CHAPTER TEN

10

I grabbed Danny’s wrist and dragged him towards the ticket booth for the Haunted House. I looked at the booth operator and thought he was funny-looking. He had rainbow-colored hair, a huge nose, oddly pale skin, red and white vertically striped clothes, and a hat and round sunglasses, and I could barely see his eyes. It was eleven pm, so I have no idea why he was wearing sunglasses. “Two, please,” I help up my fingers making the number two.

“That’ll be fourteen dollars,” he said in a husky voice. I gave him the money and he gave me two tickets. “I’ll need you to sign this waiver, stating that ‘If you end up scraping your knee, or uh, dying, that you cannot sue.’” Danny and I looked at each other in confusion.

“Huh, I’ve never had to sign a waiver for a Haunted House before. They’re really committing to the act.” I had my eyebrow raised as we signed the papers.

The booth operator turned his head to look at me, “It’s not an act,” He eerily said, his voice had changed to an odd-sounding deep, deep voice, I swear it was like two voices were coming out of him. I stared at his sunglasses.

“C’mon Danny, let’s go in.” I take his hand and we walk into the black-painted, cobweb-covered, boarded up windows house. “Oooooh, what scary decorations you have, my dear.” I laughed.

The inside of the house was covered in fog, most likely made by a fog machine. You could hear high pitched laughter in the background, blood-curdling screams, and there were lame fake spiderwebs all over the lame, fake vampires. They looked very realistic, but I’m twenty, about to be twenty-one. I know the difference between real and fictional. I start walking through the house, said to be full of jump scares and dumb tricks bound to not fool me.

“I wouldn’t think that if I were you, dearie,” a shaky old woman’s voice said from behind me.

“What?” I quickly turned around and nothing was there. Probably some kind of sound system. I thought.

“No dearie, not a sound system.” The strange voice said from all around me.

I furrowed my brows. Is this thing reading my mind?

Nothing. Then I realized something. Where was Danny?

“Danny? Where’d you go?” I called out. This house looked endless. It looked like it didn’t even have walls, it was like I was outside. The weirdest thing was, there were trees, and I’m not talking tiny Christmas trees, tall trees, like oak trees that looked like they took over a hundred years to get like that. I could see three of them. And they all were that big, all the leaves were gone, and there were roots all throughout the house. I looked all around and saw no one. “Ha-ha Danny, very funny! You can come out now,” I said, a little freaked, but trying to conceal it. 

I heard yelling, that deep yell sounded like Danny. My eyes grew wide and I yelled out for him. “Okay Daniel, you can come out now!” I started to show my fear, panic started to creep into my lungs, making my breath faster. I had lost my best friend. The last person on this Earth that I trust, the last person on Earth I relied on to protect me. I was truly scared, my best friend was gone. I relied on him to be there when I needed to grab onto something when I got scared. “DANNY! THIS ISN’T FUNNY, COME BACK DANIEL, PLEASE!

Then I heard another scream, it still sounded like Danny. Then it was followed by, “PHOENIX! WHERE ARE YOU! HELLO?!” Then I heard him say to himself, “Where did she go?” 

“Danny? I’m right here!” I yelled out for him to hear. “Follow my voice!” 

“Brownie! HELLO?!” I kept hearing him call out.

“DANIEL! STOP PLAYING! I AM RIGHT HERE!!” 

“PHOENIX!”

I was looking right at him, I started walking towards him. “Danny, I’m right here. Stop screaming.” 

Then, I walked into something, smashing my face against it by accident. It was something invisible, I banged my fist on it. It didn’t budge. I backed up and tried a spinning kick on it, I almost broke my toe. Then I banged on it again, “Danny! I’m right here!” He continued calling out for me. “DANIEL!” I screamed and banged on the thing again. It was like very clean plexiglass, so that’s what I'm calling it. I banged on the plexiglass for the millionth time. “I’m stuck,”  I turned my back against the wall and sunk to the floor. I started to hyperventilate, “Get me out of this, please. I miss my best friend, I need him by my side,” I started rocking back and forth, whispering to myself, “Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny.”

Then all of a sudden, I fell backward. The wall was gone. And I looked up and Danny was looking down at me. “Hey, Brownie, where you been?”