Hellhole

by Jonathan Maberry

  Then the wind had taken him. It snapped him out of the sky like a child plucking a wilted blade of grass.

  Vic grits her teeth. She smells briny cologne again and tries not to dry heave in Tiffany’s face, but the stench is stronger when the actress steps up to Vic, like she’s brewing Aqua Velva kombucha in her gut.

  “Why didn’t you tell us these tunnels were here?” Tiffany demands.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Bullshit. You must’ve surveyed the land before you overhauled the old park.”

  “I thought they were filled in,” she says. “Harlan said he filled them in.”

  “But you didn’t check?” Raymond asks.

  Vic exhales heavily. “Not personally.”

  Rina’s staring at her, looking like she bit into a bad apple. “You said you upgraded the security systems too.”

  “We did.”

  “And we’re just supposed to believe you?” Tiffany throws her head back with a laugh that echoes through the corridor. “You say you believed your dad when he claimed to fill in the tunnels, but you don’t actually think your dad was your dad after the first hurricane, do you?”

  Rina’s face screws up in confusion, so Tiffany looks to Raymond for support, which he hesitantly gives.

  “I do remember reading something about that, Ms. Fell. You told the cops your dad was an alien or something.”

  Vic grunts in frustration. She’s a grown ass woman. A Cornell graduate who’s worked as lead project manager with Fortune 500 companies. She’s run two successful small businesses, not including managing Fairy Funland’s massive overhaul. And a twenty-five-year-old actress with bleached eyebrows and scaredy-cat rent-a-cop are making her feel like she’s fifteen again: paralyzed with fear and certain she’s going to die under this goddamn park.

  “You know something?” Tiffany continues, now calling Rina into the circle of scorn. “I don’t think this is about protecting us at all. I think this is about you being down here during that storm when you were a kid. I think you’re scared, and we’re gonna die for it. Well, pardon my French, but fuck that, Ms. Fell.”

  Tiffany isn’t wrong. Vic is scared; more than she was an hour ago when she thought the damn tunnels were full of cement. But parts of her still scream out in the voices of the investigators and doctors who convinced her she was crazy. What she witnessed from the watchtower broke something in her, they said, disassociating her mind so far from itself that she invented trauma to suffer underground as well as above. Every harrowing second beneath her father’s theme park—the things she saw Harlan do, the demons he worshiped—she’d hallucinated them all, partly to mask her pain and partly to punish the father who failed to protect her.

  “This is crazy,” Rina blurts at Ms. Fell. “Why aren’t you denying any of this shit?”

  “Because there’s nothing to deny,” Vic replies softly. “Whatever you’ve heard about me, it’s probably true... and worse. And you’ll see that for yourselves if we stay down here.”

  With a stifled whimper, Tiffany collapses against a faded cartoon of a pixie beside the watchtower ladder. “Rina’s right. This is insane.”

  “I’m doing the best I can, and frankly I don’t care what you think about me right now. Any of you.” Peering at the group, Vic lifts her chin. “But I do value your safety, and I’m telling you these tunnels aren’t safe. As hospitable as they may seem, there are demons in the woodwork.”

  Tiffany snorts. “It’s stone, honey.” Despite her bloody nose and injured thigh, as she rushes to the ladder to call down the rest of the survivors, she looks like the cat that got the cream. They hurry down like starving kittens, thanking God and Tiffany for discovering salvation in the still-accessible tunnels.

  The smell rises again, and Vic knows the hyperia are watching her. Though her knees soften at the terror of her earlier decision, she braces herself on the map of the underground chambers and calls for attention from the clammy crowd.

  It doesn’t come easy. Half of the actors portraying Fairy Funland characters look to Tiffany and a few others look to Raymond as the only remaining security guard. But their gazes eventually sweep to their boss when she says, “I’m the only one who’s spent any time down here.”

  She traces her finger across the faded map and draws several circles in the dust. “There are three access points to the grounds, as well as several chambers that were used for costuming, rehearsal, and breaks, but I’m not sure what condition they’re in. As far as I know, they haven’t been used since 1991.” She glares at Tiffany, who’s conveniently tossing her gaze around the corridor. “Raymond and I will investigate the areas ahead to make sure there aren’t any leaks or weak spots,” she continues.

  The security guard flinches but salutes, causing the older man portraying The Sleeping King to raise his tattooed arm.

  “I’ll come with you,” the king says.

  “Thank you, Tom. Anyone else?”

  Ben, still dressed in his skin-tight time-traveling knight costume, points to the largest chamber on the underground map. “With your permission, Ms. Fell, I’d like to lead everyone here. If it’s not filled in either, it stands to reason there might still be supplies.”

  “Be careful, all of you. Stay together. And should you reach the northern exit,” she says, circling what looks like a waffle embedded in a cliff, “turn around immediately.”

  “Where does it go?” Rina asks.

  Tiffany whistles, walks her fingers to the edge of an imaginary cliff, and plummets them into the abyss.

  “We’re going to check it out, so there’s no reason for any of you to take the risk,” Vic says. “But for god’s sake, speak up if you see something strange.”

  “Like what? Little alien crabs?” Tiffany snickers and elbows a teenage boy who portrayed a dancing flower.

  He doesn’t respond. He stares at the floor and continues crying.

  As the trio set off to inspect the entryways and the others prepare for the march to the break room situated under the northern quadrant of the park, Vic looks back on the shivering clusters. Nearly three dozen employees stood in the atrium for the mock run that morning. And of the twenty yawning performers and makeup artists, a handful of security guards dressed in padded suits of armor, and a dozen actors playing park guests who lined up with the rising sun at their backs and not nearly enough caffeine in their bloodstreams, only nine remain.

  And not one checks to make sure Rina Bestler is following them.

  Rina sinks to the floor, alone. Her stomach swells with anxiety as the group heads down the hall. Her fairy princess costume is too tight and she can’t catch a breath. With a desperate grunt, she widens a hole in her shredded sleeve and tears along the seam until she can fill her lungs. She isn’t supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be four hours into her rink time. She’s supposed to be bruising the hell out of her ass trying to add another rotation to her double axle. Never mind she was thinking the same thing during morning line-up. And on the drive to the house overlooking the park. And every single goddamn minute since the accident.

  Whenever Rina thinks about medals and trophies in dank basement boxes, or how magical it would’ve been in South Korea under fresh snowfall, a new bloom of self-hatred opens inside her. It’s nearly a garden now, reeking and tangled as she fantasizes about Olympic glory while her peers bob facedown in the water.

  Her knee is skinned to shiny meat, but she rests her forehead on it, savoring the sticky sting all the way through her body. It might be the last thing she feels, so why not indulge in it?

  Covering Rina’s toes with her wet slippers, Tiffany extends her hand, and Rina recoils so hard she knocks her head on the wall.

  The actress, who said barely a word to her over the last month, drops to a squat and curls her hand around Rina’s head. “You okay? I know this can’t be easy for you.”

  Rina didn’t let the best skaters in the world touch her when she couldn’t remove a warped blade guard, so she shrinks away from Ti
ffany’s touch. Rocking to her feet, she thanks her and starts away, eyes to the floor.

  “Would this help?”

  When Rina swivels around, the local actress slides a mini bottle of Southern Comfort from her pocket and dangles it in her face. “I found it in the kitchen right there. Plenty more like it too. Must’ve been Harlan’s secret stash.”

  Rina desperately wants a drink. She had sips of champagne here and there growing up, but in contrast to the rumors flying around the park, she never had more than that before the night of the accident. She never craved it, never thought it was an easy way out. It was all a mistake, exacerbated by the fight she’d had with her parents that night. She told them she wanted to go to college, but they wouldn’t even discuss it. Her life was skating and competition. Her life was gold. Her life was theirs.

  Sensing her hesitation, Tiffany laughs. “I don’t think you’re gonna crash any cars down here, honey.” She apologizes but doesn’t look like she means it. “I’m just saying.”

  “I wish you hadn’t.” Rina pushes past Tiffany to the kitchen, but the actress follows close behind.

  When Rina opens a random cabinet, Tiffany giggles.

  “You really got a nose for it, huh? That’s where I found it,” she says, twisting off the cap. “Hand me some more, would ya?”

  Reaching past a stack of paper towels, Rina discovers an incomplete pyramid of mini liquor bottles.

  “We’re going to be stuck here a while. Come on. Help me make the best of it.”

  Rina passes the SoCos to Tiffany and shakes her head. “No thanks. Being drunk off my ass when we’re rescued probably isn’t what I need right now.”

  Tiffany laughs. “You say that like you actually think we’re getting out.” Spinning on her toe, she dances to a moldering sofa that spews squelchy debris when she flops down. “Don’t you know? We’re all gonna die down here.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Tiffany laughs as she twists off another cap and lobs it like a basketball into the scummy sink. “Well,” she says after a guzzle, “if this was the first time, I’d say sure, Ms. Fell needs as many of us to survive as possible. She would still be able to salvage her reputation. But there’s no coming back from this. She failed on Wall Street, she failed at the family business, and now—” She drinks the rest and hurls the bottle at the sink, narrowly missing. “Dang!” She opens a tiny gin and sniffs cautiously. “Anyway, she doesn’t plan on surviving, so why should we?”

  “That’s a bleak outlook.”

  Tiffany lifts her eyebrows. “Did you see the same shit I did? All those people? All those dead people? And that storm... it... ” She drinks the gin and shudders as she swallows. “It was alive. It was... fuck, I don’t know, some kind of monster.” When Rina stares blankly, Tiffany rolls her eyes. “Anyway, don’t tell me that you, a disgraced Olympian, want me to look on the sunny side. That ain’t happening, sister.”

  Rina wipes sweat from her brow and it stings; she must’ve cut her scalp. With a wince, she sits beside Tiffany on the crusty couch. “I thought you didn’t believe in monsters.”

  “I said I don’t believe Vic.” Swinging her gaze to Rina, she says, “I absolutely believe in monsters.”

  “Okay. So what do you think she saw when she was a kid?”

  Tiffany shakes her head. “If we’re getting into this, you can’t make me drink alone.”

  Rina sighs as she opens her palm and Tiffany slaps on a mini whiskey. Twisting off the cap, she says, “Bottoms up,” and takes a sip. She gags and coughs, and Tiffany smacks her on the back.

  Leaning back, the actress huffs. “Look, I have no problem admitting I wanted to work here, but it was just because of my mom. I wanted to play the part that made her career. The part that... ” She rolls her focus to the ceiling and shakes her head. “I wanted it, okay? But I almost didn’t audition at all because of the rumors about Ms. Fell. She went crazy after the Ghost, started telling people her father was an impostor.”

  Swallowing another mouthful of whiskey, Rina flinches. “Why would she do that?”

  “He fell out the northern exit,” she says, having too much fun as she jumps her fingers off the imaginary cliff again. “Right into the bay. I guess she thought he was dead or swept out to sea, cuz they didn’t find him after. Not until a few days later when some hikers found him on the beach.”

  “You’d think she’d be happy he was alive. Why would she say he was an impostor?”

  Tiffany grabs Rina’s shoulders, howling as she shakes her, “Because she’s crazy! Why else would she reopen this hellhole?” She shoves Rina a little too hard and the girl tumbles off the lumpy couch with a shriek.

  Someone shouts from the main corridor and footfalls echo in crescendo. Ben jogs into the break room, his face flushed with fear when he asks Tiffany, “Everyone okay?” But the fear vanishes, sours to a twitchy pit, when he sees Rina.

  She hides the mini bottle behind her back, nodding as she stands and dusts off her gown.

  “She’s fine,” Tiffany says, joining her side. “Though she’s much more of a lightweight than I would’ve thought, especially for someone who carries around little baby boozes.” She kicks an empty bottle and winks at Ben.

  “Me? You’re the one who found them!”

  “Well, yeah, after you told me you held onto a bunch during the storm. That was pretty impressive. All those people getting killed and you held onto your booze.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Look! She’s trying to hide one right now!” Tiffany tugs on Rina’s arm, exposing the half-consumed bottle, and the skater’s face burns in humiliation.

  Ben forces an amiable smile. “It’s not a big deal. I was coming to check on you anyway and wanted to make sure no one was hurt. And the break room down the way is in pretty good condition if you want to join us, Tiff. Better digs than this. Bunkbeds, cots, the whole nine yards. There’s even some bottled water from the 90s.”

  “Thanks, but I’m gonna stay with Rina a little longer. She needs all the support she can get right now.”

  Rina’s brain boils with baffling rage, but she keeps her head down, her hands clenched, until Ben’s footsteps disappear.

  “Not that this comes as a surprise to you,” Tiffany says as if replying to a conversation taking place in her mind. “She’s doing stupid crazy things all the time.”

  Jumping to her feet, Rina shoves herself in Tiffany’s face and backs her against the sink. “What the hell was that about? Why did you lie about me?”

  She bats her large blue eyes. “Lie?”

  “The bottles! Why did you tell him they were mine?”

  Tiffany cocks her head and furrows her brow in puzzlement. “Tell who, honey?”

  The cut on Rina’s scalp aches when her nostrils flare. She backs away, suddenly overcome by nausea. For a moment she thinks she’s still in the car after the accident, her swollen head bobbing on her shoulders and dust rising from the busted airbag. Tiffany’s image doubles before her, and she stumbles to the side, bracing herself on a wall decorated with a massive cartoon of a smiling sun.

  “Help!” Tiffany screams. “We need help!”

  Someone shouts from the main corridor, and footfalls echo in crescendo. Ben jogs into the break room, his face flushed with fear when he asks Tiffany, “Everyone okay?” But the fear vanishes again, souring to a twitchy pit just as it did the first time.

  “We were just talking and it looked like she was going to pass out,” Tiffany says.

  Ben helps Rina to the couch, where she flops forward on her lap and hangs her head between her knees. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not drunk. I swear I’m not drunk.”

  “Of course you’re not,” Ben says, patting her back. “Where the heck would you find booze around here?”

  When Rina lifts her head, Tiffany is crouched in front of her with concern etched into her expression. The bottles and caps she’s been tossing haphazardly around the room are mys
teriously absent, along with the one Rina was working on.

  Rina grips her head and whispers. “What’s happening to me? I feel like I’m losing it.”

  “Hey,” Ben says, catching her focus, “we’ve all been through a lot. You’re hurt, you’re probably dehydrated. Why don’t you join us in the break room, Tiff, and let Rina take some time for herself?”

  “Thanks, but I’m gonna stay a little longer. She needs all the support she can get right now.”

  Ben shrugs and leaves the room, his squelchy footsteps again fading into the distance.

  When Tiffany sits beside her, Rina buries her face in her hands. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Was there never any alcohol?”

  “When? During your accident?”

  “No! Today! Right now, goddammit!”

  “Okay! I’m sorry! Jesus Christ, Rina, I don’t know what’s going on with you.” She grunts. “I hate suggesting this, but maybe we should get you to Ms. Fell.”

  “I thought you said she was trying to kill us.”

  “What? No!” Tiffany laughs and throws her arm around Rina’s shoulders. “No, no. I just think she’s not going to save us—if it comes to it, I mean. But I’d completely understand if you do want to go to her. Hell, maybe I even understand why she chose you over me for the part. You’ve both been publicly disgraced. You’ve lost everything.” She hums as she stands and looks down on Rina. “Now that I think about it, you probably don’t want out of here any more than Vic does. I mean, what do you have to go back to? I know your parents kicked you out.”

  Rina doesn’t answer. She can’t. Her gut whirls with such incendiary acid, she feels like it might spurt out in a skull-dissolving geyser if she doesn’t lock her jaw.

  Tiffany closes their distance with a smirk. “And I know what you want. More than anything in the world, I know you wish you could go back to the way things were—back to the ice, back to the team.” She crinkles her nose. “I can help with that, you know.”

  Rina scoffs, her rage shrinking into laughter. “How? Your mom? The first Princess Papillon? If she couldn’t get you the part you wanted, what makes you think she has the sway to help me?”