Local hermit claims entrance to hell is beneath Dream Woods.
Her heart pounded and her throat tightened. The bed became an inferno but she was too paralyzed to move the blankets down from her chin. It felt safer that way, like she was hidden from plain sight if anything should poke its head into the bedroom doorway. Eventually she told herself to stop being so silly and went back to sleep.
Albeit much slower this time.
Chapter Two
“How the hell did he get her to agree to this?” Tim Carter asked his twin brother Andrew.
Andrew shrugged, helping load the back of the van with enough luggage to last several months, though their trip was only for one week. “Maybe he lost an argument or something.” He closed the hatch and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Last call for the house,” Vince said from the front door, dangling the keys in the air and ready to close it behind him.
Tim ran through a mental checklist. He had his insulin, his glucose blood tester, his snacks for the road, his Nintendo 3DS, his headphones, iPod, and a stack of comic books should he grow bored with the rest of his entertainment. Though it seemed like fun on paper, he did not think the trip would live up to its expectations. They hadn’t gone anywhere as a family for several years and the last time, a trip to see a long-lost aunt in Orono, Maine, had turned into a series of fights and cold shoulders between his parents.
But at least this place had rides and a water park and perhaps there would be bikinis with the latter.
Tim gave his father the thumbs up and watched him tell their cat he’d left plenty of extra food and water, and lock the front door.
For no reason that he could pinpoint, he shivered in the summer heat. It was not as if this was the last time he would see his home. They were only going for a week after all and he wasn’t particularly attached to the place. His room was too small and the neighborhood was too far from anything remotely fun. It was a half-hour drive to the nearest mall, even further for the closest movie theatre. So if it wasn’t that, then what?
Don’t lie to yourself. You know exactly what you’re scared of.
The stories he’d heard about their intended destination.
He’d heard plenty of them whispered throughout the halls at school. He’d expected the tales to dwindle as he got older but they only seemed to grow in scale. By the time the school year had finished, he’d heard tales of serial killers, giant slugs, zombies, and curses.
Tim wasn’t one to believe in ghost stories easily. He knew the real world offered plenty enough horror. You could feel like a normal kid one day, and the next you could go into something called a diabetic coma for a few days. Then you woke up and found out you’d be stabbing yourself with needles like a junkie for the rest of your life, which would likely be cut short due to a mile-long list of possible medical complications.
But there was something about the stories and the thought of Dream Woods that seemed to make his stomach churn. Not enough to make him scream in panic but enough to make him uneasy as they got in the van and pulled out of the driveway. Their cat peered through the living room window, rubbing its tail and head against the glass as if saying goodbye. He watched through the van’s back window until the house was just a dot in the distance. Then they turned the corner and it was gone altogether.
Tim turned to Andrew in the backseat. “Do you think anything bad really happened at this place?” He tried to keep his voice down.
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Don’t start that. It’s just a shitty theme park and that’s all.”
“But I’ve heard plenty of rumors.”
“Exactly. Rumors. The only thing scary about this trip is going to be the trip itself. Mom and Dad are going to end up killing each other by the end of it. Give it ten minutes and they’ll be arguing about directions. That’s the only blood you’ll see.” Andrew put on his headphones to signal the conversation was over.
Fuck you, asshole, Tim mouthed.
Though Andrew was not always the worst brother, given the chance, Tim would gladly tie him to a tree and kick him in the balls for a week straight. Despite being twins, they could not have been more different. Andrew had gotten the looks and the smarts. Tim had gotten the social awkwardness and the early onset disease that would almost certainly shorten his life.
He imagined how the trip would play out. Andrew was right to some degree. His parents would likely fight for most of their time at Dream Woods. He and Andrew would probably trade a few blows themselves. And the park itself, from what he’d heard, was a second rate Disney World, not even as good as Six Flags.
Not to mention its history.
Don’t start that. Don’t give Andrew any more ammunition. It’s just a stupid park and nothing more. Kids tell stories, that’s all.
Tim looked once again out the back window, watching the familiar fade away.
He turned back around and saw his mother holding out his insulin. “Forgetting something?” She smiled but her concern was not well hidden.
He took the needle and popped off the cap. “I didn’t forget.”
“Of course not.”
He lifted up his shorts while she watched, positioned the needle just above his inner thigh, and slid it into the skin. The doctors told him that it would eventually stop hurting. The skin would grow used to the pain.
He begged to differ. Thus far they’d been wrong. Some pain stayed with you like a birthmark.
He discarded the empty needle and waited for the insulin to travel through his bloodstream.
His father turned up the radio and mouthed the words to some old country song. It was odd to see him bobbing his head to something so boring when his arms and chest were covered with tattoos, skulls and demons, and anarchy symbols. He’d heard his father’s old band before. There was screaming and cursing, nothing like what came out of the speakers now.
Tim put on his own headphones and plugged them into the DS, grateful once the game’s music started up. While the game loaded, he rubbed his thigh and tried not to think about things he’d heard whispered between classmates. Evil and death and possession.
Just stupid stories, that was all.
***
Two hours later, though it felt like several more, they stopped at a gas station.
Vince stepped out to fuel up the car and Tim followed Audra toward the convenience store. “Do you want anything?” she asked Andrew.
Though his iPod was off, he pretended not to hear her. The battery had died twenty minutes prior and he’d been stuck listening to his father’s old shitty music. Not to mention his babbling about how they were going to the greatest place on earth. If you could actually call a run-down tourist trap that had been closed for two decades the greatest place on earth. They should’ve just taken a staycation. He would have been fine in his room with his stereo and his working air conditioner and the stash of dirty magazines beneath his mattress.
“Andrew,” Audra said again.
He took his headphones off and eyed her.
“I asked if you wanted anything. I’m going to get Tim a soda. His sugar’s running low. Are you hungry?”
He shook his head.
“Are you sure? It’s a long drive. Another two hours at least.”
He shook his head once more and put his silent headphones back on, watching his mother walk alongside her favorite son. The way she treated Tim, you would have thought he was dying. It was diabetes, not cancer.
Sometimes Andrew dreamed of cutting off his fingers or standing in front of a speeding bus. Then he’d be the star of the family and they could all stop parading around Tim. If all it took to get pampered like an infant was diabetes, then a real injury—something disfiguring preferably—would make him the focal point for sure.
Outside, his father had begun to talk to a toothless old man that looked as though he’d stepped out of a bayou. The farther west they drove, Andrew had noticed, the more rednecks he spotted, nothing like the yuppies back home.
And t
hen there was the matter of the scenery. After forty-five minutes of highway, they had pulled onto a country road, alternating between thick forest and mountains that seemed to grow toward the sky with each mile. It bothered him somehow, like the landscape was closing in on them to the point of suffocation. He imagined being trapped out there in the wilderness with no cell service, no food, and no one to hear him scream.
But scream from what?
He’d been in the car with his family for too long. That was enough to drive any kid insane. It was like the closer they drove to their stupid destination, the foggier his mind grew, and the more he thought about those stupid stories Tim had mentioned earlier.
He opened the door and breathed in the fresh air. It smelled like something was burning in the distance, a wood stove or a barbecue. His father was still talking to the redneck.
“Must’ve hurt like hell,” the man said, pointing to one of Vince’s tattoos.
Vince pointed to the star on his elbow. “This sucker did. Nothing but skin on top of bone. I’ve heard that’s one of the worst spots aside from the armpit. And before you ask, no, my armpit is ink free. My wife’s is filled in though. Not ticklish that one.”
The man seemed to consider this for a long time before laughing and spitting something large and slimy onto the pavement. “So you on vacation or something?”
Vince nodded. “We’re from just north of Boston. Me and my family are heading out west, toward the Berkshires.”
“Great time of year for it. Nice breeze out there so you won’t be sweating your balls off too badly. Rent yourselves a cabin?”
The gas nozzle clicked. Vince shook out the last remaining drops and put it back in the slot. “No cabin for us. We’re heading to Dream Woods.”
“Dream Woods?” The man laughed harder this time before hocking up an even larger loogie.
“That’s right. I couldn’t be more thrilled it’s back open. Went there when I was a kid. Best week of my life.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. As if he hadn’t heard that line a dozen times this morning.
“Hate to tell you this,” the man said, “but that place has been closed for thirty years. And rightly so. A place that like deserves to be closed. Hell, it deserves to be wiped from the planet altogether, after what happened.”
Vince slid his credit card through the slot, punched in his pin, and waited for a receipt. “I’ve heard all about what happened there and then some. It’s just a bunch of stories parents told their kids to get them to stay away from an abandoned theme park. We all do it. When my boys were younger, I had them convinced there was a stranger just outside our yard. Even named the guy. We called him Raymond, told them both he was a dangerous man, the kind of guy that doesn’t think twice about snatching up a couple of kids. They fell for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still believed in him.”
The man did not laugh this time and he did not hock anything else out of his mouth, as if his spit and snot had shriveled and dried at the thought of Dream Woods. “Mister, I’m telling you that place is no more than a pile of dust. Don’t you think I would have heard if it had opened back up? It was our Disney World, our Coney Island, even despite what happened. There’s no way in hell its open for business.”
Vince grabbed the receipt, folded it, and placed it into his pocket. “Maybe they didn’t want to advertise it too much, guerilla marketing or something. Either way, it’s open again and I plan on having another perfect week. Can’t wait for the dinosaur park. That one was always my favorite.”
Andrew began to back away, his heart beating just a bit unevenly in his chest, when something grabbed him from behind. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was something that had come out of the mountains, something tall and furry and hungry. It was here to drag him away and tear him apart while his family sped off with their favorite son. But as he touched the offending arm, he saw it was human skin, practically hairless.
“Here,” Tim said, handing Andrew a couple of Slim Jims and a Coke. “Mom said you were probably hungry even though you said you weren’t. She said you always do that.”
Andrew grabbed the snacks, his stomach now overflowing with acid, and stepped back into the car. From the backseat he watched his father finish his conversation with the redneck. Andrew wished he had never seen the man. He did not want to think about childhood bogeymen named Raymond and he did not want to wonder what the man’s words had actually meant.
A place that like deserves to be closed.
“Who the hell was that guy?” Audra asked as Vince stepped back in and buckled up.
“Just some backwoods local. Nice enough. Thought my tattoos were the strangest thing since color television. Looked at me like I was a lunatic when I told him you had ink too. Apparently tattoos haven’t made it out here yet.” He adjusted the mirror and put the car into drive. “Oh and he tried to convince me Dream Woods wasn’t open again. Said I imagined it. You believe that?”
Audra said nothing but Andrew could read her mind easily enough.
We should be so lucky.
Andrew couldn’t have agreed with her more, although now, after overhearing the old man, he didn’t agree for the same reason. Not because he thought the trip was going to be hell, but because it now felt like that they were driving toward hell.
“You okay?” Tim asked. “You look sick. Maybe you’re not hungry after all. Maybe you’re not a liar all the time.”
“Shut up.” He put on his silent headphones again and cursed himself for packing his iPod charger in one of the bags out back. He wished the earpieces could block out his thoughts.
A place that like deserves to be closed.
For the first time in his life, he was grateful as his father turned up the stereo and blared his shitty music. At least it took his mind off things for a while.
Chapter Three
The drive was not as Vince had remembered it.
He recalled endless shops and quaint towns along the way. His father had insisted they take the scenic route, much to his mother’s protests, and they had driven along a cracked and uneven road, stopping every chance they could to explore. He remembered the journey being half the fun.
But his memory had served him wrong. Perhaps he’d confused the ride with another trip. There were no quaint shops or tourist traps, no scenic overpasses. There were only endless trees, most of them devoid of leaves, which he found odd. It looked as if winter had not yet left for the year. The mountains in the distance grew larger with each mile but did not seem to get any closer, like they were just part of the background, not something you could ever reach. They seemed more like a movie set than reality.
He tried to think of the fun they’d be having. If they had enough time and somehow ran out of things to do at the park, maybe they would take a day trip, hike a trail and be one with nature and all that. They could build a campfire and maybe do some fishing while they were at it.
He looked at Audra and the boys and almost laughed. He could picture it now: Audra complaining every step of the way, swearing with each breath, though he’d told her a thousand times not to fucking cuss in front of the kids and there he went, swearing himself.
Perhaps the mountains were best saved for another trip.
He rolled down the window, sighed as the breeze swept over him, tickled the hairs on his arms, though they were mostly invisible because of the tattoos.
Something had been nagging at him ever since he’d spoken to that toothless idiot. It wasn’t the thought that this trip might prove to be a poor decision or Audra’s temper or Tim’s diabetes or Andrew’s shitty attitude.
He was worried the toothless man might be right, that Dream Woods had remained closed and he’d been imagining things. He’d been under a lot of stress lately. It had been early in the morning when he’d noticed the sign. What if he’d just been exhausted? What if his mind was just showing him a fake solution to all his problems?
Marriage on the rocks? Come to Dream Woods!
Sick
of your job? Come to Dream Woods!
Been spending too much time in the past? Come to Dream Woods!
It made perfect sense except for the phone call. There had been a number on the billboard. He’d written it down on his way into work the day after he’d first spotted the sign. The line had rung for ten minutes and the reception seemed off somehow, as if he were calling some place across the world. Just as he was ready to hang up a woman finally picked up. She’d been more than helpful. She’d listened to him reminisce about the best week of his life as she took down his information for his week-long stay.
There you had it. He was being silly. He had imagined nothing. Dream Woods was back and that was that.
The last song on the bluegrass CD ended abruptly. The silence that followed was thick. He could feel it floating, clinging to him like the humidity outside. Not for the first time he wished he’d gotten the air conditioner taken care of before they left.
Audra looked at him and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. Can we listen to something else now? Preferably something without a banjo or a washboard?”
“If you insist.”
“I do insist.” She ejected the CD and slid it into its jewel case. “Why don’t you just cave and buy an iPod?”
“What’s the point? You can only listen to one album at a time.”
She didn’t answer as she pulled another CD from the back of his booklet and slid the disc into the slot.
He recognized the font on the disc and instantly placed the opening chords. By the time the intro finished it was too late to ask her to put the disc away. It was a Live Today album, the first they’d recorded. It had sold a whopping three hundred copies, made just enough money to break even from the cost of recording it.
He looked in the rearview. The boys both had headphones on. He smiled, remembered the day the band had written and rehearsed the song in Vince’s parents’ basement, though he couldn’t remember what his lyrics had been about. He’d probably just been angry at the world when he’d written them down. It was hard to imagine his throat had ever screamed that loud.
Dream Woods Page 2