Page 41 of Death is My BFF

What is happening?

I couldn’t remember how I’d entered this room or how much time had passed. My thoughts jumped to the boy first as I hurried myself up to my feet in a dizzy panic. Where was he?

David. I recalled him sitting at the picnic table, unable to move.

Was he okay? I remembered falling and tilted my head up at the closed ceiling above me. Had I hurt myself and dreamt it all? My hand pressed against the back of my head and there was no trace of blood.

Whimsical music erupted in crackles from cheap speakers and the tilted, crooked floor violently shook. As I fell into a wider stance, I glanced up at a piece of metal in front of me. There, in the reflective surface, the clown stood over my shoulder.

A grin stretched across his mouth, baring a mouthful of bloody fangs.

My heart exploded in my chest.

I took off, hurtling through rockets of compressed air into another disorienting room. Everything was black and white; strobe lights flashed across the walls and floor.

Suddenly the clown appeared out of nowhere and leapt into my space. I shrieked. The frightening figure towered over me, backing me into a wall. He wore a black-and-white checkered outfit with a bell dangling around his neck.

As I stood frozen, trembling, trapped, taking in the dreadful sight of one of my worst fears, a snakelike tongue lolled out of the clown’s wicked mouth, grazing at my cheek. “I can taste your fear,” he whispered.

This time, when he grinned, I noticed how all his teeth were sharp, and how his black-and-white makeup altered, lining up differently, like a skeleton.

Death.

A moment of bravery overcame my body as I shoved him away and hightailed it toward an exit. Entering a hallway with optical illusions on the floor, the walls grew tighter, closing in as adrenaline propelled me faster. I came to an impossibly small opening at the end and panicked. I was terrified of tight spaces, to the point where I always kept my bedroom door cracked open at night. With no other way out, I stole a look over my shoulder. The wicked clown stood at the end of the hallway with outstretched arms, white-gloved hands pressed against either wall, watching his prey with no escape.

I turned sideways and shuffled against the tightening space ahead, casting one last look over my shoulder. The clown was rapidly approaching now, his gloved fingers dragging against the walls, his feet no longer touching the ground. His head tilted down with a menacing grin, humming like a psychopath to the screwy carnival music.

“Don’t you want to play, Faith?” the clown purred.

“Stay away from me!” I stumbled back as his hand reached out, my back hitting the end of the hall. This was it. With no way out, I closed my eyes tight and pushed my back against the wall, which gave way behind me. A small dark opening had appeared in the wall, too small for the huge clown to follow. I dove into it and crawled fast against polished hardwood, the ground growing slick with some sort of warm liquid. I lost my grip as the ground tilted forward.

My throat unleashed a shriek. Rapidly sliding face-first down a long tunnel, my limbs crashed and slammed into crooked turns before I was dumped into a ball pit.

I clutched my head as I rose from the rainbow assortment of plastic balls, the room dizzying with flashing lights. When I looked down at my hands, they were stained red with blood. Before I could register if it was mine or someone else’s, something touched my ankle in the ball pit. Screaming and sobbing at this point, I hurried from the ball pit and hoisted myself onto a ledge, stumbling toward a neon-red sign over a door that read exit.

Bursting through the doorway, a labyrinth of mirrors stretched out and the whimsical music intensified. The sound of feet pounding against the ground reverberated off the walls, as if I was being pursued from all directions, forcing me through a certain route with more constricted passageways and distorted mirrors. After what seemed like an eternity of cruel pandemonium, I came to a dead end.

I turned my head and caught my reflection in multiple glass panes.

There was no visible pathway, and the way I came from had closed up as if it were never there. I frantically paced the perimeter of the room, feeling around for another hidden door. My fingers climbed up to my throat as I backpedaled to the center of the room.

“Wake up,” I pleaded. “Please, wake up. Just wake up!”

“Happy belated.”

I whirled around and there he was.Death. Fear trapped me in a little cage. He wore the same obsidian riding cloak with a draping hood concealing his features. He was much larger than I remembered—if that was even possible—built like a linebacker. I was left with no room to run. No room to scream. No room to breathe.

“I said I would deal with you later.” The deep rumble of his voice was as silky as luxurious velveteen, lilted with that rich, unmarked accent. “It’s later.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“You’re not that bright, are you?” He loomed over me, as if he were about to whoosh me away. The faint smell of cherries fanned my face. “I’m here to collect.”

Swallowing hard, I shrank back, which drew my attention to the cold silver chain that shifted at my throat.My cross.

“Burn, asshole!” I unclasped my necklace and held it out between us. “The power of Christ compels you!”

Death’s hooded head dipped down to my hand. The tiny space between us shrank down to nothing. “The power of Christ bores me.”