Chapter 4

R un.

I’m bolting along the longest hallway known to mankind. Oil paintings and portraits the size of small cars loom over me, with an endless array of wooden doors leading off the corridor on either side as I run along the plush carpet.

Each provides a temptation. Calling my name to duck inside and try to evade the men who are after me.

But those rooms will all be dead ends. There is no doubt in my mind each door I pass is all just a giant trap, and I need to try to find my way back to the main stairwell.

Besides, I know they are coming, and I know they are faster than I am.

My half-stumble, half-run in this ridiculous outfit is the least sexy thing imaginable.

There’s a wall up ahead, and I pray that as I round the corner at the end of the hall, I might have found my way back to somewhere close to where we entered. Maybe I’ll find some other people. In between forgetting to breathe, I’m also freaking the fuck out that I haven’t seen another soul.

Something feels very wrong. This evening started with a crowd of guests, and now I seem to be entirely alone. There’s not even the sound of distant screams anymore to at least indicate where other people might be inside the mansion.

I’ve been thinned from the herd with ruthless efficiency.

Jesus Christ, I’m an idiot for coming here.

Suddenly, the corridor spits me out onto a wide landing. One bathed in red light, but this time, there’s no hall of mirrors. Only a staircase leading down, which must be the way back to where we came in.

I almost fall down the stairs, clutching the railing and feeling certain I’m going to be caught at any second.

Then, I arrive at the final step and freeze. I’m completely disoriented. This isn’t the same way we arrived, and I’m now surrounded, enclosed on all sides, right in the midst of tall mirrors and a flickering light overhead that beats erratically like my heart.

Maybe this is the back of the maze?

Fuck. Either way, I have to push on. There’s no going back the way I just came.

So I don’t think and start to move. What feels like a hundred fractured reflections of myself rebound back at me. It’s confusing, immediately disorienting, and my throat tightens at the knowledge I’m oh, so alone in this.

At that thought, I pull out my phone, silently saying a thank you that it hasn’t fallen out of my pocket or been taken while I was trapped in the dark with three possible murderers.

No notifications.

No messages.

I unlock the screen as I fumble my way forward, keeping one hand outstretched to stop myself from walking face-first into a mirror. Which I do almost immediately, colliding with a thud into a solid surface.

Turning, I glide my shaking hand along the cold glass, touching my outstretched reflection, and keep walking. There’s no running now in this enclosed space. Only the light pulsing chaotically above my head and the eerie multitude of glimpses of myself I keep running into.

For a second, the word Moonlight weighs on my tongue. I taste the word. Mouthing those syllables to myself in silence just to practice what it would be like to utter them out loud.

If I scream it loud enough, will someone come and get me out of here?

The prospect of being dumped outside in the dark and cold night, all alone, doesn’t exactly feel any safer either. In fact, it would surely increase my chances of being dumped in the woods like an extra in a slasher movie tenfold. So I try to type a quick text to Rita with thumbs that refuse to cooperate. With flashing lights overhead and a stuttering heartbeat filling my chest and shaking fingers, I can barely get to function properly in order to swipe my phone screen to open the damn thing, let alone write anything that makes sense.

Where are you?

I wait for the comforting sight of a read receipt, or three bouncing dots to appear, but neither comes. With a whimper, I lock my phone screen and reach out to touch the unforgiving mirror in front of me, then glance up.

My stomach drops through the floor.

Right behind me is a man in a skull mask who towers over me. His sinister reflection flickers with a reddish glow, the lighting has changed to an ominous announcement of his presence, and his head tilts to one side, oh so slowly.

My phone slips from my fingers and shatters like the snap of a bone when it collides with the polished marble floor.

I don’t bother to stop and try to pick it up, I’m already bolting. Both hands outstretched as I careen through the rest of the mirrors, bouncing off reflective surfaces so hard I wince with the bruising sting of running into so many immovable objects. Catching a thousand awful glimpses of skulls that I’m unable to tell what might be real or reflections or just figments of my imagination.

Sweet relief arrives when I finally find my hand disappearing into thin air. A break in the maze is right in front of me, and I take the opportunity to squeeze through a gap. Out here, the air feels chilled all of a sudden, and upon my makeshift exit from the maze, I find myself at the top of an impossibly narrow set of stairs. From the steep drop down, they seem like they’re headed for a basement. The kind that might be an emergency exit. And I don’t think twice before racing down them.

It’s only when I reach the bottom that I realize my mistake.

I’m quite literally surrounded by death.

The scent of it fills my nose, and the bone-chilling cold temperature in the air makes my stomach churn with dread.

Carcasses hang from the ceiling.

Actual fucking carcasses.

Headless, grisly shapes are split open to reveal bloodied rib cages.

A sick feeling washes over me that this is the reality of the meat on the table and in the supermarket. Hacked open with nothing more than a band saw that is so sharp it can cut through bone and cartilage within seconds. The kind of reality that is neatly packaged up in sanitary little plastic trays so you don’t have to see the grotesque truth.

But I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to know this kind of truth.

I’m also aware that this isn’t part of the haunted house anymore. This looks like an abattoir, and I’m pretty sure there could be actual human bodies kept in here amongst the slaughtered livestock.

Trying to fight the urge to vomit all over the floor, I skirt the edges of the hanging headless bodies. Thank fuck there’s a door not far ahead of me, and I push through it, silently pulling it closed behind me as I stand in yet another hallway. Only this one feels like a concrete bunker.

Left or right? I have no idea, so I turn left and half-walk, half-run until I find myself emerging into an area that feels less like a perfect place to commit a violent crime, and more like a luxury mansion once more.

There are more antiques and artwork, the kind that probably should be in a museum from the looks of it.

Just as I’m tip-toeing my way through the dark, I hear voices. At first, the burst of sound makes me freeze on instinct, but then relief floods me. Rita’s familiar laugh is followed by some chatter from the other girls.

Ever since we were separated upstairs, I haven’t seen a single soul other than the men hunting me, and their flurry of voices dancing along the corridor feels like seeing a rescue ship on the horizon after being lost at sea.

I could cry. I’m so overwhelmed by the fact I’ve found them. I’m hurtling into the room where their voices are coming from, only to stop dead as I enter the space.

It sits empty, except for one person, and it’s not Rita.

A skull mask stares back at me with sunken eyes, and there’s a mocking tilt to the man’s head. In one outstretched hand, he holds a phone, and it’s playing a recording on loop.

A fucking recording of my friends.

Ice floods my veins.

That’s when the door shuts behind me, and I hear the heavy metallic thunk of a lock sealing us inside.

I’ve been caught.