The Terror at Grisly Park (Quigg 5)

by Ellis, Tim

  Tears ran down her face. ‘I thought I told you this was off-limits.’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot they were there, but it’s your own fault, anyway. They’re my files, and you had no right looking at them.’

  ‘I always thought it was the guys I knew, but I don’t know these two men. Why did they pick on me?’

  ‘I think that’s obvious.’

  She scooped up the files, threw them across the room, and they slid down the back of the door. ‘Fucking bastards.’

  ‘We can . . .’

  ‘I told you not to. Now look what you’ve done. You’ve brought it all back. I’m a fucking wreck again. I hate feeling like a victim.’

  ‘You could still . . .’

  ‘What? Have them arrested? Testify in court what they did to me? Have their barrister accuse me of asking for it because of the clothes I was wearing, or the company I kept? And then, after the barristers have raped me again in court, the jury humiliate me by letting the two bastards walk free based on time served. I was a virgin. They took something from me that I can never get back. I want to kill them. I want to stab them a gazillion times, I want to shoot them, electrocute them, and . . . even that wouldn’t be enough. I want to . . .’

  ‘Put them through a meat grinder?’

  ‘Now we’re talking justice.’

  ‘Do you want me to get rid of those files?’

  ‘Yes. It was a long time ago. Nothing I do now will ever change what happened then. Re-living it would only destroy me. I put the memory of that time in a locked box in my mind, and you’ve just broken the lock.’

  He walked over to her, put a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re dripping wet. Are you going to dry yourself and put some clothes on, or do you want me to go down to breakfast on my own?’

  ‘Is that likely, Kline? Have you ever known me to pass up a breakfast?’

  ‘Well, hurry up. I’m getting bored.’

  He guessed she was in the process of putting the memories back in the box and repairing the lock. Some people were able to hide painful memories in their subconscious. For others, the memories defined who they were, and they couldn’t move past them – a life destroyed. He was glad that Kline hadn’t let what happened to her all those years ago rule her life. In wanting to help, he’d just re-opened old wounds. He collected up the loose pages from the files, and put them on his bed. He’d get them shredded in reception.

  After brushing his teeth with the complimentary toothpaste and a couple of fingers, he got dressed in yesterday’s clothes like a tramp. Maybe he should have asked Magdalena for some second-hand clothes from the lost property as well.

  When he went back into the room Kline held something shiny and sparkling between her thumb and forefinger, and dangled it in front of him.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said with a smug grin on her face.

  ‘It’s a bit early for guessing games.’

  ‘I found it in your bed.’

  ‘Why were you inspecting my bed?’

  ‘I wasn’t “inspecting” your bed. This shiny object caught my eye.’

  He leaned down to examine it. ‘So, it’s an earring?’

  ‘More to the point, what’s a woman’s earring doing in your bed?’

  He adopted an innocent expression. ‘Probably belongs to the maid. It must have fallen out when she was making the bed. We’ll hand it in at reception on our way to breakfast.’

  ‘You don’t appear to be lying, but with your experience I bet you could beat a lie detector.’

  ‘Why would I be lying?’

  She gave him a look as if to say, “Why wouldn’t you?”. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Let’s go.’ He picked up the files.

  In the back room of reception he shredded the contents of the two files.

  As they were leaving to go to the restaurant, Kline handed the earring to Magdalena who had just taken over from the night receptionist. ‘Quigg found it in his bed,’ she said, inviting an explanation.

  Magdalena’s face reddened. ‘I was wondering where that had got to.’ She slipped the earring into her left ear to match the one in her right. ‘Thanks for returning it.’

  Chapter Six

  Avery Millsap had found a place to sleep, but he hadn’t found his daughter Willow, and he hadn’t found Hugo Twelvetrees and the Cult of Bugarach.

  What he had found was a gnawing mass of self-doubt inside him that seemed to be growing out of all proportion to his body. What was he doing here? Surely a doomsday cult wouldn’t take up residence in a horror theme park. Where would they go if they did?

  It was still early. He poured a small amount of water into the pan, lit the mini stove and balanced the pan on it. Next, he used the can opener on his Swiss army knife to make two holes in the top of the tin of beans, and placed it in the pan. The water was for his coffee, and the beans would keep him going until lunchtime – in more ways than one probably.

  He’d done some camping as a young lad, but nothing since then. Life had got in the way. He’d met Avril, who got herself pregnant accidentally on purpose, Willow was born, and then it was a daily struggle – in any number of ways – to crawl out of the mess they’d got themselves in. There was no planning, no pension scheme, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And then, just as things might have been shifting from the red into the black, Willow’s train wreck had engulfed them.

  The park hadn’t opened to visitors yet. As soon as he’d climbed over the fence last night he found a small clump of trees and slithered into his sleeping bag. There was certainly no point in bumbling around in the dark like an idiot. God, he loved that sleeping bag. It was like zipping himself into a womb each night. If he was going to die, he wanted to die snug and warm in that sleeping bag. Two hundred pounds it had cost him, but it was worth every penny.

  He’d picked up a discarded three-dimensional map of the park that all visitors were given at the entrance when they paid, and he’d examined it from all angles, but he couldn’t see how a cult could hide in one of the rides or attractions.

  Surely, when all the visitors poured in each day, the cult would be discovered – wouldn’t it?

  Besides Hugo Twelvetrees, who else was in this cult? A cult would have a few members, wouldn’t it? At least ten, or maybe twenty. Where were all those people hiding?

  He’d been living rough for weeks, so he knew the problems. He had his rucksack, all the lightweight camping gear, and his sleeping bag, but what did they have? Willow didn’t own any camping stuff or a sleeping bag. Where was she sleeping? Maybe he didn’t want to know that. Certainly, Willow was no angel, or virgin for that matter. She’d been running on the wild side for as long as he could remember. One day, she was a beautiful daughter with all her life in front of her, the next she was a train wreck looking for a place to happen.

  What had gone wrong? She’d begun mixing with some truly awful people, started smoking – not just cigarettes, but marijuana and then cocaine, and pills, and anything else she could stuff up her nose, down her throat or in her veins. Then there was the stealing, the sex for money . . . anything to get her next fix. He’d tried to intervene, but it was like trying to stop an express train with a chocolate cake – useless.

  How many times had he tortured himself like this? A hundred? A thousand? A million? Was it his fault for not being there for her? In the beginning, he’d shouted at her, smacked her a few times, and locked her in her bedroom. She climbed out through the window and down the drainpipe, and disappeared for a month. He’d tried to haul her back into the land of the living so many times, but every time that he thought he might have succeeded, she fell back into the depths of hell again.

  And little by little, he and Avril had slipped into that dark place with her. Avril had managed to claw her way out, had walked away, found herself a new man and a new life, but he was still wandering through the sulphur pits of hell trying to save his daughter, like Orpheus’ descent into the underworld to save hi
s wife Eurydice. Maybe a horror theme park was exactly the right place for this tragedy to play out.

  The water began bubbling, making the tin of beans clunk and rattle in the pan. He lifted the tin out and balanced it on a stone. Poured the water into his cup and stirred. Then, he opened the tin of beans fully, scooped a spoonful out and slid them into his mouth.

  ‘Ooh, ooh!’ They burned his tongue. He kept his mouth open, stuck his tongue out, and breathed in and out like a panting dog. He’d survive.

  Once the park had opened its gates to visitors, he’d mingle with the crowds and begin searching for Hugo Twelvetrees, the Cult of Bugarach and his beautiful daughter Willow. Maybe Grisly Park was where his search would come to an end.

  ***

  Goldie opened her eyes and stretched her arms upwards.

  Then she jumped.

  ‘What you still doing here?’

  Dunkin propped himself up on one elbow, and stared at her. ‘I was sleeping, but then somebody started wriggling and asking me what I was still doing here. So, I’m awake now.’

  She pushed him out of the coffin with her bare feet.

  He tried to save himself by grabbing the edge of the coffin, but Goldie gave him one last push, and his backside thumped on the floor.

  ‘There weren’t no call to do that,’ Dunkin said.

  ‘I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about us. I let you cuddle me for five minutes, and the next you’re spending the night like a . . . like a . . . Well, like a vampire who spends the night when he ain’t supposed to.’

  ‘I didn’t do nothing.’

  ‘And that’s to make sure you don’t as well.’

  She could smell breakfast cooking. ‘Whose turn is it to cook breakfast?’

  Dunkin stood up. ‘It ain’t mine.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you whose turn it ain’t.’

  ‘I think it’s Random and Flake’s turn.’

  ‘They can cook. Just as long as it ain’t Wingnut’s turn. He can’t cook if his life depended on it.’

  Count Orlok is a vampire from Transylvania – sometimes called Nosferatu – who feasts off the blood of living humans. Sanchez and his gang had taken up residence in the Count’s labyrinth beneath the great castle in the Carpathian Mountains. Unfortunately for the paying public, but fortunately for Sanchez and his gang, the park management had put the project on hold for eighteen months while the American owners untangled the legal issues surrounding copyright. Those eighteen months would soon be up though, and then they’d have to move someplace else.

  There was an opening to the labyrinth at ground level, which led into a train station that didn’t have a name yet. The plan was for visitors to be strapped into the open-topped train, and then they would be given a tour of the Count’s labyrinth – no people with heart problems – thank you. There was a railway track, which led downwards, but hadn’t been finished. As yet, there was no open-topped train, but a lot of the scary stuff had been finished.

  If there had been power – and all the children were very glad there wasn’t – animated corpse-like creatures would have been walking about bumping into things and sucking people’s blood; the Captain of the ship Demeter – chained to the helm – would have been warning visitors of the strange events that were about to unfold; and a crazy one-eyed man called Renfield would have been eating spiders, birds and other creatures. There were lots of attractions like that, but none of them were operational.

  Goldie and the others had to walk all the way into the centre of the labyrinth, which was where they were living. And if you didn’t know the way in and out, you’d never find your way in and you definitely wouldn’t find your way out. Each of them had a map that Sanchez had got from somewhere, and he’d put markers along the route in and out. The route in was different from the route out, and Goldie said to Dunkin when she’d first arrived, ‘No one ain’t ever gonna find us in here.’

  ‘Don’t ever lose your map,’ he’d warned her. ‘We’ve lost three kids so far. There was Icepick, Rigby and Cujo.’

  ‘What you mean, you lost ‘em?’

  ‘They went into the labyrinth, but never came back out again.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  He shrugged, and leaned in close to whisper to her. ‘Some say they wander the labyrinth dragging other children into the darkness. You can hear them crying and moaning if you listen hard enough . . . Listen.’

  Goldie listened.

  ‘There, did you hear?’

  ‘No, I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘They say that those who can’t hear them are the first . . . TO BE TAKEN,’ he shouted, and grabbed her waist.

  She screamed, and then laughed, and then hit Dunkin on the arm, and then chased him along one of the corridors. She slowed down though. She didn’t want to catch him, because she knew that if she did she might end up kissing him. She’d never felt like that towards a boy before.

  The centre of the labyrinth was meant to be a cafe where the public could take a breather, check they didn’t have any puncture wounds in their necks and have a drink and a snack before making the journey to the surface again. It was only half-finished, but thankfully there were male and female toilets with cold running water, but washing wasn’t much fun in the winter unless you boiled up some water on the gas stoves Sanchez had obtained. There were tables for eating, and they’d all made some modifications over the previous year to make it feel like home.

  There was lots of room for the sixteen of them. Sanchez had his own place, but Goldie and the others tended to group together in one of the rooms off the kitchen.

  She’d been told that it was Splinter who’d come up with the idea of sleeping in the coffins. There were lots of them about and they certainly kept out the draughts. At first she wasn’t keen on the idea, but now she thought she’d never sleep in anything else. Some of the gang had kept the lids on, but she hadn’t. Hers was like a mouse’s nest, full of rags, clothes and paper, and anything else she could get that was soft, comfy and warm.

  After washing, she went in to breakfast. Random and Flake had done a good job. There were boiled eggs, some ham, rolls, cheese, orange juice and hot baked beans. She liked baked beans, but they didn’t half make her windy.

  Sanchez was in there. He didn’t normally come to eat with them. Whoever was cooking breakfast usually had to take his meal in to him.

  ‘There must be something going on,’ she whispered to Dunkin.

  Rubbing his hands together, Sanchez stood up. ‘Listen up, my treasures,’ he said, looking down his nose at them as if they might be valuable, but he’d have to verify it in any number of ways.

  Wasn’t this just the best place? Who would have thought that little Sara Collins would have been part of a thieving gang in Grisly Park, sleeping in a coffin and have a boyfriend – he wished – called Dunkin?

  Sanchez wasn’t his real name. She’d asked around, but nobody – so they swore to her – knew his real name. When he heard that she was nosying he took her to one side by her collar, “You find out my real name, my treasure, and you’ll disappear for good – no questions asked. Is that what you want?” No, that wasn’t what she wanted. She stopped asking after that.

  Only Dunkin knew her real name, and she knew his – it was Paul Cole, and he came from Stockport in Cheshire. He’d run away from a care home, because one of the staff threatened to kill him after he’d witnessed the man injecting drugs between his toes.

  ‘The police are at the hotel,’ Sanchez said. ‘There’s been a real murder. What we don’t want is them sticking their noses into our business, so I want you to keep your wits about you, my treasures. Keep in the shadows, and don’t take any risks.’ He looked at each one of them, and they nodded. ‘Good. It’ll soon pass, like everything else here.’ He wandered out.

  The others started talking and speculating.

  She could remember the last time Sanchez had spoken to them all together – he’d told them to stay away from two places he’d heard ba
d things about in the park. There was the Clown’s Revenge and Slaughterhouse 8. Both attractions had been put into mothballs and fenced off by the management because they’d made a loss. He said that a weird group who thought the end of the world was coming had taken up residence in the Clown’s Revenge, and there was something strange going on in Slaughterhouse 8, but he had no idea what and he wasn’t in any hurry to find out either.

  Goldie shivered. Maybe the end of the world was coming, and what was it that Sanchez was frightened of?

  ‘What?’ Dunkin said, putting his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I was just thinking of what Sanchez said about that place called Slaughterhouse 8. Have you ever been there?’

  ‘No, but me, Wingnut and Splinter were thinking of going in there on Thursday after the park closes to see what all the fuss is about.’

  She hit him on the arm. ‘No you weren’t. Sanchez said to stay away from it.’

  ‘That’s why we’re going. You can come with us if you want to, but I know girls scare easy, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I ain’t scared.’ She was petrified. ‘If a boy can do it, so can a girl.’

  ‘I’ll have to clear it with the others.’

  ‘Okay. What’s a doomsday cult?’

  His eyes opened wide. ‘You never play the game on your Xbox?’

  She shook her head. ‘What’s an Xbox?’

  He grinned. ‘You must have had a terrible childhood.’

  ***

  ‘So, come on then, tell me how that bitch’s earring got in your bed?’ Kline said.

  They were sitting in the restaurant. Quigg was digging into his fried breakfast, toast and coffee. Kline was nibbling at some muesli with a dash of skimmed milk.

  ‘Maybe she made the bed and it dropped out,’ he offered.

  ‘Is that the best you can come up with? Receptionists don’t make beds.’

  ‘I have nothing else.’