Masquerade--Chapter three
(C) Heather Farthing 2023 All rights reserved
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
“Killer clowns? How cliché can you get?”
I immediately turn red, afraid the scareactor thinks I’m insulting him.
“I don’t know, I thought Factory Farm was novel…”
Isaac’s long legs can really carry him, and despite the wheezing, the haunt slider doesn’t seem to be having any trouble, either. That stops when the oversized net shoots out of the open office door, snaring Isaac and sending him crashing to the floor, like a fallen pine tree.
“Strays!” snarls an orange tabby cat so big I think it’s a tiger. “Strays belong at the shelter!”
From the ground, a bewildered Isaac gasps, “What?”
Aiming for the eyes, I spit venom into the creature’s eyes, blinding it. The haunt slider is giving off that pepper spray smell, smashing his shovel into the creature’s skull, knocking it silly. I’m on my knees, helping the tall scareactor work his way out of the netting.
He avoids my hands as I offer to help him up, his disproportionately long limbs at angles as he makes his way to his feet. He winces, holding his ribs, which draws the haunt slider’s attention, grabbing at one of Isaac’s wrists, who just pulls away, looking down at the broken figure beneath him.
“She was getting out of makeup as I was going in,” he murmurs, nibbling his medical bracelet, long fingers dangling like old string. “What happened to her?”
“…Furry…” observes the haunt slider, gesturing at the orange and cream fur, matted with blood, trickling from the side of its head. It’s not a shirt or part of a costume, it’s real fur, growing from the skin.
“I see that,” the eyeless man growls dryly, as I get up. “How? Why?”
Dazed, the cat creature seems to be coming to, mumbling, “Aggressive humans, scheduled for euthanasia…”
The slider, immediately understanding the situation, attempts to herd the tall man with his shovel.
“Move…can’t be…helped…”
“You just dropped her with a shovel, we can’t leave her here!”
“If she’s like what’s going on upstairs,” I say, following the haunt slider, “she’s can’t be reasoned with. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Isaac demands, tearing away from the haunt slider. He rolls the cat creature, who starts hissing and yowling, even taking a limp swipe at him, into the office, locks and door and closes it.
Without another word, we keep moving, through the apparently endless tunnels of the service area. Isaac looks down at his hands, the blackened fingers hanging limply down the backs, as if they’re a puzzle he can solve.
“I just got chased by a glorified statue,” he murmurs. “My prosthetics are real…half my coworkers have gone nuts. What’s happening?”
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly.
His fingers come to life, like eels dozing in a pond suddenly disturbed by nearby prey. They move, writhe, and wriggle, each one separately, like each one is an organism to itself. They look longer than they did before, too.
“I…yeah…” he replies tentatively. “It doesn’t hurt…nothing hurts. It’s just…weird.”
“Those weren’t squibs I saw upstairs…” I say mutely. “Those soldiers were firing on people.”
The tall, eyeless man goes quiet, as if processing what I just said.
“Those are prop guns. They’re just shells. There’s nothing to fire.”
“And the dinosaur and the unicorn just turn their heads. And the cat-catcher is just wearing a furry shirt,” I grumble sullenly
.
“So on Halloween night…all the costumes and the props come to life?” Isaac laughs. “That’s…that’s a movie plot. It doesn’t happen in real life.”
I look pointedly at his hands, but then immediately feel bad, like staring at a deformity or disability, and then even worse because I start wondering if the s-shaped curve in his spine is just him or part of the costume.
The fittest population, the Master Computer made those into soldiers. He replaces parts of them with machinery, usually limbs, but I did see an otherwise good-looking one with a red diode inside an aperture, like the unicorn, and another whose lower face was just a bronze radio speaker.
The others were experiments. The promotional material did really say if it was through breeding or exposure to mutagens, or what, but they were called “mutants” and were basically a repository for whatever unhinged character design this year’s artists could manufacture.
His fingers coil on themselves, spiraling like snails until they’re at a reasonable length, and he tucks his hands inside his pockets, obviously disturbed. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Beside us, still brandishing his serrated shovel like a weapon, the Haunt slider fumes candy corn and burning leaves with an undercurrent of something like bleach. I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when Isaac turns a corner and stops.
I taste blood.
A deer has hoisted a regular human by the legs, using a rope and ladder to make a pulley, and is currently field dressing them. Stripped naked, gutted from stem to stern, organs discarded on the floor, along with some arrows.
Isaac wretches. I’m not feeling so good myself. There’s a mustard smell coming from the haunt slider, which makes my nose run and my eyes sting.
Isaac motions backward, moving silently so as not to disturb the creature. Fortunately, it’s involved in its task, and we take a different tunnel, only to be stopped once again.
One by one, half a dozen white-painted, rictus-grinning faces turn toward us. There’s a distinct feeling of “You come to the wrong neighborhood” as the clowns ready their clubs and hammers, getting up from where they were seated or leaning against walls, having evidently been readying themselves for a performance.
Isaac steps backward, one foot behind the other. The slider tightens his grip on his shovel. Isaac, his long legs making him faster, is in front of me and the slider is beside.
The first clown lunges with his hammer. Ozzy blocks it from hitting me with his shovel, spewing out bleach and pepper spray, enough to make the eyes sting and the nose run, planting a heavy, animalistic foot in the clown’s chest and sending him flying.
It’s on now.
Braining the second clown with his wrench, Isaac pulls me out of the slider’s blinding fog, using his tail around my wrist to lead me. Through blurry eyes, I see the slider, the savage way he uses his shovel, how going down on his knees or parkouring off a wall means little to him.
“Run!” the eyeless man shouts.
Chapter four
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
“Killer clowns? How cliché can you get?”
I immediately turn red, afraid the scareactor thinks I’m insulting him.
“I don’t know, I thought Factory Farm was novel…”
Isaac’s long legs can really carry him, and despite the wheezing, the haunt slider doesn’t seem to be having any trouble, either. That stops when the oversized net shoots out of the open office door, snaring Isaac and sending him crashing to the floor, like a fallen pine tree.
“Strays!” snarls an orange tabby cat so big I think it’s a tiger. “Strays belong at the shelter!”
From the ground, a bewildered Isaac gasps, “What?”
Aiming for the eyes, I spit venom into the creature’s eyes, blinding it. The haunt slider is giving off that pepper spray smell, smashing his shovel into the creature’s skull, knocking it silly. I’m on my knees, helping the tall scareactor work his way out of the netting.
He avoids my hands as I offer to help him up, his disproportionately long limbs at angles as he makes his way to his feet. He winces, holding his ribs, which draws the haunt slider’s attention, grabbing at one of Isaac’s wrists, who just pulls away, looking down at the broken figure beneath him.
“She was getting out of makeup as I was going in,” he murmurs, nibbling his medical bracelet, long fingers dangling like old string. “What happened to her?”
“…Furry…” observes the haunt slider, gesturing at the orange and cream fur, matted with blood, trickling from the side of its head. It’s not a shirt or part of a costume, it’s real fur, growing from the skin.
“I see that,” the eyeless man growls dryly, as I get up. “How? Why?”
Dazed, the cat creature seems to be coming to, mumbling, “Aggressive humans, scheduled for euthanasia…”
The slider, immediately understanding the situation, attempts to herd the tall man with his shovel.
“Move…can’t be…helped…”
“You just dropped her with a shovel, we can’t leave her here!”
“If she’s like what’s going on upstairs,” I say, following the haunt slider, “she’s can’t be reasoned with. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Isaac demands, tearing away from the haunt slider. He rolls the cat creature, who starts hissing and yowling, even taking a limp swipe at him, into the office, locks and door and closes it.
Without another word, we keep moving, through the apparently endless tunnels of the service area. Isaac looks down at his hands, the blackened fingers hanging limply down the backs, as if they’re a puzzle he can solve.
“I just got chased by a glorified statue,” he murmurs. “My prosthetics are real…half my coworkers have gone nuts. What’s happening?”
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly.
His fingers come to life, like eels dozing in a pond suddenly disturbed by nearby prey. They move, writhe, and wriggle, each one separately, like each one is an organism to itself. They look longer than they did before, too.
“I…yeah…” he replies tentatively. “It doesn’t hurt…nothing hurts. It’s just…weird.”
“Those weren’t squibs I saw upstairs…” I say mutely. “Those soldiers were firing on people.”
The tall, eyeless man goes quiet, as if processing what I just said.
“Those are prop guns. They’re just shells. There’s nothing to fire.”
“And the dinosaur and the unicorn just turn their heads. And the cat-catcher is just wearing a furry shirt,” I grumble sullenly
.
“So on Halloween night…all the costumes and the props come to life?” Isaac laughs. “That’s…that’s a movie plot. It doesn’t happen in real life.”
I look pointedly at his hands, but then immediately feel bad, like staring at a deformity or disability, and then even worse because I start wondering if the s-shaped curve in his spine is just him or part of the costume.
The fittest population, the Master Computer made those into soldiers. He replaces parts of them with machinery, usually limbs, but I did see an otherwise good-looking one with a red diode inside an aperture, like the unicorn, and another whose lower face was just a bronze radio speaker.
The others were experiments. The promotional material did really say if it was through breeding or exposure to mutagens, or what, but they were called “mutants” and were basically a repository for whatever unhinged character design this year’s artists could manufacture.
His fingers coil on themselves, spiraling like snails until they’re at a reasonable length, and he tucks his hands inside his pockets, obviously disturbed. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Beside us, still brandishing his serrated shovel like a weapon, the Haunt slider fumes candy corn and burning leaves with an undercurrent of something like bleach. I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when Isaac turns a corner and stops.
I taste blood.
A deer has hoisted a regular human by the legs, using a rope and ladder to make a pulley, and is currently field dressing them. Stripped naked, gutted from stem to stern, organs discarded on the floor, along with some arrows.
Isaac wretches. I’m not feeling so good myself. There’s a mustard smell coming from the haunt slider, which makes my nose run and my eyes sting.
Isaac motions backward, moving silently so as not to disturb the creature. Fortunately, it’s involved in its task, and we take a different tunnel, only to be stopped once again.
One by one, half a dozen white-painted, rictus-grinning faces turn toward us. There’s a distinct feeling of “You come to the wrong neighborhood” as the clowns ready their clubs and hammers, getting up from where they were seated or leaning against walls, having evidently been readying themselves for a performance.
Isaac steps backward, one foot behind the other. The slider tightens his grip on his shovel. Isaac, his long legs making him faster, is in front of me and the slider is beside.
The first clown lunges with his hammer. Ozzy blocks it from hitting me with his shovel, spewing out bleach and pepper spray, enough to make the eyes sting and the nose run, planting a heavy, animalistic foot in the clown’s chest and sending him flying.
It’s on now.
Braining the second clown with his wrench, Isaac pulls me out of the slider’s blinding fog, using his tail around my wrist to lead me. Through blurry eyes, I see the slider, the savage way he uses his shovel, how going down on his knees or parkouring off a wall means little to him.
“Run!” the eyeless man shouts.
Chapter four
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