The Maze

by Jordon Greene

  A rush of warm, stale air enveloped them, and a rancid rotting stench bit Kayden’s nostrils.

  “Oh fuck,” Oscar blurted, earning himself an elbow in the side from Florence and a wide-eyed expression. He squinted and shrugged, realizing his mistake, but kept his mouth shut.

  Kayden covered his nose and grinned at his parents’ expressions, something between disgust and irritation. He wasn’t sure at which they were disgusted more.

  The smell was horrid. It reminded him of the sickening smell inside the walls of the Hollywood Wax Museum's Zombie Outbreak, a type of haunted house but with zombie's instead of ghosts. His nostrils flared at the odor, the stench of rotting flesh mixed with the stale odor of an old warehouse.

  “Oh, that’s horrid,” Tammy complained, waving a hand in front of her face while her other hand covered her nose.

  Keeping one hand over his nose, Kayden placed a palm on his mom’s back and urged her forward, into the maze. They stepped in. It was dark, mustier than the entrance had been, and filled with noises. Red and orange lights splashed across the bare beamed ceiling and over the tall ten-foot walls built of an assortment of woods, fake greenery and other materials. Eerie music infiltrated the space, a mix of gloomy tones and quiet cackles interrupted by violent simulated screams.

  Six feet ahead was the first choice. A fork with three different options, only one presumably leading to the exit, or maybe any of them would. Kayden eyed the left most opening, then the middle and the last. They all looked the same.

  “We’ll take the middle,” Florence whispered, like someone else might hear them over the moans and screams playing overhead. She pointed toward the central path.

  “Yeah, and we’ll take the one on the left,” Tammy said, craning her neck around to look at Kayden, brow raised as if in question.

  “Sure,” Kayden shrugged. “Why not?”

  “We'll see you at the end, or sooner,” Florence waved as she took Oscar by the arm and drug him off. The boy waved curtly and let himself be pulled along, disappearing around a turn a few yards away. Kayden could see that the maze must have been Florence’s idea, not Oscar’s, much like it had been his mom's idea, not his dad's.

  “Here we go, guys.” Tammy grinned and started walking forward.

  Ken huffed and followed along with Kayden a step ahead, quickly overtaking his mother and shooting into the far-left opening. The path was only about six feet across, bordered by the same massive wooden walls that constructed the first room. A low moan echoed over the barrier from somewhere else in the maze, or maybe it was just over the speakers. Vines overtook a section of the maze ahead. Kayden stopped and reached out to touch the leaves; plastic.

  Moving on, they veered off at the next left and Tammy immediately jumped back. A large replica of a rat sat in the corner, its eyes glowering.

  “We come to a Halloween maze, and a fake rat’s what scares you?” Ken laughs.

  “Yeah!” Tammy defended herself, slapping Ken on the shoulder. “It’s a big fake rat.”

  She skirted around the vermin, keeping a safe distance. Kayden shook his head and jogged past her, keeping an eye out for the next turn now that his vision had acclimated to the rotating and shifting glow of the red, white and orange lighting. He let his hand leave his nose, bearing the acrid smell. Beyond the occasional vine and the lights, the maze was simple and cold. It felt like Jasper didn't realize it was autumn outside and had opted to keep the air conditioner running, or at the very least failed to turn on the heater this morning. Kayden set off around the next corner, taking a right, checking behind him just long enough to be sure his mom and dad were following along.

  It was more of the same. He tried to raise himself on his toes to get a better view of their location within the maze with respect to the perimeter of the building. It was a waste of time and energy. The privacy fence-like maze walls served as true blockades to any extra information, too high to get a real grasp on the size of the building or your location relative to any of its four edges.

  A shrill scream broke through the music, sending a shiver up Kayden's spine. He stopped for a brief second before realizing it was just the music. He mentally cursed himself and set his feet back into motion. At sixteen, the last thing he wanted his mom to do was ask if he was okay.

  Without explanation the lights flickered, then failed entirely, drowning Kayden in a sea of absolute black. Behind him, something shuffled in the darkness. Kayden spun around, the hair on his neck tingling and on end.

  “Mom? Dad?” Kayden called out blindly, his eyes flicking from corner-to-corner, hoping to catch some shadow in the void. “You there?”

  “We’re here, Kayden,” Ken’s voice reached back to him, only a foot or two away at most.

  Kayden let his body continue to turn, already losing his sense of direction in the dark. Suddenly, the lights blasted back on and Kayden squinted under the sudden burst of light. His mother's scream pierced his ears just as his eyes set on the wicked face staring back at him, only inches from his nose.

  “What the hell?” Kayden screamed, faltering back a step as the lights dropped again and suddenly blinked back to life.

  Kayden shot his eyes around the empty space. It was gone. Those charged green orbs, not eyes, that face, gone. In the instant before the lights flickered off again, Kayden had taken in the rough grisly skin. It was an amalgam of burnt orange, crimson and black, lines running up and down a circular head. Huge jack-o-lantern voids filled with electrical green currents where eyes should have been. Rotted black, serrated teeth stretched abnormally far across the lower half of the face along the upper and bottom jaw and a dirty bandage wrapped its way over a bloodied scalp. The person, whoever it was, had a grisly looking pumpkin over their face.

  “Where’d it go?” Kayden yelled, staring back at his parents.

  “I don’t know,” Ken shot back, eyes flicking back and forth, searching the corridor for any signs of the jack-o-lantern-masked figure. “Let’s just keep going so we can get out of here.”

  “That was incredible!” Kayden’s mom chimed in, holding a hand over her heaving chest. “Horrifying, but crazy. Sure didn’t take long either.”

  “Yeah, that was awesome,” Kayden agreed with a huge grin, trying to hide the fear that had gripped him as the unexpected face had peered into his eyes. He let himself take a few deep breaths to regulate his pulse, shaking his head. “Definitely not a kiddy maze.”

  2

  Another scream pierced through the dark just before the lights came back on. Florence clenched tightly to Oscar’s hand, her body pressed against his.

  “Damn, this place is creepy,” Oscar whispered. “I thought it was supposed to be some stupid backwoods maze, not a let’s-scare-you-out-of-your-damn-mind maze.”

  “Oh, calm down, Oscar,” Florence chided him, loosening her grip on his palm and letting herself move to his side again. She wouldn’t admit that she was spooked. It was all fake, but it still scared her, but that was the point. Why else voluntarily walk into a place like this? “It was just the lights.”

  “Yeah, just the lights. Who cuts off the lights on a bunch of tourists in a dark maze?” Oscar already missed the feeling of her body against his the moment she moved. He was so in love with her, everything about her, her eyes, attitude, quirks and of course, her looks, he’d be a fool to discount their effect on him.

  “It’s a Halloween maze, honey.” She took a step away and pulled him further down the small corridor. The moans and ghostly noises continued to cast their gloom overhead.

  He rolled his eyes, letting her drag him along, barely hiding a smile. He let the sight of her round ass take his mind off where he was, instead sweeping him away to their bedroom just hours ago where more pleasurable moans and groans filled their tiny hotel room. He hoped the hotel walls were thick; otherwise, their neighbors already hated them probably.

  Just wait until tonight. Hold on to that thought, Oscar, he told himself.

  She slipped around the next
corner, Oscar in tow, and stopped at a new fork in the corridor. She eyed the new path to her left, and then checked the one that continued in front of them.

  “Keep going, or hang a left?” Florence asked.

  “Whichever one gets us out of here,” he begged.

  “If I knew that, what would be the point of the maze, Oscar?” Florence asked, cocking her head and biting her lip.

  “Right,” he gave in. “You know I can’t resist that.”

  She basked in her victory. He was incapable of denying her when she bit her lip and eyed him with her brow raised, his weakness.

  “Let’s go left,” he decided with a light chuckle.

  She yanked on his hand, retraining their path down the new corridor. The walls felt suffocating, painted in dark greys, reds and oranges. Splashes of what was meant to be blood peppered the wooden slats and the concrete. It appeared like some bloodbath with a paintbrush had happened in this very hall, or someone was using the maze as the canvas of some abstract art piece. Florence doubted the latter. Another ten feet down the hall, the two turned left with the bend in the maze and something jerked forward and howled.

  The couple jumped back, reeling their arms back against the opposite wall. Florence was the first to laugh.

  “That was good,” she said, covering her up-turned mouth.

  It was a bare skull atop a spike piercing clean through the top of the bone and down through the opening in the neck, its jaw bone sewn haphazardly shut with twine. The speaker hid behind the skull hurled another scream at them and the red glow intensified around it. They took a step to the right and the skull retreated back against the wall and the recording ceased, along with the red glow.

  “Uh, honey?”

  Florence felt Oscar’s finger tapping her shoulder. She was focused on the skull. It was so cool.

  “I know, right? That’s so cool!” She glowed.

  “Honey?” Oscar tried again, still tapping her shoulder.

  “What, Oscar?” she said. “Look at how intricate this setup is.”

  “Honey!” Oscar raised his voice this time.

  “Wha…” She stopped short as her eyes caught what Oscar was looking at. A figure stood at the opposite end. It, whoever it was, didn’t move. Instead, it stared back at her, head tilted down. Electric green shone through the holes in the jack-o-lantern mask, obscuring most of its features in the darkened corridor. It wore a sports jacket and loosened tie, adorned in black slacks from the waist down. It was an odd clothing choice inside the maze. Then Florence saw the long sharp blade dangling in the figure’s right hand.

  “Hey!” Oscar yelled across the short distance, casting his voice over the wicked ambience. “We see you. Haha! You got us.”

  The figure didn’t move. Its eyes appeared to stir with an evil intensity, emerald glowing vortexes behind a grisly pumpkin face.

  “Okay, you got us,” Florence repeated, not wanting to turn around and retreat, but not wanting to move forward toward the man, or woman, standing in their way. Of course it was an actor, but his aura was downright creepy.

  A shrill scream broke through the music, but they didn’t budge. Neither did it.

  “Come on, man, let us…” Oscar stopped. Suddenly the figure’s hand clenched tight around the knife and its arms began to swing, pumping in motion with thick strong legs, barreling forward.

  “Just don’t move, just don’t move,” Florence repeated. “It’s another scare, it’s not real.”

  Now it was at a full sprint, and Florence wished she had moved, that she would have turned and sprinted herself. Fear overrode her senses and she went to move just as the figure closed in.

  “No!” Oscar screamed as a hand pushed him away, and the figure’s knife-wielding hand swung forward and rammed into Florence’s stomach.

  Florence stumbled back by instinct. She felt nothing but the adrenaline pumping through her veins and a light tap on her stomach. She looked down, expecting to see blood and metal becoming one.

  “Haha!” the man behind the mask bellowed, his voice deep and gruff under the grotesque mask. “I got ya!”

  He pulled back the knife and a plastic blade slid back out of the handle as it left Florence’s stomach. She knew it was stupid, but Florence reached down where the knife had landed and felt for a wound, still expecting to feel the icky moistness of blood. There was no hole, no blood. She sighed deeply and pulled in another breath.

  “Are you serious?!” she yelled, momentarily overtaken by the fear that had seconds ago coursed through her veins. “You could give someone a fucking heart attack!”

  “Oh, you’re young,” he told her, exchanging glances between her and Oscar. “Have fun. It only gets better from here.”

  Oscar grinned down at Florence, the edges of his lips peaking over his cheeks.

  “He sure got you good!”

  “Yeah, I know,” she bit back, then softened her tone. “Guess that’s what I get for dragging you in here.”

  Oscar smiled.

  3

  Kayden slipped around another corner, his mom and dad on his heels. The appearance and sudden disappearance of Pumpkinface, as Kayden had started calling him, had added an unexpected element to the maze. The website had not said a thing about live actors prowling the maze like some small version of SCarowinds. It had claimed to be “a family-friendly event for the whole family” though. Of course, the site looked like it hadn’t been updated since the early 2000s, too. It didn’t bother Kayden, but he would have appreciated a warning.

  The shrill scream of a ghost pierced the silence and the music picked up with a beat that made Kayden lift his feet higher and walk a little quicker. The maze walls were much the same here, wooden planks, vines, red paint splattered haphazardly up their height and across the floor from time to time and the occasional pale red trail that looked like someone had drug a bleeding body across the concrete and forgot to clean up the evidence.

  “I think we’re going in circles,” Tammy put a finger between her painted lips, absently chewing at a nail.

  “Yeah,” Kayden agreed, stopping a few feet before the next break in the corridor and turning to face his mom. He pointed behind himself toward one of the paths leading off down another direction. “I think we took the next right last time, though.”

  “Are you sure?” Tammy asked.

  “Sort of…” Kayden admitted, raising his cheek and squinting his honey browns. “I mean, I think so. Isn’t that the same owl up there?”

  Kayden pointed a finger at a plastic owl with big yellow eyes, its head twitching from side to side like the gears inside were missing a few grooves. Tammy angled her head, examining the bird. Orange and red flashed in the distance and across the ceiling behind it, making it difficult to focus.

  “I think he’s right, Tammy,” Ken finally spoke up. He’d remained mostly silent since the Pumpkinface incident.

  Tammy nodded, shuffling her wavy brown locks over her shoulders.

  “Well, let’s go left instead then,” she insisted.

  She could barely see him to tell, but Kayden nodded in the dim light before swiveling around and leading them down the corridor. Past the hall that had led them back to this exact spot, Kayden turned to face the new piece of the maze. It was darker and a tighter fit. They couldn’t walk side-by-side down it, maybe two at a time, but no more.

  “Let’s go,” Kayden pushed and stepped into the corridor, squinting to see in the reduced light.

  He thought his nose had adjusted to the rotten stench, but it was worse here, and kept getting worse the further he walked. Kayden covered his nose. Tammy and Ken did the same, grimacing.

  “That’s ripe,” Ken blurted from under his shirt. “Where the hell do you get a smell like that for this?”

  No one answered him. They kept walking. It continued to get darker, when suddenly a menacing red light shone down around them, illuminating something thick and meaty hanging on the wall.

  Kayden stared into empty, clouded eyes as he
stumbled back, clambering against the opposite wall.

  “Calm down, Kayden,” Tammy laughed. “It’s just a dummy. A really realistic dummy.”

  “That’s disgusting.” Ken’s fascination overrode the repulsion and smell. He stepped closer, examining the body.

  It hung by a rope draped over the top of the wall, about a foot off the floor. The rope dug into the flesh of the dummy’s neck. A massive open wound, painted in shades of black and blue, stretched from above the right ear, around the cheek and neck, and stopping just above the collarbone. The dummy’s stained graphic t-shirt was in rags from the upper chest down, ribbons of cloth and fake flesh intermingling in a gruesome display of the macabre. The legs were missing altogether from the knees down.

  “Definitely not ‘family-friendly,’ but look at the detail.” Tammy shook her head.

  “I found the leg, well, one of them,” Kayden yelled, taking off at a slow jog toward where one of the dummy’s severed legs laid. He reached down and picked up the limb. It was leathery, the skin pale like the body it belonged to. Kayden inspected the stump. He was amazed at the continued detail showing the bone, cut clean through, the meat and tendons forever stuck in place. He wanted to finger the mess of flesh and muscle out of some curious instinct, but he refrained.

  “Put that down, Kayden,” Tammy admonished him, more out of disgust than worry over getting in trouble. “You don’t know who else has touched that.”

  Kayden shrugged and let the limb drop from his hands. It thumped against the concrete floor and came to a halt against the wall.

  “This place is crazy cool,” Kayden grinned, finally excited about the maze. His body was tense, every muscle and fiber ready, but the detail and effort put into the labyrinth was amazing, the real attempt at creating an atmosphere of fear. He could respect that. He reached into his pocket for his phone, he wanted to send a picture to Mira—she’d hate it, but he’d get a kick out of it—but his hand found an empty pocket.