Page 60 of The King of Halloween
“Which cost us—”
“This should be working. Why isn’t it?” Raj glared at the electric chair where a skeleton was supposed to thrash wildly. Its dead eyes stared at him, daring Raj to make him spark.
“Raj, man.” Logan reached out, nearly laying a comforting hand on Raj’s shoulder, but he ducked out of the way. He knew what was coming but didn’t want to hear it. “Look, I’m not saying we have to abandon the idea. But save it for next—”
“No. No. We are a haunted bed and breakfast. We need the haunts.”
“We have them, inside the hotel. Which…”
“Which what?” Raj dropped the green cords and stared at his partner. “You said it was working. That the guests were leaving glowing reviews.”
“They are, it’s just… I was looking at the book.”
“We’re full up for months,” Raj insisted.
“Yeah, two months, then around Christmas, it starts to trickle off.”
That makes sense. People don’t like to get spooky for Christmas. But we could rebound in the New Year.“How many in January?”
“Three reservations, and one’s the mayor again, so…”
No. No, they needed to be booked solid for six months to have a chance of surviving.
“Maybe if we switch over. Do more of a normal hotel for the rest of the year—”
“Then it wouldn’t be a haunted hotel!” Raj shouted.
Logan raised his hands, washing them of the fight. As he walked away, Raj focused back on the plugs. He had to get this working. “Once the haunt’s up, it’ll draw people in. They’ll come to the only working haunt all year long. You’ll see.”
“I’m not the one who sold my house for this adventure.”
Raj hung his head and tried to breathe. The vise was clenching tighter around his heart. Everything was riding on this, and if he couldn’t get even a few cheap Halloween witches to cackle, then what was he doing with his life? What was he good for?
The jangle of his phone drew Raj away from his pity party. Adam had texted him a skull, an eggplant, and water drops. Subtle. But those three images were enough to knock Raj back to that crowded costume room and Adam on his knees for him. God, he wanted to pay him back tenfold. To watch that beanpole snap in half from the force of his coming.
But he couldn’t very well fuck the man in a dumpster. Raj needed to focus on his haunt. Placing his phone on the floor, Raj tore apart the wires and began to solder them all together, again. A hot, standoffish twink with a mouth to make demons weep would have to wait.
?CHAPTER NINETEEN
?
WHEN ADAM PULLED up to the Heartbreak Hotel, he didn’t expect such a crowd. A barbarian horde fresh off their first hit of hormones stood outside the gates, rattling their phones like sabers and baying for blood.
He’d followed the stragglers from the parking lot up a dark path through a field of dead corn. His fears of being mutilated by a zombie harvester had faded once he’d spotted the lights streaming into the night from a large door that was still closed. Two gargantuan statues stood on both sides of the doors. They had the head of a minotaur and the build of Hercules. When Adam noticed the veins carved into the flexed muscles on the biceps and thighs, he had to take a moment to fan himself.
The main door opened with a loud creak, and the crowd surged closer. Instead of dashing for the forbidden entrance, they all jerked back to a stop as a single man slipped out. The formidable door closed again.
“What the hell?” someone shouted, setting off a chorus of the same refrain.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Poor Raj stood there, his sleeves up to his elbows, which were stained with black grease. “The haunt is not yet ready.”
“This is bullshit!” a boy screamed near Adam.
“We’ve been waiting for an hour!”
“You were supposed to open at seven!”
The crowd’s restlessness had found its target.
