Dream Woods

by Patrick Lacey

  His hand reached forward in slow motion, the movement nearly stopping before his fingers made contact, pushed the red button downward, and the alarms began to sound.

  They were piercing, coming from all directions at once. She covered her ears but it did no good, like they were sounding from within her own mind as well.

  He took her hand and they sped down the hall toward the elevator, which took a lifetime to reach the main floor. They ran through the front office, out the doors of Dream Castle, and toward the front gates.

  They seemed impossibly far away from the entrance, like no amount of running could close the gap. Gregory pulled her along. She was winded, the result of two years of inactivity, nearly toppling over a half dozen times before they finally reached their destination.

  The world began to shake. She fell backward against the gate. Her stomach bottomed out like she was on one of the rollers coasters. “What’s happening?”

  He helped her up and stared toward the castle. “Elsewhere.”

  There was a loud thud and a crack, like something breaking open.

  Things began to spill out of Dream Castle’s entrance. They were grey and deformed and impossibly fast.

  Gregory pushed her through the gates. She lost her balance again, landing on her hands and knees, the gravel digging tiny rocks into the flesh of her palms. By the time she stood back up and turned back around, Gregory was gone and so was Dream Woods.

  ***

  Thirty years later Regina again traveled the torch-lined hallway deep beneath the castle that ended at the tiny control room. It was still there, left untouched after three decades. She expected the red button to be gone. Of course it would be. It couldn’t be that simple. She couldn’t expect to leave this place alive twice. The odds were most certainly stacked against her.

  How many had already lost their lives this weekend alone? Not to mention that poor family outside. There was no escape for any of them just as there had been no escape for Gregory. Or Steven for that matter. He’d died just visiting the remnants of this place. Why would such a location ever allow anyone to leave again?

  But the button was there, the single word still waiting in faded white letters.

  Elsewhere.

  Except in this case elsewhere meant back home, the real world, the one where this infernal theme park did not exist anymore, one where she could make a living as a nut job writer who lived alone unless you counted a handful of cats, and who cried each and every night because she wished all of this were just a bad dream and Steven had just stepped out for a pack of cigarettes. Right about now, elsewhere sounded pretty fucking good.

  She reached forward, just as poor Gregory had done all those years ago.

  And froze when she heard someone approaching from behind.

  The footsteps were slow, in no rush at all.

  She shook her head and slumped her shoulders because she knew the owner of the footsteps, could sense their presence like you could feel an approaching thunderstorm. Something filled the air, something horrible and indefinable, and she could not help but shiver.

  The footsteps stopped just behind her.

  “Regina,” The Director said. “Have you come to fill out another application?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Vince burst out of the front doors of Dream Castle, carrying Andrew over his shoulder. Though he had not been pursued he felt just the opposite. He felt like those things were not far off. He wiped away sweat and grime and drying mascot blood, now caked onto his skin like mud. Andrew moaned something. His head tilted up for a moment before he fell unconscious again.

  Vince spotted two forms near the closest ticket booth.

  One was a hideous grey thing, somehow larger and more misshapen than its counterparts from earlier.

  The other lay on the ground, below the grey thing, struggling for air and trying to pry the clawed hands away from their throat.

  It was Audra.

  Vince descended the steps and set Andrew onto the ground. He ran. He was too late of course. It was a miracle he’d come this far. Surely he would not be allowed to save his wife or Tim who was gone now, perhaps hiding, perhaps dead just as his mother was about to be.

  Vince reached the two writhing forms, grabbed onto the grey thing’s back, and pulled. The thing let go and the sudden weight brought it and Vince backward, falling to the ground and rolling so that the thing was now on him instead of Audra. It screeched, revealing a mouth large enough to eat him whole and a tongue that moved in snake-like motions. Its breath was putrid. A drop of thick saliva spilled onto his face.

  Vince struggled beneath the weight. It felt as if his ribs were readying to snap within his chest. The thing closed its hands around his throat and squeezed.

  The world began to slip away, as did his thoughts and senses, until he was certain that death was approaching. He wanted to scream for Audra to run away, to grab Andrew and find Tim and run for their lives but his airway was now cut off and his windpipe was about to cave in.

  And where would they run? The gates were locked and the landscape beyond was no longer the Berkshires.

  Stop thinking that way. At least die with some happy fucking thoughts.

  The thing above him screeched again, this time not in hunger or anger but in pain. It released its hold on his throat. He rubbed the flesh and tried to breathe, rolled away and coughed up blood.

  He raised his head and saw Audra. She held two large wine bottles, both of them with Dream Woods logo and both of them partly shattered. A third broken bottle lay in the creature’s back. Black sludge leaked from the open wound. It flailed, tried to flip over, but Audra stabbed the second bottle into its side, perhaps bursting a kidney if the thing had a kidney to begin with. It began to convulse as more sludge spilled from inside its grey skin.

  It managed to turn over. As it eyed Audra it began to scream, a different pitch this time. It no longer sounded inhuman but painfully human, like a child. Vince tried to make sense of it while he touched the raw flesh of his throat. He sensed something approaching from the side, something running at full speed.

  He turned to his left and saw Tim charging forward, realized the screaming was coming not from the grey thing after all but from his son. Tim grabbed the final bottle from Audra, climbed on top of the thing, and shoved it deep into the flesh of its face. He twisted the bottle, forced it in deeper. Vince could hear ripping flesh and bursting bones.

  All at once the thing stopped moving and the black puddle beneath grew larger.

  It was quiet after that, the three of them looking at each other, not sure what to say. Vince’s mind felt foggy, like this was just a delusion. He had been so convinced that he’d never see his wife again that he questioned this new reality, one where he could hold her and let her know it was okay. All of their problems, their cold shoulders, their painful silences, paled in comparison to what lay within these gates.

  She was covered in the creature’s black blood but he could still see her face beneath the sludge and he still thought she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Time had not changed that. She was still the punk rock girl he’d spotted in the crowd so long ago, nearly forgetting whatever lines he’d been screaming about the government or greed or injustice.

  She wiped her face, revealed her eyes and nose and mouth and Vince could not help but smile. You did not choose the ones you loved. Love was more like an infection, a disease that spread through you that you couldn’t seem to shake and until there was a vaccine created, he knew he would love Audra for as long as he lived, despite all of her shortcomings.

  He opened his mouth to tell her this just as the alarms began to sound.

  ***

  Just give in, Regina thought. Surrender, bow down to him, give up because there’s no way out of this. Let him lead you back to your old cell where the indescribable mush will be fed to you twice a day, where you can eternally wonder whether or not Gregory died a slow and painful death while trying to save you. You can thi
nk of Steven’s lone adventure to the ruins of this place, how he must of screamed at the end. You can rot away behind those bars and listen to the grunts of things down the halls or perhaps just behind you. Let him take you away.

  We are the dreamers.

  “We are the dreamers,” the Director said.

  “No.” Regina covered her ears, tightened her jaw. He was inside her somehow, crawling through her thoughts. She could feel his presence twisting her neurons to his liking. She needed to turn away from him, look anywhere else but those hypnotic and shifting eyes, but the action seemed impossible.

  The console was just behind her. All she needed to do was press the button. It was only a few feet away. It would be so simple to blindly search behind her back and press the red plastic circle.

  But it won’t matter in the end because you’ll be dead either way. You’re not making it out of here. You must know that. You’d be saving that family outside perhaps but is their life worth your life? They’re strangers, tourists who felt Dream Woods calling, not realizing they were being drawn to their final days. If they were smarter they would have questioned that calling. They should have stayed away. Forget about that button and give in to me.

  She strained, hugged her midsection. There was pressure behind her eyes as The Director invaded her mind. It felt like her brain was swelling, not enough room in her skull to house the growing flesh. She could no longer tell if the voice inside belonged to herself or him.

  An image of Steven crawled into her thoughts. They were making love on a warm summer night. The window was ajar and a breeze floated in. She opened her eyes and saw him staring at her, asked him why he liked to watch her so often. He told her she was beautiful and that he couldn’t bring himself to look away because then he might wake up and find out he was dreaming.

  His stubbly and chiseled face grew pale. Lacerations opened up along his cheeks and chin. His left eye ceased to be, leaving behind a dark cavern. Red and white fluid dripped from the crater and onto her face. Into her mouth. She gagged and choked as the liquid dripped down her throat, suffocating her. She tried to push him off of her but his dead weight was impossible to shift.

  Thank you for telling me all of your stories about Dream Woods, darling. If you hadn’t, I never would’ve scouted the place out and had my eye torn from its socket. I cursed your name in the end. I wished we’d never met in the first place and I had a quick fantasy, just before I died, that instead of watching you while we fucked, I just wrapped my hands around your crazy little throat and squeezed until you died and I came.

  “No!” She screamed, not letting up or breathing until she felt light-headed and dizzy but it seemed to push the thoughts and images away. For just a moment, through the fog and haze, her mind was cleared.

  The Director smiled. “You are stronger than I assumed. I would love to have you back here as an employee. How about that, Regina? How about we go up to Human—or inhuman if you’d like—Resources and get you back on the payroll. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

  She shook her head, tried to catch her breath. “I’d rather die.”

  He sighed. “That is a shame. But if death is what you choose I am more than willing to help you reach your goal.” He opened his mouth wide, and reached his fingers inward so that one hand grabbed the bottom of his jaw and the other latched on to his top teeth. They began to pull in opposite directions. There was a cracking and ripping sound as his face broke into two separate pieces. Where there should have been a skull there was only flesh—new flesh, not pale or anything remotely similar to human skin. It was grey and dry like a desert landscape, like something you imagined would reside deep within hell.

  He pulled away the rest of his skin like he was simply disrobing. His head was conical and his new mouth was larger than any she’d ever seen. The teeth were plentiful and looked sharp enough to cut through steel should the need arise.

  His new voice was harsh and distorted, like a radio wave that had travelled to hell and back. “Before you die, Regina, I want you to know that pitiful family outside will die as well. I might have let them go if you gave into me but now they’re going to be oil for the attractions just like the rest of them.” He cackled, a guttural and awful sound, and she felt movement deep within the ground. It sounded like a stampede.

  Then he lashed forward with long clawed fingers.

  She fell backward toward the console and felt her back collide with the red button.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “What does it mean?” Tim said, cocking his head at the sudden alarms sounding throughout the park. He was still trying to catch his breath.

  Vince shook his head. “I don’t know, buddy. But I don’t think it’s anything good.”

  “Maybe it’s the police or something?” Audra said. “Maybe they heard about what happened here.” She licked her lips and tasted something salty and sour. She spat onto the ground. There was still residue all over her face, blood from Doris sticking to her skin.

  Vince watched the castle, his eyes wide. She’d seen the look on his face before. It was the expression he took on whenever there was a crisis, whether it was Tim being rushed to the hospital or worse. And this did seem worse. The alarm was high pitched and piercing. Audra’s ears rang in protest. Everything began to take on a muffled tone as if her body were trying to combat the sound. But none of that bothered her as much as watching her husband stare at the castle entrance with a look of pure fear in his eyes.

  “What is it, Vince? Tell me it’s not bad.” She took his arm into hers and made him turn away. Made him kiss her. “Tell me this is all over and we can just go home now. Tell me we can go back to fighting and bickering. I’d take that any day.”

  He did not smile as he pushed her bangs behind her ears. “We need to get out of here.”

  The world began to shake once more. Her stomach instantly reacted. She turned away and heaved but nothing came out. She could not remember the last thing she’d eaten. It felt like their stay had been much longer than two days but her stomach did not crave anything. It was filled with acid. She could feel it sloshing around.

  The landscape began to change. One moment the darkened sky and mountains loomed over everything and the next the sun and the real Berkshires appeared. Everything shifted, the scenery going back and forth. It made her nausea worse. The world took on a liquid sheen, like they’d been thrust underwater. Her sanity threatened to fly away at any moment.

  “I think we’re going back,” Tim said, yelling above the alarm or siren or whatever it was. “To the real world.”

  Vince nodded, knelt down, and picked up Andrew’s limp body. Audra wiped her son’s face. She could see his chest rising and falling, could feel hot air pouring from his nostrils, but seeing his eyes closed like that she could not help but wonder if he would ever wake up.

  Vince began to back away from the castle, never taking his eyes away from the shadows of the front entrance. With his free hand he took Audra’s arm, told her to grab onto Tim.

  The shaking worsened and another sound rose above the alarm. It was distant at first, a steady hum that was hard to pinpoint above all the other noises. Eventually it grew in volume so that it almost drowned out the rest of the sounds. It grew closer too. Audra could sense something approaching. She opened her mouth to ask Vince what was coming but some part of her already knew the answer.

  She watched as something stepped out of the castle. Something large and constantly changing shape, a cloud of horrible shifting features. She squinted her eyes, craned her neck, focused on the large thing.

  No, not thing.

  Things.

  Hundreds. Thousands. Perhaps more.

  There were too many to count, an infinite number of the grey creatures that had killed everyone and fed them to the rides. They spilled out of the castle door, moving quickly, a stampede of fangs and claws, moving in harmony together like a single pulse.

  Andrew woke. He coughed something onto Vince’s shirt and began to flail. “
He knows we’re here. He’s going to kill us all because I failed him.”

  Vince let go of Audra’s hand, grabbed Andrew’s body with both his arms to steady the boy’s flailing. He watched the oncoming grey cloud for a moment longer before turning around and telling Audra and Tim to follow. His voice was lost in the chaos but she understood him well enough.

  They ran toward the front gates. She nearly fell twice as she tried to make sense of the changing landscape.

  Darkness, shadows, things crawling in the distance.

  Sunshine, blue sky, pine trees.

  It was as if the world—or worlds—could not settle on a single geography.

  She didn’t dare turn around. She could sense the things approaching far faster than she could run. It was not difficult to imagine one of their claws grabbing hold of her shoulder at any moment. She wondered if they would snap her neck or bash her skull before they began to feed or if they would begin with her organs so that she could watch her own death as it approached.

  Vince reached the front ticket booths. He hoisted Andrew to the top, helped Tim up, and finally held out his hand for Audra to grab onto. Her legs tired. Her body threatened to give up. And why not? It would be fine to die now, knowing her family was safe for the moment, knowing she wouldn’t have to watch them be torn apart.

  Vince’s hand was inches away. She reached out.

  Something scratched her back. White-hot pain flared in the flesh between her shoulder blades. She fell forward, her feet leaving the ground. Her hand touching Vince’s.

  He pulled her onto the roof and they kicked the creatures—employees—away from all sides as the world outside the gates of Dream Woods continued to shift back and forth.

  ***

  The Director laughed. “Did you think that would solve all of your problems?” He nodded toward the button. “Did you think it would be that simple again?”