Page 12 of Fish and Chip

“Come on,” I tell Fish and Chip. “Let’s go find them.”

He said he wanted to have a talk with his mother, and truth be told, it’s so loud out here I can hardly hear myself think. I bet I know exactly where they went.

We drift toward the back area of the Haunted Mansion, the section marked Staff Only with nothing more than a converted slippery-when-wet sign. Not that anyone can read what it says with all the ground fog we’re pumping into the area. Although, if people can still find the churros, I figure we’re operating within acceptable safety margins.

I step beyond the sign, squinting into the mist, and my foot catches on something.

A yelp escapes me as I toss up my hands, sending the cats into the night sky as I start a little space travel of my own.

Chip goes flying toward the moon, a pumpkin in low orbit.

This is not how pumpkins travel! he yowls.

Fish tumbles gracefully and lands on her feet. Amateurs.

And I face-plant into the makeshift cemetery that wraps around the mansion, landing hard on something round and soft.

I inch up on my elbows and find myself face-to-face with what looks like a mummified corpse sporting a swath of silver-white hair, a little too much lipstick, and a face the color of a tombstone.

“Geez,” I cry out as I struggle to get off the thing. “Ow,” I grunt, pushing myself up. “Okay, this has to be the most disturbingly realistic dummy in the entire park. It looks as if it just crawled out of a grave and has complaints about the accommodations.”

That’s exactly what you want this time of year. Fish traipses on over. I say you give whoever made her a raise. The woman looks as if she could scare the crypt keeper!

You’re not kidding, Chip growls at the menace. I just lost my appetite. And that’s saying something.

I poke the figure—a woman with wiry white hair, dressed as a witch, her glittery hat blown a few feet away while silver raven earrings catch the light.

Huh. Somebody went all out on the details.

I slap the faux corpse across the face and marvel at how lifelike it feels. “Seriously, guys, this is impressive.”

The right side of the dummy’s face is streaked with red, and its eyes sit slightly open, staring up at the fog-drenched sky. That extra-creepy touch only a brilliant, twisted staff like mine could dream up.

“You know, she’s got a face that says I was a jerk in this life, and I’ve got big plans to be one in the next.” I offer up another slap and laugh. “She feels so real! Like, freakishly real!”

“What are you doing?” a voice cries from behind, and I spin around to find Delora speeding this way with horror etched across her face.

“Just testing out the dummy prop,” I say. “I gave her a few more quick slaps, and she’s holding up pretty well. Your staff really outdid themselves.” I give her a look as I work myself up to a sitting position. “Seeing as you own the park now and all.”

Delora gets close to the figure and squints before gasping so hard I think she just inhaled six fireflies. “That’s no dummy. That’s Belladonna!”

I go still as I stare down at the body.

Sure enough, Belladonna herself lies sprawled in the fake cemetery, her pale blue eyes staring blankly at the fog-covered sky.

I guess Belladonna won’t have to worry about this hard publishing market anymore.

Belladonna Hershey is dead.

CHAPTER 3

Ascream evicts itself from me as I try to hop to my feet. It’s not until I start flailing that I notice my hands are covered with sanguine liquid, and I stare down at them.

Is that blood? And not the fake Halloween kind either. Real, honest-to-goodness, someone-is-very-dead blood.

And if it is, my hands are covered in it.

Another scream rips from me. Not a cute little gasp or a theatrical shriek for effect that we’ve been pumping through the speakers on a loop for the last six weeks. We’re talking a full-throated, glass-shattering, someone-call-911 scream that probably just traumatized half the people at this park. If nothing else, it goes with the theme.