Will I be late? Would he wait for me? Where’s the damn exit sign?
It wasn’t long until most people turned on their cell-phones or iPods in order to have a flashlight to help peer through the blackness. I, too, pulled out my iPod and held it down by the floor. I flashed the light onto where I thought the wall should be, but either the room was too dark, or my light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the surface. I took several steps back to where I thought I had entered the room, and indeed, the wall was not there.
The room itself was absolutely black, except for the dim haze which hung around the floor. A rush of air filled the floor with a cool, dense fog. This must be what we saw lingering from the group before us. The brume became thick, and my shoes were no longer visible. The chilly, opaque smoke wrapped around my legs almost as if trying to complete my mummy costume.
A brilliant white, intense light erupted at the far end of the room accompanied by a train whistle. Its haunted lullaby became louder and, more penetrating by the second. The floor vibrated as the train approached. The direction of the light coupled with the vibration of the tracks encouraged people to scramble to get away from the imminent death engine barreling towards us. The train flew past us with the sound of the horn passing leaving us with the loud clackity clack of the cars passing by.
This particular room must have been outfitted with a theater surround-sound system strategically placed for visual and audio effects. The sub-woofers in the floor vibrated for a surreal effect. There were whoops and hollers of appreciation from this hungry bunch of scare hunters. They wanted more.
In figuring the haunted allure to this room, it seemed to me it induced a variety of sense deprivation and overstimulation. The human mind had trouble understanding if the train was real or not. Self-preservation would motivate people away from the sound and the vibrations in the floor. Another light approached from the right hand section of the room. The train whistle blew again. This time people moved sooner, but an additional train came barreling at us from the left hand side. The trains were going to collide. We were caught in the middle. Thunderous roars of screeching brakes on metal wheels and tracks sent people screaming and running in all directions. When in reality, there was nothing in the room with us … or at least that’s what I thought.
Hoping this was the end of the show, I waited for the doors to open up into brightly lit hallways and refreshing night air. Anxious to get out, I looked again for safety security lights along the floor or for any signs to exit the building. People seemed to have calmed down when they realized the train wasn’t going to leave them dead and reanimating into zombies. Another dense cloud of smoke blew in at our feet once again.
I heard a man call, “Janey, Janey, where are you?”
This gore fest wasn’t over yet.
I looked back to where I thought we’d entered the room, but couldn’t be sure anymore since the room walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted black. Completely disoriented, any interior or exterior doors were not discernible from the sides. It looked as if there was no way out. People illuminated the floor with their phones to see, but that was about as far as the light went. The fog reached up with its tentacles and engulfed any amount of light from the devices making it nearly impossible to see. It was as if the murkiness was a creature all of its own and sucked the light and security away from us.
A foul odor filled the room. The stench of rotting meat, old hot dumpster, and sweaty gym shoes filled the air. I envisioned people holding their noses and covering their mouths, same as myself. People next to me coughed, laughed, and sounded grossed out by the odors.
A desperate voice rang out among us. “Janey? Has anybody seen a girl in a mermaid costume? Janey?”
I knew then it mus’ve been Triton from the couple behind me.
Another voice answered back, “Man, I can’t see shit in here – let alone your girl.”
So far in this room we had been bombarded with light, dark, sound, movement, and smell. They couldn’t touch us, so what was next? I wanted out of this crazy room.
“Janey?” The man’s voice grew increasingly desperate as he called out his girlfriend’s name. Since the girl did have a tail on her costume, I was afraid she might have tripped and could be easily trampled in the chaos. “Help me. Please, has anyone seen Janey?”
I opened my mouth to answer him, when the train horn blasted through the sound system once again causing me to jump in alarm. Several women screamed at the immediate intensity of the horn blast. It was the loudest it’d been and left my ears ringing. Light shattered the area as a silhouetted horror scene illuminated stage left. A man with hands on his hips stood next to another man at the gallows. I couldn’t make out any distinct features other than the blackness of contrast. The masked actor awaited his command to pull the rope descending the man to his swinging deathbed.
Crack!
The man shot through the hole in the gallows. People screamed in horror as the victim twitched and writhed. The lights went out leaving us with only our audible senses to experience the man’s death. Gurgling, choking sounds hung heavy in the air. Not a person in the crowd made a single noise. That man hung there at the end of his rope, which must have unsuccessfully broken his neck. His body undulated in my mind. His moans portraying his agony until the shaking in his limbs must have finally gone limp, and he swayed on the creaking rope in silence.
Not sure how to react to this, I did nothing but try to find my way to a wall. I had to get out of there. I knew many hangings didn’t result in a successful snap to the vertebrae for immediate death. The vision of a man swinging to his death, choking from the crushing weight from his own body tightening the noose, made me sick to my stomach. To experience the sight and to hear how his life ended was just too close and personal for my taste.
Feeling sick and uncomfortable, I searched in vain for the wall. I didn’t care anymore if this was supposed to be just an act. I was chicken shit, and that was all there was to it. I didn’t care if I ever wrote the damn program, I just wanted out of this terrible nightmare because it wasn’t fun anymore.
“JANEY! Please has anyone seen a girl in a mermaid costume?” The man’s voice was frenzied, and it seemed as if he was on the edge of tears now.
Another stage lit up to my right. I looked around us for doors illuminated on the walls. Back lit again to blind us, the lights faded to a mere ten watt light bulb hanging above a guillotine. The same masked headsman lowered a catatonic man into the death apparatus and shackled his arms and legs to hold his body secure. The man was laid into the machine with his eyes facing the jagged blade. The headsman threw a glass of water onto the man’s face. Waking up, it looked as though the prisoner realized his dire circumstances, and he screamed for help protesting the injustice of his death sentence.
The blade fell with a blood chilling slice, as the convicted struggled to escape. The prisoner’s head was staged to fall into a basket, but instead, the rusty, dull edge of the blade didn’t provide a clean slice. The lolling head hung partially attached to the body with blood spraying the audience with each arterial pulse. Shock and disgust caused utter panic and sheer terror in the room. This was too graphic, too close, too personal, and dammit, they weren’t supposed to touch us!
“Enough with the gore already!” someone yelled.
The lights went out leaving the room in complete obscurity once again. People shouted they wanted out. At least I wasn’t the only one who had maxed out my creep card.
I also shouted to express my anger, but my voice croaked under the thickness in my mouth. The heat was stifling. Temperatures in the room must’ve been soaring into the high nineties. Sweat poured off me. I kept chanting the mantra, “They can’t touch you, they can’t touch you,” but at this point, I believe a damn thing.
The center stage lit up. I realized I was standing directly in front of it. I pushed my way backwards as others around me also moved back in unison to the scene set before us. A man, who appeared to be suffering fr
om rabies faced us. Thick, bloody foam dripped down his chest and body. He held a screaming, struggling woman above his head. She was dressed in a mermaid costume. His eyes glowed the same way as those Harlequin people I saw earlier. These weren’t movie special effects anymore.
A whisper behind me. “Janey? Oh my God. No!”
The demon stood before us.
I gasped out loud, “NO!”
Janey called out, “PLEASE, Jonathan, help me!”
In an instant, the demon ripped Janey the mermaid in half and drank the pulsing arterial blood flowing from her body. After the beast depleted Janey of her bodily fluids, he tossed her corpse at our feet. People around me threw up and ran to the back of the room.
Jonathan, the Triton boyfriend, screamed her name. He’d found Janey. Silent, glassed-over eyes reflected from the dim overhead light.
The light bulbs in the room shattered into a thousand sparks and then went nebulous again. Once the lights went out, no one in the crowd made another sound except Janey’s boyfriend who gasped in horrifying sobs.
Everyone must’ve been standing there in shock, just as I was, unsure if what they’d just seen was real or part of the show. I tried to comprehend if it was real. Could this possibly be what Sheridan had alluded to earlier this morning? She said they had special effects no one had ever seen before. No, this was real.
The Red Man from my nightmares. He’s real? Out! Out! Out! I have to get out of here!
A shrill shriek injected the air from the back of the room and I heard footsteps running towards me. Something was terribly wrong. I was going to die in this awful pit if I didn’t escape it soon.
The putrid emanations which had overcome the room before, were back, and it made me nauseated coupled with the tang of the fresh metallic blood. Screams were everywhere. My feet bumped up against something. I tripped and landed on my hands and knees. I tried to hide and duck to the floor to stay low and not get caught in a stampede.
People shouted into their phones for help. I turned on my iPod to record the noises.
The densely packed fog beamed the light back from my iPod blinding me as if they were headlights in a blizzard. Still on my hands and knees, I turned my face sharp to the right when I heard the cracking sound of bones and the gnawing sounds of torn flesh. The light revealed the tormented, now dead face of Triton fallen before me next to the mermaid.
I tried to scream, but silence only escaped my lips. My body became petrified into non-action silence. My mind parsing through the nonsense, I scuttled backwards until I felt other bodies behind me. They weren’t moving either. Drowning, gut wrenching, screams came from all around me, but this time they weren’t prerecorded special effects. They were sounds I never wanted to imagine, or ever try to emulate. This was no longer an act. We were no longer in the Screepy Caverns at Global Studios Halloween Scream Nights, a protected theme park loved by millions in Orlando, Florida. No, we were in another dimension where a horrendous beast killed for our blood. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Sounds of crying, begging, pleading, and praying came from all directions. I wasn’t sure anymore if what I heard was real or if it was in my head. Something hard slammed into my side and knocked my only source of light away from my hands. I heard a woman maybe five feet away from me begging to be released. The drinking sucking sounds made me wretch up any remaining margaritas in my stomach.
Desperate to stay mute while gagging in my own vomitus scream, I tried not to draw attention to myself. The room grew intensely quiet as the heat and noxious odors sweltered.
I questioned then, even if I were silent as a rose blooming, was it possible the demon could still detect me. Did the Red Man know I was here?
My hands and legs were soaked in blood from the bodies I had crawled over. I most likely was already bleeding or pissed myself just the same. I continued to crawl over bodies lying in pools of dark coagulating blood with ripped off arms, hands, and legs. I found another light source from someone’s mobile. I prayed I could get through to 911. I picked up the light only to find a hand still attached to it.
Chapter Eleven
I never knew what honest-to-God fear meant until right now. I fumbled my way through the sickness flowing under my feet. Broken bones, blood smeared extremities, I didn’t care anymore. Overwhelmed, hysteria settled in me like a chicken next in line for the butchering table. Not able to focus, I couldn’t figure out what to do.
What do I do now? How do I get out of here? Take deep breaths. Calm down. Think dammit! You can get out of this mess. You’re gonna give yourself a damn heart attack.
With the hand still clutching the phone in defiance, I yanked the phone out of its death grip, swiped the screen to open the menu page, swallowed hard, and pressed 911. The dismembered hand fell to the floor with a splat onto my foot. Bile crawled up my esophagus. A silent prayer crossed my lips. It was Halloween. Worst night of the year to prank the police department.
Pick up! Pick Up! PICK UP!
When the operator came on the line, I whispered, “Help us. We’re at Screepy Caverns haunted house at Global Studios. Something has gone terribly wrong. People have been killed in here.”
“Please hold, Ma’am, I’ll transfer you to the complaint department. It is a federal crime, punishable by $50,000 penalty to prank call the 911 Emergency Response System.”
“No. No! Wait – please don’t put me on hold.”
Muzak filled my ear.
Are they serious? Did they just put me on hold?
Another voice came over the phone. I talked as fast as I could until I realized it was a recording. “Your call is very important to us. Please hold and the next available assistant will help you. Please do not hang up and call again, this will only delay your wait time. The current wait time is twenty-two minutes.”
Get back to the wall. Breathe. Keep the light down. Find the wall. Find the door. Breathe.
Scooting my feet along the ground, I thought I wouldn’t fall again if I took smaller steps. I sloshed in a thick puddle of ooze, and my foot shot out from under me. Sharp pain shot up my leg as my sprained ankle snapped sideways. I fell again hitting my head against the hard, wooden wall. The world became fuzzy for a moment.
I found the damn wall! My heart leapt at the chance of hope.
I reached up to follow the wall, and prayed to find a door handle. Managing to stand and limp along it for a few feet, I realized the room had grown unsettling quiet. The hair on the back of my neck clued me to the fact something other than the obvious had gone terribly wrong. I limped another step. It was my last.
My body wrenched violently around and landed face-to-face with the hideous creature I saw on the stage. The cell phone in my hand gave just enough light through the haze for me to see my attacker was a man. How could a mere mortal do this? Could he have been whacked out on bath salts or some other hallucinogenic drug?
He held me against his nakedness, his erection posed for conquest. I’d never seen eyes filled with such intensity, such lust. His face, hair, and skin were caked in blood. He was the Red Man who had haunted my dreams since childhood. It was this creature, covered in blood and ready to consume me.
I tried to escape, get free from his clutch, thrashing against him, but my hands slid off his slimy skin. He growled at me. This was it, I was going to die. My breath wheezed in and out of me.
Get away! Dammit, Cheyenne, you are not going to die like this!
I shoved the phone into my bra. A trick I hoped to thank Dakota for later. My eighth grade PE self-defense lessons flooded back into my mind.
Kick – Knee – Run!
The monster dropped me. I scampered back desperate to find that elusive door.
I banged on the walls and screamed. “Help us! Somebody – let us out. Call the police!”
Where is the feckin’ door handle? Why didn’t I bring my keys with pepper spray?
The crippling pain in my ankle shot shards of agony hindering my escape. Endorphins flooded me. I buried
the anguish deep inside the recesses of my mind to keep going. My ankle was most likely broken, but I didn’t dare let it stop me. I had to escape or I was dead.
I checked the phone again for anybody to help me. “Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to the Orlando Police Department. Your wait time is now fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes? Dammit People, I’ll be dead in one.
I turned searching through the haze. Had anyone else found a way out? I shoved the phone back into my shirt and squatted, praying my attacker’s vision was also hindered by the fog. The creature’s hideous, maniacal laugh stopped me cold. I didn’t flinch nor move another muscle. The laughter, hauntingly familiar, sent a frigid, wet, dead finger up my spine. I held my hands to my mouth to stop the nervous chatter of my teeth.
The creature fell upon me in an instant. He grabbed me by the shreds of my costume and within seconds flung me up to his face once again.
The beast bit into my cheek and chin. He forced his hand around my jaw and smashed my lips with his fingers. The pain sent my head into a tailspin. I kicked, screamed, thrashed, and struggled in vain to get away from his vice-like grip. His hand clamped on my face and sent shattering fractures of pain through my jaw. I knew this was it — flight or fight. Self-preservation time. Since I couldn’t find a way out, I had to fight.
A guttural wail escaped my throat. I pulled my hands free and gouged at his eyes with my fingernails, trying desperately to dig into his eye sockets to blind him. The cretin’s hands felt as if he wanted to rip my jaw off my face. He shoved his fingers into my mouth for a better hold while demonically laughing at my feeble attempts to harm him. I must’ve have been the silly little goat to the fierce boa constrictor in his mind.
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