33
Evie
Fright Night in a big field at a campground should seem ridiculous, but with the way that Mr. Jacobson puts everything together, it’s not ridiculous at all. In fact, it’s pretty perfect.
The campground usually closes after Labor Day, so no one is at the compound during Halloween. However, Halloween just happens to be one of Mr. Jacobson’s favorite holidays, so he opens the campground back up every year for a scary-as-shit weekend, one where small children cling to their mamas’ legs and adults run screaming from the woods as they get chased by people carrying chain saws.
And there are free horror movies. On Friday night, Mr. Jacobson shows Nightmare on Elm Street, an old movie from the 90s that is a little dated but perfect for nostalgia’s sake. He uses an old movie projector and shows the movie on the blank white wall of one side of the big barn-like building by the open field. People set up lawn chairs, bring blankets and snacks, and they watch the movie in the dark.
People who have been here for Fright Night before know that at some point someone is going to run from the hay bale maze into the crowd carrying a loud ru
nning chain saw—with the chain removed, of course. Then there are the people who have no idea, and those are the ones that everyone wants to watch. Until I moved away, I’d been to Fright Night every year since I can remember, but I’d never volunteered to work at it.
Friday night involves the movie, but Saturday night is the big maze event. Mr. Jacobson meticulously checks the hay bales and the maze layout, verifies that all the costumes are perfect, and he gives each participant one glow stick so they can find their way through the dark maze. Set at various points of the maze are obstacles, mainly hidden characters that try to scare the pants off you. It’s safe even for little kids and all in fun. Still, people come from miles around and line up all night long just to go through the maze.
Barbara-Claire is in the designated dressing area putting on her costume. She looks at me from the mirror she’s standing in front of. “What do you think?” she asks.
“I think you look positively disgusting,” I say, curling my lip at her.
She giggles and looks over at Junior. Junior looks just as hideous. They’re both dressed as zombies, and I know that Junior has been practicing to be the perfect undead guy. He has walked around at work all week dragging one foot and gnashing his teeth. He even has a little bag of water-thinned ketchup in his pocket with a tube that leads up to a fake wound on his head. If he gives the little bag in his pocket a squeeze, he can make his pretend head wound “bleed” down the side of his face.
Junior gives it a squeeze now and Barbara-Claire scolds him. “You’re going to run out of blood if you keep that up.”
He grins. “But it’s so fun!” He takes his hand out of his pocket.
Barbara-Claire’s zombie makeup includes fake skin looking like it’s peeling away from her face in decaying strips, and she’s wearing filthy fake-blood-streaked clothes. Mr. Jacobson had me and Grady dipping perfectly good clothes in fake blood all morning just to be ready for tonight.
Grady and I have barely spoken since we came back from Florida. The few texts he has sent me have been one-word responses to questions I’ve had. Then today I didn’t get much more than grunts and angst-filled glances out of him. And quite frankly it annoys the fuck out of me.
“Have you seen Grady?” Barbara-Claire asks me.
I shake my head and bite my lips together. “For a few minutes this morning, but we really didn’t talk.”
“Did something happen?”
I shake my head again, and tears sting my eyes, but I blink them back.
“Junior,” Barbara-Claire says quietly.
He lifts his eyebrows at her in response, and a trickle of fake blood runs down the corner of his eye. “This is so cool, right?” he asks, almost giddy.
“It’s real cool,” Barbara-Claire says drolly. “Maybe you should tell her.”
“Tell me what?” I look from him to her and back.
Junior shakes his head. “No.”
“Tell me what?” I ask again. I push up from my chair and glare at him. “Is Grady all right? He’s not hurt, is he?”
“No, he’s not hurt. He’s just been busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Not my place to tell you,” he replies, then he adds quietly, “Just hang in there, okay? He has worked so hard on this.”
I throw up my hands. “On what?” I look from Barbara-Claire to Junior and back, and they both start squirming.
“He’s just…been busy,” Barbara-Claire hedges.