The door to Regina’s left opened up. The man with the wire-framed glasses who had told her to keep her mouth shut at that first meeting—Gregory Thomson, as she’d learned—stepped out of his office. She ignored him and leaned farther over the desk toward the recruiter. “What do you mean, you don’t accept them? How else would you like me to state that I’m leaving the company?”
The woman’s smile grew wider, as if she was trying to explain something complicated to a child. “That’s just it, Ms. Michaels. We will not accept it. This was stated quite clearly in your paperwork when you were first hired. The contract is non-negotiable. There are to be no resignations while the park still operates. The only way in which an employee will leave the company is by means of termination.” She winked.
Regina shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You call this professionalism? You sound like a grade-schooler telling me I can’t leave your secret club.”
Gregory stepped closer to them. He set his hands down on the desk and cleared his throat. “Would you mind if I have a moment with Regina?”
“Of course not,” the recruiter said. “Perhaps you could better explain our terms of employment. Ms. Michaels clearly does not understand how we operate here at Dream Woods.”
“Clearly not,” Regina said, snarling at the woman.
“Why don’t we step into my office and discuss this a bit?” Gregory led her through the door. He locked the knob and checked it twice. He looked through the window and winced when he made eye contact with the recruiter. She was staring directly into his office. He nodded and closed the blinds. “Have a seat.”
Regina sat down, smoothed her skirt. She was sweating despite the air conditioner. “I’m sorry if I caused a scene but I’m here under my own free will and I can leave anytime I please. That’s how jobs work.”
“That’s how regular jobs work. You must know by now that you did not take on a regular job when you signed on the dotted line.” He sat behind his desk and itched at his collar. His glasses were already started to droop down his nose.
“I know there’s something fucked up going on here and I no longer want to be part of it.” She turned and watched the door. Even though the windows were blocked she could feel the recruiter’s eyes boring into her. She wondered if the room was tapped.
Don’t be ridiculous. This is a theme park, not Soviet Russia.
But she could not convince herself it wasn’t a possibility. Nothing seemed off- limits at Dream Woods.
Gregory’s glasses slipped off his nose and fell onto the desk. He did not move to pick them up. Regina reached toward them but he batted her hand away. “Look, I’m not at liberty to tell you the truth about everything that goes on here. In time you might find out yourself but if you’re lucky you’ll shut your mouth, do an adequate job, and live the rest of your days making spreadsheets and talking on the phone. This isn’t a joke. This is the real deal. You cannot run from Dream Woods. That contract you signed is binding and nothing can change that.”
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re making it sound like I’m a slave here.”
Gregory looked anywhere but her eyes.
Without saying anything else she stood up and walked toward the door.
Gregory stood. “Regina.”
She paused, her hand on the knob.
“I wish I could tell you it was a joke, that you’re going to walk out there and everyone will be laughing their asses off. I wish this was just hazing or a bad dream or a fucking test to see if you can keep your wits but it’s nothing of the sort. This is a dangerous place and if you’re not careful things are only going to get worse for you.”
She was about to ask what he meant but thought better of it. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. The recruiter was staring Regina’s way as if the woman hadn’t moved an inch in the last five minutes. “I trust your meeting with Mr. Thomson was beneficial,” she said
“Yes,” Regina said. “Beyond beneficial. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to work now.”
“Of course,” the recruiter said. “We are the dreamers.”
“We sure are.” She slammed the doors behind her and stepped into the sunlight.
***
The next morning Regina did not set an alarm because she did not intend to go back to work. She didn’t care how fast her pulse raced or how much her gut told her to listen to Gregory. She was her own person and she did not give in to tyrants.
She had dreamt of a giant pit below Dream Castle, an infinite hole that led to nowhere but blackness, though there were things along the way. Things that took pieces out of anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in that hole. The fall would last forever and so would the suffering.
She woke to a bed soaked with sweat. She had slipped out of her clothes because of the heat in the middle of the night and now she felt exposed. She covered herself and nearly screamed when the door opened.
It was her mother. “You slept in and you’re late for work. You need to get dressed. And fast.”
“That won’t be necessary. I quit.”
“Is that so?”
Regina nodded. “Yes, that is so.” She did not waver from her mother’s stare. To do so would be to give the woman’s power. Her mother longed to have the upper hand in every aspect of Regina’s life. She spent most of her time reminding her daughter that she lived under her mother’s roof—rent free, mind you. It was bad out there. The economy had gone to hell and so had the world. Regina was never going to be able to pay her school loans and move out on her own. So if they were going to live together, Regina ought to realize who was in charge.
But this time her mother was not in charge and neither was Dream Woods. No one was in charge but Regina and she was the one with the power.
“I don’t think they got the memo.” Her mother walked over to the closet, slid open the door, and grabbed a dress from one of the hangers. She tossed it onto the bed. “Put this on.”
Regina shook her head. “No. I told you. I quit. I won’t be going back anytime soon.”
“Not even if I told you there’s a van parked out front and a man dressed as a fucking bear at our door asking for you?”
Regina had rarely heard her mother swear but that wasn’t what made her throat constrict. Sebastian? Sebastian the mascot of Dream Woods was at her front door. She said the sentence in her mind over and over but it would not stick.
Because Sebastian, as most Dream Woods employees knew, was dead. He had slit his wrists outside one of the bathroom stalls two weeks prior, baking in late summer heat while he bled out. He had been persecuted by his peers. The teasing had been constant, despite his moving up in the company and attending the monthly meetings. She felt for that poor boy but he was dead now and that meant he couldn’t be at the front door.
Her mother was lying. Or perhaps they’d hired a replacement already. But there hadn’t been a mascot since roaming the park since Sebastian’s body was found and besides, why the hell would they send a mascot to her house?
She rubbed her eyes. Her mother had said something. “What?”
“I said you better hurry because that boy in the costume seemed mighty pissed at you. Said you left without notice. Said you made quite the scene, practically punched the recruiter in the face.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Her mother raised her right index finger, pointed it like a switchblade. “Don’t talk like that to me. Get that dress on and get out here fast. This is your first real job and I’m not going to let you ruin it because you’re weak.”
Before Regina could protest her mother was already walking down the hall. She left the door open. From the bed, Regina could see the living room window. There was no one standing in front of the glass but she still turned as she grabbed a bra and slid it on. Then she closed the door and dressed quickly.
It was a joke, she told herself. There was no one at the front door. Her mother was pranking her, trying to lay on the guilt. Regina zipped up her dress, wa
lked out of her room and down the hall to the front door. She touched the knob and turned it slowly.
Just watch. You’ll open that door and see nothing but a blue sky, nothing but an empty yard, nothing but a—
A mascot bear, the brown hair disheveled and uneven, more life-like than it had been when Sebastian wore it. They had obviously ordered a newer and improved model. Behind the bear was a black van with tinted windows. The vanity license plate made her take a step back.
DRM WDS.
Two men wearing suits and black sunglasses stood in front of the van, leaning on either side of the open passenger door. They looked like federal agents except the one on the left wore a fake clown nose and the one on the right wore a bright green hat with a plastic propeller, spinning slowly in the breeze.
She waited for the gag, the punch line. She readied herself for the camera crew to burst out of a nearby house. She was on Candid Camera or some other home video show. She’d won some money and all she had to do was smile for the lens and admit how surprised she was by the joke.
Nobody laughed. The men with the props had no expression, as if there was nothing remotely funny about the situation. The bear stood rigid in front of her.
She began to shake. “Take your mask off.”
The bear cocked its head and shrugged.
“I said take it off. Sebastian is dead and I’d like to know who took his place.”
The bear shook its head and tapped its chest.
I am Sebastian.
“No. He’s dead. You’re dead. Take it off. Take it off!” She charged the mascot, knocked him to the ground and clutched his furry mask in her hands, pulled with all her strength.
It did not budge. There was no stitching whatsoever, no spot where the head could be removed. There was no zipper of any kind.
Which meant it was one piece.
Which meant whoever was inside had no way to breathe. She searched for hidden air holes beneath the button nose and googly eyes but there was only solid fabric.
“Fuck you.” She began to pound her fists into the costume.
“Stop it, dear,” her mother said from the doorway. “You’re making a fool of yourself. Go back to work. Make me proud for once in your life.”
The two men moved from their spot by the van and crossed the yard. They each took one of her arms and lifted her off of Sebastian, who had been resurrected by some dark miracle. He dusted off his costume—if that’s what it was—rubbing at dirt stains along the bristles of hair.
The men carried her away, dragged her across the lawn. She screamed for her mother to help. She could not go back there. Her life depended on it.
Her mother waved as the men threw her into the van and slid the door shut. She blew a kiss to Regina as if her daughter were just going off to her first day of school, not the place with the infinite hole from her nightmare.
The men held her in place while Sebastian got in front, buckled up, and drove off.
Regina watched her mother fade away in the distance. She had the feeling it was the last time she’d ever see the woman.
***
“What are those things?” Audra pointed toward the roller coaster across the way.
There was a group of creatures—Dream Woods employees—surrounding a large metal contraption. It looked archaic yet futuristic, something created and developed in the medieval ages, far ahead of its time but still faulty.
Regina knew the contraption well. “They’re oiling up the rides.”
“How do you mean?” Audra said. She stopped walking and leaned against the giant map near the entrance. It was the first time she had been still in the last half hour. The constant panic had finally gotten to her, replaced with exhaustion. Regina did not think the woman was going to survive.
“The rides may be machines but they don’t run on electricity,” Regina said. “It’s much more complicated than that.”
They watched as the creatures brought over one of the wooden cars filled with limp bodies, most of them no longer in one piece.
Audra’s eyes widened. She tensed. Regina wondered if the woman could see her family among the limbs and heads. The car was halfway across the park but fear heightened the senses.
The creatures opened a hatch in the machine and began to feed bodies into it. One of the bodies, a man with badly broken nose, screamed, still half-alive. The closest creature ignored him and tossed him into the hatch. There was one last shriek, cut off by the machine’s whirring. It sounded like a jackhammer and it looked like a wood chipper, which wasn’t a bad analogy.
Audra shook her head and looked at the ground. She started to cry and convulse and leaned against the map for support. “It’s blood, isn’t it? This place runs off of blood.”
Regina smiled, helped Audra to her feet, and didn’t answer.
The machine was all the answer they needed.
The creatures finished loading the bodies. They closed the hatch, tightened it, and revealed a long hose that protruded from the front panel. The Director had passed around a schematic for the machine during Regina’s second staff meeting. She remembered asking what it was for and receiving nothing but silent stares. Wasn’t it obvious?
On the control panel for the carousel, below the buttons and the breaker, was a small round compartment, roughly the size of the hose’s nozzle. One of the creatures shoved the nozzle into the opening and turned it clockwise, locking it in place.
The machine’s droning grew louder as it began to feed the roller coaster. The lights grew brighter and the music increased in volume, as if the ride had been malnourished, an entity and not machinery, a living thing just like the things that fed it.
Red drops dripped from the panel, bits of blood that did not make it all the way through the hose. A small puddle formed. The employees pointed at the ground and dropped down to their knees, lapping at the excess like kittens at dinnertime.
Regina looked away and squeezed Audra’s arm gently. “We’d better get going.”
“Where? Where are we going to go in a place like this?”
“To find your family.”
“What if…” Audra trailed off, still watching the things across the way lick the ground. The puddle had lessened, was now more of a smeared stain, a fading reminder of the people who had perhaps ridden that same ride the day before.
“No.” Regina squeezed Audra tighter. “No ‘what ifs.’ We’re going to look for them and if they’re alive we’re going to get them out of here. That’s all we can do.”
“We should’ve just gone on a cruise,” Audra said, wiping her nose and eyes.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Regina turned around, checked both ways, and dragged Audra away from the map.
The machine’s droning went on.
Chapter Twenty
“Dad, he’s still back there. Andrew’s still back there.”
Vince nodded but didn’t answer. He’d had no choice. The science fiction hotel was getting ready to explode. Those things were all around them. He would have never made it over to Andrew. He’d done the right thing.
He kept repeating these things in his mind, a mantra, a rationalization, all of which led to the same fact.
He’d left one of his sons behind and there was a good chance he was dead.
You son of a bitch. You bastard. You brought your family here to die.
He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. No, he’d brought them here to fix things, to mend what had been steadily breaking over the last few years. He was no longer a young punk, and even though he still had the fading reminders of those days covering his arms and legs, he was now a father, an Accountant, and that was fine. He had a family who counted on him. He was perhaps not the greatest father and husband in the world but that didn’t mean his family should fall apart slowly in front of his eyes.
Though they were falling apart much faster now.
He got away. Andrew’s as stubborn as they come. He wouldn’t give up that easily.
“Where are we g
oing?” Tim asked. His flesh was pale and he looked ready to topple over at any moment.
“We’re going to find a way out of here.”
“What about Mom and Andrew?”
Vince choked back a groan. He needed to be brave. For once in his life he needed to be the hero. “We’ll find help and we’ll come back. Your mother and brother are smart. They’ll know to hide out until all this passes over.”
If they’re still alive and if this ever passes over.
He shoved the thought aside and pulled Tim along with him. They passed the Haunted Tunnels and a dozen or so gift shops and restaurants. The dinosaur park came into view. He shivered, thinking of what lay hidden in the mock jungle. He thought of the leaves shaking, of not knowing what had been only feet away from him.
Had it been those grey creatures, the ones that had slaughtered and collected the bodies of just about everyone in Dream Woods? Or had it been something else, some other terror that had yet to reveal itself?
He did not want to know the answer. The thought that there could be things out there worse than what he’d already seen tonight was enough to make him nearly cry out.
The park’s rear entrance was just behind the dinosaur park. He and Tim knelt down and listened. It was hard to make out any concrete noises over the humming of the rides and the distorted music that seemed to emanate from every attraction, tunes that were nothing like the feel-good melodies they’d been pumping out earlier.
Vince didn’t hear footsteps or growling or screaming. Those sounds seemed to have faded. The creatures had made their way around the park for what seemed like days, picking up every last body and limb, tossing them into those wooden cars, and then feeding them into some metal contraption. He had told Tim to look away each time but his son had not bothered and Vince had not had the energy to cover the boy’s eyes. After that the creatures had lessened in number until it seemed they were gone.
When he felt certain they were alone he jogged toward the gate, calling for Tim to follow behind him.
The exit was so close. He could feel the breeze, see the sun and the normal colored sky and clouds, the mountains in the distance that still had snowy peaks. All in his mind, of course. What lay outside now did not resemble any of those things.
Dream Woods Page 13