Death is My BFF Rewritten (Book 1 of the Rewritten Death Chronicles)

Chapter 34: Losing Faith

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"HELP ME! HELP!" A woman dressed as a witch came stumbling into the clearing, clutching a gory wound on her shoulder. Her face was caked with makeup and the hair of her wig was all over the place.

She was crying, gasping for air. I hurried to her without a second thought, ushering her to lower her voice. As if he wasn’t watching us already. “What’s your name? What’s wrong?” I demanded, knowing I already knew the answer.

"J-Janie. I w-w-work for the maze! I'm not making this up! There's some psycho in here! He's crazy! He--he killed my friend, and he started to eat him, then he tried to kill me! He scratched me with his claws. Y-y-you have to believe me! This isn't an act! I wish I were making this up! I—I wish!”

"I believe you, I believe you!” I rushed out, taking the stranger’s hand.

“Thank you so much! You’re so kind!”

“Don’t thank me yet! Come on, let’s get us both out of here." I lead the way and ran down a new pathway with her until we heard the sound of bells jingling and the woman stopped, horrified.,

 "That's his--his bells," Janie whispered, clutching my shoulders. She was trembling and crying so violently, I had to press my hand against her mouth for a minute or so, until she calmed down. "He's dressed as a f-f-freaking clown. A f-f-freaking clown! He has these b-b-bells around his neck—“

Deep, almost psychotic laughter filled the corn maze and an all-too familiar black and white punk clown darted out from the corn stalks ten feet away from me. The clown filled the path with his muscular frame, staring at us unblinkingly.

He grinned with bloody fangs, and then darted back into the corn stalks with a giggle.

The woman at my side clutched my arm like a woman reaching for the last D & W bag on Black Friday.  “That was him! That was him!”

“He is so… persistent,” I hissed, my breath visible in the frigid air. A part of me felt better that I wasn’t in this situation alone. But when I turned back around towards Janie, she was gone.

She was gone.

I scanned the corn stalks around me, unable to shake the feeling of his eyes on me. The corn stalks weren’t moving and it was quiet. I didn’t like that at all. “I’m not going to let you touch her, Death! Do you hear me? This is between you and me!”

“Look at you. Trying to act all tough. He’s breaking you down like all his other dogs.” A red head now stood at my side. I recognized her as David Star’s receptionist from my interview with him. Tiara. As I stared at her with widening eyes, her features seemed to sharpen and her nails lengthened.  A small, unfriendly smile lined her mouth. “Mr. Star will see you now.”

A blast of wind knocked into me. I inhaled sharply, and suddenly, I felt trapped between two worlds, teetering between standing in the corn maze and standing inside of an elevator, watching the digital numbers climb up to the top floor of the D & S Tower.

 I slowly turned my head towards a wet, low groan, meeting the face of the eyeless, decaying scarecrow I had met when I was unconscious, when Death manipulated me into thinking I was in a funhouse.

My breath came to a halt.

“So pretty…” the monster moaned, blood dripping from its rotten lips. It moved towards me and I moved backwards, smacking into someone else. And that person’s hand curved around my throat, dragging me backwards against a burning hot, iron-hard chest, where I was held captive with thick, muscular arms. I was beyond alarmed.