“I don’t know if I’d want to spend every day in my office anymore,” I admitted as Kayla began sifting through the racks of clothes. “It’s been kind of nice to get out and try new things.”
She paused with her fingers resting on the elbow pads of an old tweed jacket and I willed her not to force me to put the monstrosity on. “Kind of nice?” she mused.
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
She gave me a knowing smile and shook her head before going back to sifting through the costumes. “We have a station in that haunted house to get to in half an hour, so we have to make this quick. Do any of these speak to you?”
“Speak to me?”
“Do you want to wear any of them?”
I studied the racks of clothes. “Not particularly. You pick.”
Kayla smirked and moved to the end of the rack, where she plucked a one-piece cream-colored thing from where it hung. From the back it looked like one of those terrible one-piece pajama sets that people had started wearing. When she turned it around, I realized it was not pajamas, but a one-piece clown costume with big multicolored pom-pom buttons, a jagged striped cuff on each sleeve, and a wide striped lapel that had been splashed in fake blood.
Kayla pumped her eyebrows. “What do you think?”
“Creepy killer clown? I think I can work with that.”
Kayla turned to a chair that very much resembled that of a barber shop. It had the metal foot rest and everything, and it faced a wall of mirrors with a shelf over flowing with what appeared to be makeup products.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Let’s get you ready to scare the shit out of some kids.”
Kayla and I were assigned to a room in the haunted house that, had I been the eight-year-old version of myself, might have made me piss myself. The walls and floors were black and the lighting was poor. Mounted in the ceiling above our heads was a black light that made the fake blood on my costume seem to glow. There were no mirrors in there but Kayla and I snapped a picture of ourselves to see how we looked under the lighting, and even though I looked like the world’s most terrifying clown, I liked the picture.
I was glad we’d taken it on my phone so I could save it without having to ask her to send it to me.
Also in the room with us was a baby crib in which a deformed doll stood clinging to the bars. A soundtrack played on a loop of a baby crying while a woman hummed a haunting melody in the background.
In the far corner was a rocking chair, presumably where said humming mother would be rocking her child, and Kayla had taken up post there. She sat with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins while I stood with my back to the opposite wall, shoulders hunched, head tilted down, frozen in place.
Every time guests passed through, we’d let them see the baby. Let them creep forward toward the exit that they had to pass both of us to reach. Let them cling to each other and mutter worried whispers in each other’s ears. Let them think they were alone in the room.
When the time was right, we’d spring to life and scream bloody murder at them.
Most of the kids screamed and laughed, the thrill they were seeking granted, and took off running to the exit to meet their fate in the next section of the maze. Others, mostly the adults, had a hard time walking past Kayla and me at all. Sometimes, we’d have to sink back into our positions and stay still in order for them to muster the courage to pass us.
After an hour and a half of delightfully scaring strangers, the house closed for a half-hour break. Kayla and I stayed in our room and she fished granola bars from somewhere out of her tutu. They were almond and honey bars dipped in vanilla yogurt.
“So what do you think?” Kayla asked.
“I think I’m having more fun than I should.” I pressed my lips together. “Is that a little sadistic?”
Kayla giggled. “Maybe just a bit. But everyone here is signing up to be scared. It’s a bonding experience. People love the adrenaline rush and the thrill, and they love having someone to experience it with. Someone to cling onto. It’s kind of romantic, in a strange way, when couples come through.”
“You have a strange mind, Kayla Goodfellow. A strange mind.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
She’d been effectively scaring strangers all evening, but to me, she looked adorable. I tried to consider her costume objectively. If I hadn’t known her, would the doll ensemble be unsettling? Perhaps. But I did know her. And from where I was standing, the pigtails, red lips, pink cheeks, tutu, white stockings, and red sparkly shoes were cute not sinister.
“Have you done this before?” I asked as I leaned up against one of the walls and polished off the remaining bites of my granola bar.
Kayla shook her head. “No, I was supposed to last year but they had enough volunteers and didn’t need me, so I took the night off. It was actually very lovely.”
It was hard to imagine what Kayla was like when she wasn’t working. Like me, she was a workaholic. “How did you spend the night?”
Had she not been wearing layers of white face makeup, I might have been able to tell she was blushing. She went back to her rocking chair and sat down. “I went home and ate an entire box of Halloween candy by myself, watched
