The stage lights died with a final, dramatic flicker, plunging the high school auditorium into a thick, velvety blackness. Suspended in the fly system, Hannah Thurman’s heart hammered against her ribs. “Aaron?” Her voice, usually so bold and commanding on stage, was a thin thread in the dark. “This isn’t funny!”

Silence. Heavy and complete.

A single, blinding spotlight stabbed through the darkness, pinning her in its beam like a moth. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded her veins. She was hauled upward, the harness biting into her thighs, then dropped with a sickening lurch. A scream tore from her throat. She fumbled with the carabiner, her fingers slick with sweat, but another violent yank sent her swinging wildly. Her hand shot out, grappling for purchase, and closed around a thick stage rope. She wrapped her arm around it, clinging as she pendulumed through the air.

Thump.

The heavy garage-style door to the stage room began to grind upward, letting in a sliver of fluorescent light from the hallway. Relief, dizzying and sweet, washed over her. Aaron. Or maybe Mr. Willis coming back to lock up. The door stopped halfway, then, with a low hum, began to descend again.

Hannah dropped to the stage floor with a soft thud, untangling herself from the rope. Annoyance now tempered her fear. “Lucas, you asshole,” she muttered, a half-smile touching her lips. This had to be Lucas Bowden, stage crew head and notorious prankster, trying to scare her after the fly system incident earlier. He’d always had a thing for horror movie theatrics.

She strode toward the closing door, ready to play along. “Okay, okay! You got me! Very Ghostface. Original.” The door sealed shut with a definitive clang, plunging her back into near-darkness, save for the ghost light’s soft glow at center stage.

She turned.

A figure stood silhouetted against the pale bulb, one hand resting on the wall-mounted door activator. The black robe was cheap Halloween store fare, the mask a familiar, twisted plastic scream.

“Seriously, Lucas?” Hannah sighed, planting a hand on her hip, falling into the role of the unimpressed final girl. It was a game. It was always a game. “The knife is supposed to come after the creepy phone call. You’re skipping, like, three steps.”

The figure took a slow, silent step forward. Then another.

A glint of steel appeared in its hand, not a rubber prop, but long, polished, and lethally sharp. The world slowed, the playful script in her mind shredding into confetti. Before she could move, a gloved hand shot out, iron-strong, and clamped around her forearm, yanking her forward.

The cold press of the knife’s flat side against her cheek stole her breath. This close, she could see her own wide, terrified reflection in the mask’s blank eye holes. No laughter. No Lucas. Just a void.

The understanding hit her not as a thought, but as a physical ice water dump in her soul. The spunky diva, the fairy princess, the girl planning a party—all of it fell away.

This was not a game.

The last thing Hannah Thurman ever knew was the sound of her own whimper, swallowed by the vast, hungry dark of the empty auditorium, and the chilling, intimate silence of the thing holding her.