Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I mean, that was weird. But not outside the realm of possibilities.
As were the knife cuts in his shirt.
“Hey, you have to get going… the tours are over.” My breath was caught somewhere under my ribcage as I took the last step. “Are you okay?” I asked.
There was no sound, no movement.
“Hey,” I called, voice choked as I stuck out a leg and gently poked his hip. “Hey, are you o—” I poked him again, harder this time.
His body wobbled, then fell face-forward into the ground.
“Shit,” I hissed, reaching down to grab his belt loop and pull him onto his back.
Only to wish I hadn’t done so.
His dirty face was staring up at me, open-eyed, slack-jawed, face caught in pain and terror for eternity.
Because he was dead.
And that ‘stage blood’ all over him? Those fake stab marks through his shirt? That was all real.
Because there were more wounds to his front. And one hideous gash across his throat.
A gasp caught in my own throat as I staggered back. My pulse stumbled, then started up again, my heartbeat tripping over itself.
Stabbed.
Someone had been stabbed in the woods just a couple dozen yards away from the path where a hundred people or more passed by, completely unaware. The crime was covered up by creepy sounds on speakers and genuine screams from people who paid to be terrified.
Crime.
The word became a chorus in my mind as I whipped around, sure the perpetrator might be right behind me, ready to ratchet up the body count.
My hand tightened around the handle of the shovel, the wood biting into my palms as I turned around and around until I was dizzy, my gaze scanning the tree line, looking for eyes, for the puff of breath, some sign that I wasn’t alone.
Belatedly, I reached up, flicking off my headlamp, not wanting to draw attention to myself if there was someone nearby.
If nothing else, I had the home-field advantage. No one knew the paths and woods better than I did at this point.
I couldn’t say how long I stood there, just pulse and panic, a strangling sensation closing around my throat, squeezing the air from my lungs.
At some point, though, my legs carried me back over toward the body, some part of me wanting to deny it, to look again and see that I was mistaken, that it was just a super-realistic horror decoration.
I wanted more than anything to be overreacting, to have been tricked by clever artistry and my own eyes.
The body was still lying there, staring unseeing up at the half-bare tree limbs above.
This time, the only light on him was cast down from a mostly full moon, casting him in more eerie shadows. It should have made him seem more fake, more plastic, less believable.
Somehow, though, he only looked more real to me, the light catching on a slight bit of wetness still in his mouth, the glassiness of his eyes, the imperfect, uneven eyebrows.
I carefully pushed again at his side with the tip of my boot, finding him almost immovable.
Decorations weren’t that heavy.
You had to be able to move them.
And they definitely weren’t so… squishy.
Only people felt like that.
Soft.
Springy.
Real.
A strangled cry clawed up the back of my throat but died before it reached my tongue.
I had to get out of here.
I needed to get somewhere safe.
Then call the police.
Lead them to the body.
Give a statement.
Then try to wipe the image of the poor man’s unseeing eyes from my memory.
I was just about to reach up to turn on my headlamp when there was a loud snap behind me.
Then another.
Then a crunch.
Someone was still in the woods.
With a strange, choked yelp, I flew forward, leaping over the body, and charging away from the sound, the leaves crunching and twigs snapping beneath me.
The only problem?
In my panic, I reacted like every girl in a horror movie. I lost all common sense. And flew deeper and deeper into the woods, further away from the path, from the safety of the garden center itself, and from my car.
My pulse roared in my ears as my heartbeat drummed against my ribs, desperate and wild.
My head kept swiveling over my shoulder, trying to scan for whoever had made that noise.
And that was how I ran face-first into a low-hanging tree limb.
The pain screamed through my cheekbone as a hot trickle of blood dripped down my jaw.
There was just a second that I paused, too stunned to remember why I was running.
I couldn’t hear anything over the whooshing in my ears as I tripped back into a run, this time circling back toward the path.
My chest was burning, my lungs in an ever-tightening vice grip as I forced my legs to keep pushing harder, faster.
Up ahead, I saw the edge of the path as it circled toward the garden center.
But in my desperation, I forgot about the damn ropes on the side of the path.