Page 16 of Scaredy Cat
“Hey Persy,” Brynn greets, breaking off her side of the conversation. She looks at the waitress, unimpressed by theyoung woman’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for her esteemed position at The Waffle Wagon. “Three,” Brynn tells her in a no-nonsense voice.
“Booth or table?” The girl sighs, surprising me by asking our preference at all instead of just slapping paper menus down on the closest table.
Judging by Brynn’s pause, she’s just as shocked. “Booth, please,” she tells her in a friendlier voice than before. The girl nods, and scoops up three bundles of silverware and maybe fifteen paper menus, for some reason, before trudging to the side with the frazzled family, though thankfully she puts us far enough away from them to give us some illusion of privacy.
“Thank God you’re here,” I greet, sliding down one side of the booth as my friends take the other. “You guys have to be the enthusiastic ones for Dusk House.You know I struggle to care about it.”
“Criminal,” Madison remarks, shaking her head. “It’s adorable. Some of us don’t like the blood and gore and people jumping out at us constantly. It’s not always about that. Chocolate milk,” she adds to the waitress, glancing up with her usual, surface-level-friendly smile.
“What else is it about?” I complain. “Chocolate milk for me too.” I tuck my still freshly dyed auburn hair back behind my ear, realizing I have no idea what I want. Or rather—what variety of waffles I want. It feels blasphemous to order anything else at The Waffle Wagon, though I know Brynn doesn’t feel the same way about that as Madison and I do.
“Fun, family, and the power of friendship,” Brynn snorts. “Water,” she tells the waitress. “And some coffee, please.”
I watch the waitress walk away, falling into my comfortable conversation with the two people I’ve voluntarily known the longest, and I feel some of the tension fall from my neck and shoulders. Even though I won’t come close to being scared oreven have a jump scare to make my adrenaline spike, I’m looking forward to spending a few hours with my best friends during my favorite time of the year.
8
The childthat runs by screaming barely even glances my way when he nearly stomps on my toes. I stand there, unimpressed, lips pressed flat as I stare at the little gremlin who’s more horrifying than any of the actors here.
“Fix your face,” Brynn scolds lightly, throwing an arm over my shoulders. “His mother is looking at you.”
“Maybe she should see my face exactly like this,” I retort under my breath. “So she can know just what kind of hellspawn the rest of us—Oh god, he’s coming back. He found the candy.” Sure enough the child who might be nine at most storms through my little group of friends, chocolate in one grubby hand as his eyes bulge, searching for his mother. The next sound he lets out is more like a screech than a call, and I open my mouth to comment only for Brynn to tighten her hold on me.
“Not a word,” she murmurs as the kid’s mom walks closer. Her gaze meets mine, a warning and a challenge all in one, as if she half-wants me to say something about her demonic creation.
“You know”—Madison leans against my other side, flashing her a smile and pausing as she walks by—“with your attitude, people are going to think you hate kids.”
“I don’t hate all kids,” I retort. “Just that kid. And most kids under ten. And the ones from eleven to seventeen. They getmeanat that age.” With a shudder, I glare sullenly at a group of teenagers loudly making fun of the actors interacting with the kids around the entrance of Dusk House.The building itself isn’t really very big, though it takes up both sides of a townhouse here in the suburbs. With DIY decor and brighter colors with less blood than I prefer for a haunt, it definitely gives off the family friendly vibe.
Especially since they’re handing out candy in the yard. The sidewalk is packed with kids in face paint, some of them crying already from the spooky music and the scare actors wearing their watered down costumes or masks. The smell of cheap latex is prominent even outside, which doesn’t really bode well for inside.
It’s more packed than I expected, though.
The line moves, putting us at the front for the next group. This particular place is Pay What You Can, to go along with their goal of being a fun destination for local families, no matter their income level.It’s why I’ll do this every year, I remind myself silently, producing a hundred dollar bill from my back pocket. Every year I give a bigger donation than I normally do at other places, though a hundred dollars for three people is still just above average for a lot of haunts I’ve been to, and that’s not including the purchase of a fast pass.
Still, the guy who’s maybe twenty-one at most hesitates, his hand hovering above the bill, until I push it into his hand with a crooked grin. “I love what you guys do,” I tell him quietly, just barely over the screaming children from inside the town house. “I think it’s great how many people you can bring the Halloween fun to.”
The guy immediately smiles, his eyes a soft brown and set over a too-long nose. His hair flops into his face, making himlook charming rather than coldly handsome. Dressed in a too-large t-shirt and cargo shorts, he fumbles for a few tickets off the little counter, handing them to me in response to my donation. “Have a good—I mean, try not to get too scared,” he stammers, eyes on mine and a little wide. “And thank you for your donation. It means a lot to us.”
Adorable. Like a tall, freckly puppy.
Madison follows me up the staircase to the first floor landing that’s draped with spider webs and playing spooky noises. I can feel her smile between my shoulder blades, and once we’re on level ground, I give her a withering look.
“He thinks you’re pretty,” she informs me, hooking her arm with mine like she does every year, even though this place is the opposite of scary.
“He thinksyou’repretty,” I counter. “If he was looking at me, it’s just because your aura rubs off on us peasants.” But she only shakes her head as we walk with Brynn pulling up the rear, content to be in her own little world as we go. Out of the two of them, it’s not that she's afraid, she’s just not very interested in haunted houses. They justboreher, though I still can’t figure out how.
“No.” Mads shakes her head. “I think if myauragives off anything, it’s that I’m not into men. They know, unless they’re stupid. He didn’t seem stupid.” We walk through the first room, which is just a decorated set to look like a witch’s workshop. An animatronic moves in one corner, her eyes lighting up and her open mouth emitting the same robotic laugh every few seconds. One arm moves, swirling a ladle through a steaming cauldron as we walk by. It’s cute, with orange and purple twinkling lights high up on the walls and little spinning lights illuminating the ceiling.
“You need to date again,” she adds quietly. I don’t reply to that. I don’twantto reply to that, quite frankly, so I just dragher into the next room, a tomb, with a scare actor dressed as a zombie. Sometimes the lack of a theme here makes me roll my eyes, but this year I’ve decided it’s a charming clusterfuck of less-than-horrifying scenes for families to enjoy. Though, I’ll probably call it something other thana clusterfuckwhen I write about it tomorrow morning, since that might not seem like such a compliment to them as I mean it to be.
“I don’t need anyone. And right now? I’d rather set a man on fire than date one.” The zombie gives me a look, and I roll my eyes at him. “You don’t know the context. Don’t look at me like that.” He scoffs, not even trying to keep in character as his snickers follow us through the winding path that zig-zags through the large room. Tombstones sprout up from the floor, and the fake smoke gets thicker the further into the haunt we go.
“Devon was a long time ago.” Brynn’s words surprise me, and I look over my shoulder at her reproachfully. “I’m just saying.” She raises her hands, fingers splayed in innocent surrender. “Though, I would absolutely go set him on fire with you, if that would help you move past that whole…situation.”
“I’m past it.”
I canfeeltheir looks, so I tug free of Mads, hands shoved into the pockets of my jean shorts as I fight my natural defensiveness. “I’mpastit,” I say again. “You’re both being ridiculous. I’m past it, but that doesn’t mean I need to find someone to date. At least not right now. I’m busy.” The words are dull on my lips, and it occurs to me I’ve used them too many times before for them to really be believable. “I’mbusy,”I say once more. “I literally have a whole ass platform I’ve been working to create for three years now. Where would a guy fit into that, when I spend way too much time glued to my laptop?”
