He was her worst nightmare, and he was coming right at her. In the dark, dusty old hallway, Cass could only make out his silhouette–long, ragged coat, some sort of head collar, and huge hands––but it was enough to scare the living bejeezus out of her. And he was marching toward her. That is, if you can call it marching with one leg lagging behind.
Monstrous hands reached for her.
She tried to run but there was no room. She ended up trapped in a corner, sandwiched between grimy, half-rotten walls and the charging beast, trembling, sweating, anticipating her last breath. Seriously, why had she come here anyway? It’s not like she didn’t know bad things would happen. Very bad things. Awful things, now so close that in a moment, they would be touching her. Strangling her, probably. Cass let out a loud cry for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
Closer still, her world spun a hundred and eighty degrees. She looked into his eyes and saw a sparkle. Her fear vanished like red wine stains exposed to soda water. All of a sudden, she wasn’t a bit afraid anymore. Instead, she . . . wanted him. With his hands frozen in the air inches away from her, his eyes fixed on hers, and the leg now straight under him, she told herself he felt it too. He pointed to a filthy prison door on the right and tilted his head to the side, inquiringly. Cass couldn’t believe it. They were totally connecting.
Her heart pounding, she followed the monster with the lagging leg through the door. He barely had time to shut it before they were all over each other.
They did it in the dungeon––long, yellowing teeth ripping her shirt apart, hairy monster hands cupping her cosmetically enhanced C-cups. Filthy black nails massacred her skirt, and his face left traces of brown and gray on her perfectly toned belly. Cobwebs fell in her face as she came, making her scream, but that was OK. They were, after all, in a haunted house.
Afterwards, he nibbled on her neck.
“Honey, that was wonderful,” he said, his voice weird and slurry from the enormous amount of plastic in his mouth.
She nodded.
“Sure, yeah, fantastic. Would’ve been even better if you hadn’t torn my clothes into tatters. How am I supposed to get outta here?”
He smiled. At least she thought so; it was hard to tell with the amount of makeup and dentures involved. Then he took a couple of steps across the cell––not limping this time––and retrieved something from a corner.
“Here,” he said, although it sounded more like “er.”
Cass stared at the piece of ragged brown textile in his hand.
“Excuse me?”
He shook it a bit.
“Wear it.” (weajit)
She kept staring, at his face now.
“Dude! We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
He did that peculiar, kind of smiley face again.
“To get out,” he clarified (togeyoo). He pulled something out from underneath her. “This too.”
Stunned, she recognized that it was body paint, in a variety of colors.
“You want me to . . . haunt people?”
He nodded.
She hesitated for a second.
“But––“
“It’ll work. I promise.”
In that moment, she realized something.
“This isn’t your first time, is it?”
He shook his head, a motion that sent one of his long, yellowing dentures flying across the cell.
“Damn,” he added. Then he turned his attention back to her. “No, I mean yes, but you were fantastic. Come back anytime you want!”
She frowned, smiled, and frowned again.
“Thanks, I guess.”
He painted her old and gray, added wrinkles to her smooth, one-glycolic-peel-per-week face, hid her ample chest in a beaten old coat, and––much to her despair––finished the transformation by slapping thick, brown paint onto her Beverly Feldman leopard pumps. Then he stepped back, surveyed her, and nodded approvingly.
“This will work. Now, follow me. I’ll take you back to the trail. Just keep charging at people on your way out. Tell the security guy you’re taking your break.”
She nodded and swallowed.
“This is it?”
“This is it.”
Walking past the security guard, she thought to herself that forty-five bucks might have been a huge stack of cash for a haunted house but, mind you, it was so worth it.
