Skye held her breath and listened. The weeping had stopped. Had she imagined it? She adjusted her costume, stuffed the sweater she’d been wearing into her backpack, and cautiously pushed the stall door open. She was alone. She was loath to look into the mirror—terrified that a bloody woman would stare back. Nevertheless, by telling herself to quit being so stupid, she forced herself to turn toward the glass.
Letting out a sigh of relief, she used spirit gum to attach the prosthetic nose and chin that were a part of her makeup. She was fiddling with a fake wart that was supposed to be worn on her chin when she caught sight of her watch. The dress rehearsal was starting in less than a minute. She swiftly stuck the black pointed hat on her head, ran to the door, and pushed. It wouldn’t budge.
She put her shoulder to it and shoved with all of her not inconsiderable weight. It opened a couple of inches, but immediately slammed shut. Someone or something was holding it closed from the other side. Was this a joke? Why would someone want to trap her in the john?
Skye grabbed the flashlight from her backpack, preparing for when the lights went out for good. But she stuffed the light back into her pack when she remembered that the safety inspector had said that the bathroom lights had to remain on throughout the event.
Next she scooped out her cell phone. Whom should she call? As she considered her options, she glanced at the digital display. No signal. Shit! Now what? If she didn’t get out of there and to her appointed place on time, Annette would have her head on a platter.
Skye looked around. Was there any other way out? There were no windows, and the three small stalls and the larger handicapped one took up nearly all of the space, except for a small area in front of the sinks. Skye nudged open each stall door with her foot. She could see at a glance that the first three were empty, but she had to step inside the bigger one in order to check the entire interior.
She swept her gaze over the area, biting off a scream at the sight of a bloody ax propped beside the toilet. She backed out and swung around. Still no sign of anyone else in the room. Panic welled in her throat, but she forced herself to swallow it. Was she imagining sights and sounds, or were they all real?
Despite her fear, she pushed open the stall door again. The ax was still there, and this time she recognized it as a prop from the Lizzie Borden scene. The blood was red paint. Whoever was playing Lizzie must have brought it with her when she went to use the bathroom, leaned it against the wall to free her hands, then forgotten it.
Skye shook her head. She was letting this whole “haunted” haunted-house thing get to her. Had she imagined the blocked exit as well? She darted over to the door and gave it a mighty shove, nearly falling flat on her face when it swung wide open without any resistance.
The hall was now pitch-black, and it took her a minute or so to orient herself. Fumbling, she once again retrieved the flashlight from her backpack and clicked it on. The corridor was deserted.
Skye took a few steps toward the entrance of her assigned passageway and shrieked. Something had taken hold of her ankle! She gasped, panting in terror, but managed to aim the light downward. A plastic hand had been set up so that a person walking close to the wall would think that someone had grabbed his or her leg.
Damn! Damn! Damn! She should never have volunteered, no matter how bad it made her look in the eyes of the Promfest committee. What had she been thinking?
Eerie sounds poured in from the haunted house’s interior, battering at her brittle nerves, and a wave of apprehension swept through her. The pockets of darkness that her flashlight beam couldn’t penetrate closed in on her, and she started to shake as fearful images began to build in her mind.
Skye stopped and backed up against the wall. Trembling and unable to catch her breath, she was back in that moment when she was six years old, reliving the terror of her first and, until now, last experience in a haunted house.
She had been fine as long as she had held Vince’s hand, but the moment he had gone off with one of his friends, Dracula had lunged out at her. As she ran away from him, a giant spider had dropped from the ceiling and landed on her head. Shrieking, she had torn herself free and raced into the next room.
There she had tripped and ended up sprawled in a greenly glowing cemetery among tilted tombstones. Before she could get up, a zombie had risen from his grave and was looming over her.
All Skye remembered after that was screaming and screaming. Then she was outside, and Vince was kneeling in front of her, begging her not to tell their mother that he’d left her alone. She never had, but she had threatened to reveal his secret anytime she needed to make him do something for her.
The thought of all the times she had blackmailed Vince throughout the years brought a smile to her lips, and she slowly managed to calm herself down. After she took a few deep breaths, her heart rate returned to normal and she no longer felt like throwing up.
Squaring her shoulders, Skye picked up her backpack—it had dropped to the floor during her panic attack—and forced herself to continue walking down the hallway. Still hoping to be on time for her first appearance (she was the last of the three witches to emerge), she picked up her pace. She was only a few steps from the door leading to her assigned spot when she heard the first scream.
Skye came to an abrupt stop, her heart jumping in her chest. She had gotten used to the fake moans, groans, and shrieks of the haunted house, but what she had just heard was not one of them. It was real.
CHAPTER 8
Moments Like These
Who was screaming and why? Despite her fears, Skye felt compelled to find out. If someone was in trouble, she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard anything and walk away, or wait for someone else to take care of the problem. She wasn’t that kind of person—she helped others even if it meant risking herself.
After the first shriek, there had been a moment’s pause, followed by a steady wail. Skye cocked her head and listened intently, turning slowly toward where she thought the sound was originating. Her auditory directional skills were poor, but it seemed as if the screams were coming from behind the wall where she was standing.
That couldn’t be right. That was the area where she was supposed to appear and disappear, and given that she was the last of the three witches, it was near the end of the circuit. The only person who should be in that section was herself.
Instantly she stiffened. Could the shrieks be coming from the spirit of the woman with the long black hair? No. These screams sounded all too human. Her pulse beat erratically as she approached the door that led to her designated passageway.
Skye put her hand on the knob, trying to get up the courage to turn it, but before she could make herself twist the cold metal sphere, she heard the tippy-tapping of high-heeled shoes—a sound that could very well be the footsteps of an opera star’s ghost. She choked back a cry. Were they coming from behind the door or behind her? A chill raced up her spine. She couldn’t tell.
She jerked her hand away from the knob, twisted, and plastered her back to the wall. Should she hide, try to get out, face her fears, or all of the above? She had to do something.
A loud moan made her jump, rousing her from her indecision. It was better to take positive action and gain the advantage of surprise than to stand there and wait for whatever or whomever to come get her.
Skye reached into her backpack and withdrew both the stun gun and the bottle of holy water, figuring it was best to be prepared for the natural as well as the supernatural. For easy access, she tucked the vial into her cleavage, and transferred the Taser to her right hand.
Once armed, she turned the knob, opened the door a crack, and peered around the corner. At first she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. She groped for the flashlight she had stuck in her belt, but it dropped to the floor.
Carefully she squatted to retrieve it, blindly patting the linoleum until her fingers touched the cold metal. Grasping the cylindrical base, she felt for the switch and thumbed it to the ON position. Nothing. She shook it and it c
ame on briefly, only to sputter out. She tried again, hitting it against her thigh, and this time it didn’t even flicker.
Shit! That would teach her to buy cheap stuff at the dollar store. If she got out of here alive, she was putting a police-quality Maglite on her birthday wish list, and she was buying Energizer batteries, not the low-priced generic ones she usually opted for. The bunny would never let her down.
Unhappily, that didn’t help her now. But on the upside, while she had been trying to figure out what to do next, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The narrow area between the hall entrance and the door in the false wall was empty. Maybe the screaming hadn’t come from there after all. Yes, that must be it. She could still hear faint whimpers but they came from a little farther away, beyond the next partition.
Skye told herself she had to put on her big-girl panties and do what had to be done. Still, as she slipped inside the small space, she left the outer door open for a quick getaway.
She could no longer hear the footsteps or moans. Had the ghost moved on to scare someone else? Or maybe the whole thing had been a part of the haunted-house act of which Skye wasn’t aware. With that optimistic thought, she noticed that the door located in the false wall was ajar. She placed her palm against it, but before she could push, a hand wrapped around the edge. Without thinking she yanked the door shut.
A wail of pain rang through the cheap plywood.
Great. She had just pissed off a ghost. No, wait a minute; a ghost wouldn’t have felt anything. Gripping her stun gun, she flung open the door. As she burst into the passageway, her head slammed into something solid and unyielding. Her vision blurred and she crumpled to the floor.
For an instant everything went black and she couldn’t move. What had happened? Damn! Someone must have hit her. Was he or she standing over her right now, ready to plunge a knife through her heart?
Skye’s eyelids flew open. She could dimly make out a sprawled body in front of her, and she realized what had happened. They both must have tried to go through the door at the same time and hit their heads. As Skye’s vision cleared, she could see that the other person was dressed in a long, cobwebby black gown, wearing stark white makeup and fangs. Who was playing Countess Dracula? Skye searched her memory, but came up blank.
The woman sat up slowly, reached for the flashlight that had rolled a few inches from her hand, and flicked it on. She stared at Skye. Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in the woman’s eyes, and her mouth formed a large circle. Screaming, she struggled to her feet and, keeping her gaze on Skye, backed through the door, then turned and ran.
Clearly Skye wasn’t the only one spooked by the haunted house. She eased to her feet, her head still swimming. Why had the countess run away like that?
Warily, Skye stepped farther into the passageway. The door had swung shut, as it was designed to do, and it was even darker here than in the outer hallway. Skye took a moment to get her bearings, then reached out and felt along the wall. Somewhere nearby was a panic button that would turn on an emergency light in the passageway, as well as a signal in the control room indicating that there was a problem. And a freaked-out Mrs. Dracula was definitely a problem.
She knew the button was at shoulder level and the size of a doorbell. Shuffling forward, she inched down the narrow corridor while trailing her hand against the rough plywood. If she went too fast, she might overlook the switch.
Where was the blasted thing? Had she somehow gotten turned around? Was she going the wrong way? Or had she missed it? As she took another step, her right foot slid into what felt like a large pile of clothes. Still unable to see in the darkness, Skye crouched. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the mound, then ran her fingers down its length.
Yikes! She yanked her hand back. It wasn’t someone’s abandoned laundry. It was a person.
Hesitantly, she grabbed what she hoped was the shoulder and shook it. “Hey, get up. Are you all right?”
Skye tried again, but there was no response. She needed help. Jumping to her feet, she continued her search for the light. Her breath was coming in shallow, quick gasps, and by the time her fingers stumbled onto the switch, her chest felt as if it would burst.
She pushed the plastic button and light flooded the passageway. Blinded from the sudden glare, Skye instinctively closed her eyes as she swung around and stepped back to the person on the floor.
When she opened her eyes, she recoiled, then stood frozen in shock. A woman was lying on the floor in front of her, unmoving and corpselike. And she was a dead ringer for Skye herself!
CHAPTER 9
It Might Be You
Sheer black fright swept through Skye. Her mind reeled with confusion. Was she going insane? The situation was jarringly reminiscent of her recurring nightmare—the one in which she was attending a funeral, went up to pay her respects, and instead of finding the deceased in the casket, she saw herself.
Panic, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before, welled up in her throat. Her breath whistling rapidly in and out and her heart pounding like a jackhammer, she sank to the floor. Huddled against the wall, Skye gripped the stun gun and stared at her doppelgänger, trying to make sense of what was in front of her. Several minutes ticked by, but her brain refused to function and she remained paralyzed.
The sound of running footsteps roused her from her stupor. As the initial shock began to wear off, she calmed down. Regaining a fragment of self-control, she realized that the person sprawled a few feet from her was one of the other two witches. During the rehearsals they had discovered that all three of them looked nearly identical once they were in costume and makeup. Only the strange light and her already agitated state of mind had kept her from immediately comprehending the woman’s true identity.
Once Skye understood what she was seeing, she crawled over to her double and pressed her fingertips to the woman’s carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. There was none that Skye could detect, but she did note a line across her look-alike’s throat where the green makeup had been rubbed away. As Skye took the woman’s wrist to check for a pulse there, she saw a long rope with green stains clutched in the witch’s right hand.
Unable to detect a heartbeat, Skye used the bottom of her skirt to wipe off the makeup from around the woman’s mouth. Her skin had a bluish tinge and she didn’t appear to be breathing. How long had she been lying there?
While debating whether to remove the woman’s prosthetic nose and chin in order to identify her, Skye heard a male voice from outside the door shout, “The signal came from this section.”
“Stop. Don’t come in here.” Skye struggled to her feet and blocked the entrance. Raising her voice, she ordered, “Go back and call nine-one-one. Someone’s been attacked and is badly hurt.”
The men argued, but after explaining what she had found and asserting her position as a police consultant, Skye dissuaded them from attempting to enter the passageway. She instructed them to post guards at all the outer doors and make sure no one left the building. While one of the men went to phone for help, the other ran off to round up the rest of the security detail to stand watch.
Skye was surprised at how quickly Roy Quirk arrived. According to her Timex, it had taken him less than three minutes. With the chief out of town, and as Wally’s second in command, Officer Quirk was in charge. Roy was in his early thirties, and still looked like the football player he’d been in high school.
He nodded to Skye as he stepped inside the passageway, then quickly assessed the scene. Ten minutes later two paramedics burst through the door. Quirk moved aside, giving them access to the woman. From where Skye stood pressed against the wall, she couldn’t see what the paramedics were doing, but after only a minute or two they got to their feet, murmured a few words to Quirk, and left.
Quirk flipped open his cell phone and barked out several orders, then turned to Skye. “We need to keep people out of this area. Please move into the exterior hallway.”
Skye frowned. She wasn’t exactly “peo
ple.” She was the psychological consultant to the Scumble River Police Department, which made her Quirk’s colleague, not some civilian. “I take it that, since the paramedics are gone, the woman’s dead?”
Quirk didn’t answer; instead he asked, “How long ago did you find her?”
“I’d guess close to fifteen minutes ago, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Has anyone else been in here?”
“Not since I found her.” Skye shook her head. “I persuaded the guys from the control room not to come in. Instead I had them call you and post guards at the exits.”
“How did they know you needed help in the first place? Did they just happen by?”
“No.” Skye explained about the panic button, then added, “As well as working the sound system and the lights, the men act as a sort of security force for the haunted house.”
Quirk made a note on the pad he had taken from his shirt pocket. “Did you touch anything?”
“Yes.” Skye recalled her movements. “The door, the wall from the door to the light switch, the switch, her neck, shoulder, and wrist. Oh, and I also wiped some makeup from her mouth with my skirt.”
“Son of—” Quirk cut himself off and gave her a sour look. “You contaminated the scene.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Skye put her hands on her hips. “It was pitch-black. I didn’t even know she was there until I tripped over her. Then I had to see if I could help her.”
He clamped his lips shut, took her arm, and led her to the door.
“Did you call the coroner?” Skye persisted. She certainly had no desire to stay with the body, but she suspected Quirk had never handled a murder on his own.
“I’ve got it all under control.” Quirk nearly pushed her over the threshold. “You stay here and don’t let anyone but the officials in.”
“But I need to tell you—”
Quirk shut the door before she could finish.
She yelled through the wood, “Someone needs to find Countess Dracula.” There was no response, and Skye doubted that Quirk had heard her.
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