Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish: A Halloween Romance (Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish Book 1)

  One of them, the one I hated the most, was larger than the rest and sat right on the front counter as you passed, the bottom half of her face ripped clean off. Her glassy black pupils seemed to watch you as you walked by. Sometimes I imagined I could hear her evil little voice whisper in my head when I got near, her words soft but curled somehow, cunning and sharp.

  It’s almost Halloween, Nora, she seemed to say as I walked by that night. Come and sit with us.

  I averted my eyes from those hollow depths and strode quickly past.

  My, but you look so pretty tonight, Nora.

  I exhaled as I plunged into the dark again, away from her.

  It was a short walk from the dolls to the witch’s booth. I drifted past the steaming cauldron there, admiring the strange objects on the little counter and the jars with funny shapes suspended in liquid in the back. More doll parts in the jars—creepy—but also a meatloaf that Tim had overcooked that fall and thought to put to good use. It was bloated and floating in a big container.

  We were a small operation, not like the big haunted prison two towns over, and we worked with what we could.

  Next up was the psych ward. Elle sat there behind metal bars in a strait jacket, with a face as pale as mine and a black eye. She was cross-legged and eating a sandwich.

  “Hi, Nora.”

  “Hey.”

  Elle had been working at the Shack a couple of years, too. Her mom was a psychiatrist and she played a crazed mental patient and this probably meant she had issues, but we were friends.

  “So this bonfire thing I told you about Thursday night…” she began between bites.

  “Yeah?”

  “You want to go? There’s going to be s’mores and cute guys—probably cute older guys, not underage guys like last time, sorry about that. But in case there’s no cute guys over the legal age, I figured I should have a friend to talk to. You know?”

  “Okay.” I smiled.

  “Awesome.”

  “How’re things with your mom?”

  “Eh, not awesome.” She waved her hand, but a cloud passed over her face. “She doesn’t know I’m working here again. She doesn’t get it. She thinks it’s something we need to talk about, why a nice girl like me would want to do this.”

  “Some people think it’s weird,” I said, knowing I used to be one of those people. But now that I’d gone to the dark side, I felt it, the way some people treated you like you were demented for wanting to work in a haunted house or write stories about demon incubi. I even felt it in theater class, where instead of performing a heartfelt monologue or belting out a Broadway tune, I mostly wanted to reenact a killing scene from a Cleaver Man movie. And that wouldn’t fly.

  But it was a shame, because some of the nicest people I’d met had been horror people.

  Elle shook her head. “I wish some people weren’t my mom.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It is what it is.” She took a big bite of her sandwich, and then her words muffled over the food. “But, hey, going back to cute guys…”

  A cold trickle ran down my spine, knowing what she was about to say.

  “That Brendan Forrester guy? Kind of hot. They don’t make them like they used to.”

  Before I could stop myself, I said, “He doesn’t look like he used to.”

  “Seriously?” She put down her sandwich. “Wait, you used to know him?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, I…” I looked over both my shoulders, but it was dark all around us. “We used to be in school together. Middle school. He was kind of nerdy, and it wasn’t that cool to be nerdy then, and I was kind of a bitch. I mean, more than kind of.”

  “Really? I’m trying to picture this. Did you shove him into his locker?”

  “Not exactly.” I glanced over my shoulder again, lowering my voice. I hadn’t told any of my friends this, but I suddenly needed someone to confide in. “He doesn’t know I work here. I mean, he didn’t recognize me the other night, and I—” I lowered my voice even more, and Elle leaned forward to hear, “—tweeted him late that night. Under a naughty nurse handle. We talked a little.”

  “Wow.” Elle wrapped up her sandwich. “You going to tell him who you really are?”

  “He doesn’t want to know who I am. Trust me.”

  “Okay.” Elle stood up, brushing her hands on her strait jacket. “You just might want to be honest with him, though, if you like him.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Please.”

  I walked to the zombie room after I left her. They were both girls tonight, two new-hire teenagers popping gum and playing on their phones. I nodded and kept walking. The hall narrowed, and, even though I was prepared for it, I still felt the squeeze of claustrophobia many visitors experienced there.

  I bumped into Tim beyond the mad scientist room.

  “Great job Monday night, Nora.” He centered his neon orange wig over his receding hairline. A few gray hairs peeked out. “Feel free to bring that 110% again tonight. I hear Brendan Forrester is coming back around.”

  I took a deep breath. I’d already spent the past two days fantasizing about ways I could give Brendan the VIP experience that night, most of which involved me applying my ruby lips to his mouth, his round shoulders—or the thin skin of his neck.

  That couldn’t happen. I clenched with fists until my long fake nails bit into the flesh. I had to remember the tuition bill in my bag. I had to remember what I needed to do.

  Scare him. The end.

  I backtracked through the house, walking away from the scientist’s lab, through the werewolf room, down the tilted floor of the slanted room, and finally to the vampire’s coffin. My skirt swished around my legs and I heard the crowd outside the walls, the shuffling of feet and excited conversations. The doors would open soon.

  The coffin was cheap, lined with pink satin. I stashed my bag in the corner, grabbed my fangs, and climbed in. My dress opened at the slit and my pale skin puckered into gooseflesh, but I knew once the Shack became filled with mouth-breathers, I’d heat up in no time.

  A loud cheer erupted, and I heard the rush of bodies to the entrance.

  Six minutes later, the first group arrived. I laid in my coffin until I heard them approach—and, even then, I waited a few beats before jerking open the coffin lid and scurrying out, hissing and scratching at the air with my claws.

  People were always most scared in those moments before I jumped out. It was like Brendan said: those long seconds of silent anticipation, when you knew something was going to happen but it didn’t, not then, not yet—that’s where the scare was at.

  But I still scared them plenty when I came out of the coffin, pale and wild-eyed. Unpredictable. With sharp white teeth.

  At 10:23 p.m., my phone vibrated next to me in the coffin.

  It was Elle.

  FYI Brendan Forrester coming through next.

  “Okay,” I whispered to the coffin lid. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  Another text.

  He’s alone.

  I lay there electrified. Every muscle in my body tensed, filled with condensed energy. I couldn’t wait for him to be there and I didn’t want him to come.

  Was I just excited I might be caught, that he’d find out who I really was? Was it partly that he was hot and had a zillion followers? That I’d flirted with him, and that maybe he’d seemed like he was flirting back, which would mean he probably didn’t have a girlfriend—not that it mattered, because this was nothing, just fun and games, nothing to—

  A shuffling came from nearby.

  He was there. He’d gone past the zombies. Maybe he thought one of them was his Naughty Nurse. Maybe all these neuroses, the beating of my heart, would be a moot point.

  Unable to wait, I opened the coffin lid with a bang.

  Two preteen girls yelped and grabbed onto each other, giggling.

  I let out a tea-kettle kiss. “Scram,” I rasped, channeling my disappointment into monster rage.
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  They squealed and fled toward the slanted room and the werewolves.

  I exhaled and fell back into the pink satin of the coffin, closing the lid.

  Almost immediately I heard footsteps approaching—heavier footsteps.

  A throat cleared. A man’s.

  Then all I could hear was my own breath in the coffin, sounding too quick and all too mortal.

  I raised my fingers to the cover of the coffin. I curled and slowly scratched the long nails down the underside of the lid. I needed a minute, but I had to do something, and it did create an eerie, uncomfortably grating noise in the booth.

  I muttered to myself, a whisper only I could hear. “You’re going to scare the shit out of him. Don’t be a naughty nurse. Don’t be a naughty anything. He’s not going to know who you are. You’re going to get that money.”

  I slammed open the coffin.

  Silence.

  I sat up. I looked over.

  Brendan was standing there. Alone.

  Chapter Six

  He wore a black hoodie like back at school, but it was filled out over his broad frame. His dark hair looked damp at the edges, as if he’d just come from the shower.

  At the sight of my pale face, he startled and laughed.

  They often laughed. Didn’t always mean they thought it was funny.

  “Good evening,” I said in a sweetly poisonous voice. “How good of you to join me. I was just feeling rather…thirsty.”

  I nearly cringed at the line. I sounded old-school, like some cheesy vampire from a black-and-white film. Maybe a comedy film.

  I needed a cooler strategy.

  I sidled out of the coffin and moved toward him—slowly, deliberately. “I’d run if I were you.”

  “Why?” He smiled and did that thing where he raised one eyebrow and it almost made me forget what I was doing.

  I paused. Regrouped. Took another step closer.

  “Because I’m going to get you.”

  He checked me out then, his glance sweeping downward. His smile grew wider, his blue eyes playful.

  “Switching it up tonight?”

  He’d recognized me.

  I followed his gaze to see a length of my leg peeking out of the slit in my black dress.

  I snapped my head up, my long black hair swishing.

  Startled, he met my eyes.

  “You’re doing a lot of talking for a dead man,” I purred as I walked towards him again.

  “I’ve got to say I’m impressed,” he said, but he was moving backwards, away from me. “You can really transform yourself. I mean, not just your clothes, but your voice, and—and the way you move.”

  “Still talking…”

  “It’s pretty unprecedented, for a small house like this. Those people up at the prison freak the hell out of me, but I didn’t expect this here—wait, this is coming out really pretentious.”

  I ran my nails down my throat, as if I was sharpening them.

  “You’re just…” His eyes travelled to where my nails stopped in my cleavage. “…skilled.”

  Not watching where he was going, he stumbled back through the doorway of the slanted room. “I probably wouldn’t have thought you were either of those zombies, though. I mean, neither of them broke any house regulations. I didn’t get chased and they didn’t try to grab me…”

  He was well into the room now, rising with the floor, but I stood below at the threshold.

  “Is that an invitation?” I had some fake blood on my finger, and I ran my tongue along it, pretending to lick it off.

  His eyes widened. “Just neither of them was going to do what you’re probably…” his voice trailed off as he watched me. “…about to do.”

  I stepped over the threshold and into the slanted room.

  Monday night aside, we weren’t supposed to leave our positions or travel room to room. Otherwise chaos would ensue; you’d wind up with witches and guys with chainsaws all stuffed together in one or two rooms, tripping over skeletons and falling into coffins and visitors punching us all in the face in fear.

  But I had to kick it up to eleven. The way he was talking, it was clear I’d muddied up the chance of giving him a fright, of me and the other Shack employees getting their Halloween bonus, more than I thought. He acted like I was just some girl he’d talked with online.

  I needed to make an impression before the next visitor arrived. Slice him out of his amusement.

  I dropped to the slanted floor, stretching my leg out to the side, animal-like. I emitted a low hiss as I stared up at him. Let him try to predict what I’d do next. I’d make it impossible. I ran my nails across the floor, echoing the sound he’d heard earlier.

  He’d backed up as I entered, his body almost to the far wall and his head nearly hitting the ceiling with the steep slant of the floor. He was smiling a little, but he also looked nervous being in that small, weird room, alone with me in a place I wasn’t supposed to enter. It was funny how even the horror geeks, or maybe especially the horror geeks, still had that little part of their brain that thought, Maybe this is really happening. Maybe I am alone with a monster.

  “Naughty Nurse gone vamp,” he said, trying to ground himself in reality. “So how does it feel to be a different flavor of undead?”

  I hissed louder and he closed his mouth. Making my voice low and twisted, I said, “I’m going to drain your blood.”

  “Are you now?” He spoke quicker and then let out a little shudder-laugh. “The marrow wasn’t enough for you? Aren’t you being a little bit greedy?”

  I stood up.

  His back flattened against the wall.

  I walked to him slowly, pretending to examine my sharp nails. “You aren’t going to be able to heckle me with your tongue ripped clean off.”

  “That’s probably true. But you can’t touch me,” he said. “First rule of the haunted house: startle but don’t touch.” He chuckled. “Or else there’ll be lawyers involved. So you’re probably not going to drain me.”

  “I don’t care about lawyers,” I rasped. “I don’t care about rules. I just want your blood.”

  His eyes grew bigger. Nearing him, I could see within their blue depths a ripple of fear, but something else too, something hungry.

  And he didn’t move away, even when I came so close to him that his body was inches away from mine. With the floor slant, my eyes were level with his neck. So close I could hear his breathing—coming deeper now, faster—and see a quick little pulse in his throat.

  He smelled of moonlight somehow. Like aftershave and cold air, like places you could stand in the night when everywhere else was doused in shadow.

  I never planned what happened next, I just wanted some big finish, but I leaned over and put the tips of my fangs to the skin on his neck and pressed gently. Then I slid them down his throat—slowly, very slowly.

  His breath quivered. His Adam’s apple bobbed. But still he didn’t move.

  The werewolves howled the next room over, stomping and growling, wondering what I was doing with Brendan in that weird room.

  Scaring him, I thought, but by that point even I hardly believed it.

  With a start I pulled away.

  His blue eyes were bright, lit from within, bonfires, but he didn’t seem frightened at all. A streak of red marked his neck from my lipstick.

  Suddenly ashamed, blood rushed to my face. My neck, my chest, the flesh of my thighs all flushed, while tiny pulses around my body beat wildly.

  Brendan grabbed my arms and pulled me against him. My breasts pressed against his firm torso, and the hardness below too, showing me I’d affected him in a way I’d never meant to intend.

  He touched my chin, tilting my face to look up into his own. The pupils of his eyes were dilated so much they were almost black.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  The werewolves were in the room then, growling.

  “I’m a monster,” I whispered.

  His eyebrows kni
t together.

  A throat cleared, and at the small sound I turned my head.

  An older guy stood in the door leading from the vampire lair. A visitor.

  I pushed away from Brendan. Nodded in the direction of the exit door.

  Brendan’s mouth opened to speak, but then a werewolf ran up to him, hounding him and swiping at his head, and an ear-splitting scream came two rooms over. The machine of the haunted house was churning once again and we were out of time.

  Dodging the wolf but looking back at me three, four times, Brendan walked through the door and forward through the house. Away from me.

  The old guy just stared at me, so I hissed at him until he ran. I didn’t need any more judgment than what was already broadcasting from between my ears.

  I darted back to my coffin, slamming the lid shut and not opening it to scare the next few groups of people. Let them have the fearful anticipation, I thought, but really it was that I couldn’t catch my breath. All I could think about was Brendan’s dark eyes and tall, strong body and midnight smell.

  And how I wanted to kiss him so badly. More than I wanted any Halloween bonus.

  ***

  As the Shack closed up that night, the wee hours of Thursday, I popped out my fake fangs. Peeled off my wig and stuffed it back in the closet. Wiped off my face and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I couldn’t wait to sink into my bed back home, bury myself under the clean smell of my comforter and think about Brendan. The sun would be up in a few hours, but I had no intention of seeing it rise.

  I exited through the back where Ryan was smoking, his hockey mask propped up on his head.

  “Hey, Nora.”

  “Hey. See you later.”

  “Wait.” He gestured with his cigarette. “Some guy is over there waiting for you.”

  My eyes followed and, back by the parking lot, Brendan stood talking to Tim, his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

  I gasped and dove back into the shadows of the house.

  “It’s that Brendan Forrest guy or whatever.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” I whispered. “Hey, Ryan?”

  “Yeah?” He took a drag and watched me, curious.

  “You didn’t see me, okay?”

  He looked at the guys, then back at me, and squinted. “O-kay…”

  “Thanks.” I kept watching Brendan. “I’ll cut you if you go back on your word.”