They Just Don't Know You

Chapter 14

Perrie's POV

Saturday, September 28

The text from Jonnie comes as I'm walking against the departing crowds at Fright Farm Saturday night: In town for a few days. Don't freak out. 

I almost text back I'm at the scene of your alleged crime. Don't freak out, but manage to restrain myself to a simple What for? Which he ignores. I stuff the phone back in my pocket. If Jonnie's been paying attention to the local news, he knows about last night's pep rally turned stalker sideshow. I hope he was in New Hampshire surrounded by people when all that went down, or he's only going to make the speculation worse. 

Not my problem. Tonight I'm just the chauffeur, collecting Jade and Karl after work. There was no way their grandmother was letting them walk through the woods after what happened last night. To be honest, I'm a little surprised she agreed to let me pick them up, but Jade says closing is two hours past Mrs Thirlwall's usual bedtime.

I expect the House of Horrors to be empty, but music and laughter spill out towards me as I approach the building. The entire park was built around this house, an old Victorian at the edge of what used to be another wooded area. I've seen pictures of it before it became a theme park attraction, and it was always stately but worn-looking, as if its turrets were about to crumble, or the steps leading up to the wide porch would collapse if you stepped on them wrong. It still looks like that, but now it's all part of the atmosphere. 

I haven't been here since I was 10, when Jonnie and his friends brought me. They took off when we were halfway through, like the assholes they were, and I had to go through the rest of the house on my own. Every single room freaked me out. I had nightmares for weeks about a guy in a bloody bathtub with stumps for legs. 

My brother laughed when I finally stumbled out of the House of Horrors, snotty-nosed and terrified. Don't be such a wuss, Perrie. None of it's real.

The music gets louder as I climb the steps and turn the doorknob. It doesn't budge, and there's no bell. I knock a few times, which feels weird, like, who do I expect to answer the door at a haunted house exactly? Nobody does, so I head back down the stairs and edge around to the back. When I turn the corner, I see concrete steps leading down to a door that's wedged open with a piece of wood. I descend the stairs and push the door open. 

I'm in a basement room that looks like it's part dressing room, part staff room. The space is large, dimly lit, and cluttered with shelves and clothes racks. A vanity with an oversized bulb mirror is shoved to one side, its surface covered with jars and bottles. Two cracked leather couches line the walls, with a glass-topped end table between them. There's a closet-sized bathroom to the left, and a half-open door in front of me that leads into a small office. 

I'm hovering a few steps inside, searching for a way upstairs, when a hand pushes open a frayed velvet curtain on the opposite end of the room. The sudden movement makes me gasp like a scared kid, and the girl who steps through the curtain laughs. She's has blonde hair and is dressed in a tight black tank top that shows off intricate tattoos against her skin. She looks like she could be a few years older than me. "Boo," she says, then crosses her arms and cocks her head. "Party crasher?"

I blink, confused. "What?"

She tsks. "Don't play innocent with me. I'm the makeup artist. I know everybody, and you are trespassing." I half open my mouth to protest, then close it as her stern look dissolves into a wide smile. "I'm just messing with you. Go upstairs, find your friends." She crosses over to a mini fridge next to the vanity and pulls out a couple bottles of water, pointing one towards me like a warning. "But this is a dry party, understand? Whole thing'll get shut down if we gotta deal with a bunch of drunk teenagers. Especially after what happened last night."