You keep your cellphone up above your head, trying to both illuminate the tunnel and keep it from blowing out your night vision completely.
“Kyle…” the voice says.
“This is really stupid,” you mutter to yourself. “You don’t follow the spooky voice. That’s, like, rule number one.”
You walk until you can see what is in the tunnel, what the flashlight had picked out. It is a rough canvas sack. As you get closer, you can see USPS printed on the cloth. The ballots! you think.
You walk past the canvas bag to see further down the tunnel. The reach of the flashlight app shows nothing but more dark tunnel.
You go back and nudge the sack with your foot. It seems light to be full of mail-in ballots. You squat down and carefully open the bag. It is full of plastic doll heads, the eyes burned out, melted holes staring up at you.
“Do you like them?” the voice asks. “I named them all ‘Kyle.’”
You take the gun out of the back of your pants and make as much noise as you can chambering a round. Then you listen, ears filled with the roar of your own blood.
A child’s laugh, high and clear like breaking glass. Footsteps. A sound like paper tearing.
“I have a gun,” you say threateningly.
Footsteps.
“I have a gun,” you say again.
“Do you?” the voice asks right beside you.
You turn and pull the trigger. Click. Again. Click. You work the slide. Click.
Something looms over you and into the light of your phone. A huge hand takes the gun from your nerveless fingers and tosses it away.
“I’m Barron,” he whispers. “We should play a game.”
DO YOU go with Barron to play a game? TURN TO PAGE 85
