A Catered Halloween Read Free Page A

hall.
    “I’m a little confused. The kitchen is the last door on the left, isn’t it?” asked Bernie.
    Mark nodded. “Correct. The corridor we’re using for the Haunted House loops around and ends up in the kitchen and the dining room. This is the back part of the mansion. The oldest part. The part where they say Esmeralda is buried.”
    “Who says?” Libby asked. She wished she could have found her chocolate. That way she wouldn’t be so grumpy.
    Mark waved his hands in the air. “People say.”
    “Well, then I guess that’s okay. I mean, if dogs said it, then it wouldn’t be so good,” replied Libby.
    Mark shot Libby a puzzled look. Obviously, he hadn’t gotten what she was saying. He took a step away from her as he glanced around. Even better. He probably thought she was nutty.
    “God, you wouldn’t believe how many rooms this place has,” Mark said. “And they all connect with one another in weird ways. Tracing the wiring was a nightmare, and I thought the guy that put in the fiber optics was going to quit on me. Let me tell you, we had a hell of a time getting this place up to code.”
    “That I believe,” Bernie said.
    Mark nodded toward the door that was marked ENTRANCE . Below it was written, ONCE YOU COME IN HERE, THERE’S NO TURNING BACK .
    “Shall we?” he asked.
    “You know,” Libby said, thinking of everything they had to do, “we really are running out of time. Why don’t you and Bernie go ahead, and I’ll start in the kitchen.”
    “Nonsense,” Mark replied. “This will only take a few minutes. No more than five, I promise. We’ll just do a quick walk-through.”
    Libby was about to say they didn’t have five minutes when she caught Bernie glaring at her. Even though her sister hadn’t said anything, Libby knew what she wanted to say: something along the lines that Mark was new in town, that he was wealthy, and that he could throw lots of business their way. Which he wouldn’t do if Libby pissed him off. So Libby just nodded her head and followed Mark through the door.
    When she stepped through to the other side, Libby felt a puff of ice-cold air play up and down her spine. She jumped in spite of herself. Mark laughed.
    “That’s the oldest trick in the book,” he said. “I connected a motion detector to a compressed-air tank.”
    Libby looked around. The room was totally dark for a second; then a strobe light began flashing. She could hear a faint moan rising and falling. Then she heard another sound. It sounded like a chain saw. It was a chain saw. The chain saw got louder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a woman over in the corner. Her arms were tied to a chain that was suspended from the ceiling. The woman started screaming. A man with a chain saw appeared from the far corner of the room. The woman’s screams got louder as the man got closer.
    Libby wanted to look away, but she couldn’t as the man came nearer. She could feel her heart racing as the man lifted the saw. The flashes of light from the strobe bounced off the blade, making it dance in the light. This is all a trick , Libby told herself. It’s an optical illusion . But somehow it didn’t help.
    There was a bloodcurdling shriek as the man raised the chain saw and brought it down on the woman’s shoulder. Rivulets of something warm and wet ran down the left side of Libby’s face. She couldn’t help herself. She screamed.
    “It’s water,” Mark said. “Warm water. It was my idea. Everything is computer controlled. We also have a state-of-the-art sound system with volume controls and directional speakers.”
    Libby jumped. She’d been so focused on the scene in the room that she’d forgotten that Mark was there.
    “God, that looked real,” Bernie said. She gave a nervous giggle.
    “Holograms,” Mark said. “We can adjust the images if we want. We can adjust the screams and the sound of the chain saw. I think the blood splatter is a nice touch, don’t you? It gets everyone