"'Afterlife is not your choice,'" he chanted along with them. "'Suicide is not my voice.'" He laughed again and shook his head.
"Bunch of whackos," Lil muttered.
"It's important to be respectful," Allison said, peering back over her shoulder. "Humanity is undergoing a massive shift in consciousness right now. Some people aren't capable of handling it as well as others."
"Like Twitter," Ben said, and Lil laughed.
"We just have to allow each other space to deal with it in our own way," the therapist continued, ignoring his quip.
"But they're stuck in denial," Lil said. "Ghosts are real. Heaven is a fairy tale. Everyone just needs to accept that and move the fuck on."
"Don't forget Midian is where the monsters live," Ben added.
Allison arched an eyebrow at him again, not getting the joke. He knew Lilian got the reference—they'd seen the movie together—but she ignored him.
After the turnoff to Ghostland, traffic separated into four lanes onto property that had once been Burt Bucklebee's soy farm. Golden fields of remaining hay swished and swayed on either side of the road in the warm, sweet-smelling breeze.
Ben slipped half out the window to get a good look at Ghostland up ahead. He'd seen them raising the massive gray wall surrounding its perimeter on drives to the Wal-Mart in Hagerstown and doctors' appointments in Frederick. At the time, no one in Duck Falls had any clue what they were building out here, even most of the people constructing it. All they'd known was that the land had been zoned for a theme park, and that the trucks passing through town seemed to be hauling a lot of old buildings and vehicles and all kinds of junk out there. Nobody had any idea the park would change the shape of the world forever.
But with Ben's overactive imagination, he'd always believed something wasn't right about it. Driving by at night on the way back from shopping or a movie, he'd taken to holding his breath like a superstitious kid passing a cemetery. He supposed he might have somehow sensed Garrote House stood behind the wall even before the announcement was made… and that Rex Garrote's ghost had been biding his time within its haunted halls.
Peaked roofs and gables were visible now over the top of the wall, along with cable car support towers and what looked like the glass-roofed rotunda, which Ben thought must belong to the prison. With a bone-white moon casting shadows over these lonesome fields, it might have made him anxious. Approaching it in daylight was no more fearsome than a trip to the zoo.
Still, the wall itself troubled him. Why would they build it so tall you could hardly see the exhibits from the outside? Wasn't that part of the joy, the excitement of driving to a place like this, the anticipation that seeing all of the exhibits and rides in the distance brought? The flat cement wall seemed like something they would put around a government agency, not a theme park.
"Is that wall to keep people from sneaking in, you think?" He glanced over his shoulder at Lil. "Or to keep the ghosts from getting out?"
Dr. Wexler arched her eyebrow at him.
"Just curious," he said.
"They're gonna gitcha, Ben!" Lil shouted in his ear, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him briefly. He jumped in his seat and almost bumped his head on the ceiling, while Lil laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.
"Ha ha," he said. "You're so funny."
A bored woman dressed in an orange safety vest waved them toward the right. The parking lots to their left were already full. Allison turned into the mostly empty lot and quickly found a space. She unlocked the doors and the three of them got out of the car to stretch.
Ben's backpack glugged again as he slung it over his shoulder. Allison said, "I don't think they'll let you in with that."
For a moment he felt caught, thinking she must have heard the lighter fluid slosh. Then he relaxed. Even if she had heard, it she would have mistaken it for a water bottle.
"I have to bring it," he said. "It's got my pills and whatnot. I have a medical alert bracelet." He raised his arm to show her. The little metal medallion tinkled on its chain. Sunlight flashed off its surface into her eyes, and she squinted. "Sorry," he said, self-consciously tucking his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
"Well, it can't hurt to try," she said. "Worst that can happen is we have to leave it at the security desk, right?"
"Right," Ben said, thinking, Please, please, don't let that happen.
Lil said, "Less talky, more walky," and started toward the entrance.
Allison arched an eyebrow again before taking up behind her. Ben grinned and followed them, excitement hurrying his step.
Whatever lay ahead of them, he suspected the park itself would be a riot.
WELCOME TO GHOSTLAND
LILIAN GROANED AT the endless lines streaming toward the entrance. She hated crowds. They were part of the reason she disliked going to places like this. It wasn't that she was agoraphobic, she just wasn't very comfortable around strangers. Strangers were unpredictable. They were racists and homophobes and rapists. They were random acts of violence just waiting to happen, at least according to the news.
An old man in a vintage sport coat, his balding head covered by a crumpled tan fedora, glanced over his shoulder as Ben and Dr. Wexler stepped into line behind him. He gave Lilian a brief smile. Not creepy, just friendly. At eighteen, she'd already dealt with enough creeps to know the difference.
"I hope they have maps," Ben said, out of nowhere. "I like maps."
"You like them?" Lilian said.
"Yeah. I collect them," he said, beaming at her. He still had bedhead and a big hunk of hair on his crown bounced when he nodded.
Lilian couldn't help but snort. She'd almost forgotten how tragic he was. When they were kids it hadn't bothered her, she'd found it kind of endearing. Almost adorable. As a new adult Lilian had tried her best to block that period of her life out of her memory. She didn't need to be reminded of how much of a dork she'd once been herself. "Cool," she lied.
Ben's smile widened. He had no idea she was being sarcastic.
"You know, I collect maps myself," the old man in the crumpled fedora said. "Ptolemy, Kwon Kun, Mercator—all the big names. I'm a cartography buff, I guess you could say."
"Cool," Ben said.
The man grinned, flashing yellowed teeth too straight not to be dentures. "I don't know if it's cool but I know what I like."
"It's definitely not cool," Lilian said. The old man gave her a dismissive look before returning his attention to Ben.
"Those ancient sea maps are the best," Ben said. "The ones with all the sea creatures and stuff. Here be dragons."
The man smiled. "The Lenox Globe. That one's my favorite too." He reached a calloused hand past Lilian. "I'm Stan. Stan Beadle."
Ben shook it. "I'm Ben. This is Lil."
She gave him a look of death.
"Lilian," he backtracked quickly. "And that's Dr. Wex—I mean, Allison."
Stan shook Dr. Wexler's hand, repeating his name with a "Pleased to meet ya," then held his hand out to Lilian. She shook it, mumbling nice to meet you even though she didn't need anyone encouraging Ben's dorky behavior, and worse, the man's palm was clammy and gross. It took all of her will power not to squirt Purell into her hand from the travel bottle she carried the second he let go.
"So what, may I ask, brings the three of you to this most inauspicious of places?"
Ben said, "Well, ever since I first heard about it I've wanted go, and Lilian's therapist told her she needs to—"
Mortified, Lilian smacked him on the shoulder before he could reveal anymore of her secrets to some random old dude.
"Hey! What was that for?"
"For being the world's most clueless dumbass."
"Hey, kids, I don't want to get into the middle of a thing," the old man said. "Just curious is all."
"The kids—" Dr. Wexler caught the burning hatred Lilian fired at her and paused to course correct. "Lilian and Ben were going, and I agreed to chaperone. I intend to write a paper about the possible effe
cts of repeated Recurrence Field usage on the human psyche."
"Wow, that is…" The old man nodded, frowning in obvious confusion. "That's a lot of big words is what that is."
Dr. Wexler shrugged. "It's not really for laypeople."
"I wouldn’t consider myself a layman, exactly," the old man said. "I'm a detective." He shrugged. "Used to be. Retired six years come September. And I got nothing against shrinks personally, I just think you folks spend too much time tinkering with what's in here—" He tapped the wild gray hairs at his temple. "—that you sometimes miss what's right in front of your eyes."
Lilian watched her therapist's cool demeanor crumble like a day-old babka and she began to smile, enjoying this new dynamic. After all the time she'd spent trying to crack Allison and this old fart had figured her out in less than a minute.
"Agree to disagree," Dr. Wexler said, her jaw clenched.
"Fair enough." The line moved up and the detective shuffled forward. "Anyways, I'll let you get back to it. Pleasure to meet you all." He drew a thumb and forefinger around the brim of his cap the way cowboys did in old movies and turned to face the front.
Dr. Wexler continued to stare at the back of the man's head for a moment, her lips pursed. Lilian had never seen her therapist angry before, no matter how many times she'd provoked the woman herself. The detective had thrown some serious shade.
"Respect," she muttered to herself. Ben gave her a strange look. "What are you looking at, map boy?"
Ben laughed off Lil's attempt to embarrass him. The comment contained a layer of irony he wasn't sure she had noticed herself: when they used to game together she had constantly checked back with the map. If anyone should be called map-anything it was her.
He also realized Lil didn't like her therapist much. The detective had clearly upset Allison and Lil had seemed to take pleasure in it. He just hoped the two of them would loosen up a bit once they got into the park. Bad enough he had to deal with Lil's bitingly sarcastic animosity toward him without getting in the middle of a blood feud between doctor and patient.
Ten ticket booths stood out front of the large gateway with a separate line for each, although as they got closer together it almost seemed like one big mob. Their line progressed and Stan, the detective, bought his ticket and stepped into the park, tipping his hat in their direction.
Ben liked the man and wondered what he might be doing here. Some futurists had predicted a portable version of this new technology—the "Recurrence Field"—could be used to solve murders someday. Maybe Stan Beadle had considered this, and was here to crack an unsolved case. Ben thought that would be cool and it made him like the man even more.
Allison asked for three adult tickets. Lil gave her an appreciative look, as if she expected her therapist would try to get them in as "under 12." A ginger-haired kid Ben recognized as a former schoolmate from a grade ahead slipped three pairs of glasses through the brand-new Plexiglas window. Each headset was fitted with a pair of earbud headphones, and had two buttons on the right arm: a green Y and a red X. A small, blue LED power indicator glowed beside them.
Ben had only ever done virtual reality once, in a demonstration at the mall. The images had been blurry, the headset too tight and hot, and the machine had jostled him so much he'd jumped off and rushed to the bathroom, feeling like he was going to throw up. These headsets were supposedly AR—augmented reality—and not VR. The main difference was that AR overlaid images and sounds over reality itself, whereas virtual reality was entirely computer generated, essentially a 3-dimensional video game. With VR, the headsets were often large and clunky. Most AR games were only playable on mobile devices, like phones and tablets. According to an article Ben had read in Wired, these headsets—not much bigger than those blue-blocker sunglasses they sold to old people during daytime court shows—were brand new tech only available at Ghostland.
He glanced over to the booth to his left, where a group of Asian goth kids about his age slipped on their headsets, speaking excitedly to each other. With an I'm-about-to-lose-my-patience smile, the matronly ticket-seller at their booth asked, "Now ya'll wanted your language set to Japanese, is that right?"
Multiple languages? he thought. They really went all out with this.
Allison examined her pair. "How do these things work?"
"Those are your AR glasses," the kid in their booth said in a vocal fry drone. "You'll only be able to see and hear the exhibits when you wear them. If you start to feel disoriented or sick to your stomach, just remove the glasses. But you should get used to them pretty fast. Now you're gonna see some blue text on the inside of the glasses sometimes. That's the Heads-Up Display. To interact with it, just press the green or red buttons on the side of the glasses."
"Do we get a map?" Ben asked.
Lil chuckled and shook her head.
The kid pointed behind himself. "Maps are available just inside the gate there."
Ben watched Lil slip the glasses over her ears and pop in the headphones. She looked around, blinking rapidly. Her eyebrows rose above the black rims. "How do I look?" she asked.
He swallowed a hard lump, unable to stop the blush from rising in his face. "They're you," he said, and busied himself fiddling with his own pair. Ben hated his goddamned cheeks. Once they started burning, trying to stop it just seemed to make it worse. He glanced up at Lil, hoping she hadn't noticed, but she was looking at him with a sly grin as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Be careful," the kid in the booth said. "When you first put 'em on it might be a little scary." He blinked at Ben. "Hey, wait… aren't you the Dead Kid?"
"Boo," Ben said.
As he passed through the gateway, he noticed a metallic inner door he supposed could be raised and lowered like a castle gate. Heavy security. On the other side of the wall, several security guards stood patting down guests as they entered the park. The guard at the head of their line looked Hawaiian, with a tribal tattoo on his neck poking out above his collar. His name badge said NIKO.
Ben stepped up to the gate, trying not to look suspicious. Lil and Allison were already waiting for him just beyond the checkpoint. If he got caught now, they would have to go on without him.
"I need to check your bag, sir."
He heard a slight slosh of liquid as he handed over his backpack. The guard eyed him a moment and began rooting through it. He pulled out the water bottle first and shook it, causing a similar sound. He nodded and returned it to the bag, which caused the pill bottle to rattle. Niko scowled and pulled them out.
"What are these?"
"I have a heart condition," Ben said sullenly.
The guard nodded and tucked the bottle back inside. "Technically, we're not supposed to let in people with heart conditions."
Ben felt his chest tighten, and if he hadn't been in public he might have started crying. He was so close. If they didn't let him in after all the time he'd spent preparing, after getting Lil to come with him despite not wanting to, he didn't know what he would do.
"That's against my constitutional rights!" a tubby man with a bushy beard and a NO FEAR T-shirt shouted from the next line over. He wore an old Orioles cap over his shaggy brown mullet. "I've got my concealed carry permit right here, man!"
The security guard he showed the card to looked like he might be a part-time biker with his shaved head and black goatee. He gave it an impassive look. "Sir, this is a private enterprise. We don't allow guns in Ghostland. It's not a constitutional thing. You want to start a petition, you go ahead and do that. But you can't walk in here with that weapon."
"Everything okay, Leonard?" Niko called over, puffing out his chest.
The bearded gun owner looked back and forth between the two giants and his shoulders slumped, far out of his weight class. He slipped the small—almost dainty—pistol out of his jogging pants and handed it over to the man Niko had called Leonard.
"Thank you, sir," Leonard said. "Now let's go get that paperwork filled out. You can pick up your weapon�
�" He spoke the word with obvious ridicule, holding the offending object between thumb and pinky finger. "—when you leave the premises."
The guard drew the retractable belt, snapping the gate closed to the groans of everyone in line, and ushered the gun owner toward the security kiosk.
Niko smiled and tucked the pills back into Ben's bag. "Go on in," he said with a wink. "You look like you got a strong heart."
"Thank you!" Ben took his bag back and hugged it excitedly to his chest.
"Welcome. Keep those pills handy, huh?"
"I will."
He caught up with Lil and Allison.
"All good?" Allison asked.
He nodded, slipping the backpack over his shoulders, relieved he'd made it through. If the guard had found his lighter fluid, he'd made up a cover story about forgetting it from when he'd gone camping last weekend, but the story hadn't felt believable even to himself.
Right past the gates, a large, colorful park directory stood above a stand filled with maps. He crossed to it and plucked a map out of a slot. They were folded in three sections. The front section was the middle of the park, with the Ghostland logo stamped above a cartoon archway. "You guys want one?"
Allison shook her head. Lil shrugged. "I'll just borrow yours," she said.
He unfolded the map and flipped through it. One of the features was called Know Your Ghosts: A Guide to Ghostland. This contained brief descriptions of several types of ghosts—Poltergeists, Possessors, Orbs, and a handful of others Ben had never heard of—along with the histories of a few park highlights. He folded it up and tucked it into his back pocket, eager to look it over when he got a chance.
"There's the house," Lil said, pointing to an exaggerated cartoon of Garrote House in the upper right corner of the directory. "Looks like we might have to go through the jail to get there."
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