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    The blood-curdling scream demanded a conga line of concerned friends running upstairs. It was one of the oldest rules in horror movie history. Everyone goes to the scene of the blood-curdling scream.

    Antoine took the lead.

    The others cried out, “Brenda” and “Keisha” in their most concerned voices.

    I ran and screamed right along with them.

    Antoine found the door that had slammed. He immediately started twisting the knob with all his might, throwing his shoulder against it.

    “It’s stuck somehow,” he said. “It might have another lock on the inside.”

    Dina came forward and messed with the handle. “It’s not locked,” she said. She bent down and peered through the keyhole. “There’s something in the way. A dresser, maybe.”

    “Alright,” Antoine said, “Give me some room. Turn the knob.”

    He waved us all back. Dina stretched her hand out so she could keep the knob turned.

    Antoine kicked the door right below the handle. A loud screech sounded from the other side, and the door opened a few inches.

    Another kick from Antoine. A few more inches.

    Now, he put his shoulder back into it and was able to budge the door. The heavy piece of furniture rocked back from where it had been leaned up against the door. There was a loud thud that made me think the floor was about to give in.

    The door was open enough for us to file inside.

    The object in front of the door wasn’t a dresser; it was a wardrobe. Someone had leaned it back against the door using an old floorboard as a lever.

    “Where are they?” Serenity asked.

    The room appeared empty.

    Antoine shrugged. “Someone had to lean that thing over,” he said.

    The room was barren except for a mattress and some old nicknacks, some of which were similar to those that I had unpacked from boxes in my free time. They were Jed Geist’s things.

    I pointed in the only direction the girls could be hiding.

    Antoine followed the gesture and nodded. There was a closet.

    He walked over to it and slowly opened it.

    The blood-curdling scream returned as Brenda ran out of the closet toward Antoine.

    Her scream turned to laughter.

    She got him good, too; he jumped back and barely restrained himself from punching her out of instinct.

    “You jerk,” Antoine said, holding back worse words. He turned and walked out of the room.

    “You should have seen your faces!” Brenda said as she laughed so hard she could barely breathe.

    We were all a little shaken up. The scream had been convincing.

    “You’ve had your fun,” Isaac said. “I hate it when people don’t take board games seriously.”

    “I was just kidding!” Brenda said gleefully. She looked around the room, and a curious expression took over her face. “Where’s Keisha?”

    “Hahaha,” I said. “We’re not falling for that again.”

    Brenda still had traces of her smile, but a growing concern cast shadows on her eyes. “No, I’m serious. Was she not down there with you?”

    None of us took her inquiries seriously. We stayed in lockstep. We weren’t going to pull threads that might escalate the plot.

    Brenda pranked us. Keisha being missing was a prank too. Nothing was going on.

    Normally, being deliberately obtuse could cause problems, but we knew that this storyline could be run without fully revealing the nature of Carousel to stubborn newbies.

    New players would think everything was an elaborate prank. The Paragons had told us this about the first storyline. If that was true, then refusing to pull plot threads could be an effective strategy for staying safe.

    If we never reacted to Carousel’s prodding, then the story would stay a safe, spooky tale.

    We weren’t going to do anything that strong-willed skeptics fresh off the carriage to Carousel wouldn’t do.

    Having NPCs prank us was actually a good play by Carousel. It was a classic of both middle-grade and young-adult horror. Heck, even The Mummy indulged in the trope.

    Pranks are an excellent way to solidify a character as a skeptic by giving them ammunition for dismissing the paranormal.

    Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, “Oh god, we’re all going to die!”

    Brenda became more and more adamant that Keisha wasn’t with her as we moved back toward the stairs. Kimberly and Cassie stayed with her to listen to her and reassure her.

    The rest of us were ready to get out of there.

    Before we could find our way, we heard another scream.

    “What now?” Antoine asked, still shaken by the previous jump scare.

    It was Brenda again, but she wasn’t screaming to scare us. The house was designed so that the upstairs doors could be seen by someone sitting in the center of the living room on ground level—a hallway wrapped around the second floor.


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    In the hallway opposite the staircase was Keisha.

    She looked genuinely frightened. She was crying. Her arm was held up against the wall as if someone were holding her there. Behind her was a shadow that was so faint it could be missed by anyone who couldn’t see it on the red wallpaper.

    “Bradley Speirs (Deceased).”

    The shadow vanished no sooner than we looked at it.

    Keisha fell forward and caught herself against the rail.

    A message appeared on the red wallpaper, “Stick to the plan?”

    Dina was asking on the team’s behalf using her Pen Pal trope. We still had the opportunity to play it cool here. The shadow was not apparent to anyone who wasn’t looking for it. A viewer would have to pause the screen to see it if they were watching this movie.

    I had to answer her question. Do we engage, or do we not?

    The real question was, was Carousel just messing with us, prodding and teasing us, or was it intent on making this easy storyline harder than ever before?

    If it was going to make this storyline difficult, why would it not have just done that when we first arrived? Why bother creating The Ten Second Game if it was just going to escalate the difficulty here?

    I had to make a decision, and I had only moments to consider it.

    “If you guys keep doing this, nobody’s going to have any fun tonight,” I said.

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