Page 11 of Scaredy Cat
Someone who enjoys being terrified for the thrill of it, like me. Too bad I really can’t seem to find anything that scares me.
Though I suppose I could go to Miscreant Manor if I’m really that desperate.
The bitter thought turns to acid in my stomach, dampening my excitement as I chase it away. I will never be desperate enough to go somewhere that I could be hurt on purpose, and nothing about Miscreant Manor seems appealing to me in the least.
So, I’ll just have to suck it up and find my scares the old-fashioned way.
My steps take me up a gravel path, between the two large posts with orange lights set in lanterns at the top. They’re new as of a few years ago. When I was in school, Nightmare Ridge was a lot less well-known, and a lot more homemade. Now they boast a bigger budget, more guests, and have become something of a tourist hotspot. There’s not much else to do around Valparaiso, Indiana, so I’ll never stop being surprised at the crowds who make the trip all the way here from across the US every year, according toScare Acres’website.
Above me, the banner flaps in the breeze as I walk through, heading by memory toward the ticket booth. Not that I could miss it, when the line is full of excited people, half of them looking like they’re still in high school, unsurprisingly. I’m one of the few people here alone, but I long ago learned to get over that. It used to make me feel weird visiting haunts on my own, especially since I always found them to be more fun with friends.
But now coming here is my job, so it’s easier not to be so self-conscious when I’m waiting in line alone, listening to the excited flow of conversation around me.
I’m only a little envious.
A girl jostles me and turns, an apology dropping from her lips as her boyfriend pulls her away. She looks at me, recognitionflashes in her eyes, but thankfully she’s gone too fast for her to realize she probably knows me from my channel.
To kill time in line, I look around, trying to spot the scare actors walking around the open area of the Nightmare Ridge courtyard. Unlike a lot of haunts, this place has always been completely outside, except for the barns that make up part of the haunt itself. This year, the haunted trail makes up the second half, after ‘escaping’ the barn-turned-slaughterhouse.
Port-a-potties line one side of the clearing, closer to the parking lot than the forest. I can smell popcorn and funnel cakes from the stands decorated with banners from the local high school clubs that do fundraising here by selling concessions. But nothing will beat the stand that sold slightly under-baked cookies three or four years ago. I would’ve bought those cookies in bulk if I knew they’d get shut down for food poisoning or whatever before the next year rolled around.
What’s a little salmonella between raw cookie enjoyers? We know the risks we take.
The line moves pretty quickly, thanks to having multiple employees dressed in circus outfits at the registers. Having already bought my ticket online, I just pull it up on my phone for her to scan. The woman in her sexy-ish clown outfit smiles at me, beaming under her makeup. “You’ve totally been here before,” she accuses. “I remember you from last year.”
Looking up at her in surprise, I expect her to say she knows me from my blog. But when she doesn’t, my confusion grows. “You rememberme?” I ask, confusion in every word. “I’m not that memorable.”
“Yes, you are.” She leans forward on the counter, her forearms pressed against it. The corset she wears dips, and if I were a man or into women, I’d be blessed with the view of my life. “Your eyes are gorgeous,” she tells me quietly, gaze never leaving mine.
“Oh?” Bemused, I look up at her, then my cluelessness finally snaps into understanding.
Oh…
“T-thank you,” I stammer. I’m not usually this caught off guard, and the girl’s smile turns teasing and pleased. “I…That’s really nice of you to say.” How do I return the compliment without sounding lame?
You're pretty,feels very middle school of me.
I stammer through a reply that doesn’t make a lot of sense, surprised and embarrassed by how flustered I am. I don’t normally react this way in public, but I also don’t have a lot of pretty circus clowns telling me I’m pretty. For her part, she doesn’t seem disappointed at all by my response.
Once I’ve created some distance from her, I turn to look back, half-expecting her to be looking at me. Instead, her full attention is on the guy at her register, and she leans in to speak to him, nodding a few times with a smile on her lips as he rests his arms on the counter between them. With a black backpack on his back and his hood up, I can’t tell anything about him, but I’m not really trying.
It had just felt like she was watching me still, and I’m almost surprised to find that’s not the case.
Whatever,I think, shaking myself off. Clearly I’m getting vain and foolishly hoping for the attention of a girl who doesn’t have the parts I’m interested in. Though, now that I think about it as I traipse towards the line for the slaughterhouse, my relationship track record with men has been so abysmal that maybe I should consider dating a girl.
A scare actor dressed as a butcher appears in the dark doorway, creeping sullenly through the flaps of black plastic. With a chainsaw in one hand, he makes eye contact with the guests in the line, jerking toward a few of them that break with a gasp and stumble into their friends, only to laugh at their ownreactions. I watch with a small smile, not paying attention to the line growing behind me.
“You’re notalone,are you?” a voice asks with a giggle as breath ghosts uncomfortably on my ear. I wince away from it, turning to look at the woman who has blood poured over her face and matting her hair, with impressive prosthetics to make her mouth look like a jagged wound. She snickers and steps closer when I step away, knife swinging loosely in her hand. She matches the butcher in a way, dressed in an almost vintage-looking housedress with slippers on and blood dripping from the ruined fabric.
“I am alone,” I tell her, smiling once my heart stops racing rabbit-fast in my chest from the surprise. I know that the first few always get me, but I’m usually better once I’m faced with the scares inside. “Pathetic, huh?”
“Not at all. We love it when our guests are all alone. It’s so much easier to convince them to stay. You know, you could be part of the family,” the woman coos, stroking the knife across her face. My lips twitch into a smile, and I find myself enthused to play along.
God, I love this haunt.
“Oh yeah? Well, I do actually have a vacancy in the family department. What, uh, what are your terms? It seems like I might have to do something a little unpleasant to be considered one of you.”
The woman grins when I choose to humor her instead of flinching back. “Oh, nothing much. Nothing much, my dear, I promise. Do you have much experience working in a slaughterhouse? Preparing meat for consumption? Can you cook perhaps?”
