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In the harsh floodlights above him, it was a complete surprise that this man could see out of his eyes, let alone drive hours toward me.
Dangerous seemed like an understatement.
The wreck hadn’t been kind to him like it had been to me.
On every single available surface of his face, he had a bruise, a scab, or a cut.
Even what I could see of his arms and his hands were covered in bruises and scrapes.
Good.
He deserved to be hurting after what he’d done.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” I said as I took another step back.
He smirked, his attention going to my feet before he took another step toward me.
“I think you know what I’m talking about,” he commented. “But it really doesn’t matter to me. What matters right now is how you thought you could run from me and get away with it, Margaret.”
“Margaret?” I asked, confused now.
The name, of course, should’ve sounded familiar. It was my mother’s name, after all, but I was so hyped up on the adrenaline coursing through my veins that I didn’t give much thought to why he would call me that until he said what he said next.
Though, by that point, I’d already started running.
It was only when I’d reluctantly turned the corner into the Fun House that he spoke.
“You look just like her, you know,” he called out the moment he breached the entrance.
The overhead lights that Melinda left on until we closed down the Fun House were bright and harsh, making the glare and the mirrors seem even more severe than the last time I’d come in here.
I froze when I heard him speak, my eyes wide.
I saw my eyes widen eighteen other times in eighteen separate mirrors that bounced off the other.
“W-what are you talking about?” I called out almost worriedly.
“You. Your mother,” he replied coldly.
I swallowed hard as I watched him move closer.
Unlike my sisters, I didn’t know this maze back to front. I couldn’t walk through it with my eyes closed and maneuver myself through it with the ease of overuse. The maze had been changed several years ago, and I wasn’t willing to go in to learn the new pattern.
“My mother?” I asked, feeling behind me for a wall and not finding one.
Feeling relieved I’d finally hit a break in the mirrors—and hoping that that break wasn’t one of the dead ends that were specifically placed to make you think you’d found a way out—I moved backward, only to find a wall each place I tried to move next.
“Your mother,” Bright said. “She was my first.”
I felt vomit rising up the length of my esophagus.
“Your first what?” I whimpered.
He grinned, and I saw on his ugly face that he was happy that he was scaring the shit out of me.
Freakin’ creep.
“My first kill.” He smiled.
My stomach dropped out to my feet, and I stared in shock.
He’d…
All this time, I’d wondered. I’d prayed to find the killer.
And he’d just, what…fallen into my lap?
That wasn’t possible.
“What do you mean, my first kill?” I asked.
“Your friend Mary would be my sixteenth.”
“What?” I almost screeched.
He’d killed Mary and my mom?
“I knew the moment you came back into town—you’d only been once before—that I had to take this opportunity. You nearly saw me that night. I had to know if it was just my imagination or if you’d actually seen something. I had to know. And well, Mary was a convenient target.” With that, he swung the axe above my head.
I flinched when a mirror broke across from me. Or beside me.
Hell, I didn’t even know anymore.
I did see glass hit my foot, though, so that meant he had to be close enough that the glass could reach me.
I took another turn, and another, until I could no longer see him.
But he followed, his axe slamming into the next closest image to him.
It hit with a solid thump, glass skittering across the floor once again.
“How did you kill Mary?” I asked.
My phone was in my pocket.
If I could just get it out…
It hit the floor with a solid thump, and I shakily reached for it as he answered.
“Saw her out one night at a show when I was visiting a friend. I saw her, then saw you, and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. So when y’all shut it down in that town, I had a little fun and locked her up in the trailer. I didn’t realize y’all were taking two weeks off, though. That was unusual. Thought maybe I wouldn’t get you here after all. Then boom—the call,” he answered.
Wow.
Just wow.
“I didn’t recognize you,” I said. “So this was all for nothing.”
Bright reached forward and banged his axe head into the next mirror, breaking it but not shattering it.
I closed my eyes and pressed “call” on the last phone number that I’d dialed.
