by Brian Harmon
It was right there, crouched just above his head, snarling down at him, its hairy face painted white, with a red smear across its frothing muzzle.
Chapter Eighteen
Eric was like a tightly wound spring that had finally snapped free. He darted away from the door, spitting a string of garbled curses in a startled sort of squeal that he was fairly sure he couldn’t reproduce if he wanted to. All around him, things reached out for him, snatching at him as he bounded across the room, all of them snarling and hissing and shrieking. He took down the nearest witch with a blow from his elbow and an admittedly rather girlish shriek. He side-stepped the two reaching vampires with an almost graceful sort of twist mixed with an awkward, tripping lunge and a sort of throaty, hooting noise thrown in for good measure. And then he snatched up one of the small, fiber optic Christmas trees and began swinging it like a club.
Chaos broke out in the storage room. Stacks of bins and boxes overturned and spilled onto the floor. The vampires and witches were tossed aside. Santa went clattering into the reindeer, scattering them like bowling pins.
Insanely enough, the only remotely coherent thought that went through his mind in those first few, terrifying moments was that this unholy union was precisely the sort of thing that was bound to happen when you didn’t wait until after Halloween to stock the goddamn Christmas stuff.
Meanwhile, the rest of the room was coming alive. All around him, little, shadowy things were darting here and there, climbing the walls, leaping from boxes and scuttling across the ceiling, all of them making awful squealing noises.
They were rats from the midway, back to rend the flesh from his bones. But at the same time they weren’t rats at all. They were too small to be rats. They didn’t seem to have any substance. They were nothing more than shadows.
Rats. But also not rats. He couldn’t wrap his panicked mind around it. Even if he could, there was no time. Christmas was down, but Halloween was back on its feet.
The werewolf with the clown’s face pounced on one of the witches, tearing her head off her shoulders, then leapt at him, its massive teeth bristling from its frothing muzzle.
Eric swung the Christmas tree. His aim was true. The plastic base struck the beast in its furry face and shattered. Bits of plastic flew across the room, bouncing off bins and skittering across the floor.
The werewolf stumbled to the side and crashed into the bins, spilling Christmas ornaments across the floor.
He didn’t let his guard down for an instant. Convinced it was going to leap back up and attack him again, he swung the little tree over and over, beating the foul creature into submission.
But while his attention was on the werewolf, a vampire jumped onto his back and hissed in his ear.
With a shrill and half-crazed howl of surprise, Eric twirled around, still swinging the mangled Christmas tree like a madman. By now it was less a club than a pathetic sort of whip that seemed to be doing more damage to himself than to the blood-sucking monstrosity riding on his shoulders.
Something was digging into the flesh on his neck. Vampire teeth? Desperate, he turned and threw himself at a stack of boxes, slamming the creature into them and knocking them to the floor.
It howled in his ear, a horrid, primitive sort of scream, and dug its claws into his shoulders, sending bolts of pain down both arms.
Suddenly, the room was full of screeching bats. They were pouring from one of the overturned boxes by the hundreds. More Halloween decorations come to life.
It’s not real! he told himself. None of it is real! But having Dracula riding piggyback made it hard to be convinced. It certainly felt real.
He turned again, this time throwing himself against the wall, crushing the nasty creature against it.
This time, it let go and fell to the floor.
He backed away from it, only to find himself set upon by the skeletons.
Except they weren’t just skeletons anymore. Black and rotting chunks of flesh and reeking mud clung to their bones, writhing with wriggling worms, as if they’d just clawed their way out of shallow graves.
The smell was overwhelmingly foul.
He shoved two of them away, then turned and punched the third in its bony face, knocking it backward. The fourth tried to wrap its ghoulish hands around his throat, but he seized it by its ribcage and twirled it around, using its momentum to fling it across the room and into Santa and his reindeer.
Behind him, things began to scream. It was a terrible sound, torturous, like someone being murdered. He turned to find the jack-o-lanterns writhing in agony, shrieking as if their very existences were utter torture.
While he was distracted, a witch attacked him, seizing handfuls of his polo shirt in her gnarled hands and shrieking into his face.
Revolted by her bulging eyes and crimped nose, he shoved her backward, tripping her over one of the crawling skeletons and then dumping a stack of bins over onto her.
When he turned around, the second vampire lunged at him, knocking him backward and onto a cardboard box, which crumpled under his weight.
Holding the monster back with one hand, he groped behind him with the other for something to defend himself. When he glanced behind him, he caught sight of a bundle of Fourth of July flags. Each one was neatly rolled up. Each one had a little pointed tip on the end.
Not quite an oak stake, but he wasn’t feeling particularly picky, either. He snatched one up and thrust it through the bloodsucker’s chest.
The monster let out a terrible shriek and staggered away from him. It collided with one of the big Christmas trees and sent it crashing down into the small herd of snorting reindeer.
It was madness.
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. And yet it wouldn’t end! A blind panic welled up within him as the remaining three skeletons closed in around him again. The tortured jack-o-lanterns continued to scream. The swarm of bats beat their leathery wings against his head and snatched at his hair. The shadowy not-rats darted between his feet.
And on the other side of the room, Santa was rising. Not the jolly St. Nick of Christmas time merchandising legend, but a great, bloated form in a tattered, red coat and a blood-stained beard.
They were too many, too relentless. He was overwhelmed. Unable to even think clearly, he did all he knew to do. He fought. He punched. He kicked. He shoved. He elbowed. He might have even resorted to biting a time or two.
And of course he cursed. At least, he thought he was cursing. Caught in the terror of the moment, he couldn’t be entirely sure that any words were making it through his shrill cries. He might’ve just been screaming the whole time.
Somehow, he managed to dislocate one of the skeletons’ legs and use it to beat back the stubborn horde.
Somewhere, way back in the far back of his mind, he was aware of a familiar, creepy giggling…
After untold seconds, or perhaps even minutes, he realized that the battle of the holidays had at some point ended without him, and that he was now simply screaming obscenities like a lunatic while beating a plastic Santa Claus with a skeleton’s leg.
It was over. The monsters were gone. Once again, they were nothing more than goofy, plastic holiday decorations.
Broken decorations, at that.
He stopped and stood there, panting, his heart pounding, his every muscle tense.
It was quiet again. The bats were gone. So were the rats. (If that’s what they really were.)
Everything had gone back to normal. Sort of…
Unlike in the midway, the room hadn’t reset itself to the way it was before he arrived. The bins and boxes he’d knocked over remained overturned and spilled. Christmas ornaments and lights, plastic Easter eggs, paper lanterns, Valentine’s Day hearts, mini American flags and rubber bats were strewn across the floor. The jack-o-lanterns were shattered and scattered to all corners of the room and most of the Christmas trees were wrecked beyond repair.
One vampire was lying broken on the floor. The other had a flag rammed th
rough its plastic chest. One of the witches was missing a head while another was crushed under a pair of plastic bins filled with broken pieces of a little Christmas village. The werewolf’s head was caved in. Most of the skeletons had been partially dismembered and strewn around the room. There was a reindeer head in a nativity manger. And Santa’s jolly face was shattered.
Eric was standing in the middle of the carnage, still holding a dismembered femur in his hands, looking positively deranged.
What the hell was he doing?
His cell phone buzzed at him. He reached for his pocket, but it wasn’t there. It was on the floor, its light shining up at the ceiling. He must’ve dropped it there when he went for the Christmas tree.
He was lucky it didn’t land on the other side and leave him fighting the holiday monsters in the dark.
He was also lucky he didn’t step on it like so many Christmas ornaments and Easter eggs.
WAY TO GO, said Isabelle. YOU MURDERED BOTH OF MY FAVORITE HOLIDAYS
“They started it,” grumbled Eric.
He looked around at the mess. Why didn’t everything go back to normal like it did in the midway?
PROBABLY BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T BREAK ANYTHING IN THE MIDWAY
That was a good point. The fortune teller knocked over her own machine. The knock-em-down dolls ripped themselves open. It was all an illusion. Every bit of it. None of it really happened. Maybe none of it really happened this time, either. But this time, he’d fought back, knocking over boxes and bins and trashing the decorations that he thought were attacking him.
Meaning he’d just vandalized the living hell out of Bellylaugh Playland’s storage room in a fit of paranoid insanity…
He reached up and rubbed at his neck where the vampire bit him. His fingers came back bloody. That was no illusion. No lame, plastic Dracula could’ve done that. Whatever it was that jumped onto his back had real teeth and claws.
So then, where was the line? What was real and what wasn’t? Where did reality give way to fantasy?
And just what the hell was he supposed to tell Melodi about all her decorations?
Halloween was next month…
He ran a hand through his hair and focused his attention on the phone. “How’s Paul?”
STILL LOST IN THE DARK
“Still?”
HE’S KIND OF FREAKING OUT, BUT HE HASN’T BEEN ATTACKED OR ANYTHING. JUST THINGS MOVING AROUND HIM. NOISES. THAT SORT OF THING
“Lucky him.”
I KNOW, RIGHT? WHEN YOU SAW THAT WEREWOLF, I ACTUALLY SCREAMED. IT SCARED THE HELL OUT OF HIM
IT WAS KIND OF FUNNY
“So any idea what’s going on here? How is it this clown thing can alter reality? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not just in my head anymore.” He rubbed at his shoulders, where the vampire sank its claws into him. He didn’t seem to be bleeding there, at least.
WE BOTH KNOW THAT REALITY IS SOMEWHAT SUBJECTIVE ANYWAY
That was true, he supposed. Most people didn’t believe in things like witches and golems. They went their whole lives believing magic was nothing more than make-believe. One person’s reality was another person’s fantasy.
“But turning Halloween decorations into monsters?”
YEAH, THAT’S A NEW ONE FOR ME
“I mean, how the hell does that even work?” He looked down at the headless witch. The thing wasn’t even poseable. It was literally a molded hunk of hollow plastic. All of them were like that. The vampire, the werewolf, Santa and his reindeer. The only exception was the skeletons. They were poseable, but only because they were several molded hunks of hollow plastic held together by hooks and wire. They couldn’t even stand on their own. They were made to either sit or hang.
WELL, WE KNOW MAGIC CAN MANIPULATE THE PHYSICAL WORLD. MAYBE OTHER TYPES OF ENERGY CAN DO THE SAME. MAYBE EVEN TO A MUCH GREATER DEGREE. MAYBE THIS DARK ENERGY I KEEP FEELING IS SIMILAR
“Or maybe Holly was right and we’re dealing with dark magic after all.”
IT’S ALWAYS POSSIBLE
Eric tiptoed through the wreckage and tried the door again. This time, it opened right up. The hallway waited on the other side, just as it should have. The lights were back on. And there wasn’t even anybody waiting there to see what he did to the storage room, for which he was extra-thankful.
Kacie said that the doors down here were always locking and unlocking themselves. Maybe they’d think one of the kids sneaked down here during the party and did it…
That wasn’t a very mature thing to do, but for now, he simply had no idea how the hell he was going to explain it. No one would believe the truth. He scarcely believed it. It was going to look like he simply let himself into the room with the keys he was given and trashed the place.
Add being attacked by a monster-and-Santa-team-up to his ever-growing list of things he never even considered could happen to him.
He closed the door behind him and then turned and scanned the hallway. It was quiet down here, but he could at least hear the noise from upstairs again. And it wasn’t cold, either.
Maybe the stupid clown had worn itself out and needed to rest for a while.
He turned off the light on his cell phone. He needed to be careful to conserve the battery. He didn’t have his portable charger with him. He didn’t think he’d be needing it.
“How’s Paul doing?”
But before Isabell could answer, the phone rang in his hand. It was Paul.
“Hello?”
“Get me the fuck out of here!”
“Are you still in the cavern?”
“No, I’m in some kind of maze now. I have no idea how I got here.”
“The mirror maze?” He really didn’t want to go back in that thing again.
“No… No mirrors… Just a bunch of cheap-looking, wooden panels.”
Eric ran a hand through his hair. “Panels?”
“Yeah… Too tall to see over, but some of them have little windows in them. Looks a little bit like a paintball course or something. Weird…”
“You’ve got to be somewhere inside the building. Just hang tight.”
“Hurry up. I’m freezing my ass off in here. And I swear something’s following me around in the dark. It’s fucking freaking me out!”
“I’m on my way.” He disconnected the call and looked up and down the hallway. There were about a dozen doorways down here. Paul could be behind any one of them. And so could any number of the clown’s ridiculous horrors. “A maze of panels…” he said. “Like a paintball course.” He looked down at his phone again. “I don’t remember ever hearing about them having paintball here.”
“They had laser tag,” said a small voice from behind him.
Eric turned to find a small, skinny boy of about ten standing in the middle of the hallway, staring up at him. He was dressed fairly nicely, in a clean, white, button-up shirt and neatly pressed pants. He was wearing a pair of glasses that looked too large for his small face and his black hair was neatly trimmed, as if he were all ready for picture day. “Hi there…”
“Hello.”
He looked around again. The boy wasn’t here a second ago. He was sure of it. “Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
“You have?”
The boy looked around at the empty hallway. “I kind of live down here. I’m William, by the way.”
“William,” said Eric. Not Will or Billy. William. “I’m Eric.”
“Nice to meet you, Eric.”
“You too.” What a cute kid. But what did he mean he kind of lived down here? He stared at him for a moment, considering him. “Are you…?” He didn’t want to say, “dead.” Or, “a ghost.” Instead, he said, “Are you like Todd and Eliot?”
“Uh huh.”
“I see.” How many of these kids were there? And why were they all here? Were they drawn here because they were children? To the playland and the arcade? To the presence of so many living children? Or maybe they were drawn to that energy
Todd was talking about. He hoped like hell that none of them had actually died here. He didn’t like to think about things like that.
But if he really was like Todd and Eliot… “Can you help me?”
William shrugged. “Maybe. Kind of depends on what you want help with.”
“Todd told me I needed to find Judith. Can you take me to her?”
But William was already shaking his head. “Only Eliot can do that.”
“Right. Eliot. I met him. He wasn’t very helpful.”
“Yeah. He can be…difficult to deal with.”
That seemed like an understatement. “He told me to find what was hidden in the basement. I don’t suppose he was talking about you.”
William shook his head. “Probably not. I’m guessing he means the secret room.”
“Secret room?”
“He’s playing with you, though. He knows you can’t find it. Not with the other world crossing over down here.”
Other world?
“He just wants to see if he can make you angry.”
Eric scratched at the back of his neck, confused. “Why does he want me angry?”
“He thinks grownups are more fun to play with when they’re angry. They get careless. Clumsy. It tickles him.”
Eric nodded. “Well that’s just great.” Eliot was the only one who could take him to Judith. And Judith was the only one who could tell him what it was he was up against or how to fight it. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
“Frustrating, I know,” empathized William.
“That’s putting it mildly, I think.”
He shrugged.
“So, I can’t help you find Judith. But I can help you find your friend.”
“My friend?”
“The one who’s lost?”
“Oh. Yes. You mean my brother.”
“Your brother?” He cocked his head, as if he found that fact curious. “Huh.”
“Do you know where he is? You said something about laser tag.”
“Yeah. He’s in the old laser tag room. Up on the second floor.”
“The second floor?” How the hell did he get all the way up there?
“But he’s also in that other place.”