Chapter Four

CHAPTER 4

That night, as the clock strikes eight and the game begins, the remaining staff, alongside Bezi and Paige, play their roles to perfection. All the guests meet their gruesome "deaths" at the hands of Kyle's mask-wearing, machete-wielding alter ego. All except one. The young blond guy who was scared to death straight out of the gate. He started off by immediately abandoning his friends. Bezi was tracking him on the camera but then lost sight of him on the campgrounds for about thirty minutes. I don't find him until she cues up the phantom footsteps and he scrambles out from under a supply shed.

I'm leading him to the finish to let him know he's won. He stayed hidden and avoided Kyle the entire night. It's not necessary. I was gonna let him live regardless, but this guy hid for most of the game, and while his friends are probably gonna hate him for abandoning them, he's a special kind of winner—another final survivor. Just like me.

"Come on!" I yell frantically. "I—I think the people who work here took things too far! I'm really hurt!"

The guy stares wide-eyed at my arm as I hold it tight against my body, fake blood dripping off my fingertips.

"They can't do that!" he screams, his voice cracking. "Wait. Can they do that? Can they hurt you?"

"I—I don't know. I didn't think so." I clench my jaw and turn my face away from him so he doesn't see me smile. I'm usually super professional, playing my part to the very end, but this guy is so scared, I really do feel bad for him. I'm glad he's going to claim the prize of a shitty T-shirt and what is sure to be a hideous picture of himself emerging from under the Camp Mirror Lake signage.

We stumble down Path #3, past the campfire ring and the main office, past the parking lot with the beat-up camp truck, Bezi's car, and another one that belongs to the guests and Tasha's "lifeless" body. The prop ax is sticking out of her chest, and she's gone way overboard with the fake blood. It's going to take her forever to get it out of her hair and off her skin, but knowing Tasha, she's having the time of her life. In the darkness, I can't even see the rise and fall of her chest. She really looks dead.

I usher the last guest past her and under the big wooden sign, where we cling to the metal gate. I pause. I wait. Nothing happens.

"What—what do we do now?" the guy stammers.

I scan the tree line for Kyle. He should be making his way toward us from the opposite side of the gate by now. It takes me a minute to spot the darkened silhouette down the road. He's a little off his cue, but it's still workable.

"Oh no," I say, trying my best to sound desperate and terrified. "Oh no! Please!"

The figure moves closer, and I let my fingers dance over the handle of the fake butcher knife tucked in my waistband.

Just then, there is movement in the brush to my right.

I glance over, straining to see into the dark. Another figure—tall and hulking—is just beyond the tree line. My gaze darts between the two. My first thought is that one of the guests got turned around and somehow ended up outside the perimeter of the camp. But Bezi would have seen that, and she would have let me know. Some of the light from the parking lot filters through the trees, and I see that the figure to my right is Kyle. I turn my attention back to the figure in the road, and as they stalk forward, I take a step back from the gate. This is wrong. There's someone else in the game, and it's not someone I recognize. My heart kicks up.

"What's going on?" the blond guy asks.

Suddenly, the floodlights in the parking lot come up. They bathe the entire area in a brilliant white haze. The Halloween theme music begins to play, and the other staff and guests emerge from their holding areas.

"I want my damn money back!" yells one of the guests as he stalks up to the gate. "Supposed to be a serial killer out here, right? Whose grandma is this?" He gestures to the other side of the gate, and I realize the person approaching is an older woman in dingy coveralls and a flannel shirt. Her wispy gray hair is loose and falls over her face like a veil. In her right hand is something long and slender and double-barreled—a shotgun. Every muscle in my body tenses. I want to run, but I feel like I can't move.

Kyle suddenly ducks deeper into the woods and emerges behind us a few moments later, his mask now situated on top of his head. With trembling fingers, I touch my earpiece.

"Bezi?"

"Yeah." Her voice crackles in my ear. "Who is that at the entrance? Is that a player? Wait. Oh my god, Charity! She has a gun!"

"Open the mics and tell everybody to get inside and lock the doors," I say. "Now!"

Bezi's voice commands anyone not already at the front gate to get to the Western Lodge and lock themselves in. There's a flurry of panicked footsteps and shouts from behind me, but I don't take my eyes off the woman. She raises the gun and cradles it in the crook of her arm with the barrel pointing up to the sky.

"You think this is a game?" she asks, her voice low and gravelly. She narrows her eyes at me; then she turns and glances over her shoulder as if she's looking for someone behind her.

My mouth is suddenly dry. I try to stifle the fear that is pooling in my chest, but I can barely move. I force myself to take another step back.

"Everybody get inside the office!" I shout.

The guests, Porter, and Tasha retreat to the office. Kyle stays beside me, gripping his machete as if its rubber blade will do either one of us any good.

"This is my place. My land. All of it." The woman turns her head and spits on the ground. "You damn kids think you can do whatever you want out here? You think there won't be consequences?" As the woman rambles on, she keeps the shotgun in the crook of her arm. She touches her face with her free hand, then tilts her head back and laughs. "It's all fun and games, right? Pay to play? You should be ashamed. If you knew what I know . . ." She trails off, and her eyes glaze over.

"What are you talking about?" Kyle asks.

The woman's gaze flits to him. She suddenly rushes the front gate and sticks her hand through, grasping at the front of my shirt. I stumble back and fall into the dirt, but I'm back on my feet a half second later because there's no way in hell I'm going to trip over my own feet and twist my ankle. That's not what final girls do.

"Charity," Kyle says as he grips my arm and pulls me toward the office. "Look."

I glance at him, and his eyes are wide and filled with a kind of fear I've never seen in his expression before. He taps the breast pocket of his dingy jumpsuit, and in the glow of the floodlight, I can see the outline of the heavy padlock we use to keep the front gate secure while the game is being played.

He forgot to lock us in.

I glance at the woman just as she leans on the gate and it yawns open. A smile dances across her crooked mouth.

I'm running before I can think, my legs pumping under me, my chest heaving. Kyle is at my heels. We barrel toward the office, where Tasha is waiting with the door open.

"Get in here!" she screams.

I race up the steps and fall into the office as Kyle and Tasha slam the door shut and turn the dead bolt. A bang erupts from the outside as the woman crashes into the door. Her pinched face appears in the window. Backlit by the muted glow from the floodlight in the parking lot and the pitch-black night sky, she looks like she could play the killer in one of our nightly games. Her stringy gray hair obscures her face; the skin that's visible is loose and reminds me of weathered leather. Her thin lips pull back, exposing her teeth. She turns the shotgun around and bangs the butt of it against the glass.

"Little pig, little pig, let me come in," she hollers through a throat full of popping and snapping phlegm.

She can get in if she wants to. The lock on the door is old and wobbly in the frame, and even if that managed to stop her, she could probably kick hard enough to come through the wall. The office's exterior walls are so thin, I can hear her breathing and talking to herself outside.

"What is happening?" Porter asks in a terrified whisper-scream.

"Is this part of the game?" one of the guests asks.

"No!" I touch my earpiece. "Bezi! Lock the door to the control center! Do not come out!"

She says something, but I can't make it out through the static and over the rush of blood in my ears. Several of the guests have their phones out, but none of them can get a signal long enough to call or text for help.

"Use the landline," I say.

The woman paces back and forth on the porch, mumbling to herself and slamming her fist against the glass every few seconds, causing us all to jump out of our skin.

Porter calls the sheriff's office, and then we wait because the drive up here is something serious even when it's not pitch-dark outside. Nobody says anything. We barely even breathe. The woman's footsteps are heavy on the porch, and each time her weathered face bobs past the window, my heart cartwheels in my chest.

I turn away from the window and speak quietly into my mic again. "Bezi? Bezi, please answer me."

"I'm here," she finally whispers, and the relief that washes over me makes me dizzy. "Paige is in here with me. We're hiding in that old closet in the back. I thought you said there was just extra equipment in here."

A loud crack suddenly splits the air, and I instinctively duck as a wave of hushed cries ripples through the room. The woman has fired her gun into the air and is now grinning maniacally through the office window.

"We're gonna die," one of the guests says.

"Maybe we should rush her," Javier says.

"She has a shotgun," Porter says. "You can't be serious." He glares at Javier, then throws his hands up. "Never mind."

The woman continues to pace, switching her gun from one hand to the other. I keep my eyes glued to the window until finally, the red-and-blue haze from the sheriff's car cuts through the dark and lights up the shadowy forest.

Gravel crunches under his tires as the sheriff pulls into the main parking lot. I try to see how many cars are coming to the rescue, but I only see the one. Sheriff Lillard steps out and approaches the woman with his hands folded across his chest.

"Porter," I say. "Did you tell him she has a gun?"

"Yeah," Porter says. "Guess he doesn't care?"

"What are you doing out here, Nancy?" Sheriff Lillard asks. There is no concern in his voice at all.

I whip my head around and stare at Kyle. "He knows her?"

Kyle shrugs. "Sounds like it. Maybe she lives in town?"

I crane my neck to watch as Sheriff Lillard strolls right up to the woman he'd called Nancy. He pats her gently on the shoulder, then loops his arm under hers and escorts her to his squad car, gun in hand. She sits down in the back seat, and he says something to her that I can't make out through the door.

Once he closes the car door, I slide the dead bolt open and go out onto the front porch. Sheriff Lillard turns his back on the shotgun-wielding woman who's sitting uncuffed in his back seat.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"No." I don't even know what kind of question that is. Am I all right after a strange woman threatened me with a shotgun? Yeah, no.

Sheriff Lillard pulls off his cap and runs his hand through his sandy-blond hair. "I'm sorry about that. Miss Keane here gets a little territorial sometimes." He tugs at the back of his neck. "Can't really blame her."

Tasha appears at my side, her arms crossed, her expression angry. "What's that supposed to mean? We can absolutely blame her."

Sheriff Lillard stares at her, blinks, then allows a grin to slowly spread across his face.

"What's funny?" Tasha asks, clearly annoyed. "I don't see anything funny about this at all!"

I glance at her and realize she's still got the prop ax embedded in her chest, and the dried fake blood has stained her face and neck.

"Looks like somebody got to you before Miss Keane had a chance," Sheriff Lillard says, biting back a laugh. He clears his throat and replaces his cap.

The guests storm out of the office and brush past me.

"This is supposed to be fake!" one of them yells.

"It is!" I shout back.

The blond guy gets in his car and starts the engine. He looks like he's thinking about leaving his companions behind, but after the others retrieve their belongings from their cabin, they pile into the car and turn out of the parking lot.

"Aren't you gonna get statements from them or something?" I ask Sheriff Lillard. "They all saw what happened."

"Oh, I don't think that's necessary," he says as the guests take off down the road, a cloud of dust swirling behind them.

I jog down the stairs and stand in front of Sheriff Lillard. We've met twice before. First when he came up to the camp to introduce himself when I initially got hired. He told me he was just a phone call away in the event of an emergency. And the second time was when he arrested that staff member who got too carried away. Now he's looking at me like he doesn't recognize me.

"I'm Charity," I say, pulling off my wig. "I'm the manager here. I want—"

Recognition seems to wash over him, and he cuts me off mid-sentence. "Oh, right. You're that little girl Lamont's got running this shit show. You know he's supposed to be on premises, right?"

"He is," I lie. "He checks in every day. That's not what we're talking about, though."

Sheriff Lillard rolls his eyes. Our first interactions had been friendly enough, but now he seems oddly dismissive. Like he doesn't want to be up here even though a weird lady with a gun was threatening us. I have to take a second to check myself. I know full well that the police aren't here to protect and serve; they're here to enforce compliance with whatever set of rules they're following today.

"Shit show or not, are you gonna do anything about her?" I point to the woman. "She was waving that gun around, and she fired it into the air. I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

He glances over his shoulder at her. "Nancy. Tell me you weren't firing that thing around these kids."

Nancy opens the rear door of the police cruiser, and I realize Sheriff Lillard didn't even close the door all the way. I have to clench my jaw to keep my mouth from falling open.

She shrugs and laughs a little. "Aw, hell. If I wanted to shoot them, I'd have done it."

"Then we'd have a real problem on our hands," Sheriff Lillard says sarcastically as he pulls at his neck. He sounds like every other backwoods law-enforcement official I've ever come across in Groton—way too sure of himself, glaring air of supremacy. I'm feeling all the stress of being under threat from the lady with the shotgun and the person who is supposed to at least be pretending to keep us safe. "I don't think we need to do anything," Sheriff Lillard says. "I'll probably take her home and make sure she gets some rest."

"Probably take her home?" I repeat, like the words don't make sense. I'm not surprised that this heffa is getting special treatment, but I am irritated. "She literally has a gun in her lap right now."

"We're in the woods, Miss Charity," Sheriff Lillard says. "Seems like a good idea to me. And besides, she's just upset. You need to understand that her property butts right up to your little operation here. I don't blame her for being a little testy."

"Wait, what?" Confusion crowds out the anger for a quick second. "I've never even seen anybody who wasn't a guest. She lives out here?"

Sheriff Lillard nods. "Sure does. Right off mile marker seventy. Been out here a hell of a lot longer than you, so I'd show her some respect."

"Nah," I say. "You don't get to run up on me with a gun and then demand respect. This isn't a game."

He huffs. "Isn't that what you do, Miss Charity? Out here cosplaying the final girl?" His eyebrows lift, and an ugly little smirk creeps across his face. "Mm-hmm," he murmurs. "I've read all about your little operation, and I have to say, I'm not impressed. Don't people have anything better to do?"

Nancy laughs and stares across the parking lot at the lake. "So pretty," she says in a singsong voice. "Be a shame if someone fell in."

Behind me, the crunching of gravel and hurried breaths draw my attention. Bezi and Paige are careening toward me.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?" Bezi asks, grabbing me by the arms and looking me over from head to toe.

"I'm fine. Are you okay?" I turn to Paige. "And you?"

"We're good," Paige says.

I breathe a sigh of relief and pull Bezi close to me.

Sheriff Lillard's face scrunches up, and he turns away. "I'll leave you to it, ladies. I'm going to get Miss Keane some dinner." He looks at his watch. "Maybe breakfast is more appropriate."

Sitting in the back of the car, Nancy is still staring at the nighttime waters of Mirror Lake.

Sheriff Lillard narrows his eyes at me, then tips his hat and climbs into his car, pulling off without another word.