Page 38 of Don't Watch Alone
“You should’ve stayed home,” a voice rasps from somewhere in the dark, like gravel being dragged across metal.
“What the fuck do you mean?!” I scream back, rage overtaking my senses. “Get me down from here before I rip your fucking throat out!”
He laughs again, slower this time, like he’s savoring this moment. “Guess you’re next.”
There’s a murmur. A mechanical one. Something old and mean coming to life nearby, vibrating under the concrete like a machine that’s been inactive for way too long. The chain jerks. The pole I’m hanging from moves. I’m sliding forward. Like I’m on a fucking conveyor belt. The mannequins drift past at the edge ofmy vision, their faces flashing in and out of view like ghosts.
The buzzing builds up louder. And then I hear another sound. Sharper. Faster. Metal grinding, spinning, something cutting through the air at high speed.
I thrash. Scream. Try to twist free, but my arms won’t move. My wrists are locked too tight. The end of the belt is coming fast. I see it now—something shining, something moving, something with sharp edges.
Then pain.
A violent, hot fire ignites in my back as something slices into me, ripping through skin, muscle, and bone. I scream, or try to, but the sound gets lost in the rush of blood in my ears. Hot wetness pours down my thighs, across my stomach, and the agony is too much, too intense, like lightning inside my body.
My vision blurs. My pulse is intense. Through the haze, a figure steps into my view, tall and thin and wrapped in a shadow. His grin is huge and stretched too wide, like he isn’t even human. And then he laughs, high-pitched andunhinged and echoing off the concrete, a sound that follows me into the dark as everything disintegrates.
Chapter twenty
Blaiz
“Comeon,Jade,almostthere,” I say, speeding up, my eyes glued to the light ahead—Electric Avenue, my neon second home, where I spend my days acting like things make sense. The sign buzzes above us, bright as ever, but the second we round the corner, something in me drops.
The front gates are locked—tight, dead-bolted, no doubt about it—and my stomach knots up immediately, like my body’s trying to reject the sight before my brain even processes it.
“What the fuck…?!” I breathe, squinting through the bars, trying to make sense of the unsteady light still shining from inside. The display TVs haven’t shut off—some loop through bullshit demo footage, others spit out static like they’ve shorted out—but it’s the shine that gets me, that sickly fluorescent light, like the store’s alive. From deep inside, the bassline of the storefront stereo pounds like a heartbeat silenced under floorboards.
“Greg! Hey, Greg!” I shout, slamming my palms against the cold-ass metal gate, my voice ricocheting down the mall. He has to be in there. He has to. Greg owns the place—hell, he owns this whole damn mall—he’s the only one who could be here. It sure as shit wouldn’t be Andy, not that creep, not this late. Greg would blow a fuse if he even thought Andy was hanging around after hours.
I call out again, louder this time, my fist pounding against the gate hard enough to make my knuckles ache, but there’s nothing. No movement, no shadow behind the displays, just that eerie sound.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, turning to Jade, who hasn’t moved from where she’s remaining a few feet behind me, arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold in her own fear. “Let’s check the back door. The stockroom leads straight into his office. I’ve got keys.”
She nods and walks in sync so close behind me I can feel her breath againstthe back of my neck. The hallway stretches ahead of us like something out of a nightmare, too long, and too empty. Every fucking creak, every sound from an unseen vent, feels too loud.
“I’m gonna radio Derrick,” Jade whispers, digging out her walkie like it’s a lifeline. “Derrick, you there? Over.”
Just static. A low hiss, no voice. No confirmation. Nothing.
I reach the plain metal door marked Employees Only and search through my ring of keys, my hands are trembling more than I want to reveal. When I finally get the right one, the lock clicks and the door swings inward into total fucking darkness. I lean in, turn on the light, and the stockroom is filled with a humming sound. Rows of boxes, sealed tight and stacked, fill the space, and for a second, I tell myself it looks normal.
We move fast, straight to the office tucked at the back, the one place Greg always is when he isn’t standing at the front counter. “Greg?” I call, pushing the door open.
Empty.
But not untouched.
His coffee mug sits right there, on the edge of the desk, still steaming. Not lukewarm. Not forgotten. Hot. Fresh. Like he stepped away just seconds ago.
I glance at Jade, already forming the sentence—He must’ve gone to the bathroom or something—when something catches my eyes. I turn, slowly, my gaze moving from the chair to the floor—and there it is, tucked half under a stack of crumpled instruction books beside the desk leg.
A fucking hand.
Skin-toned, severed clean, fingers curled like it had been gently set down instead of dropped in a panic.
The sound that rushes out of me doesn’t even feel human—it’s raw, broken, not a word, not a thought, just this savage scream that bursts out of my throat. Jade jumps, her eyes mirroring mine, and when she sees it, her own scream erupts out.
“RUN!” I scream, grabbing her by the arm without waiting for herreaction. There’s no logic, no strategy, just pure fucking terror and adrenaline flooding every nerve in my body. We tear out of the office, down the distance of the stockroom, back through the floor where the TVs glow, like they’re mocking us or something. I slam through the employee door, Jade right behind me, and we nearly fall into the mall hallway.
