Scare Me

by K. R. Alexander

  “This wasn’t here when I arrived,” Patricia says. She swallows hard and looks at me. “The door led me straight to the tent. This …”

  “This is a fun house,” I finish. I square my shoulders. “It’s not going to make getting out easy. But if this is like a real one, everything is just an illusion. I hope.”

  I start walking forward, and Patricia follows at my side. The hall spirals with every step and my stomach rises to my throat, but I refuse to throw up with Patricia right there. I have to look strong and assured.

  Though … when I glance over at her, she doesn’t look like her usual self. She doesn’t seem ready to insult or taunt.

  I only look at her for a moment. Even that glance is enough to make my head spin from vertigo—from the corner of my eye, the arch to the circus tent we just left appears to be sideways.

  “What if we don’t make it out of here?” Patricia asks.

  Her voice is quiet, sucked up by the vinyl walls of the corridor.

  “We will,” I say. “It’s just a maze. They always have an exit.”

  “Not the fun house,” she replies. “But the mansion. We tried everything, Kevin. What if …”

  “There’s no point worrying about something like that,” I say. “We just have to take this one thing at a time. First, we get out of here. Then we worry about the rest.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so calm about all of this.”

  The truth is, I’m not. Maybe I’m good at hiding it, but inside, I’m terrified. For a moment, I consider lying. Telling her I’m not scared at all. After all, she’s done nothing but insult me and sabotage me for the last few years. But that doesn’t seem right. For the first time since I’ve known her, she isn’t being mean to me. That makes me want to be kind and honest in return.

  “Honestly? I’m more scared than I’ve ever been.” My words are quiet but assured. “But I have to think logically, otherwise I know I won’t be able to get out of here.”

  “You’ve always been logical,” Patricia says. “That’s why I’ve always been intimidated by you.”

  I pause.

  “You? You were intimidated by me?”

  She nods but keeps looking straight ahead.

  “Last year, the night before we opened, I … I went and looked at your room. Your laboratory was amazing. It looked like a real lab—you had everything thought out perfectly, from the moment you stepped in the door to the moment you left. Even when it was empty and turned off, it was brilliant. I had just put together a bunch of things that I thought were scary, but you … you had thought everything through. Logical. You made it a story. You truly knew horror, and you knew how to make it work for you. And I knew in that moment that I didn’t have a chance at beating you.”

  She hangs her head.

  “At least, not fairly.”

  I swallow hard. There’s a part of me that glows with her praise. The rest of me is hot with anger over what she did because she was intimidated.

  I’ll never forget it.

  Coming in opening night, everything looking just fine. I had been dressed as an evil scientist, and Julie and Tanesha were my subjects. In theory, it should have been terrifying—Tanesha was going to have rubber tentacles writhing from her chest, and Julie was getting sawed in half by a robot. And then, the moment the judges started going through, the entire showcase malfunctioned. Glitter began spraying out of the bubbling test tubes. Pop music blared from the speakers that should have been playing creepy lab noises. And then, from the ceiling, a bunch of pink feathers and confetti exploded, making the entire scene look like some really strange music video rather than a creepy montage. She’d even found a way to make the wriggling tentacles dance in time to the music.

  “You could have just lost,” I say, the memory sour in my chest. “You didn’t have to cheat.”

  “I did, though,” she replies. She glances at me, and the corners of her eyes fill with tears. “My parents are super strict at home, and this was the one time I got to do something fun. I knew if I lost that they wouldn’t let me do it again. They’d say it was a waste of time. So I cheated. Because it was the only way I could keep doing what I loved.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say. “I didn’t know it meant so much to you. Like it does to me.”

  “Yeah, well …”

  “You didn’t have to be mean to me,” I say. “All this year. You could have been nice. We could have been teammates.”

  She looks at me again, and her smile is sad. “My parents would never allow that. They’d say I was giving up. Or that I was using you to win. I didn’t want to be mean to you. It was just easier than admitting I was scared that you were better.”

  I don’t know why I do it. She’s been so horrible, and for the last year I’ve viewed her as my biggest enemy. But for some unknown reason, in that twisted, creepy hallway, I reach out and take her hand. As friends.

  “We’ll get out of here,” I say. “And that will make us all winners.” I almost want to tell her about my own rule breaking in the pursuit of winning. Almost.

  She smiles and opens her mouth, but her words are cut short.

  Because that’s when the clowns leap in.

  Patricia screams as a half dozen clown mannequins in poufy striped outfits bounce and cartwheel in through a flap in the curtain walls. They encircle her, laughing and howling, their makeup terrifying—enormous red mouths and bone-white faces.

  And no eyes.

  I scream as they swarm past me in a flurry of bells and giggles, knocking Patricia’s hand from mine and pushing me to the ground. But they aren’t interested in me.

  In only a matter of moments, they pick Patricia up and carry her back through the wall, leaving just me and a ringing, echoing silence.

  I’m frozen in place. Unable to stand or run after her. I stare at the space she just occupied, my head spinning. Did that really just happen?

  Shock fades, replaced by a jolt of adrenaline. I jump to my wobbly feet and rush toward the break in the wall.

  When I push aside the flap, the only thing facing me is concrete.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Patricia was taken before my very eyes, and the exit she was dragged through isn’t an exit at all. Just another wall.

  I pound at it, but it isn’t hollow. I graze my hands over the surface, but there aren’t any hidden buttons or switches. The wall isn’t an illusion or trick. Patricia isn’t hiding behind a screen. Whatever those clowns did, they took her for real. And that means I have to find her. Before they hurt her for real.

  I look toward the flickering darkness at the far end of the hall, the great unknown. Dread settles over me. Anything could happen in here. Anything could be waiting.

  That also means that anything could be happening to Patricia, and I’m the only one who can stop it.

  With a very frail sort of bravery, I clench my fists and stalk forward, into the darkness. I’m not prepared for anything, but I don’t have a choice. I have to face it.

  I expect the hallway to go on forever, continually spiraling in on itself until I go sick with vertigo. But after only a few dozen steps into the flickering shadows, red string lights blink on, revealing a wooden door with a big bronze knob.

  Something is scratched into the door. At first, I think they’re weird symbols. Then I realize they’re words, written in a very creepy handwriting. As if scratched in by talons.

  I gulp. That can’t be good.

  What sort of horrors could a fun house hold?

  Maybe it’s a sideshow of oddities, like the Fiji Mermaid or two-headed snake?

  Maybe it holds cages of monstrous lions with slavering, poisonous fangs?

  My brain races with every horror movie I’ve seen, every monster that has haunted my nightmares.

  I can’t even imagine which one is the most terrifying of them all. I can’t imagine which will be locked inside. I’ve never been scared of monsters before. But I’ve also never had to face a real one. Alone.

>   I place my hand on the doorknob. The door rattles at my touch, banging against the hinges. I yelp and take a step back. For a moment, I consider turning around and running away.

  Maybe there was another exit in the circus tent.

  Maybe if I did a good enough trick they’d let us all go.

  Maybe I don’t have to face the monster at all.

  Maybe …

  “You have to do this,” I say aloud to myself. “You can do this. You can do anything. Nothing scares you.”

  The last one sounds like a lie, but I put my hand on the door anyway.

  Even though I hear roaring from the other side, even though it rattles as if some monstrous beast is clawing to get out, I slowly turn the brass doorknob. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  And when the door opens, I don’t even look.

  I take a deep breath and leap inside.

  I expect to feel claws on my skin or hot breath on my neck, but as I stand there with my eyes closed and wince against the loud growling, I feel nothing but a chill breeze. Light flickers behind my eyes. I open them, and a wave of relief floods through me.

  An old-fashioned gramophone sits beside the door, playing a record of beast noises on loop. Meanwhile, a mechanical lever attached to the door frame shakes it wildly.

  Tricks. Just tricks.

  I turn and face the rest of the room and am dazzled by the display.

  Mirrors are everywhere. It’s a labyrinth of mirrors, some so tall I can’t see the top, others barely higher than my knee. Some are flat and others are distorted, and when I look at them a thousand versions of myself stare back. I actually let out a laugh.

  The scariest creature in the world is just … me?

  A very good trick. I may have to use that next year.

  Patricia’s distant scream shakes me from my momentary musing. I’m still stuck in a truly haunted house. I still have to find her and escape. Planning next year’s fright can wait.

  Squaring my shoulders, I head toward the maze of mirrors. If the only scary thing in here is myself, I’ll have no problem facing it. After all, I see myself every day … right?

  The first hall of mirrors makes me pause and giggle. My reflections laugh back with me—in one mirror I’m two feet shorter, in the next I’m double my height. The next makes me narrower, the next wider. I keep walking, watching my shape change before my eyes. My skin turns pink and purple and green. My ears grow and shrink along with my nose and eyes. In one, I look like a mouse; in another, an elephant. In the next, my face is so squinched up I barely have any features at all.

  This isn’t scary! I wish the others could be here, seeing this.

  And just like that, when I reach the next mirror, I’m not alone in it at all. Tanesha stands beside me, and Julie on my other side. Except their expressions wipe the smile from my face.

  They both look angry. They look angry at me.

  I keep walking.

  In the next mirror, I’m back down in the basement. It’s like watching TV. It’s no longer a real graveyard, but our created scene. I watch as Tanesha confronts me. I can’t hear any words, but I remember them well. This isn’t an illusion at all—this is what really happened. This is when she learned I had stolen the mannequin and hidden it away. Except now, I can’t look away from the disappointed expression she wears.

  In the next mirror, I watch the judges warily walk through our display. Julie and Tanesha both play amazing zombies, and I guide the judges past the swamp with its flickering lights and smoke, through the willow trees, and up to the final scare: the gazebo. I step to the side and gesture them forward. When they walk up to it, the ghostly mannequin swings out with flashing lights. One of the judges leaps high in the air. The other silently screams. Then they all laugh nervously. Clearly, this scare was the best they’d experienced.

  My heart thrills. Maybe this is my fortune. Maybe this room is just proving that we will get out of this and we will win.

  But then I move on to the next mirror.

  I hold the trophy for best haunted room. Except Tanesha and Julie aren’t at my side; they’re walking away, heads down. Everyone else around me is applauding for a job well done.

  Clearly, though, the victory is lost on my friends.

  In the next mirror, Tanesha and Julie confront me. I see them mouth the words cheater and liar and mannequin and my heart drops. But my reflection just stands there defiantly, yelling back silently that they are jealous.

  No, no, don’t be mean to them! I want to yell out, but it’s just a mirror, just a reflection.

  I leave this mirror and move on, but the next isn’t any better. I’m alone in my room. All the photos I used to have of Julie and Tanesha are torn down. I sit on my bed and stare at my phone, but I can see there aren’t any messages. When I scroll through my contacts, they aren’t even listed. I know then that they’ve abandoned me. For cheating at the haunted house. For lying about the mannequin. For putting everyone in danger.

  Yes, I hear in my brain. You are the reason they were in danger. This is your fault.

  I move on to the next. As I go, I catch sight of someone else in the bedroom with me.

  A woman in white …

  This mirror isn’t a mirror at all.

  It’s a window.

  A window looking down at my trapped friends and the other teams.

  They huddle in the hall of the mansion and pound at the door to get out. A few of them are crying. Shadows creep down the walls and I know that the horrors are no longer confined to their rooms.

  The nightmares are leaching out.

  Taking over.

  Soon, not even the hallway will be safe, and my friends will be lost forever.

  “No,” I whisper, watching them. “I have to help them. I have to—”

  I blink, and I’m no longer in a hall of mirrors.

  I’m back in the middle of the circus tent. Only now there aren’t any mannequins in the bleachers. There isn’t any creepy circus music.

  Just me and two full-length mirrors in the center ring.

  Just me, and a terrible choice.

  There’s no doubt in my mind now why the door said that the mirror room contained the most terrifying monster out there.

  Because when I think of what I’ve done to get here, what I’ve done by inadvertently cursing this entire house, I know that I’m the true monster. I let my ego get the better of me by lying to my friends and abusing the memory of some poor, dead girl. All she wanted was to be left in peace, but I had to put her on display. The mannequin bride might be the one who cast the curse over the house and turned the attractions real, but I know with every bit of me that I’m the real monster in here. I feel horrible. And as I stare at the two mirrors in front of me, that terrible clenching in my gut only worsens.

  One mirror still shows the hallway, my friends and teammates huddled against the door as the shadows reach in. The only person missing is Patricia. In that mirror, a shadow of myself appears and steps past them. My ghostly hand touches the door, and when it does so the door swings open, and outside the house all of our parents reach out to hug us. I know that if I walk through this mirror, this will be the outcome: We get to leave. We get to put this terrible experience behind us.

  All of us escape.

  Except for Patricia.

  When I glance at the other mirror I see her there, in the gazebo on the hill, the ghostly bride mannequin bearing down on her. I know that if I walk through this mirror I will have to face the mannequin. I will have to try to save Patricia, and there’s a very good chance I will fail. There’s a very good chance we will all be trapped here forever.

  These are my choices: Save my friends and let my enemy suffer, or risk everything to save the girl who—only a few days ago—would have gladly left me behind.

  I swallow. It shouldn’t be a hard choice, but it is, and that tells me that I truly am the monster. It tells me that there truly is only one choice to make.

  I close my eyes and step through the mirror.


  “Kevin!” her voice rings out. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving you,” I reply.

  Patricia cowers against the banister of the gazebo. All around us the croaking of frogs and rumbles of thunder echo through the heavy fog. Other noises, too, permeate the dark: the moans of zombies, the crunch of opening coffins, the wails of ghosts. Chills race down my spine, but the sounds are nothing compared to the fear from what stands before me and Patricia. The monster that brought all of this about.

  Well, the monster other than myself.

  The ghostly bride hovers in the air, her tattered wedding dress billowing in the breeze, her veil hiding a shadowed nothingness of a face. Just seeing her makes me want to cower in fear. Not just because she is terrifying, but because I know I am the one who made her.

  “You have cursed your friends with your greed,” the bride says. “Why did you do it? Why couldn’t you let me rest?”

  Patricia latches on to my arm and stares at the ghostly bride.

  “What is she talking about, Kevin?” Patricia asks. “Why is she acting like it’s your fault?”

  “Because it is,” I reply. I take a deep breath and step forward, putting myself in between Patricia and the ghost. “I wanted to win more than anything. Even if it meant stealing. I broke a mannequin in the basement, and when Mr. Evans hid it away, I snuck behind everyone’s back and stole it to use as a prop. I’m the reason the ghost got angry. I’m the reason all of this went bad.”

  “And you will rot here forever because of it,” the ghost bride says. “It was bad enough that my parents wouldn’t let me rest. Bad enough that I had to remain on display for them. I had hoped, when they passed, that I, too, would be able to move on. But I was stuck in that mannequin. Trapped away forever. At least, for a time, I was in darkness. And then you broke me, decided to use me as a prop. You forced me back. Forced me to be another attraction. Now I am stuck forever. All I want is to move on. To be with my love.”

  “I’m sorry, Anna,” I say to the ghost. “I really am. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just … I wanted to win so badly, I was willing to do whatever it took.” I glance back at Patricia, but it’s not in anger. In that moment, we are very much the same, and I can tell from her expression that she is just as sorry for last year’s sabotage as I am for this. I look back to the bride. “I’m sorry you were hurt. And I’m sorry you weren’t able to move on. I should never have used your life story as a prop. It wasn’t right.”