Page 8 of Property of Bob

He glanced back at it. “Pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.”

I looked at the RV again.

“No, unfortunately, but everything I own is in there.”

His expression sobered a little. “Nobody’s touching it.”

“You can guarantee that?”

“Yeah.”

Something about the way he said it made me believe him.

I adjusted the bag on my shoulder and walked beside him.

The farther we got from the parking lot, the stranger Skull Island became. Fog machines sent white mist rolling between buildings while colored lights flashed against the trees. Music thumped somewhere ahead of us, mixed with screams, laughter, and the occasional burst of a horn from the direction of the water. People lined up outside a huge building that looked like somebody had taken an old Victorian mansion, made it slightly more crooked, then decided it needed blood smeared across the front.

I slowed.

Prime glanced over. “What?”

“Is that the haunted house?”

“Yeah.”

“Ashland owns that?”

“The club does.”

I stared at it.

A man dressed like a corpse suddenly slammed both hands against a window near the entrance, making a group of teenage girls scream.

I jumped.

Prime laughed.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He led me around the edge of the house toward a darker path that disappeared between the trees.

I stopped again.

Prime turned.

I pointed toward the path. “You want me to follow a strange biker into the dark woods on a haunted island?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear how that sounds?”

“Clubhouse is back there.”

“That’s exactly what the murderer says in the first ten minutes of a horror movie.”