by M. C. Atwood
Both Violet and I yell, “NO!” at the same time.
I see Ashley’s face, blood smeared everywhere, her hair hanging around the sides of her face with dolls hanging off of it. She screams a bloodcurdling scream.
Ashley grabs a doll on one side and flings it, then grabs the other one and flings that one. She shakes the dolls off of her feet and then takes a flying jump. She lands on the clown’s back, then leans her head over and bites off his good ear.
Bites. Off. His. Ear.
This all happens in two seconds.
She yells, “GO TO HELL, CLOWN!” and the clown throws her off with both arms. She goes flying and lands on her butt. The clown stands there and laughs. But out of nowhere, Dylan jumps down and stabs the clown right in the neck with his stick. Its laugh cuts off and it croaks, “Uh-oh.” And then falls sideways.
Everyone sprints to Gretchen. When we get there, she is lying down, her face white, eyes wide and scared. Violet grabs the towel around her head and ties it tight around Gretchen’s torso. Dylan and Ashley fight off the never-ending doll onslaught. I stick my sword up and swipe at any angels.
Gretchen looks bad. And now I feel the fear in every part of my body. This is death. Hers. Ours. This is our death.
“Shit,” says Gretchen, and laughs.
Violet says, “Shh. You need to get up. We have to get out.”
I look down at Gretchen, who has tears streaking down her face. “Silly girl. I’m not getting out. You guys go. You guys go now.”
Tears threaten my eyes. Not Gretchen. Not any of us. We’re together now. All for one. Like Violet said. We’re together now. An angel swoops down. I slash at it, and it flies away. I look up. The statues from the carousel above us have started moving. And these aren’t dolls. These are human-like figures. Naked women with goat heads, horse’s heads, Pan-like. There are at least two hoofed, devil figures. And they’re climbing down. Toward us.
I hear horses whinny.
My stomach drops. Of course.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse sit on horses in front of the only exit. Guarding it. The band members and dolls are coming up the charred ruins of the ramp, the smoking doll carousel with more dolls climbing over it. I can feel the thumping steps of the elephants trying to make their way here. A tiger roars from somewhere. Angels fly overhead. The bombs we had lie in a ruin near Gretchen, glass broken everywhere.
Ashley says, “I don’t think so,” as she bodily lifts Gretchen up and drapes her arm over her shoulder. “I’m not done fighting with you yet.”
ASHLEY
If there is an afterlife, I will not go to the light.
No, I will haunt the fuck out of dolls and clowns and angels and anything else that is pissing me off right now. Especially clowns. I almost can’t wait.
Gretchen’s sagging body makes me almost burst into tears. But then she kind of rallies and stands up, taking her arm off my shoulder, which feels cold after she does that. She looks ahead and behind and sees the situation we all see.
“Huh,” is all she says, then sags again. Dylan catches her and she says, “Getting stabbed hurts like hell, I gotta tell you.”
A doll hurtles toward me and I punch it in the head. It falls in a heap by my feet.
“Let’s go,” I say, setting my stare straight ahead. If an angel or a band member or an elephant grabs me, so be it. But we are heading straight toward those weird-ass naked goat-women and the devils.
I hear screaming and fighting behind me, though, and I can’t help but turn around. We all do. Through the smoke, I can see them.
A voice rings through, “Go, young sir! We will keep them off!”
Paul yells back, voice choking, “Thank you for everything, Captain Tidbittles. Sparkles.” Then he turns back around and swallows. He holds the sword with both hands. He says to us, “We go down fighting. We go down together.”
Violet, looking fierce, nods next to him. “Fighting and together,” she says.
I say, “Duh.” And for one second, everyone laughs. I give myself one small smile.
“You got Gretchen?” I say to Dylan. He nods. I take a deep breath. “Well then, let’s kick some ass.”
We walk toward the chaos ahead. Angels swoop at us, but Paul manages to swipe almost all of them.
The freaks come fast. A woman with a goat’s head comes charging at me.
I will say, here and now, that a woman with a goat’s head is terrifying.
The head chomps at me and I grab her by the arms, but still she manages to chomp a clump of my hair and rip it out.
I punch her in the boob, and I hear a goat bleat. While she’s distracted, I see a panpipe on the ground and I pick it up and smack her in the head. She falls backward, back into the carousel.
I look over at Gretchen, who is leaning against the wall but still slashing at things with a knife. She stabs a doll and shakes it off her knife, then sags a little. She holds her side and doesn’t notice that one of the hoofed devils is stomping toward her.
“Gretchen!” I yell, but there’s a black and orange blur as a saber-toothed tiger jumps at the devil and grabs him by the neck. A strangled, wet noise follows and I see the tiger tear out the devil’s throat. The tiger looks up and around, right at me, then turns its gaze to a woman with a horse head. The tiger jumps at her and slashes her dead in half a minute.
I officially love tigers.
More figures are climbing down off the carousel and I run over to Gretchen, who is just below the exit door. And I see them for the first time—the four horsemen. They stand there, terrifying, wind moving their cloaks, horses pawing the ground.
Dylan, Violet, and Paul run over, too. Hundreds of figures now, climbing down from the carousel. Mermaids, demon horses, more small devils . . .
I sigh. This is it. There are too many to fight off now, not enough to help. I sag against the wall near Gretchen. Paul puts up his sword and Dylan his stick. Violet growls—the girl growls!—and faces the figures coming toward us. But I can barely breathe. I just hope it doesn’t hurt.
And then I see the pointy top of a hat come through the fog ahead of the figures.
“Goodness,” says a cheery voice. “Well, this won’t do. Not if you want to get out of here.”
It’s the wizard. We all stare at him dumbly.
He rolls up his sleeves. “Allow me. This may help.” He raises up his staff and blasts a white light right into the gang of assholes coming at us. Everything blows up, shooting devils and demons and dolls all over the place, knocking us back hard against the wall. I’m inhaling smoke and coughing like crazy, my eyes streaming tears. But as the smoke clears, I can see that he laid waste to pretty much all of them. There are bodies and twitching limbs and groans, but they are all down.
I will always, always, always high-five tiny wizards when I see them. Always.
Paul, looking as happy as I feel, says, “‘The fire-eyed maid of smoky war/All hot and bleeding will we offer them.’” He shakes his head and says to the wizard. “You awesome bastard, you.”
The wizard beams. “Well, thank you! You all remind me of past days, you see. You seem so close and I used to have a tribe like you, but I lost them. And I have been just a tad lonely—” Before he can continue, an angel swoops down and picks him up and drops him in the cavernous pit where the carousel used to be.
I am suddenly filled with rage. That asshole hurt our wizard. No one hurts our wizard!
The angel swoops back around and I get ready to pounce. When she gets close enough so that we can see her stupid face, Paul raises his sword and Dylan his stick. I crouch down—
But then she drops from the sky with a knife in her heart. She lands at my feet.
We all turn. Gretchen smiles at us and says, “Suh-weet. I didn’t think that would work . . .” Then she holds her side and groans. The red on her shirt is spreading.<
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I say, “Nice shot.” She winks at me and my heart explodes. I hold onto the moment as long as I can.
It’s so quiet now, it’s almost peaceful. But we all know what’s next. Like we choreographed it, we turn around to the door.
The Horsemen stand there, huge and gray.
Violet takes a deep breath. She looks at us all and says, “Well. Should we face the apocalypse now?”
Part VI
One legend says that Maxwell Cartwright Jr. lost once.
A few years after the House was finished, a world-renowned poker player came to town, arrogant and sure, hearing of this terrible House and the man who never lost. When he arrived with his entourage of bodyguards, admirers, and hangers-on, he appraised the House and all that was in it. And he wanted it.
He challenged Maxwell to a game. Winner take all.
If the poker player won, the House and all its treasures would be his. If Maxwell Cartwright Jr. won, the poker player would be in his debt forever.
They say the game lasted seven days and seven nights. That the two stared at each other, daring the other to call his bluff, neither giving an inch.
But in the end, when the poker player laid down his cards, a malevolent glint in his eye, Maxwell Cartwright Jr. saw . . . the House had lost.
They say the Earth shook with his rage.
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Excerpt from p. 236, The Collections of Maxwell Cartwright Jr.
DYLAN
Gretch is hanging on me and I feel her body shaking. That douchetroll clown. I hate that motherfucking clown.
But no time for thoughts of vengeance because we’re not done. We are walking right up to the apocalypse mofos. Gretch makes little whimpering noises. My heart whimpers with her.
I look back in case anything is coming after us—we’re the caboose after all, Violet and Paul ahead, us three behind—but the room has disappeared.
Like, gone. Nothing.
Just gray empty space.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse are ginormo in front of us. I can’t see any of their faces. Their cloaks move though, like there’s a breeze or something, somehow.
Fuck-a-doodle-doo.
Gretch lets go of me and Ashley. She wobbles for minute, Ashley and me holding our hands out in case she falls, but she gives us a smile and stands on her own. The whole right side of her from stomach on down is a horror movie. I turn to the horsemen so she can’t see the tears.
I don’t know if Gretch is going to make it. And a world without her . . .
White hot anger shoots through me. “Get it over with!” I yell at the horsemen.
Violet reaches back and finds my hand and squeezes it.
My voice echoes—off what, I don’t know. One of the horses paws at the ground, but it’s silent after I yell. Then, the rider on the end horse steps down, leaving the cloak in the shape of a human. One long, spidery-ass leg slips down and then the other. Red eyes. Top hat. Cane. The cloak on the horse falls.
Demon dude.
Paul stands up straighter and says, “So you’re one of the riders of the Apocalypse?”
The demon laughs and it echoes all over the place, bouncing off of itself. “Oh, these guys? Props. They mean nothing.” He waves his hand and the horses and the dudes disappear, like dirt blowing off cement. Their gray colors streak, and then there’s nothing. Now it’s just us and this demon. He looks at me. “Sorry to disappoint, John.”
I can’t help it; I flinch. Four years hiding that name in front of Gretch and it’s just out there now. It feels weird. And wrong.
Ashley sighs and gives a grunt. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Can we do our, like, showdown or whatever? I mean, whatever it is you have planned for us? You know, clowns or dolls or gigantic whales . . . Whatever your serial killer wet dream is, you pathetic loser.” She’s got tears on her face and she glances at Gretch. She’s thinking the same thing I am.
But still: don’t taunt the demon, yo. Still I gotta admit the girl’s got balls. Or ova, as Gretch would say.
Demon dude looks at her, eyes swirling. “Whatever, indeed.” He takes his cane and twirls it around, yet again walking around us. His smile stretches across his pale, nightmare face.
Violet says, “We made it through. We made it through together.” She shifts on her feet and then says really small, “So we beat you?”
Demon guy streaks to her side, so fast it makes MY eyes twirl.
“Not quite, V-i-o-lated.” The thing smiles again, but I see something in there. I see something behind his weird-ass twirly eyes. I see fear. And rage. Paul moves closer to Violet—almost on top of her.
But seeing that demon’s fear has made me strong. I stand up straighter. “Yo, we beat you. Give it up. Let us out.”
“Let us out” repeats in my head over and over and over, like the words are running around us, chasing themselves, until the phrase is just a hiss.
When the last hiss finishes, demon dude stops looking all casual and then stares at me, this time his eyes cavern-black and his mouth curled up to show his teeth. I step back a little. Okay, motherfucker is still scary. I move closer to Gretch who leans into me a little.
He stands up straight and then leans on his cane, a nonchalant look pasted on. “I’ll admit—I’m big enough to admit, you see—you have come further than I thought possible.” He looks around at the nothingness. “Further than any I’ve . . . played against.” He taps his long fingernails against the top of the cane. “But you have one more test, my dears. One more test. And then we’ll see how much you ‘stick together.’”
I groan and it echoes through all of us. I’m so tired I can barely stand up. And Gretch . . .
Paul says, “After this test, we’re done, right? We win or lose, nothing else.”
The demon bows. “You have my word.” And then he laughs again and claps his hands together like a little kid. “Oh, but this is a fun ending. I’ll be so happy to put you in my collection after such a hard-won fight. This makes you so much more valuable to me. Your fall so much more delicious, much more than I anticipated.”
His laugh is still ping-ponging in my ears when he gets dead serious again. “You see, where you are going now is so much worse than here, you’ll be happy to get back to the House.”
Gretch and I look at each other, eyes wide. Ashley grabs Gretch’s hand. Paul and Violet step back into us so we’re like a standing doggy pile of scared.
The demon cocks his head at us. “But I’m afraid I must wipe the slate clean, so to speak. So that you know exactly who you are in the end. You will see, my dears, you will see. You are the same people as you were when you walked in.”
He stands tall in front of us and then? The motherfucker grows. We all tilt our heads back and watch. Paul throws his arms out like we’re in a car and he’s the seatbelt. As if that could remotely stop this dude.
“Behold,” he says as he looks down. “The last test.” He claps his hands and the white light erases everything.
GRETCHEN
It’s like I fell asleep. In the middle of the hallway. I blink and look around.
Well, I’m still here. In the nightmare.
High school.
Students are milling all around and the slam of lockers is so loud it makes me cringe. I shake my head to try to clear it. I feel fuzzy and strange. Maybe I’m getting a migraine. Where the hell is Dylan?
Ashley Garrett walks by me and stares. Something in me pulls. My side hurts and I have no idea why—I feel so weird I look away from Ashley without even insulting her.
Weirder—she didn’t insult me.
Trent walks by with his basketball, twirling twirling twirling it. His eyes look funny, but maybe it’s just my weird vision right now. I get a quick flash of a crow for some ungodly reason and then it’s gone. Trent’s walking with
that Paul kid everybody loves. Paul looks at me and I feel another tug. His eyebrows furrow.
Where is Dylan?
The bell is about to ring and I try to remember what period it is. I look to the person next to me, whoever it is. “What’s the next period?”
The girl next to me stares and I look her in the eyes. She seems familiar but I can’t remember her name. She’s rubbing her ear. “I don’t know,” she says. Making this weird-ass day even weirder. Maybe she’s on drugs. Maybe I am. Jesus.
I slam my locker and look around. No time for this, whatever’s happening. I have to go home after school and check on my mom.
Finally, I spot Dylan’s backpack bouncing through the hall and I run after him, knocking people out of my way. My fur boots are somehow wet and I forgot my monster bag, but I need something—someone—familiar. Someone I know inside and out to make this strange feeling go away. I catch up to him and grab his arm.
“Dylan! Where have you been?”
He turns around and his eyes are scared. I instinctively put my arm around him and feel my eyebrows furrow. “What’s wrong, babe?”
He just shakes his head. “I don’t . . . Something is just off, yo.” He mumbles it into my neck like a secret and I take my arm off. I feel it, too, but I’m not complaining about it. We just need to forget it. Survive. Pretend everything is okay.
Trent walks by again with the basketball. He’s gotten so good at carrying that thing around that he only uses one finger to keep it twirling. In fact, he’s not even using his other hand to move it. His eyes flash at me and I do a double take—why does my mind keep flashing to a crow? Something runs down my spine and for whatever reason my side aches again. But right then, someone yells, “John Luke!”
Dylan’s eyes go wide; he’s terrified. I look around to see if something is coming—he looks that scared—but all I see is some girl walking toward us. I try to look him in the eye, but he’s looking around the hallway, like for an exit. “What?” I say. “Do you know this chick?”