“There’s a lot of cars here,” Dion observed.

  “People have probably been here awhile.”

  “I’m sure more than a few of these are for decorative purposes like the ones on the street,” Grace added.

  Traversing through the parking lot, we approached the entrance of the carnival just as a group of three people disappeared inside, going through a tall gate covered by a tarp. The entire fence surrounding the place was covered. Someone wanted to prevent anyone from openly seeing in or out.

  A ticket booth was set up on either side, two panda headed figures waited for us to get closer. One lifted a hand and cupped the side of their head as if listening for something, lowering it once we were practically right on top of them.

  I wondered if they were part of the group from back in the ballroom.

  Leading the line, I was the first to be handed a mask, by a masked leather bunny. They reached down and grabbed for it, offering it to me.

  “The mask gives you entry,” she stated simply.

  I was cognizant of my movements as I accept it from her. I studied it for a brief few seconds before placing it on. It was pure white with smudged coal black eyes and a deep red line on either side of the mouth.

  And a perfect fit.

  The mask slid on like a second skin, almost as if it’d had been made for me specifically. I could see out of it fine, slightly bothered by the smell of plastic. Mel was next. Her mask was also white but had black squinted eyes and a sinister laughing mouth.

  Gracelyn followed with the most random one I’d seen yet.

  It was bubblegum pink with an embossed band-aid above the left eye, which matched the right as a black circle. It’d also had been given rather sensual lips. Theirs too were a perfect fit for them and oddly, these masks fit our personalities. Dion on the other hand was given one like we’d seen a dozen times before, black with blue LED lights.

  The panda on the right hit a button and allowed us to enter the carnival through the same tarped gate the people before us had.

  “Don’t remove the masks,” the woman called after us just as the gate slid shut and locked.

  Her warning barely registered. I was too awestruck by everything at once. Nearly all my senses were heavily assaulted. Music was playing from different games and somewhere off in the distance an announcer spoke as if he was doing an auction.

  There was a decent sized crowd of people going every which way. The thing that threw me off the most was that not all of them were wearing any kind of facial covering, walking around like this was an everyday amusement park.

  The two men hanging upside down and having darts thrown at them would probably disagree with that sentiment.

  “Stay close together,” Mel advised, stepping forward to lead the way.

  We formed a chain, walking in a horizontal line so that we could keep an eye on each other. The further we walked the more visually twisted the carnival became.

  A sign flashing Brazen Bull was a few feet ahead of us on the right. Behind a makeshift fence was an actual replica of a bull. Bronze in color with bars going across its midsection. Inside were three people begging to be let out.

  Beneath the bulls stomach a fire had been lit, slowly roasting these people alive. I tore my gaze away from them and focused on moving forward. There were so many masked figures passing on either side it was hard to tell who was playing what side of the field.

  They—the ones orchestrating this whole thing--had to of done this on purpose, creating confusion amongst those of us stuck here. I could guarantee those working under these people responsible for this fucked up place were aware of who their comrades were and weren’t.

  A purple and white tent on the left further ahead had techno music playing from inside it. As a masked man exited, I was able to get a look inside. People were openly fucking on a raised dais. A woman was blindfolded down on all fours. One man gripped her hips, and another fisted her hair.

  As the flap shut, her moans of pleasure were vividly discernable.

  “What is the point of this place?” Mel asked.

  “Better to find out why we needed to come here at all.” I put my hands on my hips and took a better looked around. There were only a few people watching us. Everyone else continued with what they were doing, caught up in their own struggles for survival.

  “Do we keep walking around then?” Grace openly questioned.

  “That seems to be the best course of action for now,” Mel responded.

  I nodded, agreeing without words. I mean, what else could we do? After a little while the smell of corn dogs and funnel cakes had my stomach growling for the first time since I’d arrived at this place.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of a familiar figure and my skin prickled with a sudden awareness.

  He was standing statue still and staring at us as the crowd parted and flowed around him.

  No, he wasn’t staring at us.

  He was staring at me.

  I stopped walking which caused the others to do the same. Grace and Mel caught on right away, following my line of sight. Mel didn’t ask who it was, but I’m sure she had an educated guess.

  “What’s going on?” Dion asked, moving closer to me.

  I couldn’t see Ciaran’s eyes, but without a doubt he tracked the motion. His head tilting confirmed he was watching us. Honestly, I didn’t particularly care how he felt about it because I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. Slowly, he turned and started walking away.

  “Who is that?” Dion asked, catching on to what we were all looking at.

  “The person we need to follow.”

  Not willing to waste time seeing who agreed or disagreed with me, I started to do just that, making sure they kept pace and we didn’t get separated.

  “And why are we following this person?” Dion asked.

  “He knows something,” Grace responded, her tone not giving anything away.

  “Something like what?” Dion prodded.

  None of us replied, too busy trying not to lose sight of our target. Ciaran bobbed and weaved through the crowd. I swear he was purposely slowing, then speeding up whenever we got remotely close. By remotely, I mean in full view of the back of his hooded head. We were never in body touching proximity.

  Wherever he was going, it had the announcer’s voice amplifying. Signs for a Diablos Round-up attached to an arena styled fence began appearing every few feet.

  A little way behind the fencing was livestock chutes. But there weren’t any animals inside of them, just groups of mostly terrified people. Through the gaps in-between slabs of wood, I was able to make out that nearly all those being held captive were in masks.

  I didn’t spare a thought for what was going to happen to them until we were being ushered into those very chutes. Laser focused on Ciaran; it wasn’t until he vanished into an eccentrically dressed crowd that I realized we’d walked right into a trap. There were more masked pandas separating and dividing people. Some were forced to the right while others had no choice but to go left. In a few seconds, the same would be done to us.

  “Shit.”

  “Let’s keep going. He obviously went this way for a reason,” Grace pointed out.

  “We have no idea what’s going to happen if we get locked in those chutes,” Mel objected.

  “We can’t be sure what will happen if we don’t wind up there either,” Grace retorted. “There’s still two more people we need to find.”

  “Hold up, I want to find my girl more than anything, but are you suggesting we purposely try to be shoved in bull pens?” Dion questioned.

  I was going to tell him if that’s where this city’s psychotic overseer wanted us, that would be exactly where we wound up. Like way back in the ballroom—Goetia too—running away wasn’t a favorable option.

  As we slowly approached the pandas, a few tried to do that and were promptly assaulted and still forced to go right. A man tried to fight back.

  He paid for it with a brutal hit to his face—hard enough that his striped mask cracked when he hit the ground.

  Once he was down his body was swarmed by masked figures like flies to shit and then he was hauled off like a piece of garbage. I knew we’d be going right seconds before we were jostled that way.

  Cries of panic and pleas for friends or family fell on deaf ears as other groups were forcibly divided. A panel in the chute was opened and I our group was swept along with a few random strangers.

  We were shut inside and herded through a narrow passageway by obscured figures prodding from above. By my count there were approximately a dozen of us inside the chute. I could only describe it as suffocating. My chest nearly smashed against the woman in front of me every time I breathed.

  My heel began to throb after Mel stepped on the back of it for the third or fourth time. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was relieved when we came to a standstill—momentarily at least.

  “Can you see anything?” Grace asked.

  She had her hands up to prevent the man in front of us from knocking into us. There was a fearful, nervous energy amongst the people we’d been put in the chute with. I rose on my tiptoes and stretched my neck, straining to see.

  “There’s a bend up ahead and a small staircase,” Dion replied from somewhere behind us.

  I lowered back down and tried to locate where exactly he was. “Can you see where they go?”

  “Not yet.”

  A taller woman beside the man in front of us slightly turned her head and answered me. “It’s a stage.”

  “And there’s a screen,” someone else added.

  Stage and screen.

  I couldn’t tie those two things together unless we were going to a theater or concert. The announcer’s voice continued to rapid fire information. I tried listening to him for a clue as to what we should expect, but I didn’t understand much of what was being said until we were right on top of the bend.

  “Ladies and gents, rookies and vets, get ready for a fresh batch of blood to grace the stage and prepare to enter Kink’s special place!”

  “Who?” Grace asked me in a whisper.

  I didn’t have that answer. As people began going up the stairs Dion had mentioned, the passage became far less congested.

  “Here we go,” Mel’s exasperated voice carried from behind us.

  I glanced down to make sure I didn’t miss a step before ascending them with Gracelyn still beside me. Like everyone before us, once we reached the top, we were handed a numbered lanyard to loop around our necks by a masked panda. These ones had guns too—real guns--the kind you didn’t fuck around with strapped across their chests.

  “Stand shoulder to shoulder,” another commanded gruffly.

  I accepted my number sixteen and took my place beside Grace, who’d been given six. Dion wound up on my other side with the number three. Standing to his immediate right was Mel with the number seven. I doubted this was a coincidence, but there was way too much to take in for me to stop and think how each digit correlated with us personally.

  Like someone had mentioned, there was an actual theater sized screen behind the stage.

  Displayed on it were each of our numbers along with glowing half circles that looked as if they were loading beneath them. Strings of lights were strewn overhead to illuminate us and the sea of people staring.

  Only some had bothered to wear any kind of disguise. I didn’t dare call this crowd mundanely normal. Anyone standing around at a carnival like this one was far from that. Even children were peppered throughout, some that couldn’t have been much older than twelve.

  The announcer continued speaking, but he was completely out of sight. Pandas were all that were visible. Two stood at each corner of the stage. There was no sign of Ciaran anywhere. I supposed Maverick or the twins could be lurking, I didn’t know which alias they were donning, though.

  I imagined they differed from the others we’d seen thus far, like his.

  “For those new to our devilish carnival of horrors, pay close attention to the screen before you and take note of who you chose to bestow a wager.”

  There was a bright flash, followed by instant murmuring and some cheers from the crowd.

  “Ohhhh, I see some disappointed faces out there. Some excited ones too! As you can see, we’ve got a few contenders with some stellar survival odds and a few, well, things aren’t looking to good right now. However, don’t you go counting them out quite yet! Anything is possible in Kink’s world.”

  As the announcer continued speaking, going into a monologue about this Kink’s world, me, and everyone else turned to see the screen behind us.

  Our numbers now had percentages beneath them that were meant to represent our chances of survival.

  “Damn,” Dion mumbled solemnly.

  I didn’t blame him for being less than thrilled, but on the brighter side of things he had a decent forty-two percent chance of survival odds. While that may not have been amazing or anything, it was still far better than what number eight and four got. They were given odds below twenty.

  “You’re almost at half of a hundred,” Mel pointed out encouragingly.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “You could be whoever ten is,” Grace replied.

  “I’d rather be twelve. Or one of you.”

  I was going to state the obvious and changed my mind. None of us were at one hundred, we just had higher odds overall.

  When you refused to die and easily followed the kill or be killed mantra that was to be expected.

  The announcer began speaking in the same rapid-fire tone I’d heard moments ago, going down a list of to-dos so fast the only things I caught were, never remove our masks and to try and stay alive for as long as we could.

  The pandas began ushering us towards the opposite end of the stage while the announcer was still speaking. The gate was opened and down the stairs we went. I expected another passage but the arena fencing, and chutes were gone, in their place was a tall chain link fence that we couldn’t see through.

  At the end of this were two more guards standing near the massive face of a clown. Its gaping mouth served as the black-holed entrance to Kink’s House of Fun.

  A woman near the front of the line began to freak out as soon as she saw it.

  “I can’t go in there,” she quavered.

  She attempted to turn and force her way back the way we came. One of the masked panda’s made as if to move towards but before they could someone beside the woman forcibly dragged her forward, mummering something I couldn’t hear.

  I dragged my feet, trying to stall the inevitable while my mind raced with scenarios of what we might face next. No one wanted to go in here, but there wasn’t any other course of action.

  Just before we entered, one of the pandas handed each of us a small metal item. Passing through the clowns open mouth, I realized it was a Swiss army knife. I hadn’t seen one of these in ages. I wanted to examine it better but the second we were fully inside, darkness cocooned us.

  The clown’s mouth slammed shut, caging everyone inside it. The air was cool here reminding me of an old warehouse. Nervous and fearful energy rippled through the group. I could hear people shifting nervously.

  “What do we do now?” A man’s shaky voice filled the space.

  Three soft beeps came in response before the voice I’d learned to expect began speaking from a hidden speaker system.

  “Welcome to my house of fun. I’m so excited to have you here, but to truly enjoy our time together I must ask of you a teensy tiny favor. Break the cage around your ribs, remove the bones from beneath your skin, let what’s simmering inside you out to play. Chaos and bloodshed will save your life.”

  “What? What does she mean by that?” A woman loudly questioned.

  The inside of the funhouse was suddenly filled with blacklight lighting in various colors that gave our masks a neon glow.

  I clutched my pocketknife and carefully peered into each arched tunnel that was now visible in front of us. There were three in total. One going straight and two veering off in opposite directions. A manically robotic laugh carried through the funhouse, sending a trickle of apprehension skirting down my spine.

  “Reap what you sow, you’re playing my game now,” Kink’s voice spoke to us one last time before music began to blare through the speakers and lights started to flash.

  I didn’t know what the hell was happening or would be happening, but I knew we needed to move.

  “Let’s go left,” I said to my group.

  I didn’t give a damn what any of these other people did.

  Some had the same idea as us and broke away from the main cluster, taking off in different directions.

  We were nearly to the left tunnel when a bloodied clown emerged from the end of the first, with a spiked bat in his hands causing everyone who’d gone that way to panic. He swung without a moment’s hesitation, cracking the man at the very front of the group in his head. The music was so loud the sound wasn’t audible, and the flashing blacklights made the blood spray look like neon splotches. The moment the man’s body hit the floor; all hell broke loose.

  People began running into one another in their desperate attempt to get to what they considered was safety. Mel was swept away in the masses and Dion vanished from behind me. These people’s panic caused them to act without thinking, taking off down tunnels clearly not safe.

  I grabbed hold of Grace and kept moving, entering the left tunnel.

  “What about Mel and Dion?”

  I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t worry about them right now. Mel was capable of handling herself. If Dion were with her, he’d be fine if she didn’t stand back and let him die. We didn’t have the luxury of trying to look for them. Time was never on our sides in these situations.

  The sheer stupidity of the people we’d been herded in here with became our gain. As they were taken out by the clowns that were waiting, probably used to this exact reaction, we were able to swerve around the wounded and those being attacked, making it through along with a few others.

  This tunnel led off to another circular entrance. Ducking through the plastic flaps to go through it, we arrived in a maze room full of fun mirrors with three other people. I’d always hated these fucking things.