by J. D. Oliva
"Connor, where are you going?" Leah asked.
He didn't even respond. He just ran into the fire. He knew it was exactly what Cody would do for him.
XLVII
Cody jogged through the back halls, trying to stay away from the commotion, still looking for Connor. But the Hallow was empty. Everyone was gone. There were no workers, no kids, no blue-light-monsters with southern accents. He was alone, but he knew he couldn't be. Connor still had to be somewhere inside. He didn't want to consider what Abi tried to bring up that Connor had met the same fate as Tyler and the rest of his friends. The more he traveled from room to room, the more he was convinced his brother was still alive. The way those things hung those bodies from meat hooks, if Connor was dead, not only would they have displayed him like a gruesome trophy, but they would have made sure everyone saw it. He searched every room in the Hallow, except the Monkey cage. It was always Cody's least favorite room and, of course, it was the one he was going to check last.
The closer Cody got to the Monkey cage, the harder it was to breathe. There were plenty of smoke machines in the Hallow, but this was so much thicker. Cody slid through a false wall into the Monkey cage and found a body on the floor completely engulfed in fire. The flames spread up the walls. This wasn't one of the special effects tricks his dad used. This was a dead body on fire. Connor's dead body on fire. Cody had done it again. All this death and destruction, his father's dreams literally up in smoke, his dead brother, all because Cody had to have his little revenge scheme. All for a little joke. How hilarious.
It was too soon to cry, and though Cody thought he probably deserved to get swallowed up in the smoke and fire, he couldn't do that to his Mom. He was probably going to jail for all of this, and he deserved it. He had to make it through this alive so that he could be adequately punished in this life, since he was pretty sure there wasn't a next one. Though the existence of those Djinn did make him question that.
The quickest exit was through the vortex and out the front door, but it was already burning. The next quickest way out was through the back hall and out from the Hell of Mirrors, which was the last stop in the maze. As the fire got closer, he took one last look at his brother's burning body and wished things would have been different. He wished they could play WWE Wrestling in the basement together like they used to before all of this stupid social stuff became so important. He said goodbye and turned down the back hall, running at full speed back to the Hell of Mirrors.
Normally, it would only take him about a minute and half to run the course through the back hall. Tonight, with the twists and turns and the difficulty finding his breath through the smoke, it was taking way too long. Cody turned to the Hell of Mirrors and was surprised that fire hadn't reached there yet. The smoke was already here though, and it circled its way around Cody's misshapen reflections and the neon lights surrounding the mirrors. He didn't like looking at his normal reflection, let alone these twisted versions, which all seem to stare back at him with accusing eyes.
"Back to where you started, huh, boy?"
A voice with a heavy southern accent boomed through the room. Cody knew exactly where this was going. There was another one of them in the Hell with him. Of course it was Mr. Slater. He crept backward not sure which way to go. His mind was playing tricks on him. Each reflection was showing him a bizarre, twisted version of himself. He caught a glimpse of a reflection that showed an older, battle scarred version of himself. He turned his head to the left and then right, seeing repeated the reflections and scratches on his face, he looked a bit like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. Dad would have been proud.
"Oh, Cody, Cody, Cody. I have had my eye on you for a long time, my boy."
Cody turned left and banged into a mirror. Only it wasn't his reflection behind the glass, but the man with the handlebar mustache. The one from the Astrovan that hit their car all of those weeks ago. That too was Roscoe Slater. This time, white energy crackled like electricity from his empty eye sockets.
"Ever since I saw you in that little soccer-mom mobile, I had a feeling you were special. I just didn't know how special 'til I saw what you did with that room of yours. It was impressive. Maybe even a little inspiring."
Cody turned again and found another reflection confronting him. Roscoe's face half-mutated into one of those monsters.
"I'm not special. I just want to find my brother," Cody said.
"No, you don't! Not anymore."
Another, even more mutated face barked at him from behind another pane of reflective glass. The sight of this mutated face shocked Cody to the floor. He was surrounded by countless reflections staring back at him. Each of them was Roscoe, but different in shape and size. Each devolving Roscoe's human form further and further. Cody looked across the row of mirrors and saw the final reflection of the one, true Roscoe Slater. A demonic, blue beast preached on all fours moving toward him.
"Maybe when it all hit the fan, you did, but now, knowing the building's on fire and crawlin' with monsters. Nah!"
Cody froze in place as the horde of mutated Djinn-men moved toward him. It was like he was blitzing the line of scrimmage again. He couldn't move. He was terrified. As the images closed in on him, he still wasn't completely sure which one was the real Roscoe.
"That ain't the truth. You know he's dead. Just like his friends. Just like your friends."
"No, they're safe. I just saw them," Cody responded.
"You sure 'bout that? Look what you did here, Cody-bear. This is a death trap. You lured all of those kids here. You planned it all. You helped build it. All of them are dead. And they weren't pretty deaths either. They all suffered and screamed for us, Cody. All cursing you for leading them here. But that's what you really wanted, isn't it? I know what they did to you. You told me the whole story. And your mama, she told me all about how scared she was about what's been happening to you."
He knew everything that Cody had been thinking. This whole thing was his fault again. Just like his father's car accident. He couldn't take it anymore. Cody pulled himself up to his feet and tried to run away but instead he ran smack into something. After hitting the floor again, he looked up and found Roscoe standing before him, looking like a normal person-- except for the gaping hole in his chest. Cody sat up and leaned against a mirror. The room began to warp out of shape. The mirrors shook and looked more like pools of water than panes of glass. He couldn't focus on anything.
"You're already a killer, Cody," Roscoe said. "I'm just gonna make you a better one."
Cody's eyes rolled behind his head. His body went limp. Roscoe reached out to grab hold of him, but his body slipped through the liquiform mirror and fell far out of Roscoe's sight. Cody was gone, and Roscoe stood up and unleashed a hellish scream far more terrifying than anything Bo or Kyra could ever muster. Roscoe knew exactly where he'd fallen.
XLVIII
When Cody finally came to he felt the hard ground on his face. It didn't feel like dirt or grass, more like smooth rocks. He opened his eyes but couldn't see. He ran his hands along the ground and pushed himself back up to his feet. The last thing he remembered was being in the Hell of Mirrors. This definitely wasn't that. Maybe he'd gone outside, but he couldn't remember how. Cody wiped his eyes and wondered if maybe those were burnt in the fire. Maybe he was blind? He squinted tightly, trying to focus into the distance. Finally, he saw something. A small array of lights, red, blue, yellow, and orange dotted the land and scurried about in the distance. They looked almost like multi-colored fire flies dancing in the distance. He hadn't lost his sight, but it seemed like the world had lost the sun. Cody looked up to the sky and couldn't find the moon. Or the stars. Unsure of what was going on, he started walking toward the moving lights, hoping that they were cars or some sort of transportation that could take him home.
The closer Cody moved toward the lights, which were still way off in the distance, the more he could make of his surroundings. It was vacant. There were no trees or plants. No grass on the ground. No pe
ople. No sound other than the din of his shuffling feet and stunted breath. It reminded him of pictures of the Mars landscape his father showed him on the Internet the day before he died. Maybe that's where he was. Maybe he was on Mars.
Then it finally hit him. The reason he didn't remember leaving the burning Haunted Hallow was because he hadn't. Instead he died inside the Hell of Mirrors. He must have passed out from smoke inhalation and never woke up. So this was what was awaiting everyone on the other side? It turns out, there was an afterlife, but there wasn't much to it. He never bought into the Sunday school stories of Heaven and Hell. That always bothered his mother, but the afterlife, this afterlife, was very different from what they were selling him in church. Though this was one of the times Cody wished he was wrong. Seeing the people from his life here, like his dad and his friends, and especially Connor would have been nice. It would have been great to apologize to them all in person. Instead, he was trapped on a vacant plain with no one or nothing around. If this was what the rest of existence was going to be like, it wasn't going to be a lot of fun. But then again, after what he did, this was probably the best that could have happened to him. It was certainly a lot better than the versions of Hell he had heard about his whole life. He kept moving toward the lights, hoping whatever was illuminating them could help answer some questions.
Cody walked on the desolate trail for what felt like hours before finding himself inside of what felt like some kind of forest. There were hundreds of dead trees scattered about the rocky space. He must have been getting closer because the lights intensified, illuminating the scene with a strange rainbow-like effect. Cody stopped to look at the trees. Maybe they'd help explain some things. Cody spent his childhood playing in the woods near Hawk Hallow. While he was by no means a tree expert, he knew what bark felt like and when he ran his hands along the trunk he felt something more like hollow rock than wood. He'd heard of a petrified forest, but had never seen one before. Is that what this was? He looked up and noticed that none of the trees had more than two branches, and none were very long. Cody turned again and found himself face to face with another of those creatures from the Hallow. Instinctively, he jumped back and hid behind another tree.
This was a terrible hiding place, but he couldn't think of anything better. He waited about thirty seconds before moving. It wasn't a long time to wait, but from what he'd seen of these Djinn, it was more than enough time for them to attack. He waited another few seconds before peering out around the corner and seeing that nothing moved. He stared for a moment, trying to keep himself hidden behind the petrified tree, waiting for it to do something, but it didn't. It just stayed still like a rock or a tree. Cody took two steps back and looked up at the tree he was hiding behind, and there, staring back at him, was another Djinn face. These weren't petrified trees at all. These were Djinn, just like the Slaters. Only these were frozen in place like statues. Though they couldn't move and lacked that eerie glow, but they were definitely the same creatures that he'd seen too many times that night. He knocked on the hardened carcass and heard a hollow thump inside. The Slaters all glowed like blue lanterns while these were just stumps, or empty shells more accurately. Is this what Djinn looked like when they died? As the light around him grew more intense and bright, Cody stepped back and noticed that the entire forest was something of a Djinn graveyard with carcasses that stretched out for miles. The empty husks were kind of like headstones that marked where these creatures died.
He remembered the blinding flash of light that knocked them all to the floor inside the warehouse. Was the Girl-Djinn that attacked them here? Maybe this is where they went when they died. Made sense. One of the old folks at Dad's funeral said something like "the light had gone out of him." Cody hated that phrase. It sounded so corny. But here, the light had literally gone out of these creatures leaving a bunch of grotesque rocks. But why here? What was the significance of this place? Did they die naturally or was their light taken from them?
As Cody felt up a few more of the empty shells and studied their twisted faces, he figured this was probably where they came from, their home world. If this was their world that he had somehow fallen into, maybe the reason it was so dark was because their bodies gave off so much light they didn't need a sun. But if there was no sun, then was he even in the universe? And if the Djinn were the only source of light in this world, why was it getting so much brighter?
Cody looked out on to the horizon and saw an enormous light-mass moving toward him. He squinted at its overpowering intensity. Trying to focus deeper, he saw thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Djinn racing ahead. They all looked similar to the Slaters with their twisted bodies and deformed heads. But unlike the Slaters, who were all blue, these Djinn were a mixture of bright, primary colors shimmering against the dark, empty abyss behind them. What were they racing toward? Cody had no clue, but it was smarter to be out of sight if they got any closer. As he tried to hide from the great, glowing migration, a thunderous boom echoed through the space. In unison, the creatures called out with a collective, ear-piercing scream. Cody dropped to the ground and covered his ears. He knew exactly where they were heading. There was someone in their world who didn't belong, and they were coming to take care of it. Looking around this desolate tomb, Cody had a decent idea of what they were going to do when they found him. He had to run, now. But where could he go? How could he escape when he had no idea how he got there in the first place?
Cody looked deeper into the Djinn collective as it closed in on him. Off in the distance, something was moving behind the horde. It wasn't lagging behind them, like it couldn't keep pace. Instead, it was as if these creatures were emanating from the giant mass, heralding its approach. A gigantic red and black mountain of a being moved behind the Djinn hive. Raising its head to the sky, it turned toward Cody. Its face was more pronounced and different from the Djinn. Its enormous bat-like wings spread out, eclipsing any light the creatures produced. This demonic presence was their god and looking into its face, Cody knew exactly who was approaching. He had died. This was the afterlife, and as soon as the Djinn found him, he'd burn in Hell.
XLIX
Cody stood next to the petrified Djinn husks and awaited his fate. This is what he deserved after everything he'd done. He was a killer, just like Roscoe said. He took a deep breath, ready to accept his fate. The sky above his head ripped open and white light flooded the Petrified Forest. A thin, gnarled, blue claw reached out from the other side and grabbed Cody by the shoulder. He tried to run away but before he could take a step, the claw pulled him through the freshly torn portal. The journey back through reminded him of the light-spiral vortex his dad built. It was almost identical. Before Cody could feel his way through space and time, he saw the Hell of Mirrors, but this view wasn't what he expected. It was like being underwater and looking up at the people surrounding the lake. The claw pulled Cody through what looked like a pool of water. He emerged and looked back, seeing that he wasn't pulled from any water, but through one of the mirrors. He looked into the glass, but instead of his reflection, he saw a window back into the dark Djinn world.
Roscoe threw Cody to the ground. He assumed it was Roscoe. He couldn't tell because his former boss' Djinn form couldn't keep its shape. Its limbs kept breaking and regrowing and breaking again with every step. This creature didn't belong here. The same way Cody didn't belong in their world. The flames had pushed their way into the Hell of Mirrors now. Cody felt like he'd been gone for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes.
"I know what you are," Cody said.
"You got no clue, boy," Roscoe said.
His voice was more garbled then before he slipped through the mirror.
"Where you were, ain't what you thought it was and who you saw, ain't who you think you saw. They're both much worse."
Cody tried to run to the emergency exit but forgot about the padlock and chain. Again, Roscoe's long talons smacked Cody across the chest and broke on impact. Roscoe's bones were
brittle but it was enough to knock him back to the floor. The creature was getting weaker.
"Weeee ain't got much tiiiime," he said. "They gonna be here sssssssoooon."
Cody tried again to crawl away, this time toward the fire. If where he was much worse than the afterlife, he'd rather take his chances with the flames.
"Nope," Roscoe said. "Letsss make this quick."
Roscoe's claw clutched Cody's head and white light poured from his eyes and mouth. Cody wanted to fight back but again he was frozen in place. He couldn't move, but he could feel something moving inside his body. His arms began to twist and snap out of place. He felt something pushing his insides around, trying to move things that needed to stay in place to keep him alive. It didn't need to keep him alive. It just wanted the shell.
"Just give up, boy. Your time is gone," Roscoe's voice said inside Cody's head.
The pain was intense, and Cody thought about just letting go. But then he thought of Dad. Then Mom. Then Connor. Even Nick and Abi. He smiled when he thought of her. He thought about the real reason he quit football and why he was always afraid to fight back. It was just easier to quit when it was hard, but he was done quitting. He didn't deserve life, but he wasn't just going to let Roscoe take his body and ruin thousands of other lives with his face. He cried out for help and Roscoe laughed inside his brain. He looked into the mirrors and saw the glass ripple and rumble like ocean waves. Cody screamed and with every bit of fight he had left inside, he tried to push Roscoe out.