Rushed: All Fun and Games

by Brian Harmon

Then he heard something in the silence. A familiar murmuring sound. Or was it a whimpering? He still couldn’t make it out, but it was the same sound he heard the first time he went down to the basement, just before something awful appeared.

  They needed to get out of this labyrinth. But how?

  From somewhere in the distance, he heard another loud crash, followed quickly by a terrified yell. After a brief hesitation, he heard the same terrified yell blast out of the iPhone.

  Paul was in trouble!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Paul ran through the labyrinth, shouting curses at the top of his lungs as something large and powerful barreled after him, bursting through the flimsy, wooden walls as fast as he could dart around them.

  Eric couldn’t see them over the walls, but he heard the chaos and he ran toward it. (Although he had no idea what he was going to do if and when he was able to catch up to them…)

  He weaved his way through the maze, darting around the wooden panels, following the sound of his brother’s cursing and the smashing and splintering of old wood, adjusting his course when necessary, until he found himself running alongside them.

  They seemed to be about twenty to thirty feet to his left, assuming that sound didn’t travel strangely in this dimension.

  What was he even doing? This was insane. The absolute truth of the matter was that there was no way out. He didn’t bring himself here. He wasn’t in control. Even if he could catch up with Paul and somehow manage to evade the monstrosity that was tearing the place to splinters, what could they possibly do besides wander blindly and wait for it to find them again?

  Only the clown was in control. Only it could send them back. But why would it do that? With the two of them trapped here, there was no one to stop it.

  It had essentially already won.

  Paul’s terrified shouts had changed from panicked cursing to incoherent screaming as he ran for his life through the hellish nether-version of the laser tag arena. Now it changed again to a steady stream of foul, high-pitched curses as weariness and desperation began to set in.

  It also changed direction again.

  Eric paused, unsure what to do as he suddenly realized that Paul was now coming straight at him.

  Which meant that the monster that was chasing Paul was also coming straight at him.

  For a few, desperate seconds, he didn’t know what to do. He stood there, frozen in sheer panic as they drew closer and closer.

  Then he saw it.

  It bounded high into the air, rising into view over the sagging, wooden panels.

  He hadn’t spent much energy trying to guess what it might look like. These things usually turned out to be something completely beyond even his fairly impressive capacity for imagining. He’d simply pictured it as something resembling a classic minotaur. (It was a labyrinth, after all. And the thing did sound like it was running on hooves.) But it was no minotaur. It wasn’t part man, first of all. Neither was any part of it bull, ox or even yak. It had a large, but compact body, sort of like a massive gorilla, but hairless and pale, almost white in the light of his phone. All four of its limbs were outstretched in mid-leap, each of them ending in something that wasn’t exactly a hoof, but not exactly a hand, either. It wasn’t visible long enough for him to get a good look. In fact, the only thing he saw clearly was the thing’s face. It had enormous, blank, black eyes, no visible nose and a wide, tooth-filled mouth that split its face all the way across the middle.

  The monster crashed back down into the labyrinth, disappearing from view. He could hear the walls just beyond those in front of him shattering as it landed, crushed beneath its formidable bulk. At the same instant, Paul darted into view around the corner, still swearing in that terrified, high-pitched voice, and immediately crashed into him, sending both of them sprawling onto the floor.

  Before either of them could react, the monster burst through the wall, burying them both under a pile of ruined lumber. It then continued on its way, bounding along and tearing a path of destruction through the labyrinth, seemingly unaware that it had leapt right over its prey.

  Eric and Paul lay there beneath the shattered boards for a moment, gasping for breath and listening to the noise as the beast moved farther and farther away.

  That was another odd stroke of luck, Eric thought as he pushed aside the wreckage and rose to his feet. What were the chances of that happening as it did?

  He didn’t like the idea of a guardian angel. A lot of people found the concept comforting, but he found it unsettling. He didn’t like the thought that he wasn’t in complete control of his own life.

  Of course, it beat getting eaten by…whatever that thing was…

  But he didn’t think that had anything to do with any kind of divine protection. He didn’t think it had anything to do with luck, either…

  Paul sat up beside him and looked around, illuminating his surroundings with the little keyring flashlight he was holding. He was panting, nearly gasping for breath. And his eyes looked frightfully wild, as if the horrors of this world had terrified him beyond his mortal limits.

  But then he turned the light on Eric, blinding him. He stared up at him for a moment and then said in a hushed tone, “What the fuck took you so long?”

  “Glad to see you’re okay.”

  “Oh yeah. Just dandy, thanks.” He closed his hand around the flashlight, blotting out most of the light, and then stood up and looked around. “How do we get out of here?”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t even know how we got here.”

  “Then how’re we supposed to—” He snapped his mouth shut and took a look around, understandably paranoid. “How about let’s just get out of here before that thing figures out that I got away.”

  Eric nodded and the two of them took off through the labyrinth. It was pointless, he knew. If that thing had any hunting instincts at all, it wouldn’t have been fooled that easily. It should’ve been able to see their lights from almost anywhere in the labyrinth. And even if those enormous eyes were blind, it should’ve been able to hear them. Or smell them. Or at least some other, more exotic means of locating prey. Nothing got that big without knowing how to stalk and kill.

  No, something wasn’t right. He’d been in tight spots before. He’d had more than his fair share of narrow escapes. But this wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t Paul’s fast footwork that let him outpace the monster. It wasn’t dumb luck that they ran into each other. And it wasn’t a mistake that the monster lost them.

  They were herded here.

  They were being played with.

  “Doesn’t Isabelle have an idea how to get out of here?” asked Paul. “Isn’t she from a place like this?”

  I’M FROM WISCONSIN! said Isabelle.

  Eric held out his phone so he could read the message.

  “You know what I mean. After you…uh…disappeared.”

  I’M STILL IN YOUR WORLD, DUMMY

  Paul spent a brief moment looking confused before turning away, irritated. “Whatever. You both know what I mean.”

  Isabelle’s predicament was undeniably confusing. She could often look out a window and see the world as it was, as everyone else knew it. She could place her hands on the glass and be that close to home. But she could also look out a window and see a different world, one that was almost always empty and silent. Like the many buildings she traveled between, she was no longer fully a part of this world, but neither did she fully belong to the other one. She was trapped between them.

  “I’m not sure we can get out,” said Eric.

  Paul looked over at him, surprised. “What?”

  “Think about it. The clown wants that energy. All it has to do is keep us busy until three o’clock and it’s won. It has us right where it wants us. Why would it let us out?”

  “That’s bullshit,” growled Paul, looking around. “That’s cheating.”

  I DON’T THINK IT WORKS THAT WAY, said Isabelle.
r />   Eric looked down at the phone.

  IF IT WAS THAT EASY, IT WOULDN’T HAVE EVER LET YOU LEAVE THE MIRROR MAZE OR THE STORAGE ROOM

  She had a point, he realized.

  THERE HAS TO BE SOME REASON WHY IT LET YOU GO BOTH OF THOSE TIMES

  Paul pointed at the phone. “See? Bullshit. Even she says so.”

  Ignoring him, Eric asked Isabelle, “So what’s the reason?”

  I CAN THINK OF TWO THINGS. FIRST, MAYBE IT’S AS SIMPLE AS IT’S JUST NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD YOU INDEFINITELY

  “And second?” asked Eric.

  SECOND: MAYBE SOMEONE’S MAKING IT LET GO OF YOU

  “You mean like William.”

  EXACTLY

  “Who’s William?” asked Paul.

  “Later,” promised Eric. “So where’s William now?”

  PROBABLY RESTING. HE JUST SAVED YOUR BUTT IN THE BASEMENT, REMEMBER?

  “Right… So then what do we do now?”

  From somewhere in the darkness around them, a familiar, eerie giggling began.

  I’M GOING OUT ON A LIMB HERE, BUT TRYING TO STAY ALIVE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE MIGHT BE A GOOD PLAN

  “What the fuck is that?” groaned Paul as he turned around, stabbing at the smothering darkness with his light.

  Eric did the same with his phone. “That would be the clown I was telling you about.”

  “Oh. Is that all?”

  “Come on!” Eric took off running and Paul followed.

  That awful giggling never faded. It only grew louder, following them, closing in on them, always seeming to be coming from every direction, yet from nowhere at all.

  “I don’t like this!” groaned Paul.

  Eric turned a corner and stopped. “No!” he shouted. He hadn’t seen a dead end since he left the real laser tag arena, but now they were boxed in, trapped.

  “Oh, great going!” snapped Paul.

  Eric turned around, intending to backtrack, but he stopped again. Something was there, just out of sight, a shadowy shape against the darkness.

  The giggling grew louder and louder. All around them, things were suddenly moving in the corners of their eyes. Little black shapes darted in and out of view, always managing to vanish when they tried to look straight at them.

  “Goddamn clowns…” sighed Eric.

  “You always did have a thing about clowns,” recalled Paul.

  “It’s not a thing,” he snapped. “I just don’t like them.”

  “Whatever. Not like I can exactly blame you right now.”

  The eerie giggle was changing, becoming more of an evil laugh.

  “Impressive,” said Paul. “Some first rate supervillain shit right there.”

  Eric shrugged. “I’ve seen better.”

  The laughing suddenly died to a sinister chuckle and a monster began to emerge from the shadows.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was the same beast that chased Paul through the labyrinth. But at the same time it was something entirely different. Its face materialized from the gloom, just as Eric had seen it, pale and pasty, with huge, black eyes and that wide, toothy mouth that seemed to split its head in half. But where its body should’ve been, there was something else instead. The darkness there churned and writhed, heaved and swelled.

  It stopped there, just outside the light, a pale and monstrous, corpse-like face and a wriggling blackness that refused to reveal itself.

  Without taking his eyes off the thing before them, Paul said, “Remember what you were saying earlier about how I didn’t have to come running every time Karen called me?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “If I survive this, I’m thinking I might hold you to that.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” said Eric.

  That creepy chuckling devolved back into the eerie giggling and a fat rat scurried out of the shadows beneath the monster’s hovering face, passing through the light before disappearing into the shadows again.

  “That’s not a good sign…” said Eric, taking a step backward. He didn’t want to do the rat thing again. It sucked more than enough the first time.

  Another rat appeared from the shadows, followed by a second.

  Paul took a step back, too. “Aw shit… I think I saw this in a movie once or twice…”

  Eric started to take another step back, but another rat ran between his feet from behind. Glancing around, he realized that they were surrounded. The floor and walls were swarming with them.

  He wanted to flee. He wanted to run as fast and as far as his legs would carry him. But there was nowhere to go. Even if there was, it was pointless. No matter how far they ran, they’d still be stranded right here in the middle of this labyrinth. Because the labyrinth wasn’t endless at all. It was precisely the opposite. It was beginningless. They were caught between the worlds. In the fringe. There was no here or there. There was only the in-between.

  His skin was crawling, but he forced himself to ignore the rats and focused his attention instead on the monster in the shadows.

  It seemed to smile at him with that wide, toothy mouth.

  It didn’t need to step into the light. He already knew what the strange, wriggling darkness was. It was rats. More rats than he’d ever seen in his life. More than he’d ever imagined. The whole thing was one big mischief.

  That creepy, floating face opened its mouth, revealing a huge, gaping maw into which several of the fat rodents promptly scurried. With a swift and powerful chomp, the monster crushed them. Crimson blood oozed from its thin lips and dripped down its chin.

  There it was. The white, pasty face. The big, black circles of its eyes. And now the bloody smear of an evil grin.

  The clown.

  “We’re not afraid of you,” said Eric.

  Without taking his eyes off the horrid face floating in the rat-filled darkness, Paul leaned toward him and said, “We’re not?”

  “We’re not.”

  Paul nodded and stood up straight. “Right. We’re not.”

  “Liar…” said the giggling voice.

  Paul leaned toward Eric again. “He’s not buying it.”

  “It’s not real. If it was real, it would’ve killed us by now.”

  “Liar…” said the voice again. It seemed to be coming not from the monster before them, which didn’t even move its mouth, but from everywhere at once. The effect was chillingly god-like.

  The mischief of rats that made up the monster’s body began to fall apart and a swarm of screeching rodents poured across the floor around their feet and up the walls.

  “You know, this seems to be between you two, maybe I’ll just…be back here…” said Paul, backing away from the flood of vermin.

  Eric wasn’t sure when it happened, but the face hovering in the darkness had become more like the clown than the monster. Those huge, blank eyes were only black circles now, with smaller, human eyes peering out from inside. It had a nose now, too. But its mouth hadn’t changed. It was still impossibly wide, filled with sharp teeth and oozing hairy chunks of rat gore down its pale chin as it slowly chewed.

  “You can’t hurt us,” he said. He actually took a step toward the monster.

  “Liar, liar…” sang that eerie, giggling voice. “Liar, liar…”

  “Why does he keep saying that?” asked Paul.

  The giggling grew into a maddening cackle.

  Eric took a step backward. So much for the “I’m not afraid of you” approach…

  “Liar, liar…” laughed the clown. “Liar, liar, rats on fire!”

  And with that, all of the rats burst into flames.

  As the clown’s evil giggles rang out over the labyrinth, Eric and Paul found themselves trapped in a room with hundreds of screeching, darting, writhing torches.

  They jumped. They danced. They kicked. They stomped. They screamed and cursed.

  It was as if the fire itself had come to life and was trying to set their pants legs alight.

  The heat was intense.

  The stench was ind
escribable.

  One ran up Paul’s leg and he swatted it away, burning his hand in the process. “I thought you said he couldn’t hurt us!” he screamed.

  “What the hell do I know?” Eric screamed back as he kicked at one that seemed to be attacking his shoe. “I told you I was flying by the seat of my pants!”

  One of the rats leapt off the wall and onto his shoulder, with a shrill shriek, he slapped it off of him, but not before the flames scorched his shirt and singed his hair.

  Flames were everywhere. Even the walls were catching. At this rate, they’d be engulfed in seconds. At best, they’d suffocate in the heat and smoke. At worst, they’d live long enough to feel their flesh sizzle in the fire.

  “We have to get out of here!” shouted Eric. He turned and scanned the room. The monster clown was gone, along with the only way out. They were completely boxed in, at the mercy of the rats.

  “Here!” yelled Paul. He turned and kicked at the nearest wooden panel, splitting it apart and opening a narrow path. A few more well-placed kicks and the way was open.

  They ran through it and back out into the open labyrinth, only to find that the burning rats were everywhere. The entire world was ablaze.

  Paul cursed. “What do we do now?”

  “Run!” replied Eric. “Just keep moving!”

  But before they could make it very far, their path was blocked by the fat clown from the mirror maze and the midway. Like before, he was just standing there, a big, sweaty, unhappy-looking man.

  Paul staggered to a stop, cursing.

  Eric grabbed him by the shoulder and turned around. “Other way! Move it!”

  The old, wooden walls of the labyrinth were rapidly catching fire. And the rats just kept coming. They were getting harder and harder to avoid.

  They turned the corner, sprinted through the burning rats, and came to another abrupt halt as they found the path blocked by a portion of the wall that had collapsed and was burning out of control.

  “Back again!” said Eric. But when they turned around, another portion of the wall fell in, trapping them.

  “Now what?”

  But Eric didn’t know. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.