Page 49 of Stay Scared

Owen pulls me upright. Cade replaces my hands over Evan’s dressing before the pressure disappears.

“Where the hell are you taking her?”

“Somewhere I can see what actually happened.”

The panel starts sliding shut, and Owen drags me through before it seals. I catch the raised threshold and strike my hip against a metal desk.

His hand opens immediately.

My wrist remains warm where his glove held it.

“You could have warned me.”

“The panel would have closed first.”

The surveillance room is long and narrow, with monitors covering the wall above a console crowded with keyboards and control boards. Equipment racks fill the rear corner, bundles of cable disappearing through openings cut into the concrete. Ordinary ceiling lights leave nowhere for shadows to hide.

Owen removes his mask and places it on the console. His hair is damp at the temples, and a shallow cut marks one cheek, fresh enough that blood still shines along the edge.

“What happened?”

“A service panel closed while I was inside the frame.”

“The fourth mask?”

“I never saw who triggered it.”

He turns toward the monitors. His eyes catch briefly on the torn shoulder of my jacket before returning to the screen.

“Tell me everything that happened after you left Cade’s section.”

“You were supposed to be watching.”

“I was.”

The main wall shows the amusement park from a dozen angles. The queue sits empty beneath the red bulbs. The red room appears beneath clean white light. Several corridors I already crossed look undisturbed.

A monitor near the center shows the ride tunnel. Evan stands beneath the ceiling rig in his hospital gown and mask, then drops.

Cade catches him.

The scene restarts.

Evan is upright again, and the dark stain along his side is gone.

I look toward the sealed panel. “He’s bleeding on the floor twenty feet from us.”

“I know exactly where he is.”

“Then what am I looking at?”

Owen enters a command. The image freezes with Evan suspended above the bench even though the timestamp still claims the footage is live.

“Rehearsal footage.”

He advances the clip. Cade catches Evan and lowers him, then shoves him away when the actor attacks. Evan gets back up and continues the scene. There is no blood anywhere in the recording.

Owen switches to the carnival maze. The path is empty beneath weak bulbs, warped mirrors reflecting painted walls. I never appear in the footage, and neither does Cade.