Page 20 of Make Her Scream

We’ve managed to bring Ophelia to a serial killer carnival, run by five psycho brothers. Well done, us!

“Do you have a map of the carnival?” I ask hopefully.

She shakes her head.

Nearby, a twig snaps, and she whips her head around at the sound. But a brilliant, ginger-orange fox with black legs slinks by, eying us suspiciously.

She bites her lower lip. “I’ve got to go. If they find me out here, they’ll beat me.”

“Why are you helping us?” Roman asks suspiciously.

“I’ve tried to help others, too. But… you might have a chance. They mostly pick on girls. But this year, we aren’t here for long, and I guess when you asked if you could rent the place privately, they figured they’d have fun with all of you, as well as her.”

She jerks her head at Ophelia.

“Can you—” I start to ask, but she cuts me off.

“Do what you will. I won’t tell the authorities anything, but I’ve got to go. Sorry.”

She slips away, disappearing into the dark night as if she’s an apparition. Hell, maybe she is. This place fucks with your mind enough for that to be the case. But then I touch the solidity of the knife I now have hidden in my waistband and know she’s very real.

“She won’t tell.” Roman grins. “We can kill these motherfuckers, and she’s not going to say a damn word. She’s terrified of them. Probably hates them, too.”

“Why haven’t they come after us already?” I wonder. “They must have gotten out of the funhouse by now. They should be here.”

Cain shakes his head. “They know we’d head straight for the truck and find it missing. They know we have nowhere to go. They’re probably giving us time to head into the woods, to make it more of a chase for them. They outnumber us, and they don’t see us as any kind of threat.”

“Or this is all a setup,” Ophelia adds. “The girl is in on it, and she playing us as well.”

“She gave us weapons,” Cain points out.

“We can’t trust her.” Ophelia nibbles on a nail. “I just want to leave.”

What do we do? Risk the woods? Where we can be tracked by those bastards and probably quite quickly surrounded? Or stay here, go back into the carnival and fight? I know which one I prefer.

“There are two entrances.” My voice is icy calm. “Only one has cameras. They’ve seen us exit, so we can leave right now, run into the woods, and circle back. We come back in the entrance where the trash is, and they will probably be in the woods by then, looking for us. They’ll have no idea we’ve come back.”

“Then what?” Ophelia hisses the words at me.

“We find some more weapons, see if we can find any guns, or access their cameras. My guess is they’ll leave one of them here to watch the security feed as they follow us into the woods. If we get to him, take him out, then we are the ones with access to the feed.” Cain rubs his jaw and watches the three of us.

We won’t have long. They could already be heading our way, so we need to decide now.

Do we stay and fight, or do we run?

12

OPHELIA

This is madness. The guys have decided to head into the woods but then circle around and sneak back into the carnival. Back to the place where I’ve just been put through hell.

I wished they’d just run, but I understand why they don’t want to. The woods are huge, and we could be surrounded so easily, but we could be here, too, and those men know all the secrets of this cursed carnival. I bet there are other trapdoors, tunnels, and horrible places to keep people prisoner or in which to hunt them down.

All I want is a shower to wash those disgusting bastards off me, and to curl up in bed. I’m exhausted and scared. Ultimately, though, I do trust my men. The Preachers have never let me down. I know they’d lay their lives on the line for me and have in the past. So, despite my fear, I go with their plan.

I literally trust them with my life.

Malachi weaves his fingers through mine again, and the four of us slip through the trees, into the woods. It’s hard to see in the small amount of moonlight filtering through the canopy, and the ground is uneven and littered with roots and fallen branches. Cain has his cell phone, but we don’t dare use the flashlight or we’ll give away our location. The farther away we get, the quieter all the music and mechanical sounds of the funfair become. We’re leaving it behind, but it won’t be for long. We’re only entering the woods to make the brothers believe we’ve chosen to run rather than stay and fight. It’s not much of an upper hand, but it is one.