His father would return any minute, he told himself. He would bring Andrew back in one piece and then they would go find his mother and find a way out of the park. Everything, despite what his nagging thoughts told him, was going to work out in the end.
Something behind him moved.
He tensed, biting his lip in the process. Warm blood dripped onto his tongue, salty and metallic to the taste. His joints and muscles locked up. He couldn’t move if he’d wanted to.
And he did not want to. He wanted to stay put and pretend like he hadn’t heard anything to begin with.
The sound came again, this time more distinct, and there was no denying that he was no longer alone.
He risked a glance behind him, ready to see one of the grey creatures but there was nothing but Dream Castle and, much closer, the foul smelling trash barrel. He had almost grown used to the rancid odor of whatever was rotting inside but the sudden fear had heightened his senses. His stomach churned as his nose reconnected with the scent. He imagined curdled milk, sour vomit, piles of feces that had become food for maggots.
The barrel shook.
For a moment he thought another quake was rippling through the ground but the park, save for the spinning and twirling rides, lay perfectly still.
Which meant there was something inside the barrel.
He tried to block out the distorted melodies from the roller coasters and Ferris wheel and about a hundred other rides in every direction. Was that a scratching sound he heard, just a few inches away from his ears? Did he hear something rummaging in the filth?
His rational side said no, of course not. Nothing would dare go inside that thing. But the other side of him, the one that knew there wasn’t one rational thing here at Dream Woods, knew better.
He uncrossed his legs and lifted himself. He tried to ignore the numbness and pins and needles, now climbing toward his calves and knees. He steadied himself, getting ready to sprint.
The sounds stopped. He listened for a long time and could hear nothing inside the barrel. He was losing his mind. He needed to find a way to calm down.
The barrel exploded.
Shards of plastic and chunks of garbage littered the ground and covered Tim’s face and body. Something brown and green landed on his lips and he instantly vomited onto himself.
He could feel things crawling on him, things that were not pins and needles but actual living creatures with tiny legs that moved across his skin. He tried to wipe them away, thrashing on the ground, but he lost interest in them when he saw the thing standing among the barrel’s scattered contents.
It was not one of the grey creatures. It was a living, breathing pile of garbage, discarded candy in particular. It was made from melted lollipops, half-eaten chocolate bars, and moldy slivers of Laffy Taffy. Its eyes were two large jawbreakers. Its teeth were made from candy crystals, though they looked much sharper and longer.
The thing opened its mouth and smiled stupidly. Green and blue gummy goo dripped down its chest, pooling onto the ground. The gravel beneath sizzled, smoke rising. The goo smelled of sulfur, of toxic chemicals, and something told Tim that he did not want to be anywhere near the stuff. It was acidic just like the chemically-tinged water from the log ride, strong enough to burn through skin and bone in seconds.
He scooted backward. He thought back to the night before, when he’d been standing in front of the impossible vending machine.
Early Onset Crunch.
Now with more of your favorite diabetic after-effects!
It was like the park knew exactly what he feared most. He feared his diabetes and the life that would be cut short. He feared the damage even one piece of that rotten candy could do to his body, let alone an entire moving heap of the stuff. Most of all, he feared never growing up, never graduating college, never getting laid and married and everything else you got to do if you lived long enough.
He shook his head, began to cry like an infant.
He was going to die. There was no denying it, no escape from it.
He would not live long enough to go blind and become bedridden because this dripping thing with its acidic candy gel was going to end him then and there.
It cocked its head, licked at its lips with a tongue that resembled a decayed fruit-rollup, and pounced onto Tim.
It squeezed his body tightly, crawled upward so that they were face to face. Its smile widened and it opened its mouth, prepared to eject acid onto Tim’s face. Tim curled his nose at the rotten scent of its breath, something halfway between sugar and shit. He prepared to die.
Another shape came into view, just at the corner of his peripherals. Make that two. Two shapes coming at him, probably more candy monsters to share in his carcass. His eyes were filled with too many tears to make out specifics but that was fine. He didn’t mind being blind if it meant he didn’t have to see his death coming.
The thing on top of him tensed. There was pressure above him, like someone was stepping onto the creature, pushing it aside so they could have their turn. Then there was a sound like kicking and screaming and the thing rolled off of Tim.
He watched as the two shapes brought their feet onto the thing’s stomach and face, dislodging chunks of rotten candy flesh with each blow, moldy chocolate and spoiled ice cream and tainted marshmallows. Eventually the thing’s body became less solid, just a pile of oozing and seeping mush, no longer identifiable. Small puddles of acid rolled out of its remains, sizzling into the night.
Tim wiped away something from his face that smelled of strawberries and vomit. He looked at the two shapes. The first was a woman he did not recognize.
The second was his mother.
She knelt down, hugged him tightly, and rocked him like an infant, telling him over and over again that she was sorry she’d failed him, that she loved him very much and she would never let him out of her sight again.
“Where are your brother and father?” she said. “Tell me they’re okay. Tell me where they went.”
Tim’s eyes grew heavy. His body felt weak. It took great effort to lift his hand and point it forward.
His mother followed the finger’s direction, turning her head toward Dream Castle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Andrew?” Vince kept his voice down, tried not to raise it above a whisper as he stepped deeper in the castle. He did not see Andrew or anyone else. He could hear voices somewhere in the distance but everything inside the room, which had once been a cubicle farm, lay perfectly still.
Dust particles floated through the air. The ground was covered with paint chips and other debris. It was hard to imagine that a few hours ago this place had been filled with employees making phone calls and typing away on keyboards. And where had said employees gone? He had the feeling they were either dead or had turned a certain shade of grey and clocked out early.
“Andrew?”
Nothing. He walked away from the office and made his way toward the elevators. He looked at the buttons, tried to decide which was the best option, though he had no idea. He imagined what each floor would reveal, if there were other creatures worse than those that had killed everyone in the park, if even now Andrew was struggling to stay alive while those things took bites out of him.
He reached his hand forward to choose a floor at random but stopped short. Though the only illumination came from small red emergency lights, he could just make out a vague shape reflected in the dingy elevator doors.
It was large.
It was standing just behind him.
He turned, made to run away, and fell backward as something furry brought a fist down across his head. The pain was instant, all-encompassing. He felt it spread through his face and jaw and neck, moving further still. Something warm dripped from his right ear and onto the floor beside him.
He looked up and winced. His vision had turned fuzzy. Everything was doubled.
Standing above him were what looked like two identical mascot bears. They spun in uneven circles, the motion enough to make
him nauseous. His stomach churned and bile rose in the back of his throat. When his vision cleared, the doubles faded and he saw there was only one bear now.
Sebastian brought his fist down again.
***
When he woke he was tied to a chair and there was something preventing him from opening his mouth, a rag of some sort. He tried to look toward his jaw but his eyes were swollen and moving them sent jolts of pain into his temples.
His head felt heavy. His ears rang, the tone shrill enough to drive him mad.
But none of those things bothered him as much as seeing Andrew sitting across what looked like a long conference table, spinning in an office chair like he was having the time of his life.
Vince cleared his throat, swallowing something like blood or bile or both. He moaned through the rag, tried to get Andrew’s attention. Andrew spun for several more moments, oblivious that his father had woken up. He looked happier than he’d been in the last year.
Vince gathered all his strength and moaned again, this time much louder.
Andrew looked up. His seat made a few more revolutions before it finally stopped so that he was looking across the table at his father. His face was grimy and his bottom lip had been split open. Dried blood had caked onto the wound and ran down his chin and throat. He was no longer wearing his button-up from earlier that day. In its place was a bright blue and green t-shirt with the Dream Woods logo plastered across the front. Below it was a cartoon picture of one of the grey things. It looked less menacing, more like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, except that it held a woman’s animated severed head in its clawed hand.
Below the scene was a word that made Vince feel faint, his consciousness threatening to fade out once more.
Employee.
Vince trembled in his seat, eyed Andrew, mentally asking him to come untie his father so they could get the hell out of here.
“Where’s Tim?” Andrew crossed his legs and set his hands on the table like a businessman about to make an important deal.
Vince nodded toward the balcony that looked out over the park and surrounding mountains and mumbled beneath the fabric.
“So he’s alive then?”
Vince nodded.
“Damn. I was really hoping he’d be dead by now. Or that you’d at least bring him with you so that I could kill him in front of you.”
Vince’s eyes widened. White-hot pain shot through his head but it didn’t matter much when he took into account what his son had just said.
“You look surprised,” Andrew said. “Didn’t you ever notice how much I hate that little shit, how much I hate you and Mom for that matter?” He smiled.
There was something wrong with his son’s voice. He no longer spoke like a pre-teen. He sounded older, more sophisticated, like his age had tripled in the last hour. Vince moaned again from beneath the rag. It sounded pitiful. He tried to take his eyes off of Andrew’s shirt.
Employee.
Andrew pointed to his chest. “Oh, this thing? This is just my new uniform. It’s supposed to set me apart from all those idiots who got slaughtered out there. We don’t want me mistaken for one of them, now do we? Otherwise I’d end up as a puddle on the ground.” He pretended to slice his own throat with his index finger, making mock cutting sounds. “Although you wouldn’t have cared. If you really gave a shit you wouldn’t have left me behind while you carried your precious sickly child away in your arms.”
Vince titled his head. His eyes began to fill with tears. He wished he could speak.
I’m here now, aren’t I? I came back for you.
“Did it ever occur to you that I felt left out, that I could’ve used a little more attention? You and Mom were always fighting so much that whatever energy you had left went straight into the other twin, the one who was going to end up dying young anyway. I should have done you all a favor and killed him myself. Don’t think I never thought about it before. Sometimes, when I’d come into the living room and see the three of you watching television, I’d imagine getting up in the middle of the night, sneaking into Tim’s room, and pulling a pillow over his stupid little face. Except that wouldn’t have been good enough. No, I wanted to fill one of those hypodermic needles to the brim with insulin and shove it into both his eyes. And that, Dad, is exactly what I plan to do.”
Vince tensed. Every vein in his body began to swell. He felt ready to faint at any moment. The pain in his head rose to a crescendo.
“That’s right. I’m going to go down there, I’m going to find him, and I’m going to bring him up here so you can watch. Would you like that? Would you like to see our precious little Tim die? I’ll make it slow. I’ll tape your eyes open if I have to, just to make see you see his last stupid breath before he stops moving. Then I’ll have him propped up on a stick so he can be the next Dream Woods attraction. Get your picture taken with a dead boy. I think that would really catch on around here, don’t you?”
Vince’s mind threatened to come undone. It took every ounce of his mental capacity to try and comprehend what was happening. How could this be his son? He had suspected Andrew felt left out but he hadn’t known to what extent. But this…this thing in front of him—it wasn’t the same boy who’d entered Dream Woods. It was an imposter. Someone had transformed his son into a monster.
Vince’s hands were bound together by what felt like thick rope behind his back. He tried wiggling them, contorting his palms and fingers so that they could slide through the loop. The knot wasn’t all that tight. If he could get his hands in front of him, he just might be able to undo it. First he needed to get out of the seat.
Andrew was going on about killing Tim and then Audra and then finally Vince in that exact order. He wanted Vince to witness their final moments. He spoke of pain and blood and death like he was recounting his day at school. The more details he spouted the more excited he became.
Vince took a deep breath. It hurt his head immensely. With his last bit of strength, he pushed backward. For a moment the world spun and he was staring at the ceiling. Then the chair toppled over and he was on his side. He pulled his arms over the back of the chair, screaming behind his rag as he did so. It felt like his shoulder muscles were tearing, the bone ripping away from tendon and skin.
Not now. You can give up later but right now pain is the last of your worries, so get it together.
He pulled his hands in front of him, winced from the pain that came from all directions, and twisted and turned his wrists until he freed his left fist. He undid the knot, pulled the remainder of the rope away, and stood up.
The blood rushed to his head and he nearly fainted. Everything grew fuzzy, distant, like fogged over glass. He held onto the conference table for support and when the vertigo passed, he opened his eyes.
Andrew hadn’t moved an inch. He still sat at his position at the head of the table, as if waiting patiently for a client’s presentation to end. The smile had not left his face.
Vince untied the rag from his mouth and massaged his jaw. “Listen to me very closely. I don’t know what the hell happened to you and I’m very sorry I left you behind but I had every intention of coming back for you. You have no idea what it’s like to be a parent. I’m certainly no expert but you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you I love you and Tim and your mother and like it or not, you’re coming with me now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you but if I have to knock you out, son, I’ll do it without a second thought, so long as it gets you and me away from this castle.”
“You can try but I don’t think he’s going to be okay with it.” Andrew nodded and pointed at something behind Vince.
Vince felt hot breath on his neck. He didn’t have the chance to fully turn around before he saw movement in his peripherals and felt something large and furry take hold of him.
Sebastian lifted him from the ground and tossed him onto the table. Vince’s head slammed against the wood and everythin
g turned white. He was certain he had a concussion now and the prospect of remaining conscious made him want to vomit, scream, and cry all at once. It would be so much easier to close his eyes and let everything fade away.
No.
He’d sat back for a good portion of his life. He’d watched his marriage die quietly. He’d watched his family crumble each day. He’d let everything go to shit because he was too lazy to do anything about it. He’d told himself things would work out just fine if he let life run its course but he’d learned that sometimes you needed to give life the middle finger and take things into your own hands.
He opened his eyes.
Andrew was standing in his seat and jumping with joy. He clapped like a child watching a magician make balloon animals. “Do it again, Sebastian. Break his back this time!”
Vince felt movement behind him once more. He rolled off the table, slamming onto the floor. The chair had broken apart when he’d flipped it over. He saw slabs of wood scattered about. One piece in particular caught his eye. It was a large sliver of one of the legs. The end where the wood had snapped was jagged, the tip coming to a sharp point.
He reached for it, felt Sebastian step over toward him. He thought of the day he’d seen the billboard with Sebastian’s face. Then he grabbed the leg, stood up, and jammed the splintered end into one of the mascot’s googly eyes. The wood slid in like the eye was gooey flesh instead of cheap plastic. Blood seeped from the wound, poured down the front of the costume, matting the fur as it went.
The bear grabbed the splintered wood and thrashed as it tried to slide the chair leg from the wound. The costume should have ripped from the struggle. Vince should have seen human skin under there. But now he understood it was not a costume, not anymore. Whoever had once worn that mask was welded to it now, a mascot for eternity.
Sebastian began to pull the sliver out of his eye. Vince stepped backward toward the door, tensed his muscles, and rammed the bear as hard as he could. He pushed forward, not letting go until they were near the balcony. At the last moment he let himself fall to his elbows and watched as Sebastian spilled over the edge.
Dream Woods Page 15