Preview The Haunted Mill

Misfit scare actors at a Halloween attraction become a paranormal investigation team.
A mash-up of supernatural horror and slow-burn MM romance.

COMING SOON

Maxwell saw the Haunted Mill attraction as nothing more than a temporary Halloween gig to get him through the fall. But he didn't expect Luke. Quiet. Guarded. Strange in a way Maxwell can't quite explain. He seems troubled by things nobody else can see, and the longer they work together inside the crumbling attraction, the harder Maxwell finds it to ignore him.

Then the mill burns.

An eccentric local fixture goes missing, and the people of Bramble Grove are quick to settle on an explanation: arson, suicide, case closed. But when the smoke clears, strange things begin happening around Luke. Messages from beyond. Unexplained fires. Entities made of ash and soot.

Maxwell doesn't believe in ghosts. But he believes Luke is terrified.

Former cast members reunite to search for answers. The closer they come to the truth, the more certain they become that something followed them out of the flames. And as the danger around Luke grows, so does the connection between him and Maxwell.

Tropes & themes: Slow-burn MM romance • Opposites attract • Found family • Skeptic × believer • Forced proximity • Paranormal investigation • Haunted attraction / haunted location • Ghostly mystery • Something followed them home • Small-town secrets

Content notes: Suicide references • Grief • Homophobia/prejudice • Physical violence

 Read the Opening Chapters 

Part I

Chapter 1

Marty the Mortician

Maxwell

It was Halloween season 1996. I found myself hiding behind a curtain in full vampire makeup waiting for my cue, pressed into a thin strip of shadow that smelled like mildew and fog machine juice.

Marty stood near the entrance in his usual getup—a tall black top hat, long frock coat, and a white shirt fastened at the neck with a black ribbon tie, trying his best to look like someone who had wandered in out of another century.

When everyone had filed in, Marty always started the same way.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he bellowed, throwing one arm wide like he was presenting some grand masterpiece instead of a splintering doorway and a sagging black curtain, “welcome to your final evening among the living. I am your host, Marty the Mortician.”

Through the split in the curtain, I felt a rush of the October wind that had followed in the victims, as we called them. Cold and damp, the rich smell of leaves mixed with the stale air. Outside, the parking lot lights cast a weak glow over the front of the mill.

Inside, the place did the rest. It didn’t really require all the macabre decorations and props Marty collected when the building already looked like something out of The Pit and the Pendulum. You could feel the age of the place in everything. The draft under the doors. The cracks in the wooden beams and foundation. The smell of rotten wood and rust.

Marty reached into his coat pocket and produced a stack of business cards. He handed one to each victim before declaring, “If any of you shall make it through the evening, you may keep this as a souvenir to prove you survived The Haunted Mill.”

The cards had his picture on them—white makeup, grinning sinisterly at the camera, chin tucked down, eyebrows raised, wearing the same getup he wore for the tours. Underneath his photo, in curling script, it read:

Marty the Mortician

Bramble Grove Haunted Mill

Est. 1870

Every tour got the same lines along with a Marty the Mortician souvenir card. And nearly every group gave one of two reactions—nervous laughter or groans.

I often found myself biting the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t laugh. It was so cheesy and schlocky. But somehow, because of Marty, it worked. He was so sincere in his delivery, so sold to the bit, that either they gave in and went along for the ride or at least respected his commitment enough not to heckle him—too badly.

Marty clapped once, loud enough to make the group jump. “Stay close. Stay together. And whatever you do…” He leaned in, lowered his voice, and widened his eyes. “Do not stray from the path. I’ve lost many a victim—I mean guest—that way. Never to be seen or heard from again.”

Just then, the lights cut out. Pitch black. Someone screamed followed by several uneasy laughs.

“This is not part of the show!” Marty assured.

“Bullshit!” shouted some teen.

More chuckles. Shuffling in the dark. 

The lights cutting out were, in fact, not part of the bit. Even so, it was a common occurrence at the mill. The building was full of patchwork fixes and electrical overloads.

From somewhere above, a voice suddenly called out, “Hold on!”

Well, that certainly broke the immersion.

There was a loud click. Then another. “Got it!” Spencer shouted from somewhere in the rafters.

The lights suddenly snapped back on, but harsher than before. Spencer had hit the work lights. The fluorescents bleached the mill in a blinding white light. When he finally shut them off, it settled back into the dim blue and red hues that only gel lamps and colored bulbs could produce. 

Marty, frazzled but an adaptable performer, smoothed his coat and snapped his crooked grin back into place. “As I was saying,” he continued, “not everything in this place behaves as it should. Sometimes the ghosts find their way into the wiring.”

That unrehearsed line got more chuckles than anything in his script. But like the old pro he was, Marty launched right back into his funeral-parlor patter, his voice carrying through the old boards.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath. This whole place is ridiculous. How did a guy like me end up in a wacky ass place like this? I pretty much figured it had to be cosmic punishment after getting fired from the hardware store for skimming a few bucks—and being stupid enough to get caught.

Marty didn’t care if you were a fuck up. He didn’t ask for references. No background check. In fact, he just looked me up and down, taking in the wrestler’s shoulders, the buzz cut, and the face that an ex once told me had “severe angles” and said, “you’ll make a marvelous vampire.” That had been the interview. I was hired. Seasonal Halloween work as a scare actor. I was so proud, I told absolutely no one.

Here I was, twenty-seven years old, a college graduate—with my face plastered in white makeup, waiting to drink fake blood from a brass-plated chalice in front of a bunch of tweens and teens for a gag. But honestly, if I could set the humiliation aside, it wasn’t the worst job I’d ever had. The Haunted Mill had a certain kitschy charm. At the very least, it let me escape reality for a few hours.

Then there were my coworkers—a collection of misfits, just like me, I suppose. I didn’t see myself as above them. How could I? I was one of them, and I could get along with just about anybody. But I had to admit, they were a lot different than the crews I used to work with in construction. They each had their own quirks and eccentricities, Marty being the ringleader of the oddballs. Somehow, over a few short weeks, they'd grown on me. They'd become part of the charm of the place.

"This old mill was built in 1870, back when Bramble Grove was nothing but mud, timber, and bad decisions. Folks say the place was cursed from the beginning. Strange sights. Apparitions. Creatures hiding in the surrounding forest.

“Then a string of accidents—drownings in the nearby river, limbs severed by the mill’s giant circular saw. More than a few people walked through these doors and were never seen again. Before long, everyone around here knew it by one name—The Haunted Mill. And tonight, you're about to find out why..."

That was my cue. I hurried to the vampire banquet room.

Torn velvet curtains flanked the entrance and exit. Red bulbs flickered under frosted glass. Fake candelabras dripped fake wax. A long banquet table was set for a feast nobody survived. There were platters piled with rubber rats, moldy bread, and two unfortunate mannequins slumped over the centerpiece with fang marks and blood dripping down their necks.

I crouched beneath the banquet table and checked that my chalice had enough stage blood in it.

On the other side of the curtain, Marty’s voice rose. “…and here, my dear guests, we dine with the undead.” He dramatically lifted the curtain.

I waited until half the group had entered. Then I began to rise. Slow. Fast was cheap. Slow gave people time to realize something that had looked like furniture was suddenly a six-foot broad-shouldered creep rising with a goblet full of blood.

It worked. Someone gasped. A teen jumped back, bumping into the guy behind her.

I lifted the chalice, let the light catch the red, and took a convincing drink. The fake blood was warm and tasted like syrup and pennies. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and gave them my best dead-eyed stare. “Stay,” I said softly. “I’ve been dying to have you for dinner.” A woman screamed as I jumped onto the table and reached for the huddled group.

As Marty herded them into the next room, I could hear him hiss “places, people!” to the crew ahead. Hilarious. I jumped down from the table, dragging my cape behind me dramatically as the last few shuffled into the dark hall.

As soon as the last person crossed the threshold, I had to book it to my next position. The thing about working the mill was that you were always working—always moving, always sweating under makeup and hot lights.

Marty was obsessed with what he called ‘immersive flow.’ He had a carefully scripted sequence with himself as the tour guide and star of the show. The problem was there was only one Marty. That made the attraction a low-capacity operation. And with a skeleton crew to keep overhead low, that meant the rest of us pulled double duty.

Downtime didn't exist. As soon as one scene ended, we were sprinting through the guts of the building to reach the next one, trying not to knock over scenery before the next group arrived. Some nights, it felt like we spent more time running between scares than actually scaring anyone.

I slipped through the hidden narrow passage behind the group. The backstage corridor was barely more than warped planks and hanging black fabric. I tried to quiet my heavy boots as I moved through it, counting the turns out of habit.

The back areas of the mill were frenetic chaos during showtime. Actors everywhere. People cycling in and out of rooms all night—changing masks, smoking by the back door, disappearing down back corridors to make their next cue. Most were locals who came back every year because they enjoyed making kids cry or needed beer money.

The attraction used up pretty much every square inch of the original mill—three floors aboveground, one dank basement level below, all chopped up into scenes with hidden cut-throughs for actors to get ahead of the tours.

I jumped out of the main floor passage and slunk down the basement steps. Immediately, the temperature dropped. The basement always felt different from the rest of the mill. The whole place had a spooky vibe, but the basement kicked it up a notch. Colder. Danker. Giant wooden beams overhead holding up the aging structure. Crumbling old stone walls. Piles of ancient mill machinery covered in decades of dust and cobwebs.

I was just in time to see Banshee getting ready next to her slab.

Banshee wasn’t her real name. It was Nina. The nickname had started as a joke the second week I worked there. During rehearsals, Marty started calling her “the Bride,” since her main character was the Bride of Frankenstein. But she wasn’t having it. She stared daggers at him for so long, he finally relented.  

I’d said, “She looks more like a banshee to me.” Her flowing dark hair. The way she would suddenly appear next to you without making a sound. And of course, her love of Siouxsie and the Banshees, which she was always playing on her headphones or aloud in the break room.

Banshee stuck. Marty loved it. Nina pretended to hate it. Which meant she only hated it a little. Over the course of our October run, even she began to accept it like a badge of honor.

Even though she wasn’t yet in costume, Banshee fit into the mill’s atmosphere without trying. No problem. Black lace gloves. Thrift-store funeral dress. Dyed-black hair obscuring her face. Beside her, on the slab, sat her giant Bride of Frankenstein wig, the white streaks glowing in the dim basement light.

“Hey, you better get that wig on before Marty catches you like that,” I teased.

She grabbed it and plopped it haphazardly on her head, her own hair flowing beneath it. “He’ll survive,” she said dryly. “Hey, what’s going on up there? Another blackout?” she asked.

“Hope not. Probably just a blown fuse.”

“Again? When is Marty going to hire an actual electrician? Spencer’s great, but he can only do so much.”

“Marty? Never.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” she said as she slipped on a hairnet and properly placed her wig. 

When she was in full costume and lit up on the slab, Banshee was the centerpiece of the walkthrough. Sure, we didn’t have an actual moving Frankenstein’s monster; he was there—as a static prop figure. But we had a live Bride of Frankenstein.

Even lying perfectly still on the slab, she looked wrong in exactly the right way. The Bride of Frankenstein dress hung from her narrow frame in stiff white folds, and her face was powdered so pale it seemed to glow beneath the flashing strobe lights. Black lipstick twisted into a crooked smile.

Behind her, a voltage conductor prop sent arcs of blue light crawling between two metal rods. When they reached the top, blue-white sparks cracked overhead.

The victims were always creeped out by her because she never did too much. Most actors lunged, screamed, or cackled. Banshee just opened her eyes very slowly and turned her head as if she'd heard something calling to her from underwater. Then she'd make eye contact. That got under people's skin deeper than any fake chainsaw ever could.

In the basement was also the swamp scene. Marty would joke that he put it down there because the basement “already smelled scummy” so he could save on smell effects. He wasn’t wrong. It did sort of smell like pond scum in that area.

Fog crawled over the floor, lit by green lights in the ceiling. Reeds made from painted insulation foam rose from shallow troughs of murky water. On the far side, a broken rowboat sat half-submerged. A skeleton was slumped on one of the seats, looking as though the poor soul's boat had drifted there and been left to rot.

The swamp scene transitioned to a forest scene on the other side of the basement. I was rushing through when I noticed Luke propped against the far wall in partial shadow, hunched over inside his werewolf costume. He didn’t look very menacing in that pose. In fact, he was dead still. His head tilted slightly.

I approached him slowly so as not to startle him. But he didn’t notice me. Didn’t move.

Marty’s voice came from just around the corner. “Take care where you step, my dear friends. Many have been lost to the quicksand in the marsh…”

For a moment, I was worried Luke had passed out under his costume. Then I remembered it was probably just Luke being Luke.

The weird thing about him was that he didn’t seem weird at first. Not in Banshee’s way. Banshee announced weird before she opened her mouth. Luke was just—a bit off. Quiet. Shy, maybe. Hair a little too long, either hiding behind it or tucking it behind his ears like he didn’t know what else to do with it. Kept to himself on breaks. Ate like food was optional. Smiled when people talked to him, but like he had to remind himself he should.

And then there was the drifting. Every once in a while, he’d just be—gone. Like part of him had stepped a few feet out of his body and lost the connection. 

“Luke!”

Nothing. Not even a blink.

I stepped off the path so I could see the edge of the swamp set. I could see Marty coming with the group not far behind.

“Hey!”

Still nothing.

I gave his shoulder a sharp shove. For a second, I thought he wasn’t going to come to.

But suddenly his body jolted like he’d just been dropped into the room from another dimension. He jerked so hard the werewolf mask slipped sideways. “What!”

“Your cue, man.”

At that point, Marty saw me standing in the middle of the path and immediately began waving his hands, shooing me out of the scene.

Luke stared at me for a second, his bluish-green eyes slowly coming into focus, reorienting to his surroundings. And when he did, he snapped his mask back into place.

I ran ahead but turned back just in time to see the first victims reach the edge of his station. He exploded out from the trees with a snarl. The two front girls screamed and nearly climbed each other to get to the other side of the path. Luke slashed his clawed hands through the fog and howled. It was a good howl too—full-throated and raw. Nothing like his actual voice. I don’t know how he did it over and over without ruining his voice.

Then, he vanished behind the tree trunks like he’d never been there. I stayed another second, watching the fog close around where he’d been, wondering just exactly what went on inside Luke’s head.

My detour got me off track. I had to quickly double back behind the basement scenes and charge back up the steps.

By the time I hit the narrow central corridor between sets, Oliver (or Oly as we called him), was coming from the other direction with the chainsaw slung over one shoulder. Fake chainsaw. Real noise. Marty’s prized prop.

Oly wasn’t some hulking Leatherface. If anything, he was the opposite—thin and wiry. Tight curly hair. Yet a guy his size carrying an oversized chainsaw somehow made it more unsettling.

Oly had been here longer than anyone except Marty. And that meant, whether official or not, he was Marty's second-in-command. He knew exactly what Marty wanted and took his directions seriously. He was also the one who made sure Marty knew when something in the attraction wasn't working. And that something was often one of us.  

“Maxwell,” Oly said, stopping me. “After that last group, Marty said to drag it out more in the banquet hall. Let them sit in it.”

“I thought I did.”

He shrugged. “Not long enough according to Marty.”

“Good lord,” I muttered.

Up ahead, I found Renee dancing by herself in the slaughter room, playfully making the foam severed heads hanging by butcher hooks rock back and forth.

Just in time, I made my second vampire pop-out from behind a bookshelf in the library scene. I got a good scream. Bonus.

On my way to my final scare, I poked my head into the chapel scene, where Reggie nearly clipped me with his undertaker’s shovel.

“Decapitation by shovel is one way to kill a vampire,” he joked.

I flipped him off with a laugh before heading back down the corridor.

I looked up and caught a glimpse of Spencer in his makeshift booth in the rafters. Headphones hung around his neck as he leaned over a cluttered table lit by the glow of a computer screen. Extension cords snaked in every direction. Spencer kept an eye on the lights, sound effects, and fog machines from up there—and whatever electrical gremlin decided to show up that night. When something quit working—and something always quit working—he was usually the one climbing all over the place to fix it.

Spencer was a technical genius able to make the mill’s janky equipment behave. He was another one of The Haunted Mill’s odd characters. He had the unnerving habit of saying exactly what he observed in the flattest voice possible, no matter who it embarrassed.

A week before, he had watched me help Luke improve the blocking of the werewolf forest scene. “Maxwell, how many times are you going to keep repositioning him?” Spencer blurted out.

He was right. I hadn’t realized how long I had my hands on Luke’s shoulders, turning him slightly toward the fog, adjusting him to get lined up just right so that he was properly hidden before his big reveal. 

Banshee had been leaning against the wall, watching. “Yeah, geez. It’s like he’s your marionette,” she said, making it even worse.

I let go of Luke immediately as if he was too hot to touch.

Spencer blinked, looking from me to Luke. “I didn’t mean anything by it. You were just controlling him. Like, a lot.” Thanks, Spencer. His clarifying comment made it no better.

Spencer waved in my direction without looking away from his monitor. His way of saying hello, I see you down there.

Then the red light over the hall began blinking, meaning final sequence was coming, and we all moved. This was the part Marty cared about most. “Doesn’t matter if all the scares hit,” he’d say, “as long as they leave running.”

The last stretch of the attraction was designed exactly for that. Dubbed the “endless hallway,” it had a low ceiling, tight walls, strobe lights that made everything jump in disconnected pieces, and hidden speakers whispering nonsense under the main sound mix—just enough to make your brain start to go a little delirious.

The timing had to be right.

Marty’s voice floated behind the huddled group one last time. “There is only one way out…”

The group rounded the turn.

I took my place in a side alcove. And then slammed into the wall beside them to drive them forward. The boards rattled. A couple shrieks. Not bad.

Oly burst out of the smoke at the end of the corridor, chainsaw roaring, the sound echoing off the old beams. Reggie cut them off at the back turn, driving them forward just as Luke’s claws tore through a hidden slide cut out of the particle board wall in the final stretch.

The group bolted for the exit exactly the way Marty wanted. The final door burst open and they spilled out into the cold lot half laughing, half swearing, clutching their souvenir cards and each other.

And just like that, the show was over.

For two minutes, anyway.

Marty came bustling from behind, his cheeks pink with excitement and his black coat flapping around his ankles.

“Excellent work! Keep up your energy. The night is young!” he howled.

“We blew one of the flood bulbs,” Spencer called from the rafters.

Marty waved it off. “Art requires sacrifice.”

“Bulbs also require replacement.”

“Write it in the ledger, my son.”

I slipped out the side door for a quick breath of fresh air. 

I leaned against the wall beneath a broken gutter and took a deep breath. The night hit me all at once—damp wind, wet gravel, the distant sound of a pickup taking the road too fast. The mill loomed behind me, black and hulking against a cloudy sky with only a few dimly lit windows. From out here, it looked like the kind of place people wouldn’t gravitate toward.

The side door creaked open. Luke. His mask was off. His damp hair clung to his forehead. He grabbed a strand and moved it behind his ear. He always looked a little softer without the stage lights on him. Less ghostly.

He didn’t see me at first. Or maybe he did and didn’t know what to do. He stopped a few feet away and stared out at the parking lot like he was listening for something in the dark.

“You okay?” I finally asked.

He spun around, startled.

“You seemed a bit spaced out down there.”

He looked terrified, as if he was searching for words but none would come.

“You almost missed your cue.”

“I know.” His voice was quiet and a little rough. Like he’d just woken up.

“You almost let those girls get through the woods alive.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged.

“Don’t be sorry. But you know, you owe me one.”

That got the smallest smile out of him. “I’m okay,” he said. “Just tired tonight.”

I didn’t believe him, which was weird, because I usually didn’t care enough to decide if people were lying—unless it affected me. But with Luke it was different. I couldn’t help noticing things. The way he went still in the basement. The way he seemed to drift off somewhere nobody else could follow. I couldn't figure him out. And for some reason, that only made me more curious.

Oly swung open the door and yelled, “Hey, guys. Back to places.”

Luke headed for the door. “We better get back. You coming?”

“In a minute,” I said.

I watched the way he moved through the doorway without really taking up space in it, like he was trying not to disturb the air around him.

My makeup itched. The cape made me feel stupid. My mouth tasted like fake blood. I listened to the sounds coming from inside—Marty’s muffled voice, the eerie soundtrack from Spencer’s speakers, the creaking of feet over old boards, a distant laugh coming from inside the cavernous mill.

Not normal. Not by a mile. Still, I’d expected the mill to feel like punishment. For every other thing I’d done this year that had landed me here, in vampire boots and pancake makeup, working for a seventy-five-year-old lunatic in a funeral coat. But instead, the place had started to feel oddly… mine. Ours, maybe.

I pushed off the wall.

By the time I stepped back into the mill, the next group’s voices were already gathering at the front. Another round. Another night.

I headed back to my mark and peered through the curtain once again. A strange realization came over me—I was starting to miss it before it was over. I found myself wondering what the hell was going to happen to us when the season ended.

Chapter 2
Fog Juice

Luke

I was crouched between the fake trees waiting for my cue. Dusty old Christmas trees that Marty had gotten from Goodwill years ago along with a few prop tree trunks made of foam. A fog machine hummed behind me, pushing out slow waves of green-lit mist that clung to the floor and crept around my boots.

My mask smelled of cheap rubber. My skin couldn’t breathe. It was wet. Gross. Clung to my face like a hot, wet noodle. Marty hadn’t exactly splurged on my costume. The werewolf mask was one you could find in any costume aisle in October. I knew because not only had I seen it at K-Mart, but I was also called out on it.

“Cool mask,” some kid said the second night I wore it. “I have the same one.” Ouch.

After that, I’d spent hours trying to soup it up myself. I added some foam on the inside so it wouldn’t crumple on top of my head. Mangled the fur and worked some fake blood into it. Spray-painted the muzzle dark brown. Added red streaks down the chin. Darkened under the eyes to give it a more sinister look. It helped. A little. In the low light it went from cheap Halloween mask to something passable—for a low budget attraction at least.

Above me, I listened to the muffled thud of footsteps through the boards as Marty led the victims through the maze. I shifted my weight and adjusted the mask. Waiting. The air was heavier down there, even when the fog machines weren’t running. That section of the basement never felt right to me. Especially when I was alone. Still with my own thoughts. But when I was alone, I never really felt alone. I tried not to think about it. But the more I tried, the more I thought about it.

I stared into the fog that had pooled on the other side of the path. I studied the way it hovered and curled. Allowed my mind to wander, to become mesmerized by the cloudy wisps. After a while, I couldn’t hear the floorboard creaks; the screams that started to come closer; or the rotating soundtrack of heartbeats, ticking clocks, and heavy breathing that boomed through the speakers.

The more I became lost in the haze, the more I began to see shapes forming. Subtle at first. Faint. It was strange. I couldn’t tell if the shapes were made of the fog or if they were cutting through the fog. It seemed like a combination of both—as if the fog was being manipulated, shaped into forms, while simultaneously being pushed apart, forming negative spaces.

And within this sea of morphing shapes, I began to make out broad shoulders. Fog swirled above them to form an oblong, ever-shifting head. Beneath them, a torso gradually appeared. And finally, wispy legs formed beneath it, lifting the figure above the fog swirling near the floor. With its crude body formed, it came forward, gliding onto the path.

I fell back on my heels and landed on my butt. Terrified, I scooted back up to the Christmas tree behind me and nearly knocked it over. I wanted to look away but couldn’t take my eyes off its face. At first, it was blank. Just a swirling mist. In fact, its head kept getting blown away due to the fans in the ceiling. But the entity seemed to work to bring the fog back into a somewhat discernable head shape above its shoulders. And for a flashing moment, when its head was in a form that appeared almost solid, I could make out its eyes. They glowed dimly, peering at me as I cowered into the set.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I blinked hard, my chest tightening under the costume.

As it crossed the path and floated to the edge of the trees, I watched as two more figures began to slowly form behind it. The one closest raised its amorphous arms above its head. Their stringy limbs nearly reached the ceiling as it began to bend over bringing its twisting face to mine.

That’s when I closed my eyes as tight as I could. Frantically, I began trying to convince myself that I had just been down there too long alone. My mind wandering, going to strange places again. I closed them so tightly, I began to see gray dots form before me as I felt the cool mist penetrate the openings of my mask.

And then I felt it. Solid. It grabbed my shoulder. I flinched.

“Luke!”

My neck snapped upward. Towering over me was the Bride of Frankenstein, AKA, Banshee.

“Oh my God!” she shouted.

“What!”

“Luke—you missed your cue! You are in big fuckin’ trouble!”

“No, I didn’t,” I said, confused, frazzled.

“You sure did. The group went right on by. Marty kept repeating, ‘In these woods, the least of your worries is lions, tigers, and bears.’”

My cue. Shit.

“And guess what? No werewolf, Luke. I don’t give a shit. And you know Marty’s too nice to ream you out, but when Marty tells Oly, Oly’s gonna get on his high horse. So, I would avoid him the rest of the night if I were you.”

She looked at me like she could see through my mask, her head tilted with that ridiculously high wig. I slipped my mask off and cradled my head between my arms. She crouched down beside me and put her hand on my shoulder.

“You saw them again, huh?” she assumed.

I didn’t answer.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You and I both know this place isn’t just for show.”

I forced a small laugh. “It’s literally for show.”

“You know what I mean. You’re seeing shit. And that means it’s the haunted—Haunted Mill.”

I let out a short laugh.

I appreciated Banshee for believing me. She was the only one I had ever told, or would ever think of telling, about what I felt—and saw—in that basement. And that was only because Banshee was obsessed with anything paranormal. Always trying to get me to go to a psychic with her. Always telling me about how she could talk to the dead on her Ouija board. It felt safe—freeing, even—to talk openly to her about what I was experiencing.

Still, I wondered if maybe her love of all things spooky resulted in her giving me too much credit. I could admit I had a wandering mind and a healthy imagination. I used it often. To escape. To survive uncomfortable situations in my adolescence. In my adulthood even. Sometimes I couldn’t control it. Shut it off. And while I was inside my head, sometimes it felt no different than reality.

But who knew… Back before it was a haunted attraction, before the lights and speakers and fake scenery, before Marty decided this place was going to be his—it was a working lumber mill. Men moving through the space where the swamp and forest sets stood now. Boots tracking sawdust instead of fog. Wood splitting, metal grinding, voices raised over machinery. Long hours. Cold winters. Work that didn’t stop just because it hurt.

Marty didn’t care about real history. He had given the mill his own backstory. Its own mythology about creatures in the surrounding woods—or something like that. But I’d read about the mill here and there. Old articles, bits of history—how the mills ran ten or twelve hours a day. How guys came in from everywhere—Scandinavia, Canada, Ireland—worked until they couldn’t, then moved on or didn’t. After reading about it, I had a whole new perspective working there in that basement. It felt different. Not like history, more like remembering something that I didn’t experience.

Could the forms in the mist really be those mill workers back from the dead? Reaching out? If so, what for? And why me?

“That’s it!” declared Banshee. “Tomorrow night, I’m bringing my board.”

“Your skateboard?” I joked, imagining goth Banshee as a skater girl.

“I’m serious. Tomorrow. After close. We bring it down here.”

“And what?”

“Get to the bottom of this. Find out who they are. What they’re doing down here.”

Something in my chest tightened. I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. Okay.”

“But for the rest of tonight, close them off. Don’t let them in. Imagine yourself blocking them. Build a wall in your mind. Because Luke, you cannot miss that cue again… And you better get upstairs before you miss that cue too,” she warned.

She was right. I dropped my mask back into place and shot to my feet.

Banshee rushed off into the foggy darkness toward her station while I scrambled up the steps and through the behind-the-scenes corridor toward the endless hallway. This is not good. I just committed the number one sin of working in a haunted house: missing your cue.

As I galloped through the tight passage, I practiced my snarl and arm swipe. After letting Marty down, I figured I’d better bring something extra to my final pop-out.

Chapter 3
Banshee’s Ouija Board

Luke

Strobing lights. Groups running even though they’d been told not to. Teens screaming. Crashing into other scare actors in the narrow corridors. Spencer’s auditory overload of a soundtrack blasting through the speakers while Marty somehow managed to talk over all of it. All that mad energy… 

And then the last group spilled into the parking lot. The doors closed. Sudden stillness. It was always jarring.

Exhausted, I peeled off my mask. The sweat that had pooled inside the latex immediately started dripping on the floor. So disgusting. I began heading down the endless hallway toward the breakroom. Standing at the front of the hall, Maxwell was removing his cape. I paused for a moment and pretended to be examining my mask. I liked him, but I was terrified of another awkward encounter. I couldn’t stomach the aftermath—replaying every embarrassing moment I choked and didn’t know what to say. So I avoided him, doubled back, and slipped into the backstage corridor.

I popped back into the main hall and made a quick beeline for the breakroom. It was a small space with a dented fridge, a folding table, and a couple mismatched chairs that looked like they’d been pulled from different decades.

Banshee was already sitting at the table. The towering wig was gone, but she still wore most of her Bride of Frankenstein makeup. Honestly, it wasn't much of a transformation. Take away the wig and the white dress, and she was still Banshee—pale, dark-eyed, dressed in black whenever possible, looking like she'd wandered out of a graveyard and into an underground club.

Maybe that was why the character suited her so well. The Bride wasn't really a monster. She was a creation. Something brought into the world for someone else's purpose. It was exactly the sort of thing Banshee would rebel against. Whether she realized it or not, wearing the costume felt like she was making a statement.

As soon as I sat next to her, she got a giant grin on her face. She reached beneath the table and produced a black velvet drawstring bag. The fabric was worn thin in places. She loosened the cord slowly and tipped it. The board slid out, making a soft click as it settled onto the tabletop.

I had expected something cheap. A thin board with a printed sticker slapped on top. A Parker Brothers version you’d find in a toy aisle between board games and action figures.

This wasn't that.

It was older than anything you’d find in a store. Thick, solid wood—dark oak, stained warm brown. Its surface was covered in black lettering and elaborate designs carved, or perhaps burned, deep into the grain.

The alphabet stretched across the center in ornate Gothic script. A pair of circles marked YES and NO in opposite corners. Below them were rows of numbers and a formal GOOD BYE carved near the bottom.

My eyes lingered on the decorations. A winged scarab spread its wings near the top left. A moth with a skull marking on its back occupied the opposite corner. In the lower left, a pentagram sat inside a circle surrounded by radiating lines. In the lower right, a heart sprouting a pair of dark wings was crowned in flames. More symbols, twisting vines, and decorative borders filled the remaining space, giving the whole thing the appearance of something pulled from an antique shop or a Victorian séance parlor.

The board did not look like a game at all. It looked like a tool meant for only the most serious paranormal communicator.

“Carved a long time ago in Ukraine,” she declared.

I reached out and traced my fingers along one of the grooves, half expecting her to slap my hand away. She didn't. Leaning closer, I caught an earthy scent coming from the wood.

“Linseed oil,” she said. “I take good care of my board.” She suddenly lifted her head toward the door. “Oh good.”

Spencer stood in the doorway, his eyes immediately drawn to the board. “So that’s it, huh?” he asked, somewhat intrigued yet at the same time tempering his reaction. “It’s definitely more—over-the-top—than I was expecting.”

Banshee rolled her eyes. “Don’t be disrespecting my board—if you know what’s good for you,” she snipped, with half sarcasm, half warning.

“Okay. Okay,” he replied while stepping in the room for a closer look. “I’m just here to see if this thing can do what you say it can. You know, for scientific purposes.”

“For scientific purposes—of course,” Banshee responded in a mocking tone. “It’s not your sound board, Spencer. It doesn’t work that predictably.”

“You think the equipment Marty gave me works predictably?” he asked with a laugh.

“Fair enough,” she conceded.

Then, filling the space without trying, Maxwell stepped in the doorway. Still in partial costume, dragging his cape. His hair was damp at the edges, and his makeup was smeared just enough to look less like a vampire and more like an extra in an alternative music video.

“Hey, bad ass Ouija board,” he said before looking to Spencer and then to me. “Didn’t know this was a group activity.”

“It wasn’t,” I muttered.

I immediately regretted saying it aloud—but why were they there? Banshee said nothing about Spencer or Maxwell joining us. With just Banshee, it was easy. Groups made me nervous. And being around Maxwell, especially, made my stomach tighten. Great. Another opportunity for him to think of me as some strange mute weirdo who couldn’t complete a full sentence.  

“Usually, I work alone,” said Banshee. “But we have each gelled with this space in our own personal way, so your presence might actually help me connect.”

Just then, Oly stepped into the room. Oh my God. Him too? I had been successfully avoiding him after missing my cue. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought Banshee was working to sabotage me.

Upon seeing the board, he immediately started shaking his head, making his opinion of Banshee's idea perfectly clear. “You’re not using that in here,” he said.

“And why’s that?” asked Banshee.

“Marty’s rules are pretty clear. Fake spooks only. We all know how he feels about real shit.”

There was something ironic about it. About a man who made it his life’s mission to run a campy haunted house filled with blood and ghouls who was scared to death at the thought of anything that was actually paranormal.

Oly looked at the board. Then at Banshee. Then at the rest of us. A long pause. Then, quieter, “He wouldn’t like it.”

Maxwell shrugged. “Well Marty’s not here. He’s up in his office counting cash.”

Oly’s jaw tightened slightly. “I’m just sayin’. If Marty finds out, I’m not covering for you.”

“We already know that,” I shot back.

“Hey Luke,” said Oly. “I heard about you missing a scare. So you’re already on thin ice with Marty.”

I bit my cheek and looked at the table.

“On thin ice with Marty? Or with you?” Maxwell challenged.

“Same difference,” he mumbled.

“Okay. Listen up,” said Banshee taking charge. “Luke found a vortex in the basement.”

“A vortex!” I found myself shouting. “I never said—”

“Well, what would you call it, Luke?”

My face turned hot. What all had Banshee told them? If they didn’t think I was a lunatic before, they certainly had to at that point. “I don’t know…” I stammered. “I don’t even know what a vortex is.”

"A concentrated pocket of spiritual energy that allows entities to move more easily between worlds," Banshee explained as if everyone should already know that.

"That's a real thing?" I asked.

"Obviously. That’s why we’re attempting contact in the basement.”

“What exactly did you see down there, Luke?” asked Spencer.

Everyone was looking at me. I cleared my throat and said quietly, “In the fog…” Then, I choked. Couldn’t say another word. Didn’t want to either though. I thought what I had told Banshee was private, between her and me. I didn’t want the rest of them to know—about any of it.

“There are entities in the basement. In the fog,” Banshee said, taking over.

“You saw them too?” Spencer pressed.

“Well. No.”

“Then how are you so sure?”

“Because Luke saw them. And I trust Luke.”

I wanted to crawl under the table.

“Well, no offense to Luke,” Spencer said, “but that’s only a sample size of one.”   

“Well good news, Spence. We’re about to have a sample size of five. How about that?” She jolted up, clutching the board in one hand and her velvet bag in the other. “Alright. Into the basement.”

“Yeah, before Marty comes out of his office,” added Oly.

Maxwell stepped into the hall and opened his arm as if he were an usher. “Lead the way, Banshee,” he smirked.

I followed directly behind Banshee, passing Spencer first, who still looked bewildered. Then I slipped past Oly and Maxwell. I couldn't look any of them in the eye. At that point, I just wanted to close my eyes, leave my body, and escape the mill.

The basement was even more eerie without the show running. No soundtrack. No screaming or laughing victims. Just the building settling into the quiet. Even though the fog machines were off, poor ventilation meant an ever-present haze lingered just above the floor.

“By the forest set.” Banshee pointed. “That’s where Luke says they’re the strongest.”

Oh my God, Banshee. Please stop!  

We gathered next to the trees, the lights low enough to see but not enough to feel completely comfortable. Banshee set the board down in the middle of the foot path and sat cross-legged in front of it. She then opened up the velvet bag and produced a peculiar piece of porcelain.

It was a shallow dish shaped like a heart. The porcelain was a pale powder blue bordered by a thick band of gold. Tiny, raised dots in the same shade of blue ringed the edge in neat rows, catching the dim light like little beads. Delicate gold flourishes curled across the surface around an oval portrait at its center.

The woman in the portrait stared outward with a calm, almost knowing expression. Her silver hair was piled high around her head in soft curls, giving her the appearance of some long-dead aristocrat. Gold filigree framed her likeness, making it look less like a decoration and more like a miniature shrine.

“Is that supposed to be the pointer?” Maxwell asked.

I wondered the same thing myself. It wasn’t the usual plastic Ouija pointer. It looked like something that belonged on a grandmother's vanity.

“Pointer?” she scoffed. “It’s called a planchette.”

She set it carefully on the center of the board.

Spencer joined her on the floor and examined the piece. “That’s not a usual planchette, is it? I mean, that’s not how they’re usually designed.”

“It’s not,” she affirmed. “Actually, it’s a jewelry dish. My grandmother’s. But she didn’t use it for jewelry. And neither do I.”

“Do you think it will make a difference? Using a jewelry dish versus a more traditional planchette?”

“What’s a traditional planchette?” she countered. “You think this is my first time? It doesn’t always work. But if something’s here. And if I use this board. And if I used this planchette... there’s a good chance we’ll get something.”

She let her hair fall, covering the sides of her face as she looked down at the board. She placed her fingers on either side of the dish. “Now the rest of you, get down here,” she ordered. “Fingertips on the board.”

“Wait,” said Maxwell. “You’re not going to let us play with it?”

“Play with it?” she scoffed. “No. You will not be playing with it. Only I make contact with the planchette.”

“Why’s that?” pressed Spencer. “That’s not how Ouija boards work.”

“It’s how this Ouija board works—with me,” she snapped.  

Spencer reluctantly placed his fingers on the edge of the board.

I went next. I sat next to Banshee. As she instructed, I placed just the tips of my fingers onto the edge of the roughly carved wood.

Then—Maxwell sat beside me. Close. He had to in order to fit everyone around the board. We weren’t touching. But almost. I could feel the heat of his skin. I held still. Didn’t want to lean away from him. Didn’t want to lean closer either. He smelled sweaty and musky—but not bad. Not at all. There was something underneath it—clean, sharp, like wood and something warm. His hand came down next to mine, fingers settling along the edge of the board.

Oly hesitated. Then, with a quiet breath like he already regretted it, he joined us. “I swear. If Marty comes down those steps, he’ll fire us all.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Marty’s a teddy bear,” said Maxwell.

“Shhh!” Banshee scolded. “It’s time to concentrate.”

“On what?” asked Oly.

“On the entities Luke has been seeing down here.”

“But if we haven’t seen them—or don’t believe they exist, how are we supposed to concentrate on them?” Spencer asked.

Banshee sighed. “Open your mind. Think about the possibility of spirits being down here. Invite them in using your mind’s eye.”

“I don’t know what that means,” said Oly.

Banshee ignored him as she seemed to take her own advice and began to concentrate. After a moment, she placed her fingers on the porcelain heart—and the room went still. She took a deep breath.

“Is anyone else with us?” she asked.

Nothing. Just the distant sound of an industrial fan still blowing on the other side of the basement.

“You’ve been seen in this basement. Is this a familiar place to you?”

Oly cleared his throat. Max’s fingers moved slightly as he tried to hold their position steady on the board.

“Did you used to work here? Or live nearby?”

The planchette beneath her fingers stood still.

This was so embarrassing. What was Banshee thinking? Bringing the guys down here? Telling them my personal stuff—all for what? Just for both of us to get humiliated?

“Do you have a message for us?”

Suddenly—the planchette moved. Not smooth. It dragged. Like something was pushing through it. It slid to the YES circle.

Spencer leaned in for inspection. “You’re applying pressure.”

“I’m not.”

The piece jerked under her fingers. Then slid again.

J…

“It’s the ideomotor effect.”

“What?” Oly asked.

“She’s moving it without realizing.”

“Shut up.”

O…

It stopped.

Then again—

I…

N…

My heart was pounding fast.

“Join,” Banshee said softly.

The planchette scraped sideways. Hard off the letter N. And dragged back toward the center of the board.

Maxwell shifted next to me. I could feel his breath on my neck.

U…

The piece zagged back to S.

My pinky touched Maxwell’s on accident. But I didn’t move it back. Didn’t breathe. I didn’t want to break whatever this was.

“Us… Join Us,” relayed Banshee.

A pause.

Then—the piece snapped forward, moving faster now in uneven yet seemingly deliberate motions.

B…

U…

R—

It scraped violently across the board—then snapped to GOOD BYE.

It stopped. Dead. After that, no movement. No drift. No scraping. Nothing.

Oly lifted his fingers first and then held his hands in the air as if he had just touched a smoking gun and wanted nothing more to do with it.

“Is it over?” asked Maxwell.

Spencer exhaled and quietly said to Maxwell, “Subconscious guidance. Pattern completion. That’s all.”

“It wasn’t me,” Banshee said, offended.

“But you were the only one with your hands on the pointer,” said Maxwell. “How do we know you weren’t just pushing it?”

“Did it look like I was pushing it? You saw the way it was moving. No way was I doing that.”

Oly stood and stepped away slowly like the board was going to bite him if he moved too suddenly.

As Spencer and Maxwell got up, Banshee remained still. Controlled. “Forget it,” she said. “You better get upstairs. Marty will be out of his office soon.”

Not needing to be told twice, the guys headed toward the stairs. Those jerks didn't even look back. Not even Maxwell. I wasn't sure why, but he bothered me more than anyone else. Why did he have to automatically side with Spencer? Why did he have to dismiss what happened on the board so easily?

Banshee still sat looking down at the board, her hair still covering the sides of her face.

“I know you didn’t move it,” I said.

Something in her shoulders eased. Finally, her eyes flicked up to mine. “Thanks. But why didn’t you say anything while they were still down here?”

Fair question. Maxwell’s laugh drifted down from upstairs. “I just—” I hesitated.

“What?” she asked.

“I just didn’t want to look crazy,” I said quietly.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, but you’re okay pinning all the crazy on me?”

“Hey. I never said you could tell them what I saw down here. So you pinned it on me first.”

“Yeah. Well, who cares what they think.”   

“I don’t.”  

“Bullshit! You care what Maxwell thinks.”  

“Why would you say that!”

She hesitated. Shook her head and reset. “Never mind. Maxwell’s cool. And I get it. But you work here, remember? Being crazy? That ship has sailed. For both of you.”

What she said was somehow comforting—yet felt like a trap at the same time. I didn’t know how to respond. So I didn’t.

On our way up the stairs, I glanced back into the basement. For a second, I thought I saw something—or someone—within the lingering haze. Watching us. Standing near the back by the water tanks.

“C’mon.” Banshee tugged my arm. I followed her up the stairs, trying not to look back.

© 2026 Everett Jacobs. All rights reserved. Excerpts from The Haunted Mill may not be reproduced without permission.