Rushed: All Fun and Games

by Brian Harmon

  You can’t save them.

  As soon as he’d read the words, the clown opened his mouth impossibly wide and vomited a vast amount of blood onto the glass directly in front of his face, coating the surface in oozing gore.

  Eric jumped back, horrified, only to slam into the mirror behind him.

  Except there was no mirror behind him. At least, there wasn’t one there a moment ago. That’s the way he came. He turned around, panicked, trying to understand what was happening. When he turned back, he found that the bloody glass was gone, replaced with another mirror. Around and around he went, searching for a way out, but everywhere he turned there was only his own, panicked expression staring back at him.

  There was nowhere to go.

  Suddenly it was he, not the clown, who was boxed in.

  Chapter Six

  He was trapped.

  He had to tell himself not to panic. But it was virtually impossible. His every instinct screamed at him to get free as quickly as possible, by any means necessary. He wanted to kick and scream and throw himself against the mirrors. He wanted out of here now, and he could feel himself rapidly spiraling into a state of full-blown terror as crushing claustrophobia closed its hot, sweaty hands around him.

  The temperature was rising.

  Was the air getting thicker in here?

  He couldn’t breathe!

  He pounded on the glass with his fists. He cried out for help. But it was no use. He was thoroughly captured.

  His cell phone rang in his pocket. The sound was deafening in the silence.

  He fumbled it from his pocket, his elbows banging against the glass. “Hello?” he gasped.

  “Calm down,” said Isabelle.

  “What’s going on? How did I get in here?”

  “Just calm down and take a good look around. You can handle this.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I saw what you saw.”

  Eric stared into his own, panicked eyes, his mind racing. She saw what he saw. That was good. That meant there wasn’t anything missing. He hadn’t lost consciousness. She would’ve known if he had. She would’ve been aware of the gap. So the clown didn’t have time to take him out of the building. He was probably still inside the mirror maze somewhere.

  And yet this wasn’t the same mirror maze. It was still too clean, still too quiet.

  “It’s probably all in your head,” said Isabelle.

  Eric nodded. “Right.” Of course. In his head. That had to be it. How else could he have gotten into a situation like this? Mirrors didn’t just appear out of thin air. It was some kind of mental game, playing on common fears. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The air was stale. It was warm. But he wasn’t suffocating.

  He willed himself to relax.

  “Good,” said Isabelle. “Just take it easy. You’ve been here before. The bad guys are always just jerks with cheap tricks.”

  “Some of those tricks were pretty good,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, but they were still tricks. Projections. Residuals. Mind games. It doesn’t matter if they use magic or psychic powers or dimensional portals. They’re all just tricks.”

  She had a point. Even in this state he couldn’t deny that.

  “You’re smarter than these creeps, Eric.”

  He could feel the pounding in his chest easing. The panic was lifting. All he needed was to stop and clear his head. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Now, get out of there and go kick that clown’s pasty, white ass.”

  He felt the corner of his mouth twitch toward a smile. “Right.” He took one last breath and then calmly opened his eyes.

  He was still trapped between the mirrors, but he was thinking more clearly.

  He reached out and pushed on the glass. Nothing. They didn’t even tremble. It was like pushing on a brick wall. He turned and investigated the other three, finding the same true of all of them. He even looked up at the ceiling, at the small, recessed light that was shining down on him, making it possible for him to see all his useless reflections.

  He cocked his head and listened. It wasn’t just quiet. It was utterly silent. He couldn’t hear the children at all. There was no screaming, no laughing. Neither could he hear the blaring sounds of the arcade.

  This tiny prison was as silent as a tomb.

  And about the size of a casket, now that the awful thought had crossed his mind…

  Where the hell was he? Was he really still in the mirror maze?

  He held the phone to his ear again. “Isabelle…”

  “Okay…” she said, sounding considerably less sure of herself. “So it’s a really good trick…”

  “Can you feel anything?”

  “I can’t. I felt that dark presence when the clown was there. It’s definitely him. Or…it…I guess… But it disappeared when you were caught in those mirrors. Now I can’t feel anything. Not even the spiritual energy I felt before.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. You might be right. You might not be in Bellylaugh Playland anymore. But hell if I know where else you could be.”

  Eric didn’t like the sound of that. What if he couldn’t get back? What if he was trapped here forever? “What do I do?”

  “I’m thinking. Just… Just don’t panic.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe I should call Karen?”

  “Um… Not Karen… Holly, maybe?”

  “Yeah, that’s a better idea.”

  “Yeah.”

  Eric stared at his reflection in the mirror. Behind that reflection was the reflection of the mirror behind him, with his own back turned to him. An endless cycle stretched out beyond that. An infinite line of Erics waiting to be free of this absurd prison.

  In these tight confines, the illusion was more than a little unsettling. It was all-encompassing, making it difficult to focus on the small space around him that wasn’t a reflection. It made him want to close his eyes again.

  He wondered if it was possible to drive someone mad by subjecting them to a situation like this for prolonged periods of time.

  “Yeah, I’m calling Holly.”

  “Yeah. Do that.” If ever he needed a witch, it was now.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. When he opened them again, he saw that he suddenly wasn’t alone in the mirror.

  Another clown was standing behind him. Nearly a full head taller than him, grotesquely fat, he was fully dressed in a polka-dot jumpsuit, big, red shoes and a bright orange, curly wig. He had a white oval drawn around his frowning mouth and big, blue triangles around his puffy eyes.

  Eric turned with a startled shout, only to find that the fat clown was again standing behind him in the reflection.

  He was dirty and sweaty. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just stood there, sort of breathing heavy. Eric could hear his deep, rasping breath in his ear, but when he turned again, he still was standing behind him in the mirror.

  So much for not panicking. Eric threw his weight into the nearest mirror, desperate to be free of this hellish prison, regardless of how many years of bad luck it cost him.

  When the first one didn’t break, he threw himself into another one, then another.

  Then, suddenly, one of the mirrors simply wasn’t there. He fell forward and sprawled onto the floor with a surprised yelp.

  Inky darkness enveloped him. Only the light from his cell phone’s screen pierced it, and even that winked out as he scrambled to his feet, his heart racing.

  He fumbled it back on and turned around, shining it into the empty space around him, ready to defend himself from whatever painted terror was looming in the gloom.

  But no one was there.

  He was alone. Neither the fat, sweaty clown nor the skinny, freaky clown were there. He was standing in what looked like one of the entrances to the mirror maze, but it was dark, and the maze was blocked off.

  The noise had returned, though. He could hear
the screaming of the children in the playland somewhere nearby. He could also hear the blare of arcade music. It was difficult to tell which was closer.

  With trembling hands, he fumbled with the phone, switching on the flashlight, then did his best to both hold it to his ear and shine it out into the darkness. “You still there?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Did you catch all that.”

  “I got the drift. That was terrifying. There are two of them now?”

  “Looks like it.” He cursed. “Why did it have to be clowns? Why couldn’t it be something less horrifying? Like ogres. Remember ogres?”

  “Those things nearly tore you in half. More than once.”

  “Yeah but they weren’t clowns.”

  “You’re so weird sometimes.”

  He turned and shined the light out into the room. It wasn’t a very wide space, but it was long. In either direction, he could see a narrow strip of light on the floor. Doorways.

  Directly across from him were a long row of boxy-looking booths.

  “Where are you?”

  “I have no idea. Do you feel anything?”

  “The spiritual energy is back. But the dark energy is gone again.”

  “So the clowns are gone?”

  “I’m not sure. Only the first one had that weird energy about him. I couldn’t feel anything with the second one. Maybe it was only an illusion.”

  “Yeah, maybe…” But he doubted it.

  “By the way, I wasn’t able to get ahold of Holly before. The fat clown scared us and I lost the connection before she picked up. You want me to try again?”

  Eric stepped away from the maze and looked around. “Not just yet. But keep her on speed dial, would you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  He took the phone away from his ear and aimed it at the booths.

  They were carnival games. He seemed to be in some sort of carnival midway. There was a ring toss, a whack-a-mole, a basketball free throw game and one of those knock-down-the-milk-bottles games with the bottles still set up, just waiting for someone to try their luck. There was even one of those squirt gun games where you aimed at a target and raced to be the first to pop a balloon.

  He walked over to the nearest, the ring toss, and ran his hand over the counter. A thick layer of dust had accumulated. It’d been ages since anyone had cleaned in here, much less used the games.

  This place was creepy. The circus theme had definitely lost what little charm it had to begin with.

  He turned and shined his light around the rest of the room, sweeping back the gloom.

  In one corner was one of those unsettling fortune teller machines, the kind with the animated wax dummy inside that always tried to look realistic, but only ever managed to look like a clammy corpse, no matter how much it blinked its eyes and moved its rigor mortis hands around.

  There were also two more of those plaster clown statues, one on either side of the room, like cheerful, silent sentries. Not surprisingly, they were immeasurably more unsettling in the dark than they were with the lights on.

  It was like some kind of forgotten area within Bellylaugh Playland. Except for the stacks of boxes beside the door to his left. Those weren’t forgotten. A quick survey of the labels revealed it to be prizes for the ticket counter in the arcade, everything from Tootsie Rolls and Dum Dums to slinkies and toy handcuffs. Whatever this room might’ve once been, it was now used as a storeroom, which meant he was someplace he wasn’t supposed to be.

  And he didn’t even know how he got here. Only a moment ago he was inside the mirror maze.

  He turned and examined the doorway through which he tumbled into this place. There clearly used to be an entrance to the maze there, but it had long ago been sealed. To get from there to here, he would’ve had to go right through the wall.

  The phone buzzed at him.

  DISPLACEMENT, said Isabelle.

  “What?”

  IT’S LIKE THE ALTRUSK HOUSE, WHERE WE FIRST MET. REMEMBER?

  He remembered all too well. That place was literally insane. (And that was not a misuse of the word “literally”.) The house was alive, aware and horrifyingly unbalanced. And nothing inside worked the way it was supposed to, not even the doors. You could walk into a bathroom and find yourself in a kitchen.

  WHATEVER’S MAKING THAT DARK ENERGY CAN ALTER THE PHYSICAL LAYOUT OF THE BUILDING SOMEHOW. DEPENDING ON WHAT KIND OF CONTROL IT HAS, IT COULD MAKE YOU GO ANYWHERE IT WANTS YOU. YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL

  “Yeah. Careful.” He stared at the blocked-off entrance to the maze, trying to wrap his head around it. Had he teleported here, then? Was it like Star Trek? Or had he somehow phased through the wall?

  On second thought, he didn’t care to think that much about it.

  At least it gave him an idea of where he was in the building.

  If that was the mirror maze in front of him, then he was roughly behind it and the playland. There were doors at either end of the room. Through the one on his right would be the restrooms and to his left the restaurant and arcade. The bar would be on the other side of the wall behind him.

  Deciding that he’d look less suspicious returning from the vicinity of the restrooms than the empty restaurant, he turned right and crossed the room.

  Along the way, he eyed the dusty booths.

  At the far end was a game with little, frilly dolls designed to look like clowns. “KNOCK-Em-DOWN CLOWNS,” proclaimed the colorful backboard mounted over the dolls. A big, grinning clown face was painted on a sign that hung over the front of the booth. In the dark, it looked positively menacing. A basket of bean bags was sitting on the counter, inviting him to play. He was tempted. He kind of liked the idea of clobbering one of those goofy little clowns. But he didn’t dare linger here. He was still rattled by that odd business in the maze.

  He still wasn’t sure what the hell happened back there. How did the mirrors rearrange themselves like that? Why couldn’t he hear the noises of the playland? Was he transported somewhere else? To another universe? Another point in the spectrum?

  He once met a man who could shift across the spectrum of reality, effectively disappearing from this plane of existence at will. Was that what happened back there?

  As he walked toward the door, something struck the tile behind him. He spun around, startled, to find one of the rings from the ring toss rolling across the floor, seemingly all by itself.

  Again, his heart was racing.

  He started to ask who was there, but his voice caught in his throat.

  His cell phone buzzed in his hand.

  DARK ENERGY! texted Isabelle. GET OUT OF THERE!

  She’d get no arguments from him. He backed away from the wayward ring and reached behind his back for the door. After groping blindly for a moment, he felt his fingers brush across the wood and he turned to leave.

  The door rattled, but didn’t open.

  It was locked.

  Again, he was trapped.

  Chapter Seven

  Eric searched the door, but there didn’t seem to be a latch of any kind to unlock it.

  And the only other possible exit was on the far side of the room…

  Behind him, another of the rings bounced off the floor. This was followed by the sound of feet scampering across the tile. He turned and pressed his back to the useless door, his light aimed out into the darkness, his eyes wide.

  He could see the second ring lying on the floor. Somewhere in the darkness, he could hear the first one clattering to a stop.

  The children were still screaming. His heart was hammering. His breath sounded at least as loud as your average, household vacuum cleaner. But the room around him was utterly silent.

  Nothing stirred.

  And yet he could feel something watching him from the shadows.

  Dealing with scary stuff was nothing new to him. He’d done it all before. And while he never quite managed to muster the same sort of bravado one was accustomed to expecting from the big budget action heroes, he d
idn’t think he did too bad, considering the things he kept running into weren’t CGI and special effects. But this was something entirely different. He felt as if he were being stalked. He felt haunted.

  He clenched his teeth. He could do this. He’d been through worse. He’d been possessed by restless spirts. He’d been attacked by a psychic parasite. He’d narrowly escaped a trio of unstoppable golems. He could handle a creepy pair of ghoulish clowns.

  Right?

  Then something giggled. It wasn’t the cute, happy giggle of a child. It was deep, raspy, almost a hiss. And it was right in his left ear. He could actually feel the cold, rancid breath as it blew across his skin.

  Eric spun around and backed away from the door. He held his phone out in front of him, aiming the light like it was a weapon.

  Nothing there.

  But not his imagination.

  This was real.

  He needed to get out of here. He couldn’t think in here and he needed to think. There were too many questions, too many things that didn’t make any sense.

  He heard another noise then. This one from his left, from the Knock-Em-Down Clowns booth. It was a strange sort of rattling-rustling noise, as if something were rummaging around in there.

  He turned his light on it and stared for a moment, trying to understand what it was he was seeing.

  All those little clown dolls were moving, as if something were inside them, writhing to get free.

  Eric took a cautious step forward, confused.

  One of the dolls tipped forward and fell into the booth. Two more tipped backward and vanished behind the shelves. The rest continued to squirm.

  Then they began to burst open. Pudgy little arms and legs began emerging from them. Foul-looking slime oozed down the shelves.

  Eric took a step back. Then another. He might not be a big fan of carnivals in general, but he knew this wasn’t how this game was played.

  The doll that fell down into the booth suddenly jumped up on the counter, knocking the basket of beanbags onto the floor. It had four, stubby legs, hands like talons and a grotesque head that was forcing its way through a tear in the doll’s face, making it look like it was emerging from one of the clown’s eyes.