The Passed Prop

Chapter 2 – Passing

Chapter 2 – PassingFriday, October 31st, 2014

6:00 PM, Fall Festival, Morelville, Ohio

Chloe Rossi led the charge into the community center as Stephanie Rogers unlocked the main door and swung it open for the waiting group. Chloe marched ahead with a crockpot full of steaming shredded chicken for sandwiches and Faye’s grandchildren in tow both carrying cases of hamburger sized buns.

Dana, who’d arrived with them, lingered outside, her Boston terrier ‘Boo’ on a leash.

“What a cute little dog,” Stephanie said as she stooped down to ruffle Boo’s ears.

Boo responded by bathing the young woman’s face with her tongue.

“Boo! Down!” Dana yanked her back gently. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I love dogs and she’s just a cutie!” Standing up and meeting Dana’s eyes, she asked, “Aren’t you coming in?”

“Um, no. Not with her. Beth insisted on bringing her since her name is ‘Boo’ but she doesn’t need to be in there and near the food.”

“Oh, but you work in the haunted house, right? She won’t hurt anything in there and,” she wiggled a finger at Boo, “maybe I can get away and bring her a treat later” At the word treat, the pup wagged her tail and circled Stephanie, wrapping her in most of the length of her retractable leash.

“Heel Boo, heel!” Dana tried to tug her back the way she’d gone as Stephanie, laughing, stepped through the circle of the cord. “We’ve started training but, as you can see, she’s not doing so hot.”

“She’s fine. Just take her on in. What damage could she possibly do?”

By the time Dana stepped through the door into the gymnasium, her mother and both of her sister-in-law Kris’s kids had disappeared into the cafeteria and beyond. Keeping Boo on a shorter lead with one hand and pulling her mother’s rolling scare kit along with the other, she made her way into the haunt.

She stopped up short in the actors costuming area and, after flipping on the lights, took a quick look around.

“Ah ha,” she said, spying a desk against one wall that was serving as a makeup dressing table, “that should hold you!” Leaving the kit for a minute, she walked Boo over to the heavy desk and looped one end of the leash around a leg. “Just try pulling that around little missy.”

Beth ducked her head into the room, “Aunt Dana?”

“Yeah sweetie?”

“They have lots of help in the kitchen. Your mom said she’ll be in here in a few for when the actors start coming in. I’m going to sit out in the gym and wait for Craig to see if he’ll let me help him check the sets tonight.”

“Okay. If he says yes, you do exactly what he tells you and don’t touch anything he doesn’t tell you to touch, got it?”

The teenager replied, “Got it,” and nodded then went back the way she’d come in.

Dana rolled her mother’s makeup kit over to a table, took a seat in one of the padded folding chairs that were pulled up to it and began opening the drawers of the case. She worked quickly and silently to lay out the tools and makeup her mother would need to help the haunt actors get into character.

Ten minutes later, she was almost finished, when Chloe walked into the room.

“Aww, sweetie, thanks so much for doing that. It’s a big help. The crew will start trickling in any minute.”

“That reminds me; I need to make sure their door is unlocked.” Dana wandered over to the emergency exit that was temporarily being used by actors that arrived in partial or full costume so they wouldn’t be seen by haunt goers. After looking at the door, she realized it was already unbolted.

“Now that’s odd; it isn’t locked. I know Craig locked it last night after some of the folks used it to leave. Right after that, I left him back here and went out through the gym. This isn’t cool. Maybe I better take a walk around and see if anything is missing.”

“Speaking of missing dear, where’s Boo?”

“She’s right over there,” Dana replied, pointing toward the desk.

“No she isn’t. Her leash and collar are there but she isn’t.”

“I see that now,” Dana confirmed as she swung in a circle.

“Boo! Boo! Boo come!” she called.

She listened and waited but the little dog didn’t come into the wardrobe room.

Chloe walked to the gym side door and called out, “Boo!” paused and waited, then called “Boo!” once more.

Dana, frustration clear on her face, went toward the actors’ entrance into the haunt and called out for the little dog yet again. The dog didn’t come to her. “I’ll bet she’s gone and found Beth who’s running around here somewhere. She wanted to help with sets. Her and that dog are inseparable these days. You’d think she was hers, not mine.”

“Well, let me help you find her and I’ll just run her back to your house real quick. She doesn’t need to be here underfoot anyway.”

Dana grabbed a flashlight. “I’ll start looking through the haunted house. Why don’t you see if you can round up the kids and have them help find her?”

“The kids are right here,” Cole spoke up as he and his sister strolled in. “We heard you calling for Boo.”

“She wasn’t with you?” Chloe asked Beth.

The girl shook her head no.

“Alright everyone, you two go with my mama that way,” Dana said, pointing left into the access hallway that circled the haunt, “and I’ll go this way.” She turned on a flashlight and moved to the right, hitting the small nightlight switches that would give dim light to the pathway for the actors as she went.

Right away, by the light of her cell phone, Chloe managed to find the actor’s entry to one of the rooms ajar. “Oh, she’s so little,” she told the kids, “she could have easily slipped through here and now she could be in any of the sets.”

“We’ll never find her in there now,” Cole whined.

“Nonsense,” Chloe said firmly. “One of you turn on a light app on your phone and let’s go. I know you both have those fancy phones!”

“Not me,” Cole replied.

“Yes you do,” Beth ratted him out.

“No, I mean I’m not going in there.”

“You’re a scaredy cat! You’re almost 16 years old and you’re afraid! I’m telling all your friends,” Beth jeered at him.

“I’m not scared. I just think she’s probably in this hallway is all.” With that, he continued down the darkened access hall flipping on the little lights as he went as he’d seen Dana do.

Beth turned on her flashlight app and handed her phone to Chloe. “Here, you lead.”

They moved into the interior of the haunted house and started calling for Boo. Beth stayed close behind her aunt’s mother.

The first two rooms yielded nothing but darkness and props. Going into the third room, Chloe thought she saw a flash of something moving. She shone her light around toward the floor but she didn’t see anything else.

“This room is creepy,” Beth said.

“This one? You didn’t think that last one with all the clown stuff was but this one with a basic vampire layout is creepy? Baby, this one’s all about the actor that plays the vampire. There’s hardly anything else here; Look.” Chloe shone the light briefly on the bier where the vampire’s victim lay. A mannequin was in place on top.

Spying movement again in the flash of the light, she quickly aimed the phone toward the floor and caught Boo lapping at the fake blood the vampire actor periodically spilled on his even more fake victim.

“Boo, no! Bad!” she called to the dog. It stopped lapping and watched her approach. “That stuff can’t be good for you little girl. Come here.”

Chloe bent at the waist and reached for the dog but it skittered just out of range. “Come on Boo, come,” she called to it. The dog just sat there a couple of feet past the bier.

“My,” Chloe said to Beth, “He really poured it on with the blood last night. It’s all over the floor. I see the janitor’s mop bucket in here...I wonder why he didn’t clean it... AHHHHHHHHHH!”

Her scream rang out, piercing the quiet of the darkness. The little dog took off through the haunt and Beth, not even knowing what Chloe had seen, bolted too, back the way they’d come.

“Dana! Dana! Dana!” her mother screamed.

“Dana charged through the access door from the outer hallway and shone her light at her mother. Chloe pointed a shaky finger toward the bier.

On it lay Old Man Purcell, a stake through his heart.