She turned around searching for him. Her eyes sunk in on a chaotic line of fire. She must have lit several leaf piles on fire as she was dragged past. The farthest of the lights, was way off in the distance. She felt ill at the thought of how much farther they would have drug her had she not gotten loose.
She started sprinting towards the lights. Maybe Evan had fallen by one of the fires, safe in its light.
"What if he's not?" asked a dark voice.
She ignored his taunt as she chanted under her breath, "Please be there! Please be there! Please be there!"
Her chest and abdomen bounced painfully as she ran with every ounce of speed she could muster. She willed herself to go even faster, because the fires themselves were beginning to dwindle as they consumed the last of their leafy fuel. Her eyes darted all around as she searched for her child's fallen body. One by one she scanned around them all. Nothing! There was no sign of her precious baby!
“Oh, God! Don’t let him be taken by the night again! Please let me find him!” she moaned.
She reached the fire in the middle of the line and hadn’t seen him yet. Where is he?
"Evan!" she called out desperately. "Evan! Please answer me, baby!"
She reached the dying light of the original fire. She circled around the smoldering foliage. Where did he go? Where was her Evan? He wasn't here! Her heart dropped. He had to be somewhere nearby! He just had to be! She couldn't lose him again! Not now! Not ever!
"I have to find him." She circled the fire. She didn’t see him anywhere in the outlying light. She looked back at the embers of the fire off in the distance, and traced her eyes back to the fire. "They attacked us . . . here."
She squinted. Lying in the ashes of charred leaves was Evan's small form.
"Oh no," she gasped.
She fell to her knees beside him and snatched him up and searched his body up and down. He was covered head to toe with soot, but he wasn't burned at all. His hair wasn't so much as singed. His skin wasn't even hot.
Erin pulled him into a tight hug and burst into tears. She held him for a long time rocking and crying. "It's okay, baby. Momma's here! Momma's here!"
In her heart of hearts she knew he didn’t understand, but all the same she kept up the rhetoric to give herself a measure of joy.
After she finally felt she could not shed another tear, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked up. Her eyes grew wide. The red star had returned. Except this time it was much more than a star, bigger and brighter than before.
She sighed. She was finally back on the right path.
Chapter Twelve
The Clown
When it reappeared after the shadow creatures’ attack, it remained in sight, and the shadow dwellers did not attack her again. This time as she approached, the red light slowly began to grow in size and brightness. She methodically walked towards it for what felt like hours.
Of all the things that she had imagined that the red light would turn out to be, she would have never have conceived its true nature. Now standing only a few dozen feet away, she still had a hard time wrapping her mind around the absurdity of what she was looking at. She really did not want to understand it.
It had taken some time before she could finally register its shape. When she initially saw it for what it was, she did not believe her own eyes. Now that she was much closer, she still didn't. She stood before the most sinister-looking building she had ever encountered in all of her life. The red light originated from a red neon sign that hung on the building itself.
The building loomed menacingly over them. Like the rest of the structures that she had encountered, it was decrepit beyond repair. The red neon lettering shorted out every few seconds releasing a loud fizzing, pop that could be heard over the distance. It painted the building with an eerie crimson light. The neon sign read Funhouse.
The most disturbing feature that was the Funhouse sign held up by a giant glowing clown, whose illumination did not wane as the words did in its four-fingered grip. The clown's whimsical gloves were reminiscent of her Saturday morning cartoons, taking Erin back to a time in her life when she thought funhouses were cool and full of wonder. If this place had ever possessed a heyday, Erin would have guessed the clown’s big smile was once inviting and simultaneously mischievous, with a hint of a wink in its left eye that said, “Come on in, folks! It's all in good fun!”
However in this place, whatever innocence the clown once possessed had long since been lost and forgotten. The grin was now leering and unsettling. The wink had transformed into a malicious twitch. The gloves were now skeletal in their disrepair. Even the outlandish red tuffs of hair on the side of his head looked like demonic horns.
Erin stared up at the clown, imagining that it said in a now-gravelly voice, “Come on in so I can eat you instead of the shadow dwellers. The pain I cause you will be quick, while theirs would last forever. HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
She shuddered. She actually heard its voice in her head. She blinked and stared back up at the clown. Its head had changed subtly, as if it were now staring directly down at her.
Suddenly Evan trembled in her arms. Erin looked down at him. Did he react to that voice too? She glanced back up at the clown. This time it was unmistakable, the clown's frozen expression was staring at her with hungry anticipation. Its gloves clutched the sign tighter, as if it were wringing her neck in its hands.
She forced her gaze down from the hungry gleam in the clown’s motionless eyes to look at the overhanging entrance below it. It was bathed in red fluorescent lights of its own. She exhaled a ragged sigh to steel herself for whatever would come next.
She approached the overhang slowly, scanning the area for trouble. She stopped just before entering the red light of the overhang above the entrance. Against her better judgment, she looked up at the clown and shuddered. Its giant head peered over the sign, its eyes ravenous.
An involuntary whimper escaped her throat as she yanked her eyes back down and stared at the predator’s den before her. Outside the red light of the overhang was a shelf with an odd wood carving of a partially-opened hand mounted on its side. Above the odd little shelf was a sign that read:
Please refrain from using any flash photography.
Place all of your cellphones, laptops, cameras, and Soul-fire Torches on the shelf.
Thank you for your cooperation.
The Management
"Oh, I don’t think so," she scoffed.
She stepped forward, but as her torch touched the threshold of the overhang, it was rebuffed violently. With her hand still wrapped tightly around the handle, she was thrown back with the torch and staggered into the darkness. She looked back at the overhang then angrily up at the clown. Its mouth was open in a malicious laugh.
She checked on Evan. He was unperturbed by their forced retreat. Again she approached the overhang warily. She looked at the shelf. The carved hand looked as if it was trying to reach out towards her with its fingers splayed wide. The sign had changed as well. It now read:
The Management insists that you leave all your cellphones, laptops, cameras, and Soul-fire Torches on the shelf.
Please cooperate if you know what's best for you.
Tentatively, she pressed her torch forward. As soon as its flames licked the space directly below the overhang, it was bucked backwards with even more force, twisting Erin around in its backlash.
She straightened herself around and stared at the sign:
It's not going to happen!
The Management.
Bracing herself this time, she tested her torch against the invisible barrier. The handle jackhammered in her hands as the barrier tried to repel her torch away. Erin wrestled against the invisible force as she tried with all her might to push it forward for several arduous moments before she allowed herself to be pushed away, panting. She looked at the hateful sign:
We can wait all night.
Can your son?
She scowled at it. She put her arm un
der the overhang. It passed the threshold unhindered. She wondered if she could have missed another way in. In her heart, she knew that this wasn't the case. Her mother had told that she had to get to red light to encounter her toughest challenge yet. Did that mean that she had to leave this piece of her mother’s protection behind? Would she have to give up her only security blanket against this world of darkness? Was that the price of admission into this mysterious building?
She looked from her hand to the shelf and was surprised to find that it had answered her inner musings.
Yes.
She stared at the words hard, then nodded. “So be it.”
She placed the torch handle into the carved outstretched hand. As she slid it down into its palm, the hand suddenly snapped closed around its handle.
She screamed, “Ahhh! No!” She yanked on the handle. “You can’t have it! Give it back!”
She looked back at the shelf angrily.
No.
She yanked on her torch violently. It didn’t budge. She looked back.
You better come on inside.
After all, you have nowhere else to go,
unless you want to go out for a stroll in the dark.
The Management
“Fine!” she snapped as she let go. She wiped her furious tears away with her now free hand.
She turned towards the door and stepped underneath the red light of the overhang. On its chipped paint exterior was once the word “HELLO” painted in cartoonish lettering. Except the O had long since been scratched away. Erin ignored this as she pushed their way inside without looking back.
Chapter Thirteen
The Funhouse
The funhouse door slammed behind her.
Erin's scream reverberated off of its metallic frame. Clutching Evan to her other hand automatically went for its handle, but her fingertips skidded off its cold flat surface. There wasn't a handle. She tried to feel for the seams of the doorway to pry it open with her fingertips, but it seemed for all intents and purposes, the door had fused with the wall.
She paused, taking several deep breaths. It wasn't as if she wanted to go back out into the dark not until her little boy had finally became whole. She just hadn't expected the door to slam shut and trap her in here the instant she stepped over the threshold.
In retrospect, she really should have considered the possibility. She turned from the enclosed wall and carefully took stock of her new environment of terror.
The small dim hallway was lit by a single flickering bulb that hung from a fixture high on the wall. It resonated with the crackling hum of electricity which would occasionally flicker with a static-filled crack, causing the illumination to fade and flash in rapid succession. Moments later the lighting reverted back to its gloomy setting. She blinked as she adjusted her eyes to the dark and found herself staring at a clown.
No, several clowns. The walls were decorated with circus-themed caricatures of clowns doing amusing antics while children watched and laughed at their mirth-making. At least that was the intended mood when this mural was originally painted. Now the wall’s paint was cracked, faded, and peeling, giving the image a more sinister ambiance. The clowns’ cracked faces appeared to be maniacal and not the least bit amusing, the children screaming in terror rather than laughing. Graffiti marred the wall everywhere. Cruel and violent messages were scrawled here and there. Her eyes fell on one message that read, “Lucifer was here.”
She shivered.
In another spot a word bubble was drawn over a girl pointing at the nearest clown: "I'm scared!"
The clown she pointed at wore a pointed hat and held a cone of cotton candy as he rode a unicycle. A serrated knife had been drawn into his hand over the cotton candy. Another bubble over him read: "You should be."
Behind the knife-wielding unicycler, another clown capered while juggling balls. The balls were expertly defaced to resemble miniature skulls. With apparently the same marker, the clown's eyes were completely blacked out.
Further down was a little boy holding the strings to a bunch of balloons. His eyes were blacked out as well. Above his head, another word balloon read: "Hello, my name is Evan. I no longer have a soul."
She glanced down at her son’s body in her arms and quickly moved past the vile paintings and words until she came to a message board on an easel at the end of the hallway.
We would like to welcome you to our Funhouse. It is our hope that you find our rooms as amusing as we do. Please stay for a while and feel free to explore. Thank you for your patronage. We will appreciate it forever.
Sincerely,
The Management
“I have had enough of this,” she snapped.
She reared back and kicked the sign as hard as she could. The easel and message board clattered loudly to the ground. The message board landed face up. In that span of time, its message had changed.
Warning!
Any defacement of Funhouse property will be severely punished. You, Erin, have been warned.
With vengeance,
The Management
A chill went up her spine again as she read the words. She hated to admit it, but there was something rather unsettling about being threatened with written words. Especially these words from this message board that contained a malevolent spirit all its own. She tore her gaze away forcing herself not to look back as she stepped beyond the message board and through the doorway.
As she stepped across the threshold of the doorway, the hallway beyond became alive with movement from all sides. Startled, she jumped back with a scream, but the doorway slammed shut sealing her in before.
She crashed back first into an unexpected wall that appeared in the doorway she had just passed through. She whipped around and found herself staring into the frightened eyes of another woman. A second scream screeched past her lips as she scrambled away from the newcomer. Erin’s off-balanced retreat caused her to stumble and land smartly onto her backside. She scooted backwards with her eyes locked on the other woman who looked was just as terrified as she was, as she did the same. The other woman was holding a child too! Her head whipped around there were more women carrying children. All of them were! What kind of sick did this play on mothers?
She paused.
She was seeing them through haze of dirt-covered glass. Erin's eyes went wide, and so did her counterparts’. She wasn't staring at just glass. It was a mirror. She adjusted her grip on Evan and awkwardly stood to her feet. Erin took a moment to take in her surroundings. She was in a hall of mirrors, lit by the same dim bulbs that sizzled and cracked intermittently. Their electric hum frayed at the mental tether that barely held her unsettled nerves in check.
The thin hallway led a couple dozen yards away where it split two separate directions into the shadows.
Erin looked back at herself in the mirror and was horrified at what she saw. She looked haggard. Her hair was astray; her eyes were wild above the dark circles etched into her cheeks, as if they belonged on a stranger from a foreign war-torn land. They were the eyes of someone being strangled in a vise of soul-crushing fear. They were the eyes of someone who had seen too much blood and carnage while other humans did unspeakable acts to one and another. These eyes should not belong to her, a mother of one and one on the way. Looking back to the dim reflection before her, it was no wonder she had thought she was staring at a stranger. Hopped up on her fear, bone-weary from the trials she had endured thus far, and staring at her reflection through the hazy glass, how could she think differently?
Erin shook off the line of thought as she focused on the path before her. She hitched her shoulders back and started forward cautiously. The crackling lights constantly cast twitching shadows about her. As she slowly progressed, Erin was flanked on either side by her dingy representations as they constantly began and ended their journeys with each passing and approach of the mirrored panels that divided the wall. The sense of foreboding grew within her at every step. She glanced over and saw a blurred woman looking bac
k at her as she walked alongside her holding a bundled child. She shivered. There was something about these reflections that unsettled her, but she could not be certain as to why. She forced herself to focus on the way ahead, trying unsuccessfully to dismiss her growing unease.
The mirror-paneled passage split off again into a corridor that went two opposite directions. A short ways ahead they split up again into two more corridors, each of which was lined with paneled mirrors and illuminated by the sputtering lights.
“Oh no,” she moaned.
Her heart sank as an echo in the back of her mind gave a name for this particular obstacle set before her: A mirror maze. Like everything else in this world, this classic childhood attraction had been twisted into something dark and horrifying.
Now she was facing something altogether more frightening. The odds that she would go the wrong direction were literally beyond her mathematical prowess, but the figure itself had to be astronomical. Mazes weren’t about making choices based on anything more than blind luck. How was she supposed to make any sort of accurate guess?
She looked from left to right for several moments, straining her senses for any kind of sign to help discern the right path. Nothing came to her. Both directions looked equally good and equally bad.
Erin looked back at pathway behind her. She froze as a cringe zinged though her core. The light flickered and a moment later the corridor returned to its poorly lit condition. She stared at it for a long moment, holding her breath unconsciously. The urgency for air forced a gasp from her and Erin blinked as her transfixed spell was broken. She stared at the empty hall deeply unsure.
The hallway behind her was now devoid of anything noticeably, but just before the lighting flickered moments ago, she was sure that there was something inside the mirrors staring at her through each of the panels. At least that was what she thought she saw, but she couldn’t be sure. All of the mirrors were now empty. Could her mind be playing tricks on her? She couldn’t be sure, and that, in many ways was the worst of it.
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