Page 62 of Stay Scared

He retrieves a utility light from beneath the console and clips it to his belt.

“The maze has movable walls and redirected audio. Your route changes depending on how you move through it.”

“So you built a room that lies about where you are.”

“That was the idea.”

Owen picks up his white mask.

“You’re wearing that again?”

“Some of the local readers are keyed to it.”

“Somehow, that’s less reassuring than it was several hours ago.”

“It should.”

He fits the mask over his face. The features I watched tighten and react disappear beneath blank white material. His shoulders settle, his hands hanging loose again in the same quiet posture I remember from behind my chair at Halden.

He opens a cabinet beneath the equipment rack. Two black hoods rest inside.

“The original version starts with one of those.”

“You expected to put a hood over my head before walking me into moving walls.”

“I expected you to argue before I did.”

“You know me so well.”

“Enough to have expected several minutes of trouble.”

He closes the cabinet. “You’re keeping your sight tonight. If the maze shows us anything that shouldn’t be there, I need another person to see it.”

We leave the surveillance room through the archive. Before the door shuts, I glance back at the camera wall. The fake ride-tunnel footage continues. Mark sits inside Trailer Six watching Cade catch an uninjured Evan over and over while his sealed phone waits on the shelf behind him.

The beaked mask is gone from the carnival loop.

The maintenance passage slopes downward. Water has gathered along one side, disturbed by fresh footprints heading away from the surveillance room. The soles are narrower than Cade’s boots.

Owen crouches beside them.

“Could those be staff?”

He studies the tread. “Not staff.”

“You think they belong to him.”

“I think he has used enough routes tonight that I would rather assume they do.”

We follow them to a steel door with no attraction markings. Owen presses his mask near a black reader. A white indicator passes over it, and the lock releases.

Darkness waits beyond.

A narrow blue strip runs along the floor between padded black walls. The padding gives off the warm synthetic smell of vinyl and dust trapped where cleaning cloths can’t reach. The ceiling drops low enough that Owen has to dip his head slightly when he crosses the threshold.

Vertical seams divide the walls into movable sections.

“How much of this usually moves?”