Dr. Morbid's Castle of Blood (Masks)

by Hayden Thorne

  “I must admit it’s pretty unnerving, but I guess we can move forward cautiously and be ready to get the hell out if something really dangerous comes up,” Peter said, and everyone nodded.

  “Okay, I guess just look around you and see if you can find something—like clues or whatever. Anything that’ll give you an idea of what you need to do first,” Althea said. “We all know how the game’s supposed to be played, but you can’t earn points and advance without missions.”

  We moved around, taking care to stay within hearing distance of each other. We all ended up in what looked like a woodsy area—more like a forest clearing or something. There were trees that looked generic, and the ground was all covered in rich, thick grass. The land itself was this gentle, rolling kind, and past a small grove of those generic trees, I spotted a tiny cottage with a run-down wooden fence surrounding it several feet away, standing in what looked like a small meadow.

  Our surroundings were definitely fake. I mean, everything around us looked like images in a movie screen, and we were all wearing 3-D glasses, so that there was something like depth and stuff. But every blade of grass or leaf on a tree totally looked phony in that CGI kind of way. The textures and colors were exaggerated. When I touched them, though, they felt real and very cold to the touch—like abnormally cold, considering how moderate the temperature was where we were. It was quiet around us, too, but I could hear fake birds chirping from all over, which gave the place a fake-authentic feel. It was really, really weird but cool.

  “Hey, guys, over here,” I called out, waving at them. “There’s a cottage past those trees. Maybe we can talk to someone—or a character.”

  Everyone walked over to me, but they moved slowly and carefully, as though they were all listening for something. Even Freddie-sparkly-dragon did it, frowning and moving his head side to side. Ridley stopped a couple of times, bowing his head and frowning as well, obviously straining to hear something. Along the way, the heroes exchanged confused looks that unnerved me. I felt my skin crawl. I knew that superheroes had heightened senses, and they looked to be untouched by their weird transformation in this game. I could hear nothing but the birds, and seeing my friends all tense and cautious from out of the blue creeped me out.

  “Um—is something wrong, guys?” I asked as they neared me.

  “Not sure,” Peter said, frowning. He and the others stopped a few feet away from me, looking around. “I feel weird. Like there’s something here, but I can’t sense anything else. I mean—there’s something, and yet there isn’t. It’s hard to describe.”

  “Maybe it’s because of the game,” I said, shrugging. “It’s pretty bizarre being here to begin with. I feel a little off right now, but not enough to be worried about stuff.”

  “We just need to be extra careful,” Wade said. “Let’s go check out that cottage.”

  We turned and started walking through the trees, falling quiet as we did. The heroes’ reactions to our environment continued to work themselves under my skin, and it didn’t take long for me to get all fidgety and nervous, glancing back and scanning the trees for signs of danger. I saw nothing, though.

  The little meadow where the cottage stood looked like something you’d find in a fantasy art book or calendar. Kind of kitschy but visually awesome; then again, I was seeing everything close up because I was actually inside the game, not just a player. This thought sank in, pushing aside my earlier nervousness, and I followed the others as they made their way to the cottage.

  “It looks so damn tiny,” Freddie said as he stood outside, looking the cottage over. Any little kid would expect him to burn the cottage down with sparkly fire, but he didn’t do that, which was too bad. I’d gotten used to his bizarre mask and would’ve given my kidneys to watch him do exactly that.

  “Okay, I’ll go in and check it out,” Ridley said, trotting over to the door, which was open. Without waiting for anyone else, he entered, and close at his heels was Wade.

  Peter, Freddie, and I waited outside, alternately chatting and scanning the general area. From inside the cottage, we could hear voices, with Wade and Ridley talking loudly and excitedly as they explored. It looked like they’d also gotten over their initial weirdness and were getting into the game.

  “Guys, there’s no one in here,” Wade called out after a few moments.

  “Keep checking for clues!” Peter yelled back. I decided to walk a short distance from him and Freddie because I wanted to check out the area closed in by the run-down fence. Nothing looked strange. The same thick, fluffy grass covered the ground. I found a few scattered farming tools like a hoe and a rake. A quick glance at the trees marking the edge of the forest showed nothing, and the birds continued to chirp.

  “Hey, I found a chest,” Ridley answered, his voice a little more muffled than Wade’s. “I’m opening it. I’m sure it has something inside.”

  About a couple of seconds after he said that, I felt the ground under me shift, and along with it came a sound that was like a hiss and a groan. Something wrapped itself around both my knees, and I looked down to find a rotting corpse—a zombie—pushing its way out of the ground, its tattered hands gripping my knees. I yelled and tried to pull myself back somehow, but it kept its hold, and I realized that it wasn’t trying to get out of the ground. It was trying to drag me under with it.

  The grass under me melted, and so did the soil and whatever else around it. I felt myself sink, dragged down by a corpse.

  “Peter! Peter!” I cried, throwing my arms out and scrabbling at the grass. Around me, I heard the others yell, their voices mingling with more hisses and groans. More zombies were pushing their way up through the ground and ambushing the group.

  Chapter 6

  Okay, so how did one battle a CGI zombie without any weapons? It was only computer animated, so it wasn’t a physical threat, anyway, though I didn’t care for the idea of being buried alive, CGI or no. I wanted to advance and gain points! So I started kicking and squirming, my fingers raking through the grass as I got dragged farther down.

  The grass felt really plastic-y and slippery, and it was damned hard trying to get a solid grip. I kept scrabbling and struggling, sweat drenching my shirt. That thing was surprisingly strong, and I was getting seriously, seriously pissed off.

  “Get off me!” I yelled, writhing and twisting and looking more and more like a fish flopping around—with a zombie trying to keep its grip on it. “Ugh! God, you’re disgusting!” After this game, I’d have to go to Brenda and commiserate with her regarding zombies and how much we both hated them.

  With a groan, the corpse yanked me down with a mighty pull, and I slid farther in till only my hands were on the surface, my fingers stiff and painful and raw from trying to grab at something. As I looked up, I saw the hole created by that thing slowly close around me, and I yelled even more loudly just as my fingers, slippery with sweat, finally lost whatever pathetic grip they had and slipped off.

  “Peter!” I screamed.

  The hole above me slowly shrank, the gray sky disappearing. Odd, but no loose dirt fell on me. It was like everything was solid and unreal—well, duh—like I was being swallowed up by soft rubber. Just as the hole was about to close, a couple of long and snake-like things shot through, and my wrists were suddenly wrapped with something cold and soft. Whatever those things were stopped me from sinking, and with a strong, steady force, they pulled me back up to the surface.

  The corpse that dragged me down lost its hold, and I felt it try to grab me again. I started to kick it harder this time while being pulled up, making sure to keep my legs and feet moving all over the place, so it couldn’t get a grip anywhere. I also tried to use the fake earth around me for leverage of sorts, moving my feet against it even though my sneakers slipped constantly, and helping whatever was pulling me out. The earth that surrounded me definitely felt like rubber. It was so bizarre.

  After what felt like forever, my head finally popped out of the ground, and I was pulled across the grass. Ev
entually everything stopped, the things wrapped around my wrists let me go, and I rolled over to my back to take in deep gulps of air while waiting for my head to stop its spinning.

  “You okay, dude?”

  I opened my eyes and saw something looming above me. It was a ginormous squid staring down at me. Looked like Freddie had managed to transform into his old Kraken mask.

  “I’m okay,” I said, gasping and waving a tired hand at him. “Thanks. I didn’t think I was going to make it there.”

  “No sweat. Stay here. We got rid of the zombies in this part of the farm. The others are fighting them off elsewhere.” Then Freddie Calamari moved away, and it was like total morbid fascination on my part that I watched him hurry off in giant squid form. It was like ballet, the way his tentacles undulated in sequence, propelling his massive body forward. I was alternately amazed and grossed out.

  I could hear the others’ voices, all yelling and so on. The zombie hissing and groaning grew weaker and weaker, and I figured that they were killing off those bastards one by one. I didn’t know exactly what they were doing to get that job done, seeing as how they didn’t have their superpowers to begin with, but apparently they were kicking zombie ass. Well, if zombies still had their decomposing asses on them.

  Once my brain reset itself, I rolled myself to my hands and knees and then stumbled to my feet. Blinking away the fog, I looked around and saw a few scattered corpses of corpses littering the farm. I braced myself for a moment of extreme vomiting, but nothing came out. I guess the bodies looked like life-sized CGI that they didn’t gross me out as much as I’d first expected.

  I walked over to one body and stared at it. Yep. It was a zombie, all right. In fact, it was my favorite kind of zombie creature thingie—you know, the kind that only had half a body, with its hips and legs all missing. Those kinds of undead things were cool—mainly because they moved too slowly for them to catch up to you.

  They were all deader than dead, but I didn’t see any fake blood, which kind of made sense since blood tended to vanish whenever I killed monsters in some of those RPGs I played. In fact, the bodies disappeared once my character walked away from them. I moved off, picking my way past the corpses, and when I paused in front of the cottage and turned around to look back, I saw the area completely devoid of zombies. Like I said, the bodies just disappeared once my character—or in this case, me, myself, and I—moved away from them.

  I shook my head. “Wow. This is nuts.” But oddly cool, too.

  When I turned around again, I spotted something lying on the ground next to a corpse. It gleamed dully in the light, and I recognized it as a sword or a big knife of some kind. A weapon, woohoo! I ran over to it and picked it up, looking it over in amazement.

  It felt real, all right. It was weighty enough in my hand but not heavy. I think it was at least twelve inches long, double-edged, and its handle was carved with some pretty cool patterns. Yeah, I could use it, depending on whether or not we were still going to go through with this game.

  I realized all of a sudden that the noise had died down, and I turned to find everyone coming back, looking tired but exhilarated. Freddie was still a giant squid, and he followed behind.

  “What happened?” I asked, hurrying up to them, bringing the knife with me. “We got ambushed, didn’t we?”

  “Well—it was one of those usual surprise attacks that’re caused by someone picking something valuable up,” Ridley said, coloring. “In that case, it was me. I found a scroll in the trunk that I was investigating, and when I picked it up, the zombies came out.”

  “Hey, Althea,” Wade called out, raising a hand to quiet everyone else down. “What’s the status so far? We got ambushed, but we’re all okay.”

  Althea’s voice continued its fading and crackling. “Nothing so far—I do feel my connection getting stronger, so that’s a good thing. Maybe I can try to manipulate a few things here and there and see if that works.”

  “Hey, don’t help us, though! This was pretty fun—weird, but fun!” Wade replied, laughing.

  “No worries. I was thinking more along the lines of manipulating the scenery, like move rocks or bring down trees or expand rivers—something like that—without messing up your game. What do you think?”

  We all exchanged looks and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” Peter said. “Just stay alert for anything that’s even slightly off, and pull us all out at the first sign of danger.”

  “So you guys still want to continue with this, then?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Wade said. “Ridley just found our first clue or mission.” She turned to Ridley, who was patting his spandex costume for the scroll. “You got it on you?”

  He nodded, reaching behind him and pulling it out. I stared, a little weirded out. If superheroes had invisible pockets somewhere in their costumes, that’d be awesome. But they never told me how and where they hid stuff, and it was pretty hard not to let my imagination run wild in the worst way possible.

  Peter moved toward me, and my brain latched on to that thought. Maybe he’d let me find out where his secret pockets were later. Happy face.

  “So how’d you guys get rid of the monsters?” I asked, frowning at him. He stopped and took the knife I found, holding it up to the sky to stare at it further.

  “Fists,” he said.

  I deflated. “Really? That’s it?” Then I spotted Freddie, still in Kraken form. “And tentacle karate or something, I’m sure.”

  Freddie raised two tentacles and shrugged—or twitched, which was pretty close to a shrug for a creature with no shoulders. I was starting to get hungry for calamari, by the way. “Well, this is only the first battle,” he said. “Monsters at this level are easy to beat. You just punch away at them till they lose all their life points and then die.”

  “Anybody get hurt in the process?” I asked, looking around. Everyone shook their heads. “Seriously? Is it because of the CGI versus real people element in the game? It sure makes sense if it were.”

  “Nothing’s real,” Peter replied, handing back the knife to me. “Which puts us at a huge advantage when it comes to battling monsters. I guess this’ll turn out to be a way easier game than expected, but it’s good for Althea’s powers. Hold on to this, Eric.”

  I grinned at him. “This ain’t real, right?”

  “Nope, but it is in this world, and I guess using it against other real-unreal monsters is better than nothing, even though you won’t be hurt by anything that comes after you.”

  “Okay, lemme try to shift back,” Freddie said. “This mask is helpful sometimes, but traveling? God, no.” He paused, concentrating. A little flash of light appeared, fizzled, and then reappeared, shining brilliantly this time before disappearing again. Then Freddie shape shifted into his human form without any problems.

  “Hey, that means your powers are slowly coming back to you the more you gain points,” I said, relieved. “Of course, that also means that I’m totally dead meat with zero abilities and a big knife that makes me feel really badly about my manhood.”

  Freddie, Wade, and Peter started talking, once in a while testing their powers, and it looked like it was true—the more points they earned in battle, the more powers they got back. For now, it was just super strength for Peter without his hyper speed, and Wade could shoot out fireballs, which were her most basic offense arsenal. Freddie could shape shift, but it looked like he was also limited as to the masks he could wear.

  “That’s awesome,” I said, grinning. “So what about you, Ridley?”

  I looked at him, suddenly realizing that he’d fallen silent. While the others continued to talk, he stood apart, reading the scroll, and he looked pale—really pale. Considering that he was a redhead, that’d be like beyond death-white.

  “Uh-oh,” I muttered. “Ridley?”

  He glanced up, startled, but still shocked and nervous. At this point, the others had stopped their chatting and had turned to him. “Uh—guys?” he said after swallowing a couple of times. “This ga
me? It’s a trap.”

  “Everyone, I gotta get you all out of there,” Althea broke in all of a sudden, her voice sounding urgent and grim. “I just sensed something bad in the program. Are you all there? Don’t move—I need to—”

  Her words got cut off by loud static, which went on and on and on, sometimes fading, but mostly staying loud and consistent. It was as though the radio reception got severed. Then just as suddenly, that static sound stopped.

  “Althea?” Peter called out, frowning. “Hey, Althea? Are you still there? What’s happening?”

  “Guys,” Ridley said, showing us the scroll. “She’s gone. We’re trapped in here.”

  Wade plucked the scroll out of his hand and read it out loud. “Hello, losers. Didn’t realize it was going to be this easy to trap your pathetic asses and get rid of all of you in one shot. To give you idiots a bit of a heads up—when you pick up the scroll, you get ambushed as a distraction. That buys the program time to slowly cut off your connection to your freak computer friend because, as you probably don’t know right now, you’re all so incredibly predictable enough to fight against the ambush first before reading what’s in the scroll. I wasn’t off when I called you losers, right? How funny is that?

  “So what’s coming to you? Life trapped inside a computer game that’ll keep going and going till you all literally get absorbed by it, and you can never get out. It’s a race against time, assholes, and you’re all going to lose. That’s what happens when you fuck around with my family and kick my brother into a high security mental facility. I don’t have his abilities, but I’ve got a little accidental power of my own—mind-reading, which was how I found out who you are without your pathetic, faggy alter egos. This game is a nice little gift big brother and I put together for you through a mental link we made. Oh, yeah, I know how to get you out, but why should I spoil the fun? You’ll never catch me, anyway. I’ll be gone before you realize what you just got yourselves into.