Haunted House
Flash Fiction
Above the gates, a grim neon reaper shone the last light before the abyss of Madame’s Scare Zone. Hal jotted criticism on his clipboard by whatever light he could glean – the second floor was dark like unpaid electric bills – and cratered his paper with the rap-rap-rap of his ballpoint. Madame led him to her Hellevator. Instead of a grid of glowing buttons, she manned the lever herself. The governor’s certificate was dated before the Great Depression.
“This whole thing is up-to-date, right?” Hal said.
Madame hid her face behind her fan and shrank towards the wall. “What do you think I’m trying to run, a death trap?”
The basement was decorated with an armory of hollow knives. Madame bought these from discount Halloween shops, but if the scare business did well, she could afford the retractable props she practiced with in New York. She’d arm her home; she’d line her foyer and dining room with blades so when her mother drifted in from the suburbs, she could stab herself and bite a packet of food dye to make it look real. Her mother would blame such avant-garde on the liberal arts of New York.
Madame ran her finger across a hollow cleaver and set it back where it belonged, collecting dust. She fixed an ice water for the help and mixed herself a Shirley Temple.
“You’re going to need a lot more lights,” Hal said.
“Our theme is ‘things that go bump in the night.’” Madame’s practiced Transylvanian accent made her cough; her voice reset to the Midwest instead of Midtown. “Remember when you were a kid, and anything dark brought out deep, primordial fear?”
The paper crinkled under Hal’s grip. “I need to know people won’t get hurt.”
Madame snatched his long list. Ink smeared down the page and across her hands like a scabbing wound. Her bank account withered. The phone call to Mother would be unpleasant. She’d play the role of the penitent failure who should’ve never left Iowa.
Madame leveled her one professional-grade illusion, purloined from the theater department, at Hal’s nose. “I’m willing to do anything to get my business running.”
Hal pointed to the spot on his neck where the knife should go.
Imagine you’re a serial killer. Imagine Hal is your third or fourth husband that your mother arranged, and imagine the million-dollar insurance policy on him. If he doesn’t feel fear, your performance sucks. That’s not what the university magazine thought, did it? They liked you.
Blame Iowa. Thank the years of theater training holding your arm back from shaking.
“You’ll bleed out in a minute,” Madame said. “Say I’m up to code, and no one will get hurt.”
“You kill me, you get the death penalty, too.” Hal tapped his jugular like a watch ticking seconds away. “Go on.”
“You must have nothing to live for.” The performance needs gusto. The performance needs those terms your professor wrote on the whiteboard with his dying red marker.
“I do.” Hal’s breath reeked of Madame’s least favorite barbecue – liquid smoke and sour pickles. “You want to know what?”
Madame shook her head.
“I’m having another child. A baby boy. Can you believe it?”
Madame kept the knife at stage-fighting distance. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. My last one died. SIDS. Never had a fighting chance. It took everything from us, but I got my wife into therapy. I donated to research drives. And then, I got a call to go to this one old house. It looks almost like this one, except it was this hipster opening a brick-and-mortar burger joint.” Madame rested the knife on the table, raised both empty hands. “He was almost up to code, except there was a skeleton under the floorboards. The guy puked. He never knew the body, so he had no right to puke. When I saw my kid dead and grey in the crib, I didn’t puke. Then once I clocked out that day, guess who got mugged?” He pulled down the collar of his shirt. By his clavicle, there was a crater where a bullet once was. “I stopped carrying cash. I’ll never carry a gun. Never. Big cities are cesspools of death, and that’s nothing to burden someone with, right? Maybe my son’s lucky he died so young. He’ll never get hurt like I did. I deserved to get shot. I couldn’t even keep my wife in therapy while I recovered.”
Hal cleared his eyes. “Besides, the weather’s a little warmer here.”
Madame finished her grenadine and got a headache.
“So please,” Hal said. “Just make those repairs. I won’t mention the knife.”
Madame stabbed herself in the dead flesh between her thumb and forefinger. It was a gore-less, invisible entry wound.
“God, I scared you, didn’t I? Sorry, I can’t do horror.” Hal chuckled and hid his face in his thick hands. “You won’t tell my supervisor about this?”
Madame promised she wouldn’t, but as Hal left, she killed the grim reaper’s light and locked the gates behind him.
She washed away her makeup and died. Would Madame be reborn tomorrow at 9?
Instead, Morgan shopped for lights.
A really nice description of what happens when a performance of horror meets the real deal. Hal's been through so much that not only is he completely unfazed, his words are enough to disarm and scare Madame. Nice work! Thanks for sharing.