Page 12 of Hunting Ground

“No, no please!” the man pinned to the board sobs when he sees me take a step back. He thrashes against it, drawing the attention of the pumpkin masked hunter. “Please don’t leave! He’s going to kill me please!”

I don’t argue with that. He’s absolutely going to die, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Somehow, that realization of helplessness is what decides it for me. I open my mouth to say something, probably to apologize, but the pumpkin-masked hunter lazily picking up another dart and half turning to me has me thinking better of it. I flee with the sounds of his screams in my ears, though by the time I’ve banged open the door to the arcade, I can’t hear him anymore, though I refuse to consider whether that’s due to distance and the music playing through the speakers, or because he simply doesn’t have the ability to scream left.

“Crap,” I whisper, once I’m inside the arcade with the door shut behind me. The power in here was on before, but now the place seems somehow more alive. Like it’s drawing energy from the lights and commotion outside.

Or maybe I’m just starting to lose my mind, and that’s why the game lights look brighter and the sounds are more jarring in my skull than I remember.

Honestly, either option is a valid possibility. Wonderlight was always big on prizes. Apparently tonight’s grand prize is trauma.

My hand comes up to run through my hair, and I just barely manage to catch my ponytail elastic before it falls to the blacklight-confetti carpet below.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what I’ve done, or who I’ve done it to, and I wouldn’t know ‘my’ hunter if he–or she, I support women in male dominated fields–sauntered up in a sexy nurse outfit.

God, I don’t want to die to a sexy nurse tonight.

“Crap,” I say once more, because the sentiment bears repeating right about now. Being alone isn’t part of the plan. There’s safety in numbers, though I suppose that also makes us a bigger target. I’d at least like to find Lily.

Or Miranda. Who I could still get behind as my hero.

There are so many questions I don’t have answers to, and while I doubt all of them would help me, there are at least a few that seem relevant.

Such as how many hunters and how many victims are here tonight. If I could at least know that, then I would maybe know how to start planning–

Planning what? An unfriendly part of my brain asks sourly. A mass rescue and escape? To turn the tides and make the hunters your bitches?

That one sounds nice, but I scoff at the thought. There’s no way in hell my crowbar and I could go swinging through the ranks of masked hunters with weapons and expect to come out the other side in one piece.

Another scream splits the sky, close to the arcade this time. I’m moving before I can even consider what I’m doing, some part of me recognizing Lily’s voice in the wail.

If I can help one person, I want to help her. If I can help two people, I’d really like to find Miranda as well.

Lily screams again and the arcade door bursts open, to my surprise and relief, and I stumble back towards the alcove leading to the restrooms. The relief is short-lived, though, because there’s no way to get out of this now that the problem is in front of me. The blonde woman stumbles backward, her face dark with blood in the garish arcade lights. In the shadow of the bathroom entrance, she doesn’t see me. I’m careful, so fucking careful, not to make any noise against the grimy wall or by stepping on the bathroom signs that have come down over the years due to the disrepair.

Though with how loud the arcade is, I’m not sure if I really need to work this hard to be quiet. Voices from games challenging me to become ‘the number one hunter’, zombie sound effects, and classic pinball sounds cover all but Lily’s loud sobs and begging. She crawls back on the carpet, dragging her leg, her jeans bloody around her ankle. My stomach twists in sympathy but I don’t move.

Not yet.

The woman enters slowly. Her steps are languid and graceful, rather than rushed, like she has all day and won’t be rushed. Her long, veiled wedding gown trails behind her, the bottom of it streaked with mud and filth, though she doesn’t seem to mind. Blood splatters the front of it, though it looks black in the distorted lights of the arcade machines.

Her arms come up in front of her, clasping something much, much longer than a bridal bouquet, and my stomach turns when I see the crackle of electricity at the end of the modified cattle prod.

Lily whimpers, dragging herself back, and the bride just continues forward with those slow, measured steps.

“Oh Lily,” she sighs from behind her veil, though she wears no mask that I can see. “This isn’t where we’re going. Can’t you do anything right, my love?”

“Don’t call me that.” Lily’s voice is hoarse, but she forces herself to stand upright. “You crazy bitch, you barely know me!”

The bride pauses, her head tilting. She seems to ponder those words as she stares at Lily from behind the veil, and I hold my breath as I stay crouched less than ten feet away, my heart racing under my ribs.

If she turns to see me, I’m dead. If Lily gives me away when she sees me, I’m just as dead then too. At most, I’ll have exactly one chance to get this right.

And that’s if I’m incredibly lucky.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I creep out from the alcove, using the arcade machines as cover while Lily continues to backtrack through the arcade. The bride still goes just as slowly, so I have to take a few seconds before I feel comfortable enough crawling out into the aisle of the arcade behind her and standing up.