Art the Clown lay in another widening pool of blood while Darius Kane kept the shotgun trained on him.
After everything that had happened, Darius had finally gathered enough information to estimate how the clown’s strange revival worked inside this trial.
The fastest Art had gotten back up was roughly fifteen seconds, while the longest delay had stretched close to half an hour, though Darius strongly suspected some of those longer periods had been deliberate attempts to lure him closer.
Averaged out, Art usually became active again within about a minute.
That observation gave Darius a dangerous idea.
If the plan worked, he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night staring at Art and wondering when he would charge again.
Darius hesitated only briefly before deciding that continuing this endless firefight carried just as much risk.
He raised the shotgun and fired several more times, destroying Art’s remaining ability to move effectively before the clown could revive again.
The goal wasn’t simply to hurt him; Darius needed enough time to move the body without being attacked halfway through.
Once he was satisfied, he stepped carefully out from behind the barricade.
Beside him stood a large rectangular stainless-steel storage cabinet, big enough to hold a person if they were forced inside.
Darius opened it, approached Art cautiously, and kicked the severed pieces of his damaged limbs toward the container first.
Before touching the clown himself, he fired another blast into Art’s head to make absolutely certain there wouldn’t be an immediate surprise.
Blood splashed across Darius’s clothes, but at this point he barely reacted.
He grabbed the body and forced it into the cabinet.
The moment Art was inside, Darius slammed the door shut and threaded heavy wire through the handles.
He wrapped it around several times, tightening the makeshift restraint until the cabinet was secured as firmly as he could manage.
Even if Art revived immediately, he would wake inside a cramped steel box without room to swing a weapon properly.
Darius stepped back and exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
“That should hold you.” But locking Art inside the pizzeria wasn’t enough.
Darius climbed through the hole in the rear wall and headed toward the construction vehicle Art had used against him.
He had driven ordinary vehicles before, and the memories of his current body gave him enough practical confidence to figure out the unfamiliar controls after a short inspection.
It wasn’t graceful, but he managed to get the machine moving.
He rammed the damaged wall a few more times until the opening was wide enough to work through without difficulty.
Using the front blade, Darius maneuvered the stainless-steel cabinet out of the kitchen and carried it away from the ruined restaurant.
The heavy box shifted with every bump, and before long a dull metallic pounding came from inside.
Art had revived.
Darius glanced toward the cabinet and grinned when the impacts became faster.
Inside, Art’s body finished restoring enough movement for him to react.
He tried to rise instinctively, only for his head to slam against the cabinet’s upper surface with a hard metallic thump.
After a brief pause, his hands moved around the interior, feeling steel on every side before reaching the tightly bound door.
Rage followed immediately.
Art began hammering against the walls, but flesh and bone accomplished nothing against the thick metal enclosure.
Darius listened to the repeated clanging with growing satisfaction.
“What’s wrong?
I thought you were supposed to be terrifying.” He kept driving, completely unconcerned by the furious pounding behind him.
“Come on, get out and fight me.” Of course, Art couldn’t.
Darius continued through Miles County until he reached a public park with a large artificial lake.
The area was deserted at this hour, giving him enough space to maneuver without anyone interfering.
He drove close to the water, repositioned the machine, and carefully lined up the cabinet.
One final adjustment sent the steel box over the edge.
SPLASH!
The calm lake surface exploded outward before quickly closing over the cabinet.
Ripples spread through the dark water while the heavy container sank almost immediately.
Darius remained seated behind the controls, watching until even the last bubbles disappeared.
Only then did he allow himself to relax.
“Perfect.” He knew this probably wouldn’t permanently kill Art, which meant the thousand-point side mission was still out of reach.
That didn’t matter.
The main mission only required Darius to survive until sunrise, and trapping Art at the bottom of a deep lake was more than enough to accomplish that.
If the clown kept reviving underwater, he would simply drown again before he could escape.
Revive.
Drown.
Revive again.
Repeat.
In theory, Art could remain trapped in that cycle indefinitely until someone eventually discovered the cabinet and pulled it out of the lake.
By then, Darius would already be long gone and probably dealing with some completely different horror world.
What happened afterward wouldn’t be his problem.
He leaned back in the driver’s seat, finally feeling the crushing tension in his shoulders begin to loosen.
For the first time that night, he genuinely believed he was safe.
Instead of leaving the park, Darius decided to remain nearby and watch the lake until the mission ended.
If something unexpected happened and Art somehow escaped, he wanted to know immediately instead of discovering it when the clown appeared behind him.
With nothing else to do, his thoughts drifted toward the muscular man and the masked woman who had entered the placement trial with him.
He still had no idea where Horror Town had sent either of them.
That raised another question.
If the three residents counted as one team, did Art exist as a single shared threat between them?
If so, then Darius’s encounter with the clown might have effectively removed the main danger from the others as well.
On the other hand, if each resident had entered a separate version of Miles County, there could be three different Arts moving through three independent copies of the same movie world.
Without any communication system, there was no way to know.
Deep beneath the lake, the real situation had become even stranger.
The stainless-steel cabinet sank more than sixty feet before settling into the darkness below.
Art revived inside, immediately found himself submerged, and began suffocating with no way to escape.
His body died again before long.
A short time later, the same process repeated.
After the second drowning, however, Art stopped reviving normally.
His body became completely still.
No heartbeat.
No breathing.
No visible sign of life.
Yet he wasn’t truly dead.
Instead, Art’s supernatural body entered a dormant state, almost like self-imposed suspended animation.
Repeatedly resurrecting underwater accomplished nothing except wasting whatever force allowed him to return, so his body simply stopped trying.
He remained curled inside the cabinet, inactive but preserved, waiting for the moment someone eventually brought him back into conditions where he could survive again.
Darius had no idea this was happening.
From his perspective, everything had gone perfectly.
Time passed slowly as the sky began changing from black to dark blue.
The first faint light appeared along the horizon, and the park gradually came back to life around him.
Early joggers and walkers began appearing on nearby paths, several of them staring curiously at the construction vehicle parked near the lake.
Darius ignored them completely.
His attention remained fixed on the time.
5:39 A.M.
Three minutes.
5:40 A.M.
Two.
Darius’s heartbeat accelerated despite everything he had already survived.
5:41 A.M.
Almost there.
The final minute seemed longer than the entire night.
Then the display changed.
5:42 A.M.
A familiar translucent notification appeared immediately before his eyes.
[Placement Trial: TERRIFIER — Challenge Complete.] [Main Mission Completed: Survive Halloween Night Until 5:42 A.M.] [Return to Horror Town?] Darius didn’t hesitate.
“Return.” The park disappeared.
His body vanished from the driver’s seat without leaving behind even a trace.
Only moments after Darius left, two police cruisers arrived outside Deer Mountain Pizza.
Four officers stepped out with weapons drawn and approached cautiously after receiving reports of violent noise and possible screams from the area.
The restaurant looked abandoned from the street, but the shattered rear wall and damaged entrance made it obvious that something serious had happened during the night.
They entered expecting a burglary, assault, or perhaps a homicide.
The first officer took two steps.
Then his foot shot forward.
“Shit—!” He crashed onto the floor.
The second officer tried to help him and immediately slipped as well, followed by a third who barely managed to catch himself on a table.
For several seconds, the supposedly controlled police entry dissolved into confusion as they struggled against the slick mess coating the tiles.
One officer finally touched the floor carefully and stared at the substance on his glove.
“Is this…
salad dressing?” “You’ve got to be kidding me.” They retreated outside, grabbed equipment that provided better traction, and carefully entered again.
This time they made it past the dining area without falling.
The moment they reached the counter, however, every officer stopped.
Steve’s mutilated remains and the grotesque display Art had left behind were still exactly where Darius had found them.
The youngest officer turned pale.
“Oh God.” He rushed back outside and vomited beside a tree.
The others managed to keep themselves under control, but only barely.
Police officers saw death, violence, and terrible accidents as part of the job, yet this was something entirely different.
Whoever had committed the murder hadn’t simply killed someone.
The body had been deliberately transformed into a grotesque Halloween display.
About fifteen minutes earlier, dispatch had received complaints about violent crashing, screams, and suspicious activity around the pizzeria.
The responding officers had assumed they were dealing with an ordinary crime scene.
Now the ranking officer raised his radio with a grim expression.
“Dispatch, we have a confirmed homicide at Deer Mountain Pizza.
Requesting detectives, crime scene personnel, and additional units.” Before he could finish, another transmission cut in.
“Multiple mutilated bodies located inside the derelict building on Fifteenth Street.
Nearby units respond and secure the scene.” The four officers exchanged stunned looks.
Another massacre?
And it was barely a couple of miles away.
For a few seconds, none of them spoke.
Whatever had happened across Miles County during Halloween night clearly wasn’t limited to one location.
Even experienced officers couldn’t completely suppress the chill that came with realizing they might be looking at several connected scenes from the same killer.
The ranking officer finally pointed toward the youngest cop.
“Stay here and secure the pizzeria.
Nobody goes inside until detectives arrive.” The remaining three hurried back to their cruiser.
Sirens came alive.
Within seconds, they were racing toward the second crime scene, unaware that the killer they would eventually search for was already lying dormant at the bottom of a lake.
And Darius Kane was no longer in their world.
(End of Chapter) [Goal Tracker]