Chapter Text
“Okay,” Lorna said, holding up a magazine. “You’re not going to believe this.”
He darted a glance up and then back to his computer screen, and lifted an eyebrow to indicate an attention he couldn’t more significantly demonstrate at the moment.
“You have to promise me you won’t scream,” Lorna went on.
Herod raised her a further eyebrow. “I don’t scream.”
“You say that now.”
“I will not scream, Lorna.”
“Okay. Take a deep breath.”
“Get on with it, if you please?”
“‘Totally blood-free and boasting no more gore than a few skeletons,’” Lorna read aloud, “'House in the Wastes has always been high in the running for haunted house awards. But what pushes this attraction over the top is the commitment to an eco-friendly and sustainable experience. All props and decorations are totally biodegradable and locally sourced, and it’s those kinds of details that make House in the Wastes the Choosy Moms Family-Friendly Pick for 2015.’”
What. He jerked his head up from his screen.
“What,” he said.
Lorna passed him the magazine and he tore it open, eyes racing over the article.
“What I can’t figure out is how they got in,” Lorna said. “We’ve been watching everybody who’s attended so far and there didn’t look to be a choosy mom in the bunch. It must be a prank, don’t you think? We’re explicitly 13 and up.”
“'Vegan’!” he barked. “They called us ‘vegan’! How can a haunted house be ‘vegan’?”
“Choosy moms, Herod. You can’t begin to understand them.”
“We’ll be a laughingstock,” he sighed. “Why didn’t they give it to Potter’s Field? They always give it to Potter’s Field.”
At the mention of the name, Lorna pretended to spit on the ground. Herod appreciated it. She was a good and loyal girl.
“'Eco-friendly’!” he roared. “Who TOLD them this? Who gives a fuck about a haunted house’s use of mud? Where did this come from?”
“Probably Wirt,” Lorna admitted.
Wirt! Perfidious little wretch! Herod had never backhanded a child in the face before. It looked like today was going to be the day.
Choosy Moms! It was hideous. He’d given so many years of his life, all his resources, all he was—indeed, the very blood of his heart—to this place. And now they were ‘family-friendly.’
The beginning of the end. It could only be a matter of time. Soon people would come to them for photos with friendly scarecrows, and if Herod didn’t die of shame he’d have to blow his own brains out.
People didn’t respect Halloween anymore. That was the problem.
It was so hard, having standards.
The obvious solution to the hardship, of course, was to simply drop those standards, but he was an artist—not that he admitted it, except when in his outraged cups—and it was the responsibility of the artist and the aristocrat to keep up appearances even when the rest of the world declined to participate. He had vision. That vision did not include anything cheap.
Splashing stage blood all over everything was extremely, appallingly cheap.
So although it was by no means ooze-free, his haunted house was indeed totally bloodless and virtually goreless, with the exception of a few bones. He relied on worse, more subtle horrors, gripped with the conviction that grounding a connection between the mundane and the truly alien was vastly more terrifying than the meager removal of concealing skin and the revelation of the mundane within. He had long theories about the roles of clarity and obfuscation in horror and if given the chance he would run at the mouth about the minute details for ages, but it all essentially boiled down to knowing what to conceal and what to illuminate.
Haunted houses were basically stripteases. Or maybe stripteases were basically haunted houses.
He wasn’t sure. It was worth considering in greater depth. And he would have plenty of time to consider it, now, because he was going to shutter the house and live in his beloved ruins until he starved.
“What have we done wrong?” he asked aloud. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Have we not changed enough? Have we changed too much? We’ve rotated one different scene every year. Last year we took Scariest Attraction in the state.”
“And most exclusive,” Lorna added.
Oh, Herod had been so pleased with that. It was so pretentious, the very notion of the boutique horror experience, but the money had been fantastic and no one screamed like an connoisseur.
“We’re completely sunk,” he said.
“That, at least, is not true,” Lorna replied.
“What?”
“Bart’s been at the phones all morning,” Lorna said. “We’ve got ticket orders pouring in.”
“What does that matter, if they all have two-point-five snivelling larva and Fido in the car?” he grumbled. “Might as well set up a shuttle to take them out to the wholesome cornfields, at this rate. What do they even think of Potter’s Field—”
Spit.
“—this year?” he asked, pulling the magazine closer and flicking through it.
“I don’t know. I don’t read their press,” Lorna sniffed. “We can spin this, I think. I mean, the important thing is that we don’t give refunds…”
“Of course I can spin it,” Herod murmured, “but for how long, is the question. If they’re going to simply laude every delicate hint of creeping nightmare and every artistic display of restraint as something as gauche as ‘all-ages,’ then I might as well swap Bart’s axe for a chainsaw and let you do your Erzsébet Báthory routine.”
“It’s a solid routine,” Lorna huffed.
Herod disagreed. He was sure he appreciated the initiative, but really. Bathing naked in a tub stage blood, nibbling on ‘finger food’ and attended by priapic corpses? That was not horror. The girl was just frustrated.
Not that he blamed her. But if anyone was going to be sumptuously waited on by the, ahem, risen dead in his haunted house, by God it was going to be him.
“It is, and I’m sure one day, when you have a house of your own, you will scandalize the community with your lascivious cavortings,” Herod replied. “But until then you work under my rotten roof and so you shall abide in my rotten aesthetic, and that aesthetic does not partake of carnal sights.”
“Penises are scary.”
“You’re not wrong.” Herod flicked through the pages and huffed in aggravated relief as he spotted Potter’s Field as a headline. He started scanning the write-up. “All the same, we don’t need to rely upon the twisted intersection of sexuality and…”
Lorna frowned a little. “And…?”
Herod struggled mightily for a few instants, mastering himself, before he managed to speak.
“'Potter’s Field,’” spit, “'once the go-to for families seeking seasonal harvest fun, has recreated itself as a terrifying adventure in the great outdoors. With no explicit horrors to test your composure—with some exceptions for those unfortunate enough to participate in the hay ride—Potter’s Field focuses instead on slowly whittling away at your nerves until you’re shaking. Absolutely harrowing, Potter’s Field is definitely not for children and more than earns its spot at the year’s pick for Scariest Halloween Attraction. Pro tip: Go after dark.’”
Lorna covered her mouth with her hand.
Herod put the magazine on his desk. “Thank you for calling this to my attention. Please go.”
Lorna bit her lips together and nodded her head. She closed the door behind her.
She really was an exceptional employee. Leagues better than Bart, certainly. Someday she would have her own house and it probably would be spectacular.
Herod carefully retrieved the scissors from his desk drawer and cut out the reviews for House in the Wastes and Potter’s Field. He put them in an envelope, scrawled the year on the front, and tucked them into the box of reviews.
He took his lighter and the magazine into the bathroom and lit the damned thing to burn.
Kid-friendly? All-ages? Vegan?
Fine.
He’d show them how friendly he could be.
***
They were no two ways about it: Potter’s Field was where you went to enjoy the harvest season, and House in the Wastes was where you went to be scared out of your mind.
Enoch had always held this as the great natural law of autumn. His business and his competitor—and he said “competitor” for lack of a better term—had been neatly splitting the community down the center for almost ten years. Enoch took all the families with small children, and House in the Wastes took the young people and the grown-ups looking for a thrill. Surely there was some overlap, date nights being what they were, but generally speaking it was as harmonious as could ever be imagined.
And then, of course, there was this year.
Poor Miss Lulilly, the costumer, was down with chemo treatments, and in her absence Mrs. Stringer was filling in. Mrs. Stringer’s last routine as a seamstress had been in the year of our Lord 1975, and unfortunately even her sweetest handiwork had turned out looking more nightmarish than not. The actors wore them, of course, because what else could they use?
Unfortunately, the usually friendly scarecrows of yesteryear were now utterly horrifying, and no amount of benevolent goodwill could excuse their appearance. Children wept.
To be perfectly candid, Enoch was not as torn up about that as he probably should’ve been. But it wasn’t hitting their ticket sales, not by a long shot, and as word had spread that Potter’s Field was a nightmare this year, ticket sales grew and grew.
It was becoming kind of fun, actually, really scaring people. They introduced a hay ride and they were pulling carts at maximum capacity. Grown men sobbed when lost in the fields.
And even with the slight change, they were Potter’s Field. When they took the masks off, they were farm and country people with cider and little games ready for the children. They were what they had always been.
Or so he’d thought! He’d actually called Haunted Attractions magazine when the list of October activities had been published, for he was not at all certain that they hadn’t mixed up the review of Potter’s Field with that of House in the Wastes.
No, they said. They really were that impressed with the mud.
Naturally, Enoch’s first step was to go on House in the Wastes’ website and see how they were taking it. And oh, rapture. They were furious.
They weren’t so fraught as to show any splashy gore all over their page, but he hadn’t been throwing friendly elbows with this business for a decade to not be able to tell when they were shifting their strategy. It manifested as one small notice on the sidebar, but it made Enoch’s eyes widen.
Touch Me Thursday.
He had to know.
Thursday was a slow enough day for them, so he gathered up the few people who weren’t working. It was a community affair, their little business, and on such a rotation it wasn’t hard to get out of town for an evening. Miss Clara jumped to come with him, for she’d always liked visiting their competitor more than was perfectly seemly, and brought her brother along with her. Miss Elizabelle had Dr. Summer’s assurance that her heart was sound, so she piled into the car with the young people and they set off for an evening engagement.
The boy working the counter greeted them and told them the legend of the house. It was a script that Enoch himself had all-but memorized, by this point: the house had been abandoned for years, reclaimed by the forces of the forest until a hapless family attempted to inhabit it, opening the attic and disturbing an ancient thing within. Now that thing had twisted the family to its bidding, and every year it found new servants to feed its monstrous appetite.
The young man explained the nature of the Thursday special, told them the rules, and asked if they would consent. They signed their waivers and paid their money, and were waved into the house.
A thrill ran up Enoch’s spine as soon as the door had closed behind them and he felt his heart begin to pound from anticipation. Oh, it wasn’t very good of him, but then again a body just didn’t get into this kind of business, if they weren’t a little too fond of Halloween.
And Enoch was profoundly, astonishingly—some might even say ‘sickly’—too fond of Halloween.
He had no idea what the actual building of House in the Wastes had been before it had been turned into a haunted house, but as it was it stood as an artistically dilapidated Victorian mansion deep in the woods. It was so intimate, permitting groups of no more than six at a time, and it was so supremely polished, with invisible staff members sliding out of the walls at a moment’s indication that their presence was wanted. It accommodated a few rooms every year, swapping out one exhibit every season for something new and spectacular.
And then there was one who never changed. Enoch had rarely encountered him. He alone among the performers remained totally in the concealing dark, but after so many years Enoch had managed to glean that he wore a fur coat, a set of antlers, and a pair of contact lenses that made his irises glow white. (He sometimes liked to think that the man wore nothing but those.)
Although he supposed that was the ancient forest creature of the script, Enoch had never imagined forest creatures to have such stunningly beautiful voices. Some years he sang. Those years were always Enoch’s favorites, because in addition to being sublimely gifted, the master of the house been in this business long enough to know when to use it and when to keep horribly quiet.
Glorious stuff, really.
The foyer was empty, but a door at the back creaked open and a low growl began to throb through the air.
Enoch grinned and help shepherd their group along.
There was a thing in the room with them, and they stuck by the walls, trying not to get smacked by the slow-turning axles of the large mill grinder. It was perhaps a strange opening act, in such an otherwise refined and delicate house. But after all, just because the rest of the place was all pins and needles and creeping dread didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of room for a good sledgehammer to the limbic system.
The wheels turned and strained as a huge animal, lashed to one of the spokes, dragged the apparatus around. It had to be some kind of animatronic device. Its eyes glowed. The creature spotted them and lunged, its frothing, snapping jaws and scrabbling, straining claws established a thrill of panic that was hard not to appreciate.
They hurried past it and into the next room.
Ten animal-headed creatures snapped their attention onto them and Clark, in particular, jumped. Enoch grinned to himself, trying to hide it as the beautiful woman at the head of the table lifted her veil and revealed her eyes, all black and gushing oil. All the animal heads opened their mouths and began to ooze black oil.
“There’s something wrong with the children,” the woman said to them, gesturing to the banquet of rotting food. “They’re not eating enough. Please, eat something, before my father returns…”
Miss Clara scoffed quietly beside him, but Enoch gave her a little nudge and they observed as the Father arrived and menaced the party of animal-headed children and his pleading daughter. They were chased out of the dining room and processed into the next room, just in advance of the approaching clatter of the Father.
“Not their best work, this year,” Miss Clara murmure, as they walked on. “I like the animal heads, but…”
“Perhaps they’re leading up to something,” Enoch suggested.
“It’s certainly not deserving of the Choosy Moms award,” Miss Clara said.
Next came a hunter sequence that had Miss Elizabelle wrapped around one of Enoch’s arms and Clark wrapped around the other. The old man with the axe haunted them through a faux forest for what felt like an age, before they found themselves pulled along on a quest to hunt for a ghost, led by a madman mumbled and paced in tormented unrest over a mysterious womanly figure.
They were herded into a claustrophobic closet to watch a phantom beauty traverse a haunted ballroom, and their lunatic guide was drawn quickly into her arms as she revealed her undead nature.
They stumbled through a swampland set up in the dark backyard, and tried to escape the eerie, croaking, half-human things that clasped their ankles and begged for help.
Miss Clara was finally shivering and Miss Elizabelle had long since started mewling when they proceeded up the steps into the second floor of the house. Clark was as pale as milk.
Enoch was in heaven.
They were proceeding down the second floor hallway, dodging hands that reached out of the walls towards them, when they heard a little bit of sniffling. In the dimness they could see a little rounded shape and they approached hesitantly, waiting for the scare.
It was a child, dressed in ordinary street clothes. The boy peeped up at them and squinted a little.
“Oh dear,” Miss Elizabelle murmured. “Are you all right?”
“Have you seen my brother?” the boy said. “I lost him.”
Miss Clara frowned and knelt down beside him. “…aren’t you a little young to be part of the haunted house?”
“I’m not,” the boy said. “My mom dropped us off and said she’d be back, but I don’t know where Wirt is…”
Well, Haunted Attractions magazine had a lot to answer for.
Miss Clara smiled and offered her hand to the boy. “I bet your brother is looking for you right now. Why don’t you come with us, and we can find a way out of the house really quickly? Will you feel better with some grown-ups around?”
The boy sniffled and nodded his head, and Miss Clara took him by the hand. The boy got to his feet and immediately clung to her leg, so Miss Clara stooped to pick him up and wedged him on her hip.
“Poor little scamp,” Miss Elizabelle sighed. She squeaked and bounced away from one of the wall hands. “Oh! So impertinent—”
“It’s all right,” Miss Clara said, stroking the boy’s hair. “We just need to find an actor and dip out through the emergency exit. I’ll stay with this young man until we find his brother. You all should go on through the rest of the house.”
“I’ll see if I can find an actor,” Clark said, brave in the face of a tiny sufferer. They hurried down the rest of the hall and sure enough found an actress waiting to direct them.
“Sorry,” Miss Clara said to the actress. “I hate to break character, but we have a little emergency here. Can you help us? This young man’s lost his group.”
The actress immediately frowned and looked the boy over.
“Oh, no. Poor little guy. Um…at this point in the house, the fastest way is to get through there,” the actress said, gesturing towards one of the doors. “That’ll take you to the emergency exit and you should be fine from there. Let me guide you the rest of the way—”
The actress brought Miss Clara to one of the door and they disappeared just as a horrific thing, engulfed in flames, reared up towards them from the hall. Miss Elizabelle and Clark screamed and splintered, as the creature grabbed each of them by a wrist and threw them into a room. Then the thing—a gorilla, by the looks of it, charming reference to Poe—turned to Enoch and menaced him up the attic stairs.
Well, he would go alone, if they insisted.
He stifled his grin, considering it rather insulting, and entered the attic just as he heard Miss Clara begin screaming downstairs.
Oh, this was so much fun.
***
Herod knew the one he wanted as soon as he stepped into the house.
The big man was a repeat customer, one of the most loyal. He appeared once a year and only once, and Herod had been half-hoping that he would choose to visit on a Thursday. This was an absolute treat.
They’d navigated the house fairly well, although the big man seemed almost completely unstartled. Even Quincy’s masterful portrayal of a mad man didn’t elicit a shudder, not even when he and Maguerite fell into one another’s arms in a paroxysm of desperate fear and passion.
(Those two needed to sort that all out. Herod didn’t deny that it worked, for a given value of work, but one of these days they were going to make love in the middle of a scene and he was going to have to fire them.)
The swamp scene was infinitely improved by the ability to touch. Slimy, rubbery fingers caressing ankles and voices that croaking for help had the young lady trotting to keep away, and the young man had been clinging to the older gentleman like he meant to rip the man’s shirt off.
They’d collected Gregory at the hall of hands and Lorna had pushed them in the direction of the “emergency exit.”
Now came the real fun.
Herod had always prized intimacy as the key to real and present terror. Oh, there was always mass trauma to be considered, but in those cases you could often reach out and find comfort. Real horror was personal and individualistic: just you, the ceiling of your midnight bed chamber, and the furtive footfall on the hall stair.
So they split them up. Four at a time made for such a lovely, intimate experience, and causing that schism was always so pleasant. Jimmy in the gorilla suit made for a pretty little homage to Grandpa Edgar, especially with the faux flames rippling through the fur, but he really was only the intervening scene, to scatter them. The actual scare was better left to the professionals.
Each performer had only two minutes or less with their victim, creating an experience for each person that was wholly unique. At the moment, Madame Adelaide was busily traumatizing the young lady with the invaluable assistance of young Gregory—suffer the little children. How’s that for “family-friendly”?—while Lorna had her sport with the young man. Bart seemed almost a little too charmed by the older lady, but as long as he hunted her like he was supposed to, Herod supposed there was precious little he could really do to object.
He didn’t like Bart. Bart was a disappointment.
But he didn’t have to think about Bart in this moment. He was doing what he’d been born to do, and everything was so beautifully simple. Here was his victim, bought and paid for and waiting for Herod to do what he did best.
It was heaven. Especially because he didn’t have to restrain that sick thing that always itched to touch his victims.
This might actually be one of his better ideas.
The man was all his, separated from his compatriots and plunged into almost-pitch darkness. Herod had spent forever outfitting this room with a subsonic pulse, and he smiled to see it go to work on the man. It was worth having to live with the reeking aromatherapeutic effect of decaying funeral flowers and burning meat, and to have to wait for quite a while in the devastatingly cold air, for the pleasure of watching it disorient his victim.
He hummed his hymn, lighting up the mannequin at the end of the attic path. The eyes in that thing were made to look like his own and Herod grinned to see his victim tense as he realized the eyes were upon him. His victim paced forward, following the cue and darting away from the nearby sound effect of wood-chopping.
Goodness, he was a great handsome beast of a thing, when one got up close. He had to make this good. Herod prowled the perimeter of the room, glancing out of lowered eyes so as not to give away his position. He moved to one of the acoustic warps and whispered.
“So you like being touched,” he breathed, and watched his victim jerk his head to follow the noise at his left ear. “We’ll see.”
He could hear the man swallow. “…first time in ten years that we’ve talked.”
Herod’s eyes widened against his will. Oh. He had a fan.
That was distracting.
He reached out and stroked down the man’s spine, feeling his body snap rigid before Herod tore his hand away and dropped silently to the floor, unencumbered by his usual accoutrement and hidden in the dark. He held his breath and scuttled away as the man turned to chase his tormentor.
Herod got behind him in a trice and slid a hand up the inside of the man’s right calf. The man stepped away, alarmed, and Herod smiled at he pushed and prodded him toward the end of the path.
The mannequin’s eyes extinguished and Herod took its place, peering at his victim as the man wheeled around and spotted him.
Herod reached out and almost burned fingers as he brushed them across his victim’s throat. The man’s skin was so warm, or perhaps Herod’s fingers were only so cold. Either way, he hissed quietly.
“You’re going to taste so good,” he breathed. The subsonic pulse deepened, right on cue, and made the walls pound. Herod made a wet noise with his mouth.
His victim was breathing heavily. Herod dropped the noose around the man’s neck and stepped away.
“I can’t wait to drink you dry,” he sighed. He yanked the noose tight and hit the trapdoor.
The bottom fell out of the floor beneath his victim and the fake noose gave, letting the man plunge unharmed to the bodybag-cushioned floor below.
Herod leaned down to consider his fallen client.
The man was lying on his back, panting for air, and grinning up at the trapdoor. His eyes met Herod’s and his smile grew even wider.
“Thank you,” the man said.
Herod jumped a little and snapped the floor closed, giving himself a little shake. He was expected elsewhere. It was fun to spend a little time with a man on his own, but he was needed at the end. The perils of a small team of actors, alas.
He left his room and took his position near the exit. They came soon enough, the young lady clinging to Herod’s victim and hiding her face in his arm.
Mm, of course.
Herod reached out in the dark and stroked freezing fingers across her neck, tucking her hair over her shoulder. He rolled his eyes up to look at his own victim.
“Stay,” he crooned, letting his fingers card through the girl’s hair as she raced to the other side of her protector, sobbing. “There’s no point in leaving. You can’t escape me. You’re all mine, now.”
The man let out a little groan and helped the girl flee to the foyer.
Herod sighed. Yes, that seemed about right.
He needed a cigarette. But no! The next wave was coming. He’d be expected. One couldn’t rest on one’s laurels, and anyway he’d already had his treat for the season. Back to work.
He hoped they would tweet about it. Maybe that would blow a Choosy Mom or two out of the water, knowing how up close and personal the actors liked to get.
***
“Pardon me, young man,” Enoch said to the boy who’d greeted them, as they passed the exit. Miss Clara was tucked, sobbing, under his wing. The boy who’d taken their waivers looked up and gave him the blind, panicked look of a startled young man helplessly met with a pretty, weeping woman. “Can we ask about the well-being of the young child? I’m afraid my companion is a little upset.”
“Child?” the boy echoed. His eyes widened. “Oh jeez — Greg!”
The boy dashed into the house, yelling. Enoch patted Miss Clara on the back, murmuring soothing nonsense to her.
He listened to the little bit of banging and yelling, but at last the boy emerged with the child in tow.
“Greg! This is for over 13 only!” the boy was yelling at his smiling brother. The child had black ooze caked onto his cheeks and under his eyes, and all down his chin. He’d been one of the oil victims, apparently. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
“I was helping, Wirt! Miss Adelaide said she couldn’t do it without me,” the child said. “Hi, Miss Clara! Did you like our show?”
Miss Clara picked herself up from Enoch’s chest, leaving a wet patch of tears on his shirt, and whirled around to face the child. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank goodness!” she cried. “Enoch, I’m never coming back here. You don’t know what I saw in that…that…!” She broke into fresh tears and her still-shaking but exhilarated brother helped her to her feet.
Enoch really hoped House in the Wastes had some kind of camera system running. You couldn’t ask for better promotional footage than that.
For his own part, Enoch very much wanted to go back in and be the one to see whatever Miss Clara had seen.
Well, almost. What he particularly ached to do was to go back in and spend a little more time getting fondled by the master of the house. Those beautiful eyes alone…who wouldn’t want to stay, when so prettily ordered?
He might be back next Thursday. This was a phenomenal idea.
***
Herod tightened his scarf and looked around Potter’s Field, deeply annoyed to find himself impressed.
It was a cornfield in a farm town. Big deal. It wasn’t even a dedicated system. They only bothered running the damned thing September through November. At least House in the Wastes was a year-round operation. (They did incredible business on Valentine’s Day.)
Lorna had her hands wrapped around a paper cup of cider. “Well, they’re not wrong about the costumes.”
Herod was forced to agree on that point. The horror was pulled off with a remarkably light touch, and if he thought he’d been dealing with a less professional outfit, he might’ve even imagined it to be unintentional. No splashy gore or rubbery masks. Some performers wore what looked almost like real pumpkins, carved with unmoving, unexpressive faces, and others work burlap or canvas masks that did not appear to have been intentionally terrifying.
He liked it. He was big enough to admit that it was very clever. It seemed that he and the owner of this haunt were in agreement on the subject of deft horror.
A little corporate espionage was in order. Maybe their costumer would accept a position with the enemy, if they floated a sufficiently tender offer. Herod thought it pretty likely that he’d be able to get the information out of someone at Potter’s Field, considering the looks the young ticket taker in the inexplicable regency costume was trading with Lorna.
Lorna fluffed her hair a little.
Yes, he could probably make some use of that.
They’d traveled through the corn maze and there was some little scrap of substance in the Haunted Attractions article there. The costumes really were a little unsettling, when they were met with suddenly and silently in the quiet field. Herod’s own heart had leapt once, not that he’d ever admit to such a thing, and Lorna had grabbed his hand on one occasion.
She’d been so embarrassed, and rightly so. He was never going to let her forget it.
The sun was finally going down. Herod pushed his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m staying after dark.”
“What? But we open at nine.”
“Close the Beast room for the night, then. You have the mannequin and the voice recording, if you need it.”
Lorna frowned a little. “Is this a primadonna thing? Are you going to make me beg you to come along? Insist the show can’t go on without you?”
“I know perfectly well that the show can’t go on without me,” Herod replied. “But you’ll just have to stump along as best as ever you can in my absence.”
Lorna’s eyes lit up. “So…I’m in charge?”
“Absolutely not,” Herod said sternly. “You’re responsible for the maintenance of your place of work.”
“That’s the same thing as being in charge,” Lorna said gleefully. “I’m leaving now. I can get the bath tub ready as a final exhibit in time to open—”
“I will have you assassinated.”
“I’ll call it Salle de Pain,” Lorna said, sketching an imaginary banner with her hands.
Herod glanced at her, eyebrows rising. He looked out over the fields again. “…if you really call it that, you can do it for one night.”
“Although now that I think of it, it doesn’t make sense for the countess to have a coterie of boytoys. Bathory should be attended by nubile young maid servants, don’t you agree?”
“No sex, Lorna.”
“No sex! Just beautiful, exsanguinated young ladies,” Lorna replied. “Someone about as pale as me. And Bathory herself really should be a redhead, if we can at all swing it.”
The ticket taker wasn’t going to know what had hit her.
“Well, make the offer and see what happens,” Herod said. “It’s a hell of a meet-cute, I suppose.”
“You’re really staying for the evening?"
“I really am.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Herod nodded and watched Lorna wander off. He spent a few minutes dithering on his phone and dodged a small stream of happy, playing children on his way to the smoker’s section. He bought a glass of hard cider and lit a clove cigarette, reading the tweets from last week.
‘Beast room can’t be legal! Totally unsafe! This place needs to be inspected.’
‘SOOOOO inapprpriate for children! Disturbing imagery, rude ticket taker, scary themes. #ChoosyMoms messed up!’
‘Best haunted house in the region got even better. #touchmethursday is fantastic. Don’t miss it.’
Herod smiled to himself and breathed out a plume of smoke. He scrolled down.
‘Definitely grownups-only attraction. #touchmethursday really pushes the limits. Swear I got slapped on the ass.’
Slander!
There would have to be team meeting about this.
“Mind if I join you?”
Herod glanced up and, mirible visu, beheld his favorite customer standing before him with a smile on his handsome, broad face. A little surprised by the coincidence, Herod brought his cigarette back to his mouth.
“Not at all,” he said. Of course, the man didn’t recognize him. How could he? “Be my guest, if you can stand the smoke.”
“Thanks,” Herod’s victim said, smiling. He sat down. “Here with family?”
If this had come from anyone else, Herod would’ve brushed him off.
“No, I’m afraid not,” he replied. “I’m all alone.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. This place always seems to me to be a family affair. Are you enjoying it, in spite of that?”
“The liquor is excellent,” Herod replied, running a fingertip across the lip of his cup. “But we’ll see if the horror lives up to the bombast and exaggeration of reviewers. I’m eager to contribute a healthy dose of perspective.“
His victim smiled at him and took a sip of his own drink. “So you’re an epicure of the terrible, are you?”
Herod almost grinned. Well, well, that was not the kind of thing one expected to be asked so immediately. He’d almost think he was being flirted at. “Yes, I think that’s how I’d describe it. I don’t scare easily.”
“Now, that’s just an open invitation, don’t you think?”
Herod lifted his eyebrows. “Forgive me, but the day a child’s hayride startles me into genuine fear is the day I yield my profession of more than twenty years.”
“And what might that profession be?” his victim asked. “And is there a name attached to it?”
Herod stifled his smile and offered his gloved hand across the table. His victim took it. His hand was warm, even though he wasn’t wearing gloves. That probably couldn’t be healthy, but in the cool air it was certainly pleasant. “Herod Blackwell. As to profession, I—”
“Enoch?” his victim’s lady friend called from one of the food tents. Enoch looked up. “Could you come here for a second?”
“Pardon me,” Enoch said to Herod, as he got up from the table. “Remember where we stopped, won’t you?”
Herod gave him a thin smile. “Of course.”
Enoch walked away towards his young woman—which, oh, which bundle of bouncing brats was likely to be theirs?—and Herod returned his attention to his phone.
He was only just getting to the point where he’d seriously begin micromanaging his staff from afar when the ticket taker hopped up on an overturned crate.
“The hayride will be beginning soon,” the young lady said into a microphone. “Please be advised that this year’s hayride is not recommended for children under thirteen. You can form a line right here at the maze gate.”
Herod sneered to himself a little before getting up and pacing over to the gathering queue. Better to get this over with sooner rather than later. He might be able to make some of his late night shows, if he moved quickly.
He managed to find a seat in the second cart, wedging himself into the corner seat on a hay bale so he’d have a little back support, and stowed his phone in his pocket. The cart filled up quickly, and amidst young couples and gaggles of students, he saw a few families with older children. Far be it for him to wish success on a rival, but he really hoped that Potter’s Field could substantiate its claims regarding victims thirteen and up.
The hayride jerked to life and drew them into the cornfields. Herod settled in and watched the corn pass them by, almost relaxing as they drew further and further away from the lighted festival area.
The music rose out of the corn first.
Herod smiled to himself. Beautiful first moment, he had to admit. Around him, people seized each other’s hands or used the excuse to wrap their arms around their dates, but Herod simply tilted his head back and listened. A haunting hymn began to bloom sweetly into the air, melody and rhythm taking over while the voices were too far away to clearly make out the lyrics.
It came steadily closer, and Herod became aware of faces watching their passage through the field. He twitched a little at the uncomfortable realization and his own inability to be certain just when they’d begun to appear. They didn’t move, except to turn their heads to watch, and around them the fields of corn were very still.
Their heads were encased in what did seem to be real pumpkins, cut into either blankly unreadable or rather pretty expressions. They sang sweetly as the tractor drew the ride into a barn and one performer stepped out of the corn to stand in the doorway.
Within, a single spot-lit performer sat on a haybale, carving a few head almost exactly like his own. Herod watched, intrigued with the performer’s stillness and solemnity as he turned his gaze to his audience and watched them roll by.
Well! Potter’s Field seemed to have some chops this year. Nothing horrifying, granted, but creeping horror there was indeed.
They passed out of the barn and along the path, opened out to the night sky again. Another song was rising in the fields, and this time Herod could pick out a few shapes against the dark sky. They stood on high poles set into the fields, swaying slowly back and forth. At first he thought they were scarecrows.
They were birds. Performers fitted with bird skull masks and fabric draped across their arms to look like wings swooped down over the hayride, cawing like crows. Amidst the bird noise, Herod could pick out whispers from near by.
“We’re hungry. Give us your dreams.”
“Feed us your dreams.”
Herod smirked. A little overt, wasn’t that? A bit too theoretical. How utterly cute.
Someone in the dark leaned close and breathed in his ear, “You smell different when you’re asleep.”
A thrill ran up Herod’s spine and he nearly gasped. He sat up straighter.
Oh. That was the stuff.
Around his pounding heart, he swore he was stealing that line.
The tractor pulled them beside a shack. A strange creature with mottled, pulpy head like a turkey paused in what appeared to be the action of sweeping its porch and gobbled at them as they passed. The sheer strangeness of it made Herod’s skin prickle and he was relieved, despite himself, when they pressed on and moved away from the shack.
They passed from the shack almost immediately into another barn, and found themselves stopped in the middle of what seemed to be some kind of party. Caught in the middle of a strange harvest revel, nearly twenty performers in costume paused—Herod nursed a moment of unworthy jealousy, that they could get that many actors and costumes together for such a scene—and looked at the intruders.
The performing crowd began to murmur. Herod helplessly tensed.
“They’re not supposed to be here. Who are they?”
“Why are they here?”
“What do they want?”
Voices from all around, behind, nearby—too nearby.
“They’re here to steal our crops!”
“To ruin our party!”
And above—a low, rumbling chuckle.
“Now, hold on, everybody. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
A vast thing lurched out of the ceiling. It looked like a huge head, reminiscent of the pumpkin costumes, and it grinning with big, blunt teeth, its empty eyes staring down at them. A dozen coils fluttered out of its neck, trailing behind the thing like tentacles. Herod heard a few shrieks from nearby and felt his own heart ram itself against the backs of his teeth. Children began to wail.
“What brings you to our little town?” the giant thing asked. The voice…Herod tried to place the voice and couldn’t. Its tentacles waved slowly and Herod watched them, transfixed, his mouth dry.
“They’re trespassing!” one of the performers barked.
“Oh, dear,” the head said. “Yes, I see they are. Well, you all seem to have stumbled upon something you’re not supposed to see. It saddens me to have to do this, but you’re going to have to go out into the cornfields.”
The performers took up shovels and pitchforks, axes and scythes. The hay ride began to move again and Herod mastered himself, smiling a little.
“Don’t you worry, now,” the head said. “This will only hurt a moment…and then you’ll be ready to join us.”
One of its tentacles reached out and—with terrible, unerring accuracy—brushed under Herod’s chin.
Herod jumped and seized the edge of the cart in a vise grip, listening to the mocking chuckle of the monster as he trembled. If he were alone or less conscious of the terrified gazes of the other hayriders, he might have panted for breath.
As it was, he settled back into his seat and groped for some amount of nonchalance. Puppet? Animatronic?
He was taking this ride again. He had to know.
The performers followed them with tools into the field, singing a new song. They walked behind the cart for several yards before the cart paused at a cleared bit of field. Lit up by a bonfire, performers in skeleton costumes dragged themselves out of holes in the earth and drew the attention of the performers, who clustered around to give them pumpkins to wear.
The tractor used the distraction and made its escape.
Unimpressive denouement, Herod tried to tell himself. Gripping climax, but disappointing conclusion.
They pulled into the lighted carnival section once again and Herod dismounted the hay cart only to find that he still quivered. Not scared, per se. Unsettled. The imagery was…provocative.
It was a cold evening. His hands shook a little as he lit a cigarette and sucked on it for a second or two. He pulled out his phone, contemplated it, drafted a tweet, deleted it, and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
Maybe one more drink before he headed back.
He needed a little time to come up with something adequately scathing.
***
Enoch bought an RIP pass online and called the contact number. A young man picked up.
“House in the Wastes: we aren’t quitters, so the suffering never ends. How can I help you today?”
Enoch smiled a little. “Good afternoon. I have a pass to one of your performances tonight, and I understand that some of the rooms are divided off so that individuals get to interact with the performers one-on-one. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there any way to put in a request for one room or another?”
“Sorry, sir. It’s based on volume and performer discretion. It’s kind of a toss-up who gets who. We don’t really have a request function. We strive to provide all victims with a unique experience every time.”
“I see. I’d actually like to repeat an earlier experience — I have some lingering questions and I’d like to go through it again and see if I can resolve them.”
“Um. Well, I can’t promise anything, but if you come up to the desk when it’s your turn and remind me of this conversation, I’ll see what we can do to accommodate your wishes.”
“Excellent. Thank you, young man, I appreciate your time. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Our pleasure, sir. See you soon.”
***
His victim—or perhaps he should be thinking of the man as ‘Enoch’—was back. On a Thursday. This time, sans lady friend.
Very interesting. He’d never come back twice in a season before. Herod spent a few precious moments worrying if it betrayed an unseemly interest to take him again, while Lorna proclaimed that she would take the young redhead who just happened to resemble the ticket taker from Potter’s Field.
It was Adelaide’s day off, and that left only Betty and the Highwayman routine, which was nothing such a connoisseur would enjoy, and of course Bart. Herod would sooner die than leave such a loyal, excellent customer to Bart’s tender mercies. He deserved nothing less than Herod’s finest work.
Herod would see him alone. He waited for him in the cold. Jimmy led him in and Herod quietly stalked him, letting him wander for almost half a minute before sidling up behind him and petting his shoulderblades.
“Back again?” Herod purred into his victim’s ear. He drew his fingers from the man’s ear down his jaw, unable to stop himself from trying to memorize the softness of his victim’s burningly warm skin. He was going to get so sued. “I imagined you might be.”
“The atmosphere is irresistible,” Enoch admitted.
The temptation to break character was what was irresistible. He was going to get so sued.
“Something calls you back. Something you can’t deny,” Herod crooned. He bumped the effect for the skittering insect noises. “You belong here. Suffering. Helpless. Screaming in the dark. You know you belong in hell.”
Herod scratched down Enoch’s arm. Enoch shivered.
He was going to get bored being hanged so often, if he kept coming back. Thank God there was something else to the attic room to appeal.
“We can make a place for you. You’ll stay here, forever,” Herod said. “If you’re so eager to burn for me…then you’ll burn.”
Herod slipped away, glancing in time to watch Enoch shudder, and picked up the water jug. It wasn’t a large amount of water, in itself, and of course it just wasn’t the same consistency of the oil or the smell for gasoline, but the shock effect was more important, anyway. He threw it in Enoch’s face and kicked on the fireplace switch.
The fireplace roared to life with an unearthly howl and threw out a line of faux white flame out across the floor, shrieking up to Herod’s victim. The man actually stepped back and Herod hit the trap door, sending the man plummeting.
He turned off the flames and peeped over the edge of the trap door to see that his customer was being attended to.
Enoch, shirt plastered to his chest, cast an exhilarated grin up at Herod. His teeth glowed in the blacklight as he reclined on the body bag cushions.
“Oh, you are so bad,” Enoch said, voice rich with admiration.
Herod shuddered and snapped the trapdoor shut. That was more than enough of that. He paced over to the cooling system and froze himself for a few seconds in front of the fans, letting the air leech the last of Enoch’s warmth out of his fingers.
He should really get Lorna to handle him, next time. This was getting out of hand.
***
“You’re back!” Enoch grinned.
Mr. Blackwell, or he supposed it was Herod, turned to face him. He looked almost exactly as handsome as he’d looked a week before, all dark winter clothing and anemic complexion. His eyeglasses gleamed briefly opaque in the carnival lights, and Herod’s grip tightened around his red Solo cup.
“Ah — yes.”
“Did you really enjoy it enough last week to come back today?” Enoch asked.
“It was…quietly entertaining,” Mr. Blackwell replied with a fluid little shrug. “I didn’t feel myself to be cheated out of the price of the ticket.”
“I have the distinct impression that that is extremely high praise, coming from you.”
Mr. Blackwell twitched a shoulder and sipped from his cup. He seemed shy. How sweet. “I will note that you’re back, today. You must be completely bewitched by it.”
“I think that’s a pretty good way of putting it,” Enoch replied. He offered his hand to Herod and smiled as the gloved man took it. “Enoch Grange. I suppose you could say I own the place.”
Herod’s eyes widened behind his eyeglasses and his hand went stiff. “You own Potter’s Field.”
“Well, yes,” Enoch replied, giving his guest a curious look. “Is that something very alarming?”
“Ah—”
“Herod,” a young lady said, approaching. She looked very familiar and Enoch smiled blandly, trying to place her. “Can you please check your phone once in awhile? Bart says he’s been calling for twenty minutes and you haven’t—”
“I’ve turned my phone of specifically because of Bart,” Herod snapped. He remembered himself and pulled his hand away from Enoch’s. “Lorna, this is Enoch Grange. He owns Potter’s Field. Mr. Grange, Lorna.”
Lorna gave Enoch a rather pained smile and extended her hand. “Oh! What a pleasure…”
That voice. The actress who guided Miss Clara.
Enoch took her hand warmly and clasped it in both of his. “You’re from House in the Wastes!”
Lorna’s smile took on a positively rictus expression of discomfort and she shook his hand once before he released her. “Yes, um, we are…”
“You play the demonically possessed woman, correct? You’ve given our poor Clark nightmares, young lady, and I must commend you on your work.”
“Oh! Thank you. Um, I couldn’t ask for a better victim…”
Enoch turned his attention to the lovely Mr. Blackwell, who had managed to become even more handsome in the face of this fascinating additional information. “And you must be the Beast! I thought I’d recognized your voice.”
The tips of Mr. Blackwell’s ears were red. “Yes,” he said.
“You really do some incredible work,” Enoch said warmly. “I’m so flattered to have been allowed to participate in your particular performance twice. The young man—Wirt, I think?—led me to understand that some of the decision-making is performer preference…”
Mr. Blackwell turned pink.
“Partially that and partially convenience,” Mr. Blackwell said rapidly. “Next time you’ll be with someone else.”
“Well, things are picking up a little here, now that it’s October, but I do hope I can get out to visit you folks again this year…”
“I meant for next year, of course!” Mr. Blackwell replied sharply. “Of course you won’t be back this year. As far as this last time was concerned, the other acts were more tame and Lorna was busy, so I took you on just to make sure that your experience was completely satisfactory.”
Enoch chuckled. “I’d say it was more than satisfactory, yes. I thoroughly enjoyed myself — I hope I make an equally pleasing victim?”
“You don’t scare easily,” Mr. Blackwell replied. Enoch had no idea if that was a compliment or not, but he grinned as if it were.
“Touch Me Thursday is an innovation. Absolutely thrilling. Getting grabbed on the shoulders or groped on the leg adds a whole new dimension to the experience.”
Mr. Blackwell assumed an expression just this side of terror before pulling out his phone and turning it on.
“Excuse me. I need to see what my employee needs,” he mumbled, hurrying away and leaving Enoch with Lorna.
Enoch glanced at the girl, trying to see if there were any clues to what he must’ve said to embarrass Mr. Blackwell in front of the damsel, but she was looking after Mr. Blackwell with a similarly flummoxed expression. That was a little reassuring, he supposed.
The girl looked at Enoch with a small smile. “This is the busy season. He’s a little tightly wound, I think, and after all we’re in enemy territory.”
Enoch quirked an incredulous smile at her.
Lorna’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God. Forget I said that.”
“I certainly won’t. Enemy territory?”
Lorna moaned quietly. “Okay, so…oh my god, this is so stupid. Okay. You’re the only other game in town and even though you do a totally different thing we end up getting compared with you. But at least you stayed on your side, you know?”
“I suppose I do, yes,” Enoch said, trying not to grin outright.
“So when you took Scariest Attraction, he kind of swore, y’know, unholy vengeance on you and that’s why he’s been coming out here lately, because he wants to see what makes you guys hot shi- stuff. He did the hayride once and now he’s dragging me back because he wants me to see what it looks like, and now he’s going to act uptight and weird about everything.”
“Oh dear. The poor fellow,” Enoch said, peering past the girl to where Mr. Blackwell was pacing six steps up and six steps back, a gaunt and tensed shadow leaning into the phone at his ear.
“Plus, no one’s really comfortable to discover they’ve been groping all over their business competitor,” Lorna winced. “Especially when he’s always Mr. No-Lorna-We-Don’t-Lower-Ourselves-To-Acknowledge-Horror-In-Human-Sexuality. I imagine he’s feeling a little embarrassed to discover he’s violating his own principles.”
“Oh, he needn’t be,” Enoch mused, eyeballing his “competitor”—for lack of a better word. “After all, I returned the favor.”
***
Enoch was on the RIP list, again, on a Thursday.
Herod was mortified. As if it weren’t enough that his competitor had seen him twice at an attraction he had ever before disdained; as if it weren’t enough that his competitor had seen him adopt desperate measures; as if it weren’t enough that his competitor had knowingly let Herod make a fool of himself on several separate occasions — the man had the nerve to be handsome, friendly, and absolutely terrifying! Herod had been so shameless, and the damned man had let him do it!
This was why the audience and performer could never go off-script. Improvisation didn’t work, in situations like this. If you took away the suspension of disbelief there was nothing left but a pervert pawing at a paying customer in the dark, spouting breathless nonsense. The only mercy in the situation was that at least his competitor didn’t have any insight into the psychological details of Herod’s mental boudoir.
He’d always known that rule was a good one.
In any event, what little was left of the illusion had to be preserved at all costs, and to that end it was Lorna’s turn to take him.
“Have you seen him?” Lorna demanded. “He’s enormous! I’ll have no leverage. I won’t be able to reach his shoulders.”
“I’ll do it,” said Bart.
“Absolutely not,” Herod said to Bart. “He’s got expectations from us and I won’t give him an inferior performance, not when he actually knows what to look for out of a respectable haunt. He needs to plateau. Lorna, it must be you. Adelaide’s even smaller than you and the hag routine doesn’t play so well for men of a certain age.”
“I can do it,” Bart insisted.
“Go scratch in your dirt, Bart!” Herod snapped. “Get out of this meeting and go dust something!”
Bart stumped away. Good riddance.
“Didn’t you plan for the possibility of a three-peat visitor?” Lorna asked.
“Of course! They just get the same routine over. But we’ve never had a real connoisseur return thrice in one year! Most of them are busy going to all the haunts they can find before the season ends. They can’t bother with the same house over and over again.”
“Apparently this one can.”
“Take him.”
“No way. He won’t get any kind of good scare out of me. I don’t disorient people as well as you do, and that’s the key to scaring a man that size. You can’t give him to Bart, obviously…”
“I’d rather bar him admission, if it came to that.”
“Well, Adelaide might do all right. Oh. But I guess we can’t use Greg for him, because he knows that twist.”
Herod pulled his eyeglasses off and rubbed his nose. “It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”
“Well, is it worse for a competitor to have what you consider to be an inferior experience—”
“Don’t you dare get subjective. You’ve seen Bart’s act. It’s barely passable!”
“—or to think we’re a one-trick pony?”
“They’re the one-trick pony,” Herod replied. “Implied ritual murder, please. It’s all theoretical. Too theoretical! There aren’t any emotional stakes. How can anyone be expected to ground a personal connection in that, if it’s so—”
Herod cut himself off and felt his eyes widen. Oh. That was a hell of an idea. Well, and why not? The illusion was already shattered. They’d just invert it.
Herod sprang to his feet, brushed past a startled, curious Lorna, and shoved his glasses onto his face. He seized the door frame of his office and roared into the hall.
“Bart! Get in here!”
***
His confirmation email told him he was going to be in one of the last groups of the night, if not the very last.
So he’d have the place to himself, or nearly. Splendid.
The flaming gorilla peeled off the strangers in his group and led him toward the attic. Enoch almost bounced up the steps. How extremely thrilling! Another interview with his charming competitor, this time knowing precisely who he was and the full significance of still drawing Enoch towards him.
He could only read it as a mark of preference, and his heart swelled at the thought. There were no two ways to understand own Enoch’s admiration; he was down more than a hundred dollars at this attraction and it wasn’t even mid-October. So his overtures were being recognized and received positively — bliss.
He stepped into the Beast’s lair and peered around, eager for the sight of any pretty glowing eyes. The air was frigid and something in the walls made his skin pulsate, and he tried not to hold his breath.
Someone touched his calf and slid up to the back of his knee. Enoch jumped, reflexively darting away. He heard a soft laugh and found himself with a pair of arms draped over his shoulders.
The eyes opened in front of his face. Enoch balled his hands into fists in a desperate bid to stop himself from reaching out and holding his haunter’s hips.
“Three in a row,” murmured Mr. Blackwell — ah, but he really was the Beast, wasn’t he? “You must learn to control yourself. People are going to talk.”
“And what do you suppose they’ll say?” Enoch asked, shivering.
“You must get some sick pleasure out of this,” the Beast replied. “Something that draws you back every time. You want to stand in this room and feel your blood freeze as I run my hands all over you. So much for wholesome harvest fun.”
Enoch swallowed thickly. “Is that your theory?”
“What else could it be?” the Beast asked, as the arms slid back and a pair of freezing hands ran down Enoch’s chest, strong, spidery fingers spreading. “What else would possess you to come find me in the dark, week after week? Unless it’s just professional spite, and you want to watch your rival work for you…”
Enoch made none of the range of pathetic sounds he easily could’ve emitted. That was a show of great strength. “I admire you as an artist, I assure you.”
Another soft laugh. “Yes, as an artist. That must be it…and you admire it so much, you want to hide up here with me.”
A cold hand cupped Enoch’s jaw as the other hand shifted to brush his shoulder, the eyes leaning even closer.
Enoch shuddered and squeezed his fists.
“You want to stay here,” the Beast hummed, “curl up in the dark, and die. Hm? And for a few seconds of pretending, you’re willing to let me pet you to death. Let me get my fill of you and then throw you out with the rest of the trash, if I want.”
The trapdoor opened further away in the room and belched a spout of flame. Harmlessly away from the prop, Enoch tried to catch sight of the master of the house in the harsh white light, but all he got was the impression of the white eyes in a featureless, jet-black face.
“Not tonight, though,” the Beast said, cupping the back of Enoch’s neck. “I don’t think I want you anywhere but right here.”
Enoch tensed with the strain of not touching back. He swallowed and tried to breathe despite the pounding cold and his mounting arousal.
The Beast pressed so close that Enoch couldn’t see his eyes anymore, and purred in his ear. “Right beside me.”
The attic door slammed open and Enoch jumped, turning to squint at the door. Light from the hall flooded in and the Beast let out a noise of pain, jerking away from Enoch and covering his eyes with his hands.
“Augh! What the—” Mr. Blackwell tried to see through slitted eyes. “Bart, you son of a bitch! Close the fucking door and get out!”
“No,” the old man from the haunted wood scene grunted.
Mr. Blackwell snarled. “I said, see yourself out, Bart. You’re fired.”
Bart only muttered and tightened his grip around the axe handle.
“I apologize for this,” Mr. Blackwell said to Enoch, sounding mortified. “Obviously, we’ll get you another ticket and do another experience for you.”
“Hm,” Enoch said, unsure. Surely this was a trick?
“I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had this happen before.”
Enoch peered at him for a moment or two, but decided that Mr. Blackwell was being sincere. “I appreciate it. Perhaps you can show me the emergency exit? I’d rather not spoil the rest of the atmosphere for myself.”
“Of course. It’s right this way.” Mr. Blackwell led him to a door at the back of the attic, illuminated by the light from the hall. He opened it and held it for Enoch, revealing a well-lit, clean staircase to the second floor. “After you.”
Enoch took a step forward.
Thwack.
Mr. Blackwell let out a harsh gasp.
Enoch turned around with an incredulous smile on his face in time to catch Mr. Blackwell as he fell against his chest. The man clutched at his shirt, and that was awfully nice, but wasn’t this all a little over the top?
“W-What?” Mr. Blackwell mewled. “Bart—”
Bart stood behind him and reached out for the axe imbedded in Mr. Blackwell’s back. He wrenched it back with a jerk, and Mr. Blackwell gave another raking gasp as his body responded to the pull. He clawed at Enoch as Bart put a foot on his back and beat him to the ground so hard he bounced.
The second blow fell, and the axe made a wet, sickening crack as something hot sprayed up at Enoch’s trousers.
Mr. Blackwell screamed. For a terrifying moment, Enoch thought he might actually be witnessing something real. He stared, uncertain, unable to move.
Mr. Blackwell reached out with shaking hands and grabbed his ankles. “S-Stop him. S-Stop him! You c-c-can’t just watch!”
Enoch smiled nervously, uncertain. He looked up at Bart.
Bart looked back at him. He didn’t smile, but he winked one eye. Enoch’s blood froze as Bart picked the axe up for a third blow.
“This isn’t the act!” Mr. Blackwell sobbed.
The axe struck him one last time in the back with a noise Enoch knew he’d never forget. Mr. Blackwell went limp, dropping his grip on Enoch and whimpering as Bart pulled the axe out again.
“Come on,” Bart said to Enoch. He reached for the knob and nonchalantly clicked the lock from the inside. “I’ll show you out.”
Enoch swallowed thickly and followed, even as he stared at Mr. Blackwell, motionless on the floor. Bart pulled the emergency route door wider and let the light flood the room.
In the yellow light of the hall, Enoch could see the red ooze dripping off the edge of the heavy-looking axe, and the dark wetness dampening Mr. Blackwell’s fur coat. His knees trembled a little as he moved to follow Bart.
Mr. Blackwell whined so softly.
“Don’t leave,” Mr. Blackwell gurgled. He reached a shaking hand out towards Enoch as Enoch stepped away. “Please don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me like this. Please—”
“Move,” Bart said to Enoch, not unkindly. He gestured with the axe. “Ride’s over. Come on.”
Enoch let Bart close the door on the attic room and slowly followed him down the steps. Halfway down the flight, he heard a soft knocking on the upstairs door and a voice wetly choking, “Lorna. Lorna! Lorna!”
“He, ah, really gives it his all,” Enoch murmured, trying to dispel the tension.
Bart didn’t answer. Enoch did not find that comforting, but then, Bart was a professional when it came to making making people uncomfortable.
Mr. Blackwell went silent above them. The quiet lanced into Enoch’s soul.
They walked down to the first floor and towards the front foyer. The house was quiet and lit up from the ceiling, allowing plenty of light to be shed on all the details and splendor of the rooms usually submerged in darkness. House in the Wastes really was a labor of love, and a splendid one — but the light did not help to soothe Enoch’s troubled soul. It was strange and terrible to see such a carefully crafted universe dragged into clinical light.
That had been an act, hadn’t it? It had to be an act.
But if Enoch ever wanted to kill someone, witness or not…
“Good night,” Bart said, as he opened the front door for Enoch to leave. No one ever left through the front door.
“Yes, good night,” Enoch said. He fixed a smile on his face and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t suppose I might thank the master of the house for such a virtuoso performance?”
“You’re welcome,” Bart said with a thin little smile.
“Ha ha, yes. I mean, Mr. Blackwell.”
Bart peered at him for a few seconds. “Maybe in a few days. Wouldn’t want to spoil the illusion.”
That axe dripped some very red ooze. Mr. Blackwell was always insistent on keeping a bloodless home.
“I’d really like to see him now,” Enoch said. He made himself laugh, as embarrassed as he wished he could feel. “I have to admit you’ve really given me a fright. It would reassure me.”
“Oh, that’s very flattering,” Bart said flatly. “That might be what he always wanted. Step outside for a minute. I’ll see if he can give you a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Enoch said, and passed through the doorway. Bart left it standing ajar, which did a lot to bolster Enoch’s courage.
A few minutes passed and the lights in the house went down. It was past midnight now, and the queue of customers was gone, but surely the house wasn’t completely closed just yet. The boy who ran the ticket desk did not appear to be at his post or anywhere nearby, and none of the other actors emerged, but presently Bart came back with no expression shifting his craggy face.
“He’s very busy,” Bart said. “Can’t see you. And we’re closed now.”
“But—”
“Good night,” Bart said, and closed the door in Enoch’s face.
Enoch heard the bolts shoot into place and felt sick to his stomach.
Oh, God. And he’d left the poor man there—
Enoch hammered on the door with his fist and yelled, but no one answered him. He tried to stay calm, reaching for his own cell phone. No one would ever believe him, if he reported that a man had just been killed at a haunted house, but what else could he possibly do? He couldn’t just let this happen!
He stood, gripped with indecision for a few terrible seconds, before he heard a sharp whistle from above. He stumbled off the porch and down the steps, and looked up at the roof of the house.
Mr. Blackwell, antlers and all, was sitting on the windowsill with one leg kicking slowly in the air. He was backlit by the light of the attic and despite having no discernable features, was looking supremely pleased with himself. He gave Enoch a coy little wave, wriggling his long fingers, and Enoch thought he caught sight of Lorna in the room with him.
He almost dropped to his knees with relief.
“That cannot possibly be safe,” he called up, still shaking a little. “What if you were really attacked?”
Mr. Blackwell let out a delighted bark of a noise.
“Don’t judge us on our safety precautions sight unseen,” he called down. “We’re more than adequately set up for an actual incident, I can assure you.”
“You broke your blood rule for me,” Enoch grinned. “I’m flattered.”
Mr. Blackwell shrugged his lissome shoulders and lounged in the window. “Anything for my best customer. Don’t you think Bart makes an excellent murderer? He’s found his niche, at last. I thought I’d never see the day.”
“My compliments to the butcher.”
Mr. Blackwell laughed again and began to draw himself, spiderlike, back into the room. “Don’t come back.”
“You couldn’t keep me away, now,” Enoch replied.
“I mean it. Stay away until next year.”
“Oh, rather pull my heart out, but let me return!”
“Don’t tempt me. I might take you up on it.”
“Thank you. This was horrific.”
Mr. Blackwell actually blew him a kiss. Enoch was rather surprised, but apparently not as surprised as Mr. Blackwell himself. He quickly closed the window and drew the curtains, disappearing again into the house.
Lorna gave Enoch a little wave out of one of the other windows before that one, too, was covered.
Enoch stood in the dark waiting area and grinned to himself a little.
God, but they knew their business.
***
“Beatrice is one of the birds, tonight!” Lorna gushed, and apparently that was sufficient cause to justify dragging Herod out on his only off-night in nine days and installing him by the cider tent at Potter’s Field. He had some suspicions that this was a conspiracy of some description, but to what end he couldn’t possibly say.
He was just hoping that Enoch would be sufficiently busy that Herod’s presence would go unnoticed. The entire problem, of course, was that he didn’t dislike the man. Not at all. But it was one thing, to fondle a man with his implicit permission while playing a role—indeed, it was one thing to go so far as to terrify him with one’s own gruesome murder—but it was quite another to have to face up to the play acting in the broad light of evening.
Maybe he could just dodge attention all evening, have a discreet ride in the hay cart, and go back to his own haunt, where he knew who he was (and who he was was master of his own domain) and more importantly there weren’t any handsome business rivals for him to torment himself with.
Blowing a kiss. He should be whipped.
Hindsight being what it was, Touch Me Thursday was an entirely terrible idea. Perhaps wasn’t too bad in the general way, because he certainly didn’t permit all of his customers to the dubious honor of the attention he bestowed on Enoch, but now that he’d begun it and the money had proved so good, he wasn’t going to be able to stop it. And he was very likely to begin to crave a yearly handful of Mr. Grange, and that would have to go unsatisfied. He couldn’t drag the man up to the attic for at least three years, now. If Herod wanted to preserve any of his dignity, he was going to have to let the others have a whack at him.
But it was a distasteful idea, that of Enoch’s shoulders being seized and stroked by Adelaide’s bony little hands. Or worse, by Bart’s.
It was the kind of thing that chilled a man’s soul.
Herod stood by the cider tent, quietly getting soused before sunset and doing his best chimney impression. As he glanced up again from crushing out his cigarette, he caught sight of Enoch beside him and nearly leapt out of his skin.
Enoch’s eyebrows rose and he unzipped a mouthful of good, white teeth. “Hm. Is the shoe finally on the other foot, as regards giving each other frights, or should you just consider a switch to decaf?”
“If those are the options, I imagine you may think whatever pleases you,” Herod shot back.
“My, my. That is a very enticing invitation,” Enoch murmured low.
Oh, God. He was being teased.
He would not be made ashamed of himself. Not in front of a competitor. No more.
“And how will you take advantage of it?” Herod asked.
“Well, that very much depends on how much the things that it pleases me to think may translate into real substance. Assuming I can bend reality such that it reflects more perfectly my own desired vision…”
Herod stared him down.
“You would come along and help me scare some schoolchildren out of their wits,” Enoch said.
Herod stared him down some more. “What.”
“Yes. Short of approximating in every possible particular those few moments before your employee ‘interrupted’ your performance last week, I think I’d be most pleased by having your assistance this evening during the hayride. It gets a little dull, when I’m all by myself. And you’d add a tasty new dimension to the experience, I’m certain.”
Herod found himself just barely shy of grinning like an infatuated idiot. “Oh. Well, I’m…afraid I don’t have my antlers with me…”
“That’s all right. We can think of something else to do with you. And anyway, we really are still geared toward families, so I don’t see any reason for us to try budge in on your pronounced ability to make people horny.”
Herod hissed a small, embarrassed laugh at the pun, bawdy as it was, and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well, have you ever done any experiments with the acoustics? That barn is ripe for a hair-raising whisper or two.”
Enoch waved a hand towards the cornfields. “Won’t you step into my office, and we can discuss it all in depth?”
Herod allowed himself to be steered by the hand that ghosted over his lower back. “I didn’t realize you were looking for a collaborator. I’d really thought the young lady…”
“Oh, no, nothing of the kind,” Enoch replied. “No, aside, of course, from my own, I really only have eyes for one monster. And you were very right a few nights ago. I’d love to see you work.”
“Well, let’s make sure you get to see it often,” Herod murmured, and slipped into the corn with his newfound colleague.