by Drew Hayes
“I’ll keep that in mind. Um, so I was kind of wanting to check something with you. It might sound stupid but we’re okay, right?” Chad asked, his eyes staring intently at the weight bar.
“You don’t have a lot of practice with friends, do you?”
“Not really.”
Shane took another sip of water. It was almost unnerving to see Chad like this. Still, it was helping to diffuse the remaining anger from Shane’s defeat. Staying mad at him in this state felt like being mad at a puppy three days after it peed on the floor.
“We’re fine,” Shane said. “I just needed a little time to let my pride heal. You trounced us pretty well.”
“Maybe,” Chad said. “You should be aware, if we’d faced any other team we would have won in half the time. You guys put up a hell of a fight.”
“We did our best. You want to go grab some dinner after we finish down here?” Shane asked, extending an olive branch of his own.
Chad nodded. “Let’s run a few laps and get some grub.”
53.
To call Screamtopia a building would be akin to calling quantum physics mildly complicated. It was a compound, a series of warehouses that had been built upon and interjoined many years previous. After the original owner’s company collapsed, a few men with vision (as well as stolen plans and financial records from other haunted houses) saw what it could become and made the necessary alterations. Now it stood as a mecca for the Halloween devotees in California, people driving for hours to wander through its eerily enchanted hallways and yelp in terror. It wasn’t just the leaping actors that made it a special kind of scary; Screamtopia worked hard to create an entire atmosphere of fear. Visitors were allowed to come through in carefully limited groups so that they experienced a sense of isolation, a few Supers were kept on staff to bend the limits of what was and wasn’t possible in key areas, and of course there was the maze.
“Thews a mwaze?”
“For the love of god, man, give it up,” Nick said. All of Team One was walking through the parking lot, trying not to be intimidated by the daunting line jutting out from the surprisingly well-lit building. The seven students were in anything but normal garb, each costumed into a Halloween persona, some closer to the truth than others.
“Sahwy,” Vince replied, awkwardly spitting the plastic fangs into his hand. He wore a black cape and faux crushed velvet vest. His normally disheveled hair was slicked back, and a cheap plastic necklace hung around his neck. Even without the fangs he was easily recognizable as a classic vampire.
“To answer your question, yeah, the maze is a big part of the appeal here. It runs across a few floors of the complex, and there are tons of routes that force you to split up. All of them eventually lead to the end, but the first one of a group to finish it gets a free drink at the lounge,” explained Hershel the prisoner. The mummy costume had been a bust, and eventually he’d settled on a simple orange jumpsuit prisoner costume. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but it was functional and easy to move in, which was really all Hershel wanted. He usually got his fill of costumes from LARPing; for Hershel, Halloween was about the mystical sense of fear.
“Not that we can drink anyway,” Princess Mary pointed out. She wore a purple dress that trailed the ground and a glittery tiara in her hair. “This is a respectable business, not a frat party with lax rules.”
“If I’ve learned one thing about this town, it’s that the local population has the resourcefulness of black ops agents when it comes to finding ways to drink,” Alice the devil observed. She wore a tight pair of black leather pants and a black corset, pressing her noticeable chest upward. It was a corset with shoulders, and one that still left plenty to the imagination. Alice might be breaking out of her protected shell, but her risqué limit was still well below others her age. Atop her head was a pair of red horns that almost seemed natural, her voluminous locks hiding the string that held them in place.
Camille could have pointed out that such a thing could be said of college students anywhere, but as usual she stayed silent. Her own costume was a pair of green scrubs and a white lab coat. There had been a stethoscope as part of the costume too, but she’d left it in her dorm rather than keep up with it all night. In truth, she wasn’t much of a fan of haunted houses, and had Stella and Violet not forced her to come, she doubted she would have left home. They were going to the frat party with their team, yet the two girls had been relentless in pressuring Camille to join in her group’s festivities. She craned her head, wishing she were taller so she could see her friends amidst the crowd. Her team was supposed to meet Will, Jill, and Selena near the entrance so they could all go in together.
“In that spirit, my flask is more than decorative,” Nick said, his hand briefly touching the wooden gourd that hung on his hip next to his fake sword. He wore a flowing white shirt, black pants, and a pair of cuffed boots that were basic, but the coat and all of its buttons and pockets really brought the costume together. A few accessories such as a bandanna and the flask had been added for flair; however, they were hardly necessary. Even with the sunglasses Nick couldn’t have been mistaken for anything but a pirate.
“Why am I not surprised?” Mary sighed. Ye gods, she really did feel like the mom of this group, and they were far from easy to parent.
“I don’t see any of the others,” Vince said, craning around. “What are they dressed as?”
“Jill is an Amazonian and Selena is a pimp. I don’t think Will was going to wear a costume,” Alex supplied.
“I don’t suppose you can pick them out of the crowd?” Hershel asked Mary.
“You’re kidding, right? With this many people, this amped up, it’s like trying to hear one voice at a concert.”
“Just asking,” Hershel said.
“No worries, I found them,” Alex said. He was, surprisingly, not doing an encore of last year’s Jedi costume. Instead he wore a red shirt with the Federation insignia stitched on it.
Mary gave him a speculative look. She knew he wasn’t lying, he didn’t have any reason to do so in a situation like this, but she wasn’t sure how it was possible he’d singled out those minds so easily. Mary had at first thought that she and Alex merely had different talents in different areas, but she was increasingly beginning to suspect their abilities worked in fundamentally different ways. It would be impossible to confirm so it was ultimately pointless, yet still it nagged at her every now and then.
“Hey, guys,” Vince hollered, waving at the familiar forms as they came into view. His hand stopped abruptly and fell to his side. It didn’t take long for the others to see why. It seemed Selena, Will, and Jill had brought the others from Team Two with them. Standing there, looking equally unsure about how they would get through this line, were Chad, Julia, Rich, and the reason Vince’s hand had dropped like an anchor: Sasha.
Vince wondered if it was too late to make a run for the car.
54.
Screamtopia was proving to be as efficient as it was scary, which was very. A zombie guide led them through twisting halls with gaps that often held monsters waiting to leap out and just as often did not. It made the shocks harder to anticipate and that made them all the more effective. The rooms themselves were decorated terror scenes; every prop and every costume spared no detail to craft an atmosphere of unapologetic horror. The walls echoed with yelps and even a few genuine screams.
The HCP students, beings who in the back of their minds thought themselves combat-hardened warriors already, found themselves just as prone to bouts of fright as humans while they trod the bleary black halls. So dark was the building between rooms that one had to navigate half by touch, and even the usually unflappable Nick had to remove his sunglasses after his first several stumbles. It was a fun time overall; the telepaths even suspended their listening to better immerse themselves in the spirit of fear. The one potential blowup had been avoided so far, with neither Sasha nor Vince acknowledging each other and instead merely moving at opposite ends of the group. Likely
they would have made it the whole night without so much as having to say “hi” if it hadn’t been for the maze. Then again, many things wouldn’t have happened that night if not for the maze.
“We have reached our parting point,” their zombie guide, Rathstein, instructed as they entered a room with five doors facing them. “I am no longer able to accompany you, for the magic that animates my putrid body will not sustain inside the Ghoul’s Labyrinth.”
His group glanced at each other excitedly. The kids always looked forward to the maze part; it was what made this haunted house truly unique. This was a bigger group than they usually took at any given time, but they’d been respectful and quiet during his speeches and spiels designed to set the mood. At this point, size didn’t matter anymore. No matter how big a group came through, the maze would see to it that every one of them felt the chill of death along their spine.
“Some parting words before you go: you may choose any door you wish and go through in whatever combinations you like. But be warned, the Ghoul’s Labyrinth is the only one who will decide your destination. Should you survive to the other side, you will find an oasis of relief waiting. For those of you who don’t... my corpsely comrades and I look forward to you joining our ranks.”
With that, Rathstein stepped to the side of the wall and fell silent. His eyes shut and he leaned against the wall, truly appearing to be a dead body propped up and forgotten by some killer or gravedigger with a presumably hectic schedule.
It was, predictably, Chad who went first. Without comment he stepped to the first door and pulled it open. Waiting on the other side was an inky blackness that obscured what lay beyond, even to his enhanced vision.
“Anyone coming along?” Chad asked with a glance tossed over his shoulder. Will, Jill, and Rich walked over to join him. They filed through the opening one by one, and as the last one cleared the threshold, the door slammed forcefully shut, making the remaining people in the room jump a foot or so in the air.
When their hearts had slowed from thunderous pounding to a dull thudding, more groups split off through the doors. Alex and Selena took off through one opposite of Chad’s exit point, Sasha and Julia scampered off through one of the diagonal ones, and Hershel and Mary took the other.
“Guess that leaves the lonely hearts club with the center door,” Nick commented once Hershel and Mary were gone from the room. After the initial exodus and the couples pairing off, the only people left were himself, Vince, Alice, and Camille.
“Oh joy,” Alice mumbled. Her words and tone were disappointed, even as her body language told a different story.
“Well, let’s get to it; I don’t want to fall too far behind,” Vince said, striding forward and opening the door. He plunged through without hesitation, Nick hot on his heels, followed by Camille and Alice.
Their door slammed shut like all the others and Rathstein opened his eyes. He let out a sigh of relief at their exit; holding the corpse look took a lot of concentration. He wouldn’t have minded keeping his eyes open a bit longer, too; there had been several major hotties in that group. Most of them were spoken for, as usual, but he was pretty sure the devil girl hadn’t been leaping into anyone’s arms as they sashayed through the haunted house. Part of him was tempted to see if they lingered in the lounge once his shift was over; at that point staff was allowed to join the party. He doubted he would: it was unlikely no one in that whole group had the hots for her and all but one of the guys had been in almost strangely good shape. It was sort of weird to have a sampling of people that large and only one person out of shape, but Rathstein brushed it aside from his mind. They were probably all friends who’d met at the same gym or something.
The eerie sound of voices drifted to Rathstein’s ears. It seemed like the next group was drawing close. Not wasting any more time, Rathstein headed to the closest door and knocked three times. He waited and knocked twice more, then flung it open and hurried through. He emerged in the employee break room that led out to the lobby where they first met their groups. It was a useful little system the boss had developed; the lack of back tunnels for the staff to move through had freed up plenty of room in which to stuff more attractions. Rathstein checked his makeup in the mirror then hustled out to meet his next group of charges.
He hoped this one would have more hot girls and fewer muscular males.
55.
When Alice first walked into the new room she noticed the style more than anything else. It looked like an abandoned morgue. Gurneys were flipped over and left on the ground, doors to the freezer drawers hung open or had been ripped from the hinges entirely, and the whole room was bathed in a dim green light that reflected off the stained emerald tiles. Whoever built these scenes went to a lot of trouble; that was evident. There were bloody handprints scraping at the walls like someone had been dragged off, and a few scraps of clothing next to a forgotten name badge.
“Creepy,” Alice whispered to herself. Only after she’d thoroughly soaked in the eerie ambiance did she face her traveling companions. That was when she got a genuine fright.
“What the hell?”
“Yeah, that was our reaction too,” Rich said. He was dressed in a long coat with a top hat and carried a teacup in his pocket for when people asked who he was supposed to be. There were still three others besides Alice, but Vince and Camille had been replaced by Rich and Mary. “Looks like the rumors of them having a few Supers on hand are true; the doors must be portals.”
“Portals that randomize where each person comes out,” Nick added. It figured he would be the one person Alice was still stuck with. She wondered if his little luck ability had any bearing on this arrangement.
“Maybe random, maybe not,” Mary said. “All we know is they shuffled the group, possibly just to add one more element of the unexpected to the mix. It does leave one with an unstable feeling, after all.”
“Random or not, let’s just get this show on the road and head toward the lounge,” Alice suggested.
“Great idea,” Rich agreed. “Any thoughts on how?”
Alice looked around the room once more, realizing for the first time what the others had already observed. In all of the gory details that made this room come alive one rudimentary piece was missing.
There was no door, only smooth emerald tiles rippling across every wall.
* * *
“Maybe we have to turn the statue’s head?” Alex tossed out.
“Good an idea as any,” Hershel agreed. He and Alex had wound up in the same room, an Egyptian-style tomb with scenes of bloody sacrifices adoring the walls. There was also a statue of Anubis in one corner next to a few sarcophagi, so the duo headed over to investigate it.
“I still can’t believe they split us up like this,” Alex said appreciatively. “It was a hell of a slick move. These guys really go above and beyond.”
“True. At least we wound up with a friend. I’m not sure I’d have been as receptive to the change-up if I’d gotten someone I wasn’t on such good terms with.”
“Oh yeah, we totally lucked out. If we can’t run the maze with our girlfriends, running it with a buddy is almost as cool,” Alex agreed. He reached Anubis first, grasping the statue by the snout and tugging it right then left. Anubis held fast, his stony neck offering up not even a bit of give. “No dice.”
“Crap.” Hershel leaned against a sarcophagus propped against the wall. To his surprise he felt the lid slide a hair or so to the side. Hershel turned around and pushed the lid, moving it all of the way over and revealing an exit into a dimly lit tunnel.
“Nice job,” Alex complimented. “How’d you ever know that was there?”
Hershel shrugged. “Just lucky I guess. Let’s see what’s next.”
Alex nodded his agreement and the two boys plunged onward into mystery.
* * *
Vince was not one for superstitions, generally speaking. He simply didn’t have it in him to believe that throwing salt or avoiding ladders could significantly influence how
life unfurled before him. Truthfully, until meeting Nick, he likely would have said he wasn’t even an adamant believer in the concept of luck. Be all of that as it was, Vince was finding himself rapidly becoming a believer in at least one superstitious constant: Murphy’s Law.
It wasn’t that the first room he’d wound up in was particularly challenging. It had merely been a series of plaster skeletons painted to look gory, as though the flesh had been rendered off of them. The trick to that room was finding the skull tucked away in a corner and placing it on the skeleton missing a head. Reuniting the two triggered a switch that opened a door in the wall and just like that, the way to the next adventure had been cleared.
It wasn’t that he was scared, either. Vince had spent most of his life walking in darkness so as not to be noticed. Remote locations, unexplained noises, dim lighting, these things were no more terrifying to him than a white picket fence would be to normal people. Even in the haunted house, it had only been the surprises of people leaping out that caused his adrenaline to surge. With that stimulus gone, his perception of terror was rapidly retreating.
It wasn’t even that he was upset about his group being rearranged, specifically. He grasped that it was part of the fun of such a place, expecting the unexpected and having one’s preconceptions turned on their head. He understood the need for such a practice; however, this specific outcome seemed to indicate someone up in the cosmos must bear a grudge against him.
“I think I see another room ahead,” Vince said, his voice bouncing off the walls. “See how the light changes to a red glow?”
“I know what a fucking change in lighting means. It’s our third goddamned room. I’m not stupid, despite what you might think,” Sasha snapped, her teeth practically dripping in venom.
Vince opened his mouth to apologize then thought better of it. He’d tried talking a few times, only to relay necessary information or discuss strategy, and that had pretty much been the constant reaction. So instead of focusing on communicating, he turned his attention to getting this maze the hell over with. Hopefully, if that sly old dog Murphy wasn’t up to his usual tricks, there would only be a few rooms left to go.