Page 31 of Make Her Scream

It’s Halloween, and Ophelia and Roman have just put forward their proposal to rewrite our experience.

It’s been niggling at me, too, though perhaps not for the same reasons it has these two. I have been thinking about returning to make sure the sister took care of the evidence, and that nothing has been left that would incriminate us. This is a whole other fucked up kettle of fish.

Malachi shrugs. “Could be fun.”

I raise my brow at him. “Fun? People died.”

“We didn’t,” he points out. “Only shitty men who hurt other people. We did the world a service. And if this is something Roman is struggling with, then Ophelia is right when she says we need to rewrite our ending.”

“Besides,” Mal continues, “it is Halloween. What better place to spend it than a literal murder funfair?”

I look around at the others. No one protests. It occurs to me that perhaps we are the psychopaths…

I scrub my hand across my mouth and relent. “Guess we’re spending Halloween at the murder funfair, then.”

We approach the place with far more caution than yesterday. It’s in darkness, and there’s a familiar scent of smoke on the air, with something else underlying it that I don’t want to think too hard on.

We do a quick scout of the place. There’s no sign of blood near the ticket booth, and the security office has been cleared out too.

The sister did as she’d promised, and there’s no sign of her either.

I drag the sign that I hid from Ophelia yesterday out front. We don’t want the public showing up just as we’re getting into it.

Cain takes out the guns we brought and hides them under an empty trash can back by the ticket booth. We can’t be without weapons again, but carrying them will get in the way of what we have planned. This way, we can easily double back to get them at the first hint of any trouble.

Without needing to discuss it, we head straight to the freak show tent.

Under normal circumstances, a fire wouldn’t burn hot enough to destroy bodies, but the freak show tent had been filled with jars of formaldehyde, which burns at the same kind of temperature as a crematory oven.

Sure enough, all that’s left of the freak show is a still smoldering blackened circle on the ground. We’d been lucky there was nothing else flammable nearby, and that there was no wind, so the flames hadn’t spread.

“It’s gone,” Ophelia confirms.

“Yes, it’s gone.”

“Good,” she says.

I link my fingers through hers and turn back toward the rest of the funfair. “Let’s go and find the generator.”

We won’t be able to have the place running for too long. It might catch the attention of people. Other members of the public who might have decided to pay a visit to the carnival would have arrived to find the place in darkness again and left, but if they come to find the place up and running, they might still try to get in. Families will be long gone at this time, but teenagers aren’t the best at reading and obeying signs. If any do sneak in, we can deal with them.

Not wanting to leave any evidence of us being here yesterday, we’d gathered up our masks and robes and taken them with us. Now we’ve brought them back again, so we can finish what we started.

Ophelia, understandably, didn’t want to wear her nurse’s dress again, but she’s in a long red dress, which she’s slashed up to the hip. She’d told me that she’d wanted to wear it yesterday, but hadn’t been sure how to run in it, so I’d told her to cut the skirt to make it easier for her, and I’d replace the dress with an identical new one. She always looks beautiful, but her bravery and determination make her exquisite.

We locate the generator, and Mal pulls down the large handle with a thunck.

Behind us, the fairground comes to life. Music blasts out of the numerous rides, lights flash and swirl and illuminate the night sky. Even though we know what’s happened here, it’s still hard not to find the energy of the place exciting, and I catch Ophelia grinning. Even Roman has a small smile playing about his lips.

Yes, this was the right thing to do.

We don’t need to surprise her with our masks and robes this time, so we just put them on. Once we’re all garbed up, we look back to Ophelia.

“Ready, Angel?” I ask her.

“I’m ready.”

“We’ll give you to the count of ten, and then we’re coming after you. One—” I start.