Rushed: All Fun and Games

by Brian Harmon

  “Don’t. Open. Your. Eyes.”

  The thing pulled itself up a little farther and pressed its cold, dead cheek against his. In a terrifying little voice, it whispered into his ear, “Will you hold my hand? I don’t want to go back to hell alone…”

  Eric screamed.

  But he didn’t open his eyes. Somehow he managed to keep them closed.

  And just like that, the dead girl was gone. So was the strange little crawling things. They were no longer on or under his skin. He could again hear the arcade.

  It was over.

  “That was outstanding, Eric,” said Isabelle. She sounded strange now. Weary. And much older all of a sudden. “I’m so proud of you…”

  Then the line went dead and she was gone.

  “Isabelle?”

  Nothing.

  He stood there for a moment, listening to the screams of children and the cacophony of the arcade, uncertain. Then, cautiously, he dared to open his eyes. He was standing in the hallway between the mini golf and the laser tag.

  He turned around, making sure he was really alone, and ran his hand through his hair.

  That was a horrible experience. He was still shaking.

  The door that led to the stairwell and the arcade stood before him. He remembered walking through that door, only to find himself in that dead-end hallway. But now he pushed it open to find only what was supposed to be there. The steps were on his right. The arcade was straight ahead.

  His phone rang. It was Isabelle again.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, sounding oddly worried considering that she’d just quite possibly saved his life. Again.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Thanks to you. How did you know what I had to do?”

  “Eric…”

  He frowned. There was an odd quiver in her voice. She sounded panicked, as if something had frightened her. “Yeah?”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  He blinked, confused. “What?”

  “I stopped being able to contact you when that wardrobe appeared.”

  He ran his hand through his hair again. “Wait… What do…?”

  “I don’t know who you were talking to during all that, but it wasn’t me!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eric had to lean against the wall to steady himself. What did she mean that wasn’t her? Then who the hell was he talking to during that horrible ordeal?

  And what, exactly, did it mean?

  He remembered losing contact with her. She completely stopped responding, making him fear that something had happened to her. At the very least, something was preventing her from contacting him, the way she was blocked from warning Karen and Holly about the clown by the gift table. But after a few blank texts, she was back. He thought that was her struggling to regain control, but now he wondered if that was instead the impostor overriding the connection before taking her place.

  “God, Eric… That was terrifying…”

  It was terrifying. And what was the point in it all?

  “The point is to make you waste time!” she said, replying directly to the question in his mind before he had a chance to ask it aloud.

  He felt himself deflate a little as he realized that she was right. That whole ordeal was just another ploy to make him waste precious minutes. That was all any of this was about.

  If he’d just kept his eyes open, would the whole thing have ended sooner?

  He felt like an idiot.

  “And how could you not know that wasn’t me?” pouted Isabelle.

  “How the hell was I supposed to know?”

  “I thought you knew me better than that…”

  He sighed. “Oh come on, I was a little distracted by that…whatever that thing was.” He could still feel where that creepy child climbed onto him, pulling herself up by his shirt. He went to straighten his collar and realized that it was stretched out. In fact, he could still see where the ghoulish little girl had clung to the fabric.

  Didn’t stuff like that disappear when the ordeal ended? All evidence of the rats had vanished.

  “I’m not going to lie…” said Isabelle. “That’s a little unsettling.”

  He brushed at the fabric, repressing a cold shudder.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” she went on. “You can’t waste any more time. You need to find Eliot again. Now.”

  She was right, of course. The party was half over. He couldn’t waste another minute.

  He stepped into the stairwell and gazed out at the arcade. For once it didn’t sound so obnoxious. It was far better than that cold silence. And a whole hell of a lot better than that eerie murmuring noise that came before the nightmares.

  When he glanced over at the prize counter, he found that Danielle was there. She was staring at him again.

  He looked away, uncomfortable.

  Why was she doing that?

  He strolled out into the arcade, trying to look as casual as possible, but he could feel her eyes on him. He felt self-conscious. Did he look disheveled? Was the scratch on his neck from his ordeal with the holiday decorations visible?

  Something was up with that woman.

  Maybe she had something to do with all this. Maybe he should confront her? For all he knew, she was another clown in disguise. (Which would make that clown nose rather ironic, he supposed.)

  He was wondering what he should do when his phone rang again. This time, it was Karen. He glanced back at Danielle (she was still staring at him, and it was still creepy) and then turned away and accepted the call.

  “Did you and Paul have a fight?” she asked.

  Eric blinked, surprised. “What? No. Why would we fight?” He and Paul didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but they rarely ever argued over anything.

  “I don’t know. I just saw him sulking over by the playland. I thought maybe you got mad and wouldn’t play with him.”

  He turned and walked back to the stairwell again, where it was marginally quieter—but not so far that he couldn’t keep one eye on the arcade to make sure it stayed put. “Oh. I told him to wait for me there. We got separated when the clowns and flaming rats attacked us in laser tag hell.”

  “Oh… Well that…makes…perfect sense… I guess… Did you find the monster yet?”

  “Not yet.” He glanced back again. Danielle was still there, still staring. “But I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the basement, because every time I go down there it throws a nightmare at me and kicks me back out.”

  Reluctantly, he turned away from the arcade and made his way down the stairs to the first floor, away from prying eyes. But he kept his ears open, listening to the music and screaming children. If it faded even a little more than it should, he was going to race back to it.

  “You know what, I’m not going to ask any more questions because all your answers are wackadoo.”

  “This place is wackadoo,” said Eric. “Seriously, when this is over, we are never going anywhere with clowns ever again.”

  “You should really face your phobias, instead of running away from them.”

  “It’s not a phobia!” he snapped. “Besides, I am facing it. And it’s kicking my ass!”

  “So what’s your next move?” she asked.

  “First, I’m going to go find Paul. And then I’m going to go play hide-and-seek in the playland with a little boy named Eliot.”

  “Oh… Well that sounds like fun…”

  “Not as fun as it sounds, actually.”

  “Huh.”

  He made it to the first floor without ending up in a remote suburb of hell. The arcade was still where it was supposed to be, meaning he was still where he was supposed to be.

  “Speaking of Paul,” he said. “Do you know what he tells Monica he’s doing when we do this stuff?”

  “He tells her he’s taking you to AA.”

  Eric stopped, surprised. “You knew that?”

  “Monica told me about that years ago.”

  “Wait…she told you?”

&
nbsp; “Yeah. He makes it up so he can go out and drink and go to strip bars and act like he’s twenty-one again. She lets him go and then she goes out for a night on the town with the girls. Sometimes I go with her.”

  Eric scratched at the back of his neck, confused. “So she knows I’m not really an alcoholic.”

  “Duh. She’s not stupid.”

  “But I thought that was why she started hugging me on holidays…”

  “It is. She doesn’t want him to catch on. She likes going out with the girls.”

  He shook his head. “And neither of you ever thought to tell me this was going on?”

  “It was too much fun. You always look like a deer in headlights when she hugs you. It was our little private joke. I’m going to miss that, actually…”

  He frowned at the floor. He didn’t like being somebody’s joke. “But she doesn’t know about this stuff, does she?”

  “No. She just thinks he’s out screwing around. She doesn’t think you guys do anything serious.”

  “Oh. Well that’s…good, I guess…”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s because Paul’s such a goof-off that she hasn’t caught on to how weird you are yet.”

  “I see.” It was like someone was punching him repeatedly, right in his dignity.

  “Seriously, though,” said Karen. “Are you going to be able to beat this thing?”

  Eric looked out at all the children. They all looked so happy. None of them had any idea that there was a monster lurking beneath their feet, biding its time, letting them continue to live only so that it could devour the ample energy they were giving off as they played. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I sure hope so.”

  Karen didn’t respond. He didn’t like it when she was quiet. It usually meant she was worried. And he hated to worry her.

  “It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I just have to talk to this Eliot kid.”

  “The one you have a play date with?”

  “He’s the only one who can help me understand what’s going on here.”

  “I take it Eliot isn’t on the guest list.”

  “No. I think he sort of lives in the playland.”

  “Does he?”

  Eric frowned. “What?”

  “You know… Live there.”

  “Not so much. No.”

  Again, she was silent. Karen didn’t like the idea of ghost children. She found it disturbing. And he didn’t blame her. It disturbed him, too. After all, Eliot only appeared to be about four years old. That meant that there was probably a family out there that lost their son before his first day of kindergarten.

  That was the kind of tragedy he wasn’t sure he could ever endure. The very idea was horrifying to him.

  But he couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t afford to mourn for lost children. The ones who were still alive still needed him.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  “Just keep the party going.”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, and if you’ve got any activities that might lure some of the kids out of the playland so it’s not so crowded in there, that might help.”

  “We don’t seem to have much control over this crowd. If we can find the birthday boy, we could try opening gifts. That might help a little. And if you hurry, some of them are still eating cake.”

  Eric nodded. “That might help thin it out a little. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Get out there and save the day again. And have fun on your play date.”

  “Yeah. Can’t wait.” He disconnected the call and stuffed the phone in his pocket. Then he set off through the arcade to find Paul.

  It wasn’t any more crowded than the last time he was here, but there was a definite change in the atmosphere. The children had been playing hard for two hours now, gradually wearing themselves out. And all of them had probably gorged themselves on cake and ice cream. At least seven children, mostly boys, were literally running around the arcade, screaming incoherently at nothing.

  No, at least nine.

  One little boy in particular was simply running in circles around a Spongebob Squarepants game until he was too dizzy to go on, then he stumbled and fell into the aisle, laughing himself into hysterics.

  There wasn’t even anyone else paying attention to him. He was only entertaining himself.

  Eric stepped around him and continued on his way.

  Hardly anyone was actually playing any of the games. (Most of them had probably exhausted their meager budget for arcade tokens long ago.)

  “Eric…”

  Eric stopped and looked around. That wasn’t Paul’s voice. Nor did it belong to anyone else he knew. It wasn’t even a human’s voice. It was mechanical.

  “Please, Eric…”

  He turned and looked at the screen behind him. It was one of those arcade classics machines, with Mrs. Pac-Man and Galaga in one cabinet. But neither of those games were playing on the screen. Instead, there was a grainy, black and white image of an empty hallway.

  “Please…” The voice was growing weaker. It was getting harder to hear.

  Why did the arcade keep begging him for help? Was it another trap? Another attempt to slow him down and make him waste more time? He didn’t trust it.

  He didn’t trust anything in this place.

  But he’d read enough mystery novels in his life to know that you couldn’t solve a mystery if you didn’t take the time to find all the clues.

  The image on the screen flickered away for a moment. When it returned, the hallway was no longer empty. A dark figure was there, walking slowly toward the camera.

  Eric resisted the urge to look closer. This was the part where the dead woman’s face liked to flash across the screen and scare the crap out of him.

  But it didn’t do that this time. The screen flickered again, and when it cleared, the figure was closer to the camera.

  As he watched, it stopped, turned to face the wall and then walked right through it.

  Another ghost roaming the building?

  He hoped it wasn’t another clown.

  “Hurry…” said the voice.

  Eric stared at the screen. That looked like the basement hallway, but he couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t anything on the screen to distinguish it from every other hallway in the building.

  Except…

  He leaned a little closer. There was a small smudge high up on the wall.

  What was that?

  Before he could look any closer, the image went black.

  He stood up straight again, confused.

  When the picture came back, he wasn’t looking at the basement. He was looking at himself again. Like before, the angle of the shot seemed to be from the point of view of one of the plaster clowns.

  He turned and walked away. He had to keep moving or he was going to run out of time.

  He stepped out into the party room. The place was a mess. Party hats, clown noses, empty cups and candy wrappers were strewn across the floor. Melodi, Kacie and Edna were all bustling around the tables, cleaning up the aftermath of the cake and ice cream.

  All the moms were still chatting away. The two dads were in their chairs. They both appeared to have nodded off.

  About fifteen children were still stuffing their faces. The rest had all gone back to playing.

  The boys from the zombie survival camp ran past him again, still screaming in gleeful, mock terror.

  They’d picked up a couple new members at some point, it seemed. But at least one of the original three was nowhere to be seen.

  Life was hard in the zombie apocalypse, it would seem.

  The little girl who was pretending to be a cat was still at it, too, surprisingly. She’d even found another little girl to play along. The latter was petting the kitty’s head while the former purred as loudly as possible.

  A ten-year-old boy ran past him, saying the word “waffle” over and over again.

  There were two babies crying, one little boy havi
ng a major meltdown in the corner and an older boy sitting alone in a chair against the wall, clearly in time-out. His arms were crossed, his lower lip was stuck out and he was angrily staring at the floor between his feet.

  A familiar little girl stood up on her chair and yelled, “Mom! Caleb keeps saying my cookie is a hamster!”

  Among all the chaos, however, he was pleased to notice that hardly anyone besides the staff was still wearing clown noses.

  “Eric!”

  Eric turned to see Holly hurrying toward him. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s kind of a bumpy road,” he confessed. “Has anything weird happened in here?”

  “No. Nothing. I’ve been keeping my eyes open, like you said. As far as I can tell everything’s perfectly normal. None of the clowns have moved.” She pointed at a fat one across the room. “I keep thinking that one’s looking at my butt when I turn around, but that’s probably totally my imagination.

  “Well don’t let your guard down.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  It made sense. The clown wouldn’t want to scare away the kids. They were its meal ticket.

  “But we’re almost out of cookies.”

  Eric stared at her for a moment, confused. “Okay… Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Only if you keep sending kids over to ask for treats.”

  “Sending them over…? Wait… What?”

  “They keep coming up to me and saying that Eric said they could have a treat.”

  Eric closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair again, frustrated. “I didn’t…” he started. Then he looked up at her again. “Once,” he said. “That little girl. Neveah. I sent her to tell you to give her a treat. To get her away from that clown.” He’d nearly forgotten about that in all the commotion.

  “It wasn’t just one little girl. Half the kids here told me you said to give them a treat.”

  Eric rubbed wearily at his eyes. “She must’ve told everyone she knew,” he realized. Little Neveah was making a fool out of them both!

  Holly stared at him for a moment, confused. “Wait… They lied to me?” She creased her brow and opened her mouth in an adorable “how dare they?” expression. “Those little sneaks!”