Page 52 of Kill Feed

And fucking rings.

“Yeah?” he finally answers, voice muffled.

“Where the hell are you?” I ask, keeping my tone level as I round a fake corner painted to look like peeling brick.

“Relax, man,” he says around a mouthful of something. “I found Leo and Ryan. We’re by the haunted house thing. The big one.”

“You left the tent.”

“No shit.”

I stop walking for half a second as a scare actor dressed as a zombie-fied mailman brushes past me.

“Stay at the entrance,” I say, hushing my tone. “I’ll come to you.”

“We’re literally at the front of the line,” Lucas replies. “They’re about to let us in. Just find us inside.”

“That’s not—”

He hung up. The bastard hung up.

I slip the phone back into my pocket, picking up my pace.

After exiting the makeshift alleyway and rounding a few corners and people—because why is this event so goddamn massive—the haunted house looms at the far end. It’s a sprawling structure dressed like an abandoned asylum.

The line snakes around metal barricades, dozens deep. Of course it’s the most crowded attraction on the grounds.

I move toward the front instead of the back.

A few people protest quietly as I slip past them, but I don’t break stride. I tap the laminated pass hanging from my neck and hold it up just long enough to be seen.

“Event photographer,” I state to the staff member at the gate.

He scans the badge, barely glancing at my face. “You’ll need to stay to the side. No flash.”

I nod in response, and he lifts the rope.

Inside, the noise compresses.

The haunted house is built like a throat with its narrow corridors, sagging wallpaper, and flickering bulbs that hum just loud enough to grate. The air smells damp, artificial mildew pumped through hidden vents. Fake cobwebs cling to the corners, thick white strands that snag against my jacket as I move along the wall like I was instructed.

One catches across my face. I rip it off immediately. My skin crawls from the texture and the way the synthetic cotton sticks to my fingers.

“Commitment to realism,” I mutter under my breath, brushing the strands from my shoulder.

A couple huddles a few feet ahead of me, arms wrapped around each other as they shuffle forward in hesitant steps. They giggle between short screams, unsure whether they’re scared or excited. I slide past them on the left, keeping close to the plywood wall.

A man with a fake chainsaw burst from a corner. The engine roars with faux mechanical noise. He revs it near the couple’s legs, chasing them down the hall. They shriek and bolt, almost colliding with a hanging plastic corpse.

How am I supposed to find Lucas in this shit show? I simmer in the thought as the path bends sharply. The light drops, casting the haunted house in an almost impossible abyss.

For a moment, it’s too dark to parse shapes.

I stop and raise my camera. White light explodes through the corridor, washing the room in white for a mere second. That second is enough to illuminate ram skull horns. My pulse spikes in protest.

It’s just a prop mounted to the wall. A skull bolted above a fake fireplace, decorative and hollow. Yet, a second too late to register as I have already jumped back, slamming into a couple of teens.

“Watch it!” one gasps.