She kneed his groin, hoping to bring him down, but he didn’t flinch. The flesh there felt hard and calloused just like the rest of him. She wondered if he—or it or whatever classification you liked—felt pain to begin with. He held both her wrists in one massive clawed hand, preventing her from moving. She struggled with every ounce of effort but it was nothing compared to his strength.
He reached for the console and pressed the elsewhere button so that it popped back to its neutral position.
She pushed herself backward, nearly escaping from his grip, and managed to lift her right leg up just enough to step on the button once more.
And once more he used his free hand to press it again.
“We could play this lovely game all night, you and I. I could spend hours watching the hope in your eyes slowly dwindle.”
She gritted her teeth. “I don’t suppose you’d let me go now, even if I agreed to come back to work.”
“I’m afraid not. I am going to take great joy in what comes next.” His grip on her wrists tightened. Pins and needles filled her hands and forearms, followed by sharp pain tearing through her skin. Her bones felt brittle, ready to snap any moment.
“They’re going to escape, you know,” she said. “They’re going to make it out and they’re going to warn everyone about this place. Hell, if they’re smart they’ll burn it to the ground just like I should’ve done. They won’t stop until only dust remains. You think you won by opening this place back up? Don’t make me laugh. How many people showed up today? I’d say a thousand if you’re lucky. Dream Woods is old news. Whoever invented it, whether it was you or your mysterious investors or Saint Fucking Nicholas, should find a new business plan.”
She felt it then. A quick snap. A jolt. A feeling of numbness where he gripped her. But the numbness faded, gave way to an electric shock of pain that travelled the entire length of her body. She looked at her wrists. They were pointed in the wrong directions, hanging limply at an angle that didn’t quite add up. Blood seeped from new openings in the skin. Severed veins peeked out like worms. Come to think of it her wrist bones were on the outside now, jagged nubs she knew could never be melded back together.
The Director was holding something.
Make that two things.
Her hands.
He tossed them to the floor. “We are the Dreamers.” He licked his fingers, sucking each one clean.
She was losing too much blood too quickly. It sprayed from the wounds like a garden hose. The corridor and the torches and the control panel were fading. Every ounce of her life was spurting onto her shirt, soaking the fabric.
“I am not a dreamer,” she said.
“I beg to differ.” He grabbed her, brought her close to him like he was hugging her, like he hadn’t just ended her life but given her valuable advice. She wished at that moment she could’ve added all of this to her book.
It would have made a great ending.
“There, there,” he said, hushing her. “It will be over soon.”
“Yes,” she said, stretching her neck so that her mouth could touch the scaly skin of his neck. “It will.”
She bit.
Her teeth protested against the hardness of his flesh. She forced her jaw closed, felt several molars and one of her incisors give way. The pain was infinite. There was nothing beyond it.
Nothing except the thought of that woman and her family and how hard they clung to hope. And the thought that maybe—just maybe—something good could come from this place, something that didn’t end in death.
She thought all of this until her remaining teeth connected with each other and pulled away a fist-sized chunk of the Director’s skin. The taste of his flesh in her mouth was akin to year-old garbage left in the sun.
He pushed her away, brought a hand to his new wound. Dark liquid slowly dripped out of the gash, like sap from a rotten tree.
Regina turned around, pushed the red button one last time with her elbow, and spat her mouth’s contents onto the console. Then she pointed the nubs of what had once been her wrists toward the machinery as well. Her blood leaked onto the metal. Smoke began to filter up from the button. Lights flickered. Sparks flew from the inner compartments as the circuitry within shorted out.
And all the while the button stayed down.
Elsewhere.
A perfect last word for the final chapter.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I would’ve come back,” Audra said.
Vince didn’t respond. He was too busy kicking at the grey things as they tried to climb the ticket booth and bring her family to those awful machines. She imagined it now, how it would feel to be pushed into one of those contraptions alive, assuming they didn’t snap her neck on the journey.
One of the creatures climbed over the side to her right. Tim batted it away with a loose board he’d pried away from the roof. He backed up and kicked at another beam until it came loose. He tossed it to Vince.
Andrew was mumbling something. His eyes did not leave the castle, as if something watched back, something that sent psychic warnings. They would never let him go, he said. He had failed him, whoever “him” was, and for that he would be punished. She hushed him, running a hand through his hair.
“Vince,” she said again. “I would’ve come back.”
Still he didn’t hear her. He stepped on a grey head and it gave way under his shoe, dark ooze splattering over the four of them.
She was shocked that her fear had receded. Her heartbeat, her pulse, her entire body had slowed. She felt warm and cold at the same time.
Where the fabric of her shirt touched her back was soaked and torn. At first she had not noticed the wound. She had been too intent on climbing to safety and ensuring her sons and husband were alive. But now, while she lay with Andrew in her arms, she knew she was going to die.
She could feel her blood seeping beneath her, forming a puddle that felt much like a blanket. Instead of thinking of the horrible things she’d seen at Dream Woods, not to mention the last few years of her failing marriage, she thought about the day she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d shared words with Vince, most of them expletives, and later that night, while he slept fitfully next to her, she had smiled and rubbed her stomach.
She’d stood up, walked over to the window. They were living in a cramped studio apartment just outside of Boston. There were more cockroaches than there was furniture. But it was theirs. Just as the child would be. Children, though she hadn’t learned it would be twins until later. There was something magical about the thought. She could bring life into the world with this man she’d known for just a year. Of course it seemed impossible considering the tattoos and the mohawks and their entire lifestyle but magical all the same. Audra had watched the night sky lead into a sunrise and then she’d went back to bed and watched Vince’s chest rise and fall until he woke.
She realized now she’d just been scared. She did not want to go down the path that everyone else did. She did not want her life laid out for her. She wanted to lead her own path, to be her own person, but these three people beside her, two of which were fighting to save their lives—they were her path. And it had been a path well worth the journey.
Tim shoved his wooden beam into a creature’s mouth so that it came out the other side. He slid the thing off the stick with his foot. Its impact sent several others to the ground with a thud. He turned around to look at Audra and stopped short. He was the first to notice the blood, the first to see his mother dying.
“Mom!” He ran toward her, kneeled down, and began to cry.
All around them the landscape continued to change, wonderful one moment, horrific the next. The transitions had sped up so that it was almost impossible to tell which world would be chosen. Even the employees seemed to fade in and out.
She looked at the castle, wondered if Regina had found a way out.
She smiled at Tim. “Remember what that woman said. About the book. You have to let everyone know this is all
real.”
“We do.” Snot and tears dripped from his face.
Vince kicked away a severed grey arm and finally turned around to see what was going on. He nearly fell off the ticket booth when he saw her.
He kicked the nearest creature, there one second and gone the next, before speeding over to them. “Are you hurt?”
She held her hand up. It was mostly red, mostly soaked.
He shook his head. “No. God, no. Please. It’s almost over. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
She brought her hand to his face. It left crimson fingerprints but he didn’t notice. “I would have come back. The night I left. I’m sorry you had to see that. But I would have come back eventually. Maybe I would have gotten farther than the highway. We both know how selfish I can be. But I swear to you I would have come back no matter what.” She started to cough. Something felt wet in her throat.
Vince began to cry as well. He turned her over to investigate the wound, took off his shirt and applied pressure. It seemed to stop the blood some but it was too late. She knew that much.
Something in the atmosphere shifted. The noises around them ceased. The darkness no longer covered everything. She had to wince to look at the sky. It was the brightest thing she’d ever encountered. “Look,” she said. “You were right. It’s over.”
They all looked up, even Andrew, to see the blue morning sky, no longer covered in shadows. The trees were green and lush. The mountains were just as breathtaking as ever. They were the correct shape now and nothing roamed their peaks aside from normal wildlife.
The creatures were gone. As were the bloodstains and the bits of broken bones scattered along the ground. The rides were back to normal, no longer misshapen or contorted. Even the castle, as hard as it was to believe, looked as it should, beautiful even.
For just a moment, she thought this was what life was meant to be, surrounded by the people that meant the most to you, not all of the other bullshit you put in your head. Who cared about plans or expectations? None of that mattered, not in the end.
And this, she knew, was most certainly the end.
Vince held her closely, leaned down to kiss her one last time.
Together they watched the cloudless sky and the surrounding theme park, which was already starting to fall into ruin once more, crumbling before their eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vince did not take the back roads to work for another year. He told himself this was because of the extra gas mileage or that he was too tired in the morning to be taking alternate routes but he knew it was bullshit.
He was afraid of what he’d find on one particular back road, one where he’d seen a certain billboard the year before. If it had truly been there in the first place—and even now he still wasn’t certain—it would surely be gone by now. Anything related to Dream Woods advertising would have been taken away from the public months ago.
No one had been able to prove what had happened there, but when you had a thousand or more people go missing in a single day and the only common thread linking them was an old decrepit theme park that had been closed for years, it still got authorities thinking.
One morning in August, sweating through his collared shirt, Vince eyed the approaching exit. It was the road that would lead him to the billboard.
Or to nothing.
It had called out to him each morning and afternoon, whispered to him like a distant ghost. Sometimes it had Audra’s voice, sweet and inviting even in death, but more often it had a harsh tone, something inhuman and feral.
He looked in the rearview mirror, saw countless cars and trucks backed up for miles. The route ahead was just as bad. There must have been an accident. In the distance sirens blared.
He would be late for sure. His boss had been understanding over the last year, had allowed Vince to take as much time as he needed for recovery. But everyone had their limits. Eventually the favors and the pity would go away and he’d be just another accountant, albeit one covered with fading tattoos, a statistic rather than a human.
“Fuck it,” he said turning into the breakdown lane and coasting toward the exit. He could close his eyes if he was really that scared. He could stare at the road in front of him until the billboard passed.
Until the image of Sebastian faded. Would both his eyes still be intact or would one be a vacant cavern? Would his wounds and the blackened blood seeping out of them appear on the advertisement? Did the image somehow update on its own?
Stop it.
Who had put the damned thing there in the first place? Was it someone from Dream Woods or external hired help or, worse yet, did the advertisement just appear one day?
Stop. You’re letting it win. If it’s there, it’s there. What difference does it make?
All the difference. It made all the difference in the world.
When he turned off the highway and travelled ten minutes south, a large metallic square came into view. There was no advertisement on the side facing Vince. That was good. All he needed to do was pass by without craning his neck or looking in the rearview. It was simple. He could beat this thing. He could travel two hundred feet without looking back.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. His feet pushed the gas a little too hard. He gritted his teeth, tensed every muscle.
The billboard approached, though it should have been the other way around. It was alive somehow, a mind of its own that was drawing Vince toward it once again. He would see the same picture of Sebastian and he would be drawn back to Dream Woods where he would spend his final moments until something stepped out of the rubble and dragged him into the ground.
Less than fifty feet. Still time to turn around.
Thirty feet. He was being ridiculous.
Ten feet. Too late now.
He passed the billboard.
And looked into the rearview mirror against his will.
Sebastian was not there, though there was an image. It was an advertisement but not for Dream Woods, not entirely. It was for a novel entitled Scream Woods: Theme Park Terror by Regina Michaels. Released posthumously, of course.
He noted the word “novel.” It was not billed as non-fiction and he was not at all surprised. How could the rest of the world believe something like that? You’d have to be crazy.
His pulse slowed now that he’d seen what lay on the other side of the billboard but it did not return to normal. Knowing a book like that had actually been released and not knowing what lay within its pages was enough to make him pick up his cell phone, call his manager to let him know he’d be out today, and turn the car around. Vince could sense the frustration in his manager’s voice but he didn’t quite care.
He took the back roads the rest of the way to the bookstore a few miles away from his home.
***
There was a line out the door, stretching down the sidewalk and around the block. Today was the release date. There was a smaller version of the same advertisement from the billboard taped onto the front windows. Vince had never seen more than a handful of people at the bookstore but today it looked like a grand opening. There were two news vans across the street, stone-faced reporters interviewing someone and nodding absently at their answers.
Vince walked to the back of the line and took his place at the end. There was a boy standing in front of him, one that he instantly recognized and should not have been in the line to begin with. Vince reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.
Tim turned around and winced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t see me.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Tim nodded. “I was. For the morning at least. Then I pretended to be sick.”
“Aren’t they supposed to call me or something?”
“I told them I lived just down the street and they let me go.”
“What was your excuse?”
He pretended to cough and held up his black bag, the one that housed his insulin shots. “I told them diabetic kids get much sicker than regular kid
s. Seemed like they bought it.”
Despite the reason they were in line and the billboard and the entire last year, Vince could not stop himself from smiling. He ruffled Tim’s hair and they both faced forward as the line began to move a bit.
“I can’t believe they said it’s not real.” Tim pointed toward the poster in the window.
Again the word novel stuck out to Vince. He imagined a boardroom of editors and publishers, discussing what they should do with Regina’s book. On the one hand, it was probably written well. She had a few under her belt already and a big enough following to go with them. On the other hand, Regina was known as a non-fiction writer. She wrote about unsolved crimes in the New England area. And this particular book—novel—dealt with the biggest unsolved crime to date. They couldn’t release the thing and say it was real. So they’d say it was all make believe and make a few bucks in the process. Not to mention the book probably hadn’t even been finished when she died. Vince wondered what ghost writer they’d hired, if they were a no-name or someone from the New York Times bestseller list.
“I wrote to them,” Tim said. “I emailed them a hundred times after we came back and told them all of it was real. It wasn’t made up at all. I told them about everything we saw but I never got a response back. Not even one.”
“They probably thought you were nuts.” The line moved up and they neared the front entrance.
“Maybe I am.”
Vince put a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Son, there are worse things than being crazy. And besides, I know it was real. Hard to deny.”
“Mom would be pissed. I promised her I’d make sure people knew the truth.”
Vince thought of Audra dying in his arms but the image was quickly replaced with her first ultrasound and her last tattoo and the birth of Andrew followed seconds later by Tim and the face Audra made just before she sneezed, which brought Vince to his knees each and every time he witnessed it. The good memories had mostly replaced the bad ones and for that he was thankful beyond words.
Dream Woods Page 18