I woke up, screaming. I was sitting outside of the Toy Box and Jason was seated beside me. “You okay?”
“Yeah… Bad dream. Sorry.” I was still reeling from my nightmare-within-a-nightmare as I glanced around. Something felt off. “Where are the girls?”
“What girls?”
“THE girls… One of them being your girlfriend, Gretchen.”
“Dude, Gretchen broke up with me like a month ago. Remember? Or is this something you’re doing for your story?”
“My what?”
“The story you’re going to write about this. You’re fudging the details, which you probably should. You gonna make up some fake reason why we’re out here too? Some damsel-in-distress who needs you to investigate a derelict Halloween attraction? It’s definitely a lot better than saying your depressed friend asked you to drive three hours to see some rundown shack in the middle of the night where nothing whatsoever happened and then your friend shot himself.”
“WHAT?”
Jason slid the barrel of a handgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. I was sitting close enough that the shot left my ears ringing. I stood and slowly backed away, my gaze fixed on the crater of blood and viscera that had been my friend’s head mere moments ago, my own head ringing like a goddamn church bell from the gun going off inches from my ear. I couldn’t look away.
Finally, I forced myself to turn and look where I was going so that I could hurry up and get the fuck out of there. As I started toward the entrance I glanced back once more to give my dead friend one final glance and halted when I saw that he wasn’t there.