by Jess Lourey
Thirty-Eight
Inside, the essence of the haunted mansion crawled over my body like a million scurrying centipedes. Tears spilled down my cheeks at the visceral terror of returning to the place that had spawned nightmare after nightmare in my teen years.
We stood in a storage room. I adjusted to the dim glow of the “Exit” sign, and I saw scythes, glowing skeletons, and headless bodies stacked in one corner. In the other, gravestones and jugs of fake blood. A shadow scurried across the floor.
The small room smelled like dust and mouse pee. Dull percussive thumps reverberated through the walls, indicating the fireworks were still going on outside. Nearby, bloodcurdling screams suggested murder was taking place ten feet away. On the other side of the wall, I heard a chainsaw rev, and I moaned.
“Sort of a scaredy cat, aren’t you? I’ll take that, by the way.”
The report was yanked out my hands. I’d forgotten I was even holding it.
“Why so quiet? You’ve been doing nothing but talking since you arrived at the fair, as near as I can tell. No point in stopping now.”
“Who are you?”
“See for yourself.”
I turned, slowly, expecting to look upon Aeon grinning like the Joker, a knife in one hand and the report and a bottle of cyanide in the other.
Instead, in the dim light of the room, I saw Lars Gunder, a horrible fire glowing in his face. I whimpered. I thought I could see the hint of breasts under his jacket, but it may have been the dim lighting playing tricks on me.
My teeth were chattering. “You’ve got the report. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I also need the information that’s inside of it. Since it’s now in your brain, I’m afraid I’ll need to take that as well.” He tipped his head and lifted his shoulders, his body language telling me sorry, that’s the breaks, kid.
All the blood drained from my head and stomach, and I felt dizzy. “I’m not the only one who knows what’s in it.”
“Delrita won’t tell, and I can promise you that Aeon Hopkins is not long for this world. That gnat has been irritating the big boys for far too long. I’ll be swatting him in about, oh, five minutes.” He glanced around. “Killing you in a haunted house is a nice touch, don’t you think? The butter-sculpting booth murder took some planning, but your death will be the scarier of the two, considering the setting. Your body’ll lie here for days before an employee discovers your corpse isn’t a prop. You’ll be smelling by then. That’s what you get for—”
Without any warning, my body made an executive decision. It leapt for the door that led deeper into the haunted house. If it had consulted my brain, it would have been advised to remain in “play dead” mode, to be paralyzed by the knife and hypnotized by the voice of Lars describing how he would kill me.
By the time my brain caught up with my body’s rebellion, though, I found myself in the murky bowels of the haunted house, pushing past an employee dressed in chains wearing a joltingly childlike mask on his bloodied face and holding a pair of severed ears.
I lunged ahead until I found myself in a small room. Blood poured down the walls, and in the outline of a door across the room, a dismembered skeleton dropped goopy intestines from one bony hand to another like a macabre Slinky. It was the same room Jenny had hit the floor in.
I screamed, and it blended in with the many others, fake and real. A hand clamped onto my shoulder, and I whipped around to face a masked person, my heart beating as loud as a million clocks. I scratched and kicked and ripped the mask off. It was a teenaged boy.
“Dude, relax. It’s just pretend.” He held me off with one hand and reached for his felled mask with the other.
I breathed raggedly, peering behind him, expecting my captor to appear in the door at any moment. “How do I get out?”
He must have been trained to deal with panicked customers.
He pointed at the skeleton. “Just squeeze around Mr. Bones.”
I jumped forward, ripped the skeleton out of the ceiling, and leapt at the drape hiding a metal exit door. I moved the curtain and pushed frantically against the door, but it was jammed. Behind me, the kid who’d given me directions grunted loudly. I swiveled to see Lars leaning over him with his knife still out. He hesitated, unsure whether to carve the teenager or pursue me. In that moment of indecision, I gave up on the door and charged into Lars, catching him off guard.
He lost his balance momentarily but righted himself by grabbing at my hair. My head yanked to the side as he ripped out a chunk, but I didn’t slow, desperate to put distance between him and me. I ran, careening off of people, charging blindly from one room of the haunted house to another. Behind me, I heard the steady thump of pursuit and people yelling at someone to watch out.
Breath ragged in my chest, I found myself back in the storage room Lars had first pulled me into. I made for the door just as it opened, and Mrs. Berns peeked her head inside. “Mira? What the hell is wrong with you? I saw you come into here with some guy, but I know how frickin’ scared you are of this place. Don’t lie to me. It was written on your face plain as mud when we walked past here.” She pulled herself into the room and let the door close behind her.
“There’s no time! We have to get out of here! It’s Lars, he’s …”
He caught me before I could finish the sentence, snaking one strong arm around my neck, pressing his knife into my jugular with his other. Mrs. Berns bolted forward, but he lashed out, striking her hard across the face with the butt of his knife.
She fell to the ground, bleeding copiously from her forehead. She landed on her stomach, unconscious, her face to the side. Blood pooled around her, but Lars’ grip was too tight. I couldn’t reach her.
I thought I smelled a hint of almonds, and then a wet rag was pressed against my nose and the world went black.
Thirty-Nine
The smell woke me. It was an overwhelming stench, like pounds of festering hamburger rotting in a swamp. The feculent odor was so strong it thickened the air, making it difficult to breathe.
My awareness shifted from my nose to my body. I was slumped on a lumpy pile, my arms and legs hanging lower than my torso, and the mass beneath me felt like fur over cold rocks.
I shifted, and my hand slid into an opening in the pile. I sensed wetness. I opened one eye and then the other. The room was dim. I couldn’t make out dimensions. A light shifted in the far corner, and I heard the rumble of large equipment starting up, followed by a wash of fresh air.
An enormous door slid open, and the glow of the moon spilled into the space, illuminating the mound of dead cows that I had been tossed onto. I recoiled, which upset my balance, sending me toppling to the base of the corpse mountain. I screamed, but it came out as a choked gurgle. I scratched at my arms and legs, trying to wipe the sensation of cold death off my skin.
A bulldozer lumbered through the door. Lars, steering the machine, glanced over at the corpse pile, looking suddenly alarmed. He switched off the hulking bulldozer, jumped to the ground, and sprinted toward the pile, not relaxing until he caught sight of me shivering at the base of the dead animals. My arms and legs were covered in welts from my scratching, but I still felt infected with death. I couldn’t shake the coldness of the animal corpses pressed against my flesh.
From the side of the pile, thirty feet between us, Lars stared at me as dispassionately as if I were a bug under glass. “Woke up a little early, eh? You probably want to be asleep for this. See, any animals that don’t make it, we house them out here in the testing lab. Once the pile gets big enough, we load them up and bring them to the grinder where they’re turned into cow feed. Used to be we made dog food with this offal too, but people are particular about what goes into their pets. What goes into their own food, that’s a whole different story.” He laughed, a thick and murky sound.
I stared crazily around the testing lab. It was about three hundred square feet and built like a bunker. The garage door Lars had opened to drive the bulldozer through was the
only visible exit. I’d have to get past him to escape, and then what? I was in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere.
“I saw the dead animals in the plant. You had a whole pile in there.”
“I know you did. I watched the videotape. I have to tell you as a point of pride that we don’t usually leave animal carcasses lying around our front offices. We run a very clean operation, but needed to make an exception and ramp up the testing, using all available space. You see, we need to find a way to fool the USDA. They’re inspecting the plant next week. Seems people have been spreading vicious rumors about our products, enough so that the government felt they needed to get involved.” He reached into his pocket for the same bottle of liquid he’d had at the haunted house.
“I called them!” I yelled. “I called the USDA and told them about all the animals you’d hurt. They could show up any minute.”
He chuckled. “You clearly haven’t worked with the USDA before. They’re chronically underfunded. They’re not going to come out for an extra inspection just because some nobody called, especially since they’re already coming next week.” He tipped his chin. “But on to more pressing issues. You, and how you’ll die.”
He sized up the distance between us. He could be on me in ten strides. “I’m not a monster. I’ll give you a choice. Either you go into the grinder awake and tied up, or you let me put you out again. That way, you won’t feel a thing as you take your place in the circle of life.” He started humming the Disney song.
I gagged. My chest felt ready to explode with fear, but I was trapped in a corner of the gigantic lab. The garage door stood to my left and behind Lars, the ten-foot-high pile of animal corpses lay in front of me, and the dark, uncharted expanse of the lab loomed to my right. The viscous stench of death made it difficult to concentrate.
Scooting back several inches, my back hit the wall, which I used to leverage myself into a standing position. My legs were shaky from the knockout agent, but my wits were returning. “You killed Mrs. Berns?”
“I’m afraid she hit her head pretty hard. A woman that age isn’t likely to survive a fall like that.”
A sob escaped my throat. “And Aeon?”
“Look to your right.”
I peered around the side of the pile, keeping one eye on Lars. I saw in the shadows a bundle of clothes and skin that were Aeon. His body was twisted in an unnatural angle. “He’s dead.”
“Not yet.” Lars smiled the empty grin of a jack-o-lantern. “It was easy carrying you out of the fair and into my waiting van. Turns out people think it’s funny when you tell them your girlfriend had too much to drink. I had to be a little trickier with Aeon, though. I lured him to the van by telling him that you needed him. When he got there and saw you out cold, he put up a little fight, but I zapped him with a stun gun before putting him out. He’ll be much easier to get in the grinder than you. That’s what you get for trying too hard. Now what’ll it be? Awake and ground up, or unconscious and ground up?”
He snaked toward me, eating up the distance separating us in seconds. I stumbled backward and toward Aeon’s body, keeping the pile of dead animals between me and Lars.
“If you don’t stand still right now, I’ll retract my offer. You’ll go into the grinder awake.” His voice was smooth and crazy.
My heart beat like a machine gun, and I thought I’d collapse from fear. The smell of death was suffocating. I had only one chance to escape, but it meant letting Lars put his murderous hands on me. “People will hear me scream.”
“Not out here,” he said with certainty.
I moved and Lars followed. I struggled to keep the pile between us as I positioned myself nearer Aeon. When I was by my destination, I let Lars close the gap a little, but he moved too quickly. I wasn’t in the right spot. I needed three more inches, but there wasn’t time.
Lars lunged.
I jumped back, twisting as I fell. I landed full force, face-down on Aeon’s body. He didn’t make a sound, not even a whisper of air escaping. His body felt as cold as the animals.
“That’s better.” Lars’ hands coiled into my hair, caressing my neck and tugging at the sore spot he’d created when he’d yanked out my hair at the haunted house. He leaned forward, murmuring. “Such a shame so many beautiful girls have to die for progress, but ME is just too important. Think about how many more starving people we can feed if we can keep the milk enhancer on the market. You’re sacrificing yourself for a good cause.”
Lars jerked me up harshly. As he did, I turned and plunged the Swiss army knife I’d snatched from Aeon’s pocket deep into Lars’ stomach and twisted it, using my last burst of strength. I retched at the gristly sound of the blade separating organs and intestines, but the knife had become an extension of my arm, and I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stop it from slicing side to side.
Lars gurgled and pushed me away. He fell toward the wall, covering his leaking belly with both hands. “You bitch!”
I couldn’t help Aeon, not right now. I sprinted past Lars, knocking him over as I ran out of the testing lab to the nearest security gate. I stared wildly around the courtyard, not sure if Lars was working alone. At the gate, I plunged the bloodied knife into the keypad, wiggling and jamming it until I triggered the security system.
Klieg lights immediately flashed all over the grounds, lighting the place up like the Fourth of July, and an alarm sounded inside the building and blared from bullhorns set along the top of the razor wire fence.
I prayed that a sister alarm was going off at the St. Paul police station.
Forty
“So he killed Ashley because he didn’t want the world to know that Milk Enhancer made man boobs?”
“More or less.”
I was helping to dress Mrs. Berns’ wound. She’d been given five stitches, some pain killers (“Finally! A legal prescription,” she’d said), and sent on her way.
The doctor had ordered her to keep the stitches covered for a few days, but Mrs. Berns wasn’t on board. She said she wouldn’t be able to get the attention she’d earned if people couldn’t see the extent of her injuries. We compromised, with her allowing me to put gauze over the stitches as long as I didn’t cover any of the bruising.
“He thought Ashley had stolen the report from his office after their last tryst. If the report’s contents were leaked, his career and BPM were both dust. She’d been blackmailing him before that, saying she’d come out about the affair if he didn’t leave his wife. He figured he’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“What an asshole.” Mrs. Berns had always been the queen of understatement. “He deserved to get stabbed in the stomach.”
I winced. The memory of plunging the knife into his belly sickened me. The police had arrived within minutes of the alarm going off at BPM and called an ambulance when they saw me covered in blood. It was all Lars’. He was conscious when they took him away, but incoherent.
Aeon was still out, but the EMTs had assured me all his vital signs were fine. They wanted to send me home, but I refused to leave until animal control was called out. The sight of poor, terrified animals being led out would haunt me long after the memory of stabbing Lars in the stomach faded.
After a promise that all the surviving animals would be taken care of, I was sent back to my trailer, but Chief Kramer had told me I better not go far. There would be a court date in my future, testifying against Lars.
“He’s looking at life in prison. The fact that he recently acquired breasts from drinking copious amounts of ME-laced milk won’t do him any favors there. Apparently, he’d been taping them down for a little while now, but they’re at least C cups. I saw them when he attacked me.”
Mrs. Berns snorted with laughter, forgetting that sudden movements gave her a headache. At her grimace of pain, I apologized for her injury for the ten-millionth time.
“For the love of Pete, would you just let it go?” she said. “There’s nothing to forgive. We’re all responsible for ourselves. Yo
u can’t save another person from their fate, and so we all just do the best we can. And that’s enough.”
I teared up as hundreds of tiny weights took off to greener pastures, thanks to Mrs. Berns’ grace. Was that all I’d needed to hear, all this time? “I love you.”
“You better,” she grumbled, taking a deep pull off the hot fudge malt I’d bought her for breakfast. “I can’t believe you were right about the cyanide in the ice cubes.”
“That was just a lucky guess. No one thought anything of Lars being upstairs while the Milkfed Marys scurried around to get ready for Ashley’s butter carving. After all, he had an office up there and was in and out all the time, and the place was highly trafficked that morning. When he slipped Ashley a glass of ice laced with cyanide, she didn’t draw any attention to it, thinking it was one more of the secret little favors he’d been doing for her since they’d started sleeping together.”
Mrs. Berns tsked. “How’d Carlotta take the news about her girl?”
“About like you’d figure. She was relieved to know who killed her daughter and why, but that doesn’t bring her back.”
“That poor woman. Just goes to show you can do your best with your kids, but you can’t predict how they’ll turn out.”
I nodded agreeably.
“It’s true that she and her husband are adopting all the cows you rescued from the testing lab?”
I smiled. That was some particularly happy news. “Yep. They’ll live out their lives in green pastures until they die of old age.”
Mrs. Berns and I sat in the warmth of that. I had a quarter-sized chunk of scalp missing, a black eye that I must have acquired while unconscious, bruised wrists from Lars manhandling me in the haunted house, a small puncture wound at the base of my spine, and a chloroform hangover, but it was a lot better than being dead.
“The best news is that Aeon is going to be okay. He has a broken arm and a concussion from scuffling with Lars, but he’ll recover. I think seeing all those poor animals at BPM has reenergized him and his cause.”