the shop. “So great. You’d look right at home in Sturgis.”
She gives me a confused look, but before I have to explain, Carl cuts in. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “We’re about to get started.” He glances at his watch. “Donovan seems to be running a bit late, but we’re on a schedule, so I’ll be seeing you through.” I get the impression that Donovan normally guides the tours, since Carl’s stage voice is timid and a bit lackluster. “Welcome to the Scream Asylum. In a moment, your group will leave the foyer and follow the red line on the floor. It will guide you through each room, and eventually back here. Please do not touch any of the actors, or any of the props. Um, what else… oh, if you have a heart condition or you’re pregnant…” He lays out the ground rules for us over the next minute or so, fidgeting from one foot to the other as he does. “Any questions?”
I raise my hand. “Did you hear any ghosts while you were setting all this up?”
Carl chuckles. “Sure, why not.” We all stare at him intently until his grin fades and he turns pale. “There’s no such thing… right? That banging… that was just the old pipes… wasn’t it?”
“Sure, Carl, why not.” I wink at him. He looks like might be ill.
Finally, he gives us the go-ahead, and Steven takes the lead as our group moves out of the foyer and down the first corridor. I glance over and see Dash grinning like a fool under his beard.
“Let me get this straight,” I whisper to him. “Real ghosts freak you out, but you’re perfectly okay with the whole haunted house thing?”
“Sure,” he answers. “It’s not real.”
“Even though you know for a fact that this place really is haunted?”
He shrugs. “It helps to know there are a lot of people here.”
I have to admit, the Scream Asylum is the real deal. I can see why it’s such a big attraction. The first room we go into is set up like a doctor’s office, except that the walls are splattered with blood and the place looks filthy. A man is strapped to a gurney, writhing and screaming, as a “doctor” in a red-spattered lab coat revs a circular saw over him, spraying the walls in a fresh coat of fake blood.
The hall has been bathed in red light and a fog machine hidden somewhere pumps out a steady flow of knee-deep mist. Just as we’re about to enter the next room, a child dressed like a doll pops up, scaring the bejesus out of poor Bonnie, who shrieks
and then immediately giggles nervously.
There’s no canned screams or bad props in the whole place. Everything is surprisingly frightening and pretty high-tech; it’s hard for me to tell who is a person in costume, and what’s animatronic. In one room, a creepy woman with buttons sewn over her eyes sits in a rocking chair, singing gently, and as we watch, her head twists completely around, which sends a shiver up my spine. Obviously robotic. I hope.
We see Sarah in the third room, bound by the wrists and hanging from a meat hook, screaming her Scream Queen lungs out as a man in a leather mask pretends to torture her with a welding torch. I grimace. It’s incredibly lifelike.
The red line on the floor leads us all the way down the hall, turns to the left, and then makes another left to head back in the direction of the foyer. Along the way are actors with chainsaws, horrible creatures popping out of crevices, rooms bathed in darkness that we have to navigate by touch. I’m not ashamed to say I let out a few screams now and then. Even Dash shrieked once, and we all shared a laugh at his expense as he turned beet-red beneath his thick fake beard.
The last room of the tour is set up to look like an unholy church; horrifying visages of demons hang on the walls, and at the far end is a black altar dripping in blood. Atop the altar, as a sacrifice, lies a young woman, her eyes open, blonde hair hanging over her face, and multiple stab wounds apparent on her torso.
“Ew,” Mom says. “That’s not scary. That’s just morbid.”
“Agreed,” says Bonnie. “Come on, we’re almost through.”
“Hey Dash, isn’t that Sally?” I ask, peering down at the woman’s face. I can smell her perfume, the same scent I smelled in my store earlier.
“Huh. Yeah, looks like it. Hi Sally!” Dash says loudly.
“Don’t bother her. They’re not supposed to break character,” I scold him.
“I thought she wasn’t a Scream Queen?” he says.
“She’s not screaming. She’s just lying there.” To Sally, I say, “Not to belittle your performance.”
“Alright, come on,” Dash says. “If we hurry, there might be some of Bonnie’s deviled eggs left.”
“I’ve got a whole other batch in the fridge!” Bonnie tells him as the group files out of the room.
But I don’t. Something about Sally doesn’t look quite right to me. I cock my head to the side curiously, watching her.
“Cass, come on,” Dash urges.
“Dash…”
No one can keep from blinking that long.
“What is it?”
Sally’s chest hasn’t moved once. No one can keep from breathing that long.
I reach out, suddenly more afraid than I’ve been in the whole haunted house. I gulp, and then put two of my fingers on Sally’s neck to feel for a pulse.
“Hey,” Dash says, stepping up beside me. “Come on, the group’s leaving us behind—”
“Dash, call Phil,” I tell him urgently.
“Why?”
“There’s been a murder.”
CHAPTER 6
The next two hours go by in a blur. Dash calls Phil, who turns out to be at the party. He rushes over in seconds, dressed in an inmate’s orange jumpsuit with a plastic ball and chain clamped to his leg (which he promptly removes on arrival). Phil is the sheriff of Bandit Hills, and an old friend (sort of) from high school. After confirming that Sally is indeed dead, he immediately calls Deputy Sharon, who is on duty that evening, and the county coroner.
Sharon arrives in minutes. She ushers us and all of the actors from the haunted house into the cafeteria, and then with authority and patience instructs everyone to remain calm, and to stay inside.
“A crime has been committed here,” she announces. “I’m sorry, but no one can leave until we’re certain we have full control over the situation. Please be patient. Thank you.”
Of course, this sends everyone into a clamor, harshly whispered rumors flying around about the nature of what’s happened. Near the front of the cafeteria, Carl paces nervously, wringing his hands together, his face a mask of worry and confusion.
Then someone glances at the window and sees the coroner’s van. Naturally, crime plus coroner equals murder, and suddenly the cafeteria is buzzing with chatter. Everyone in our group that knows the identity of the victim keeps their lips firmly sealed.
I just can’t believe there’s been another murder. Sally seemed like a nice enough woman; at least to me. Not to mention this is at least the third time that someone has been killed within twenty-four hours of talking to me. Am I the kiss of death or something?
Eventually Phil enters the cafeteria, looking distraught. He’s probably thinking something similar about the rash of bizarre murders in our little town as of late. He quietly says a few words to Sharon, and then he collects our group—me, Dash, Mom, Bonnie and Steven—and Carl, and ushers us out of the cafeteria and into the foyer of the sanitarium.
Poor Carl is white as a sheet and I can hear him breathing, like he’s on the precipice of a panic attack.
“Alright,” Phil says. “I need to know exactly what happened. You folks found the body, so I want to hear it from you bunch first.” Carl turns an impressive shade of green when Phil says “the body.”
“Well, technically, Cassie found her,” Bonnie offers.
Thanks, Bonnie.
Phil pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m shocked.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” I protest. “We all ‘found’ her. All I did was notice she wasn’t acting.” I quickly tell Phil how I had met Sally in my shop earlier, which Carl confirmed quietly, and then I explain that I watched her to see if she was breathing or moving.
“Okay, so she was there when you entered the room. The coroner can’t peg an exact time of death, at least not yet, but he confirmed that the murder must have happened in that room, and that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds. No murder weapon has been recovered.” He looks at Carl and adds, “In the meantime, this attraction is officially closed.”
Carl’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “What? No, you can’t do that! I sank so much money into this place, and Halloween is four days away—”
“A woman just died here,” Phil says forcefully.
“I know that! Don’t you think I know that?” Carl looks like he might throw up. “Sally was a friend. She was my best friend and business partner’s wife. I’m still in shock over this whole thing, but closing us down won’t help—”
“Hey,” Dash pipes up. “Where is your business partner?”
Carl’s hand flies to his mouth. “Oh, god, Donovan doesn’t know… He’ll be crushed!”
“Maybe we should find him first,” Phil says. “Dash, come with me. The rest of you—stay put. Don’t move a muscle.”
“Maybe I should—” I start to say.
“Stay put, Cassie,” Phil sticks out his index finger like he’s scolding a child. What can I say? I like to help.
Phil and Dash head down the hall together, searching each room, while the five of us wait in the foyer. Carl starts pacing again, wringing his hands together anxiously. “I can’t believe this… poor Sally… poor Donovan!” he mutters. “I hope he’s okay.” He looks up at me with fear in his eyes. “You don’t think he’s…?”
“No,” I tell him, trying to sound reassuring. “I’m sure Donovan is just fine.” Though part of me doesn’t believe it.
“Yeah. He’s fine!” Carl repeats. “He’s fine. I really hope he is. I don’t know if I could run this thing by myself.”
“You’d manage,” I tell him, trying to sound hopeful.
“It’s just that… no one has ever gotten hurt at our attraction, much less… killed. Oh, Sally!” His eyes glisten with the threat of tears and he starts to hyperventilate, as if Sally’s death is just now dawning on him fully.
Mom comes over and guides him by the shoulders to a chair. “Sit, dear. Don’t work yourself up. Dash and the sheriff will be back in a minute with your friend, you’ll see. Then we’ll
each have a little chat, and—”
Carl’s eyes bug out again. “A chat? Good lord, am I… am I going to be a suspect?”
“Thanks, Mom,” I mutter. To Carl, I say, “You’ll need to give him your alibi. We all will. It’s no big deal. I’ve had to do it like five times.” Mom shoots me a look. She doesn’t like me getting involved in murder cases.
“I was here! I was right here the whole time!” Carl says. “You saw me!”
“Did anyone else see you while we were going through the tour?” I ask him.
“I…” He stares up at the ceiling. “I can’t remember. I don’t know!”
“Hey, calm down. We’re all going to…” I trail off as Dash comes striding back to us down the hall. “Did you find him?” I ask quickly.
“He’s alive. Unconscious, but alive. He was in an empty room upstairs. Looks like he got smacked in the back of the head with something heavy,” Dash reports. “An ambulance is on its way.”
“Oh, thank god!” Carl cries. “He’s alive!”
* * *
It’s two in the morning before we’re finally able to head home. Dash drives his classic Cadillac El Dorado with me in the passenger seat, both of us exhausted, and neither wanting to talk much.
After the ambulance came for Donovan, Phil took a statement from each of us that were present when we discovered Sally’s body. Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, Sharon was taking statements from anyone who saw or came in contact with Sally earlier in the day. Eventually they let the thoroughly tired and mostly confused partygoers head home.
Dash finally speaks up as the Cadillac turns onto Main Street. “I don’t get it. Strange bunch of people come to town. One of them ends up working in your shop. One of them ends up dead. Another unconscious. And the fourth a bundle of anxiety.” He shakes his head. “No murder weapon. And we couldn’t find whatever Donovan was struck with.”
