Page 8 of The Woman in the Hollow
We’d done a dry run the night before. Even knowing who all the performers were and where they would be hiding, a few little squeals had escaped me. I couldn’t imagine how it felt going in it without knowing where everyone was hidden.
The same cries came from the haunted house. And twice over the shift, an employee tasked with watching the cameras had needed to run inside to do a rescue mission when patrons were clearly in actual distress, having panic attacks and being too frozen to find an exit themselves.
Once they were out, I sat with them until they felt better, got them a little drink on us, then left them with their friends or family once they finished the house.
We didn’t have surveillance in the woods, but we found that most people who were freaking out just ran out of the woods and toward us anyway.
I was standing beneath strung twinkle lights near the corn maze, trying to anticipate anything that might need my attention.
It was exactly then that a flimsy paper plate with an oversized, perfectly greasy slice of pizza on it lowered down over my shoulder.
“Coffee ain’t gonna cut it on an eleven-hour shift,” Dante said from behind me.
“To be fair, I also had three donuts and a slice of pumpkin bread,” I said, but I was already using the plate to fold the pizza, so I could pick it up and shove it in my mouth.
“Sweets aren’t dinner. At least, that’s something my mom would say.”
“My mother would probably say that sweets are only for special occasions.” Dante moved in beside me, brows lowered at my words. “She’s what the internet might call an ‘almond mom.’”
“What’s an almond mom?”
“Basically, a health freak. To the point of it almost being disordered. Both my mom and grandma were in beauty pageants when they were younger, so looks were really important around my house.”
“In my family, food is love. Which is why I needed to start hitting the gym in my teens. I blew up like crazy. Didn’t seem to have the same metabolism my siblings did, so I had to work a lot harder to stay in shape.”
“Just allow me a moment to imagine what Thanksgiving must look like at your family’s house,” I said, sucking in a deep breath.
“Your family didn’t even let up on the holidays.”
“My mother and grandmother would say something about how one day’s worth of indulgence wasn’t worth six months of having to work out to lose it. Which, obviously, makes no sense. But they believe it. We used to each get two slices of dry turkey and about four non-starchy vegetable sides. No butter or oil.”
“Jesus.”
“To be fair, my grandma can still rock a bikini, so it works. But, yeah, carbs are too good to go without,” I said, taking another greedy bite of my pizza.
“Don’t gotta ration yourself,” Dante said as if reading my mind. “My cousin dropped off a dozen pizzas for the staff tocelebrate opening night. Even if you stuff your face, you’re probably still going to be bringing leftovers home.”
“Well, that’s not a hardship. This might be the best pizza I’ve had. And I’ve tried a few places in the area.”
“Yeah, Lucky makes a good pie.”
“Pie?”
“Pizza,” he said, shooting me a smirk. “That’s how you know you’re not from around here. We call it pie.”
“So I’ve been giving myself away as a transplant by ordering a plain pizza?”
“Yeah. It’s a plain pie.”
“Good to know. Any other Jerseyisms I should be aware of?”
“Well, there’s the whole pork roll/ Taylor ham debate. And the sub/hoagie thing. The debate on whether or not central Jersey even exists…”
“But we’re in central Jersey.”
“Exactly,” Dante said. That little smirk of his was stupidly attractive. And it was even sexier in the dim light cast by the twinkle lights above us.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but he didn’t get the chance when a blood-curdling scream broke through the night. A second later, a pretty blonde came barreling out of the woods, her gaze darting over her shoulder again and again, looking very much like a final girl in a horror movie.
