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‘No? Where have you been the past two nights?’
‘None of your business,’ Mark said before going back to his barrels. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’
‘So have I. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?'
Brewer went rigid again, glancing around the site. Ella didn’t take her eyes off him, but she could tell the rest of the park was mostly devoid of life.
Suddenly, Ella had her answer, because Mark Brewer became a blur.
He kicked one of the barrels in Ella's direction, its contents sloshing out as it rolled violently towards her. Ella jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding it. The liquid inside smelled foul, but she couldn’t be sure of its contents.
She barely had a moment to process the attack when she saw Brewer take off, sprinting towards the tunnel entrance. Ella immediately gave chase, the adrenaline fast taking hold. Ella’s pulse thundered in her ears as she pursued Brewer into the Extreme Blackout tunnel, first arriving a maze of corridors filled with mirrors and brutalized mannequins; artificial horrors. The mirrors disoriented her for a moment, staring back at her reflection in twisted forms. However, Brewer's movements were difficult to miss.
Not slowing down, Ella reminded herself that only guilty people ran. She could picture Brewer in the throes of killing, eviscerating bodies, lunging firearms through human flesh. She had a good feeling that the blur ahead of her was the man responsible for the two recent dead women.
But Brewer was quick and wily. He turned a corner, and by the time Ella reached it, he'd vanished. In front of her was a large room, styled like a Victorian-era ballroom. A chandelier overhead swung ominously, and in the dim light, she could make out the forms of what looked like dancers in aged dresses and suits. The figures began to spin and twirl, their ghostly laughter filling the room. It was a mechanical setup, probably activated by motion sensors.
In the momentary confusion, Brewer appeared from behind one of the spinning figures, baseball bat in hand, charging right at her. Ella ducked before the moment of impact, the bat narrowly missing her head. She rolled away, reaching for her pistol, but Brewer was already on her.
The stench of sweat and desperation emanated from Brewer as he tried to tackle her to the ground, but Ella kept her balance. The clown was lean and capable, with a surprising amount of strength beneath his brown jumpsuit.
Ella felt the cool touch of the baseball bat against her side as Brewer tried to wrestle her gun from her holster. Ella thrust her elbow into the clown’s spine, momentarily disorienting him, but Brewer responded in rage. With a shoulder tackle, Brewer hauled Ella off her feet, sending her past the Victorian dancers, through a curtain, into a pit filled with thousands of loose objects.
The impact drove all the air out of her lungs, and now Brewer had mounted her, one fist held high. In her peripheral vision, Ella recognized the pieces beside her; prop body parts. Ella reached out and grabbed anything she could, rustling through severed hands and feet.
But amongst the cheap plastic, Ella found something metal, something sturdy. She dug her fingertips in, pulled it from amongst the limbs and forced it against Brewer’s cheek. Ella heard bones shatter, teeth crack, and as she inspected her unexpected weapon she found it was a handheld dry ice machine.
Ella scrambled for the button on the top, pushed it and blasted Brewer with plumes of frost. His touch suddenly dissipated, punctuated by a series of guttural screams.
All vision disappeared for a minute as the ice filled the room. The fog cleared within a few seconds, revealing another figure standing above the pit of severed limbs. Like a cheap illusionist, Ripley stood overhead, gun trained on Mark Brewer.
‘Hey Brewer,’ Ripley shouted. ‘Freeze.’
Brewer fell down next to Ella, one hand raised in surrender, one attending to the probable frost burns on his face.
Ella caught her breath, and only then did Ripley’s joke register.
She turned to the fallen man beside her and said, ‘I guess it’s not true, after all.’
Brewer gave nothing way. He lay there, waiting for Ripley’s next command.
‘Clowns don’t always have the last laugh,’ Ella said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ella sat on the opposite side of the one-way mirror, staring intently at Mark Brewer as he lounged in his chair. The clown without makeup seemed unfazed, the picture of nonchalance despite the injuries. Sandblasted skin and an expanding bruise on his cheek.
Ripley entered, holding two steaming cups of coffee. ‘Dry ice machine, huh?’
‘Desperate times, desperate measures. I hope I didn’t scar him.’
‘He’ll live,’ Ripley said. ‘Anything yet?’
Ella sighed, accepting one of the cups. ‘Not a word. He refuses to say a word until his lawyer gets here.’
Ripley leaned against the wall, watching Brewer through the one-way mirror. ‘Well, he's definitely been around the block a few times to know his rights. What do we know about him?’
Ella blew on her coffee, the steam swirling around before taking a sip. ‘No charges. Nothing that screams serial killer, but remember thoseallegationshis colleague mentioned?’
