Ghostland

by Duncan Ralston

  BEN WATCHED THE young couple step out of a passage at the foot of the stairs. They screamed at the sight of Rocky Arnault's ghost and the man slashed at them with the hacksaw. Shying away from it, the couple turned in Ben and Allison's direction, their outstretched hands pressed flat against glass, going white as the blood fled escaped their capillaries. The guy said, "Mirror!" The woman hugged him and they turned around. Ben hurried forward and his nose slammed into glass. Allison almost bumped into him. She looked around in confusion and vague irritation.

  "There they are," she said, pointing toward the moving staircase. She headed for the stairs. With her glasses off she couldn't see the ghost hovering there.

  "Be careful," he said. "He's right there."

  Allison scowled back at him. "They're harmless," she said. "Lilian needs our help."

  Ignoring the warning, Allison stopped directly in front of the ghost. It eyed her with curiosity, cocking its head to watch as she stepped onto the first of the herky-jerky stairs. She grabbed the handrails and began her cautious, wobbly ascent, while Rocky slashed at her with the bloody hacksaw, its jagged-toothed blade swishing through her. Allison didn't even notice.

  Steeling himself, Ben stepped through the ghost and onto the first stair. Each step titled and jerked mechanically, up and down and side to side, jostling them as they ascended. He had to keep his hands flat against the walls so he wouldn’t stumble.

  The ghost was still watching them from the bottom of the stairs, his body parts pieced back together like Frankenstein's monster. Ben raced past Allison, who held the railing in a death-grip, seemingly unsure where to step next as the stair she was on rose up and down and the next two moved side to side in opposing directions.

  Ben flew over them, his feet barely touching the ground. Allison could handle herself. Lil needed him. Nothing else mattered now.

  He pushed through heavy, clear plastic-strip curtains like the kind found in meat lockers—covered in visible fingerprints and likely sweat and saliva, possibly even a few stray boogers—and stepped out onto a balcony lined with convex funhouse mirrors. From the far end he heard Lil scream, "Why are you doing this?" over the rumble of the moving staircase.

  In the midway below, people milled around eating junk food, laughing, playing carnival games and listlessly weaving their way through the crowd. The giant gorilla swung out his furry forearms, momentarily blocking out the sun as it slowly beat its chest. "Baby Elephant Walk" looped again from the speakers, close and loud.

  Lil screamed again, behind a thick black curtain leading into the gorilla's chest. He hurried past the mirrors, not caring how he might look as fatter or taller kid and certainly not shorter or skinnier, his shoes clanking on the platform grating. He pushed through the black fabric and hurried into a small room, its walls painted luminescent red to look like the chambers of a heart. They seemed to grow and contract in time with a heartbeat pounding over the loudspeakers.

  His own heart beat rapidly. Got to calm down, he thought. But when he spotted Lil crouched in the far corner, hugging her legs and rocking forward and back, it only made him feel worse. He hurried to her side. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she stared out into space, like she didn't see him there at all. She was counting the beads on her bracelet again. Her headset lay broken at her feet.

  "Oh my God!" Allison gasped behind them.

  Ben put a hand on Lil's shoulder. She flinched and her gaze darted toward him. "Ben… is that you? Is that really you?"

  He nodded cautiously. "Yeah. It's me," he said, thinking, Who else would it be, Lil? What happened to you?

  She touched his face and drew her hand back quickly, startled, like she'd expected to touch cold glass or for her hand to go right through him, like she thought he might be a reflection… or a ghost.

  "What happened, Lilian? Are you okay?"

  "We have to go," she hissed, her eyes darting around the throbbing chambers of the heart, the darkened corners, her face bathed in its blood-red glow.

  "Okay, we can go now," he told her, much more calmly than he felt. "There's probably only one or two more rooms—"

  "No." Her gaze flicked toward the black curtain leading out. "Not out of here, out of this whole place! Out of Ghostland! There's something wrong here, Ben."

  She fixed him with a dead-serious stare, the fear in her eyes unlike anything he'd seen outside of a movie. He half expected to find, once they left this room and its angry red lighting, that her hair had gone partly white like it often did in old black-and-white horror movies to people who'd borne witness to Things that Should Not Be Seen and Could Not Be Unseen.

  "Something is really wrong!" she cried, snatching out to grab him by the shoulders. He took her hands gently and placed them in her lap as Allison knelt down opposite him.

  "Lilian, everything's okay," the therapist said. "We're going to get you out of here."

  "Dr. Wexler?" Her eyes flicked toward the woman.

  "I'm here."

  Ben hadn't ever heard the woman speak so softly, so much like a therapist. She slipped a hand under Lil's elbow.

  "Come on, sweetie. You're safe now."

  "Am I?"

  "Yes. I promise you are." She helped Lil to her feet. Lil swooned and placed a hand against the wall to steady herself, while Allison took much of her weight.

  "You have to stay with me, Ben," Lil told him.

  He swallowed hard and said, "I will."

  "Promise me!"

  "I promise I won't leave you, Lilian," he said, picking up her headset and tucking it into his backpack where it settled against the Garrote book. He tried to smile for her but the lie made it twitch on his lips.

  She nodded, causing a tear to run a shimmery trail down her cheek. Allison led her out of the giant's beating heart. Ben followed them, disappointment weighing him down.

  It was entirely possible something bad really was happening here, like Lil said. He knew that. He could almost feel it himself.

  But Garrote House still called to him, more desperately now than ever. Particularly if there was something dangerous in this place. He had to go there, he had to find the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings. He'd never be able to convince Lil to stay though, not after this. He supposed he'd have to come back some other time, on his own if it came down to it, but once his parents discovered he was gone today it would be even more difficult to get out of the house next time. They would probably keep watch on him twenty-four-seven. Even if he could manage to get back here, it wasn't likely to be so easy to get through security with the lighter fluid, the matches, his pills. He'd be busted for sure next time.

  The three of them staggered out through the spinning vortex, dazed and on edge, and while Allison comforted Lil, Ben looked up at the giant gorilla beating its chest and wondered what the hell had happened to her in there.

  "Lil… Lilian," he said. Allison was smoothing Lilian's hair. "Were you wearing your glasses inside the funhouse?"

  Lilian's head jerked in his direction.

  "They were broken," he said, pulling them out of his bag to show her. "Did you drop them?"

  She nodded. "I h-had to," she said. Her teeth chattered. "He was following me. I couldn't see him without them but he was… he was stalking me."

  Allison looked around cautiously. "Who was stalking you, Lilian?"

  "The ghost. With the c-cleaver."

  "From the tram?" Ben asked, hoping she hadn't heard the doubt in his voice. He'd expected her to say "Rocky," to tell them she'd been chased by the limbless ghost, dripping with gore as it floated or crawled after her through the maze. To hear her say she'd been followed all the way out here by the ghost from the tram… he wasn't sure if he could vouch for her sanity anymore.

  Allison raised an eyebrow at him. "Lilian, that ghost couldn't have followed you. It's just a hologram. A small part of a computer program."

  "I know what I saw!" Lilian's lower lip quivered as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. "He kept pushing me. I ran… I ran in here t
o hide from him but he followed me in. I don't care if it's not possible, that's what happened—I know it's what happened! He was trying to kill me!"

  Allison hugged Lilian against her chest. "Okay, shh. We're here with you now. It can't hurt you. Whoever or whatever it was can't hurt you anymore."

  Lilian shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut. Ben studied her expression. He knew she didn't believe Allison and he wasn't sure he believed her either. She didn't just seem to be messing around to get attention or to make sure they wouldn't stay. He would have called her out if he'd thought so. Whatever had happened to her in there, Lilian actually believed she'd been targeted.

  Harassed by a ghost.

  Haunted.

  Something was badly wrong, just like she'd said.

  Lilian Roth was losing her mind.

  Or Ghostland is real, he thought.

  Whichever it was, Lil needed help. She was cracking apart—worse than the day he'd woken up after surgery to find her sitting at his bedside in the hospital. And he refused to stand by and watch that happen again.

  BREATHER

  ONCE THEY’D GOTTEN Lilian back out into the midway Allison pulled Ben aside. "This is exactly what I was worried about," she told him in a hushed tone.

  He eyed Lilian to make sure she wasn't listening in. She was still toying with her bracelet, staring vacantly into the crowd. Tears had streaked her mascara. She'd wiped it off on her sleeves but the result had given her eyes a haunted, skeletal look.

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  Allison shot Lilian a look of concern. "I think she may be experiencing vivid hallucinations caused by prolonged exposure to the AR glasses or the Recurrence Field technology."

  "What if she's telling the truth?" Ben wasn't sure he believed Lil himself, but the alternative was worse. If anyone could start hallucinating at any given moment this place was headed toward a major disaster.

  "Either way, she needs help," Allison said. "And I don't think we're capable of providing it, knowing as little as we do about the technology. They must have done trials, double-blind studies." She shook her head in uncertainty, adding, "Something like that."

  Ben considered it. He tried to recall the message that had appeared on the inside of his glasses when they'd first entered the park. Other than leaving Ghostland—which he still didn't want to do, not before doing what he'd come to do—it was the only thing he could think of to help her.

  Not the Suicide Prevention Officers, he thought, hopefully it won't ever come to that. But suddenly he remembered and blurted out, "Guest Services!"

  Allison gave him a strange look.

  "Remember the message? 'If you feel like you're being targeted by a ghost go to Guest Services right away.' Or something like that."

  Lilian had returned to their side and gave Allison a hopeful look. She'd been listening in, at least to the tail end of their conversation.

  The therapist nodded. "Let's see if we can find one."

  Ben got the map out of his back pocket and unfolded it. The legend had a section for SERVICES with different icons for Food (a pizza slice), Washrooms (little male and female symbols), First Aid (the Swiss cross), and Security (a badge). He found the little orange question mark for Guest Services at the western edge of a snaking blue line that would likely be Conococheague Creek and traced the way back with his finger. From where they stood at the end of the midway, they would have to cross the creek on what appeared to be a covered bridge and go past Ghost Town, USA[x]—a Wild West town marked with an ominous cartoon skull and crossbones wearing a black cowboy hat.

  "Okay, I can get us there," he said. Lilian eased a little, enough to smile and relax the hunch in her shoulders, but not enough to give up on twirling her bracelet. "It's much closer than the entrance, and we won't have to go back on the tram. Looks like it shouldn't take long. It's too bad we can't stop at Ghost Town, USA, though. I heard they have this huge shootout every half hour. It sounded pretty cool from the ads."

  "Maybe next time," Lilian said, though he doubted she was serious.

  "You think you'll be okay?" Allison asked her. "I can hold your hand if you like."

  "Don't be extra."

  "Extra what?" Allison asked.

  "I said don't be extra."

  Still got her sarcasm, Ben thought. That was a good sign, at least.

  "How about if I keep watch?" he suggested. Lilian and Allison gave him uncertain looks, so he explained: "I'll put on my headset so you don't have to. That way if the creep from the tram comes back—" He nearly added or anyone else, for some reason thinking of Rex Garrote, but he caught himself just in time. "—then I can warn you."

  Lilian considered it a moment. She wiped her tears with the sleeve of her jean jacket and nodded.

  Ben smiled at her and put on his glasses. She returned the smile warily and the three of them set off toward the bridge.

  The other visitors shrieked and gasped and laughed at exhibits, everyone having a great time, while Lilian sulked and Ben stalked ahead, blazing a trail through the crowd.

  Even though he wasn't sure he believed she'd actually seen the maniac from the tram, he kept a wary eye out for it. But apart from the ghosts held securely within their exhibits, caged between the Tesla poles like animals at the zoo, he didn't see any at all.

  Lilian still couldn't recall anything that had happened to her inside the funhouse. She remembered running inside, fleeing from the knife-wielding maniac, and then she was outside again, reunited with Ben and Allison, streaks of mascara itching her cheeks, her hands and knees bleeding and bruised. She was sure the lobotomized monster had found her in the maze and attacked her again, but she couldn't remember how she'd managed to escape him or how Ben and Allison had gotten her out of there. The rest was a blur of blacklight flashes and warped reflections.

  Her stomach began to rumble as they passed through a sweet-smelling cloud from the nearby ice cream stand. The scorched-sugar tang of freshly made waffle cones and real vanilla. She craved chocolate, but anything to soak up the churning stomach acid would sure "hit the spot," as her dad often said after supper. "Guys, can we stop? I'm starving."

  Ben plopped down into a molded plastic seat. He swung his backpack onto the table—it made a hollow metallic clunk as his water bottle or whatever hit the plastic tabletop—and he unzipped it, rummaged for a second and pulled out a granola bar. There were only a few people seated at the other tables, eating ice cream, banana splits and hot dogs. They ate mechanically and spoke in hushed voices, if at all, as if the horrors they'd been through getting this far had traumatized them as much as Lilian felt now.

  "I guess we could stand to take a break," Allison said. "I need to use the facilities."

  Lilian sneered at the word "facilities," and while her therapist headed off toward the washrooms, she slipped a few folded bills out of the tiny front pocket of her jeans and approached the ice cream stand. She waited her turn, keeping watch for the maniac from the tram even though she wasn't wearing her headset, merely watching the faces of the others gathered by the food court to gauge their reactions. Because if a ghost happened to wander into their midst while they ate their snacks and early lunches, Lilian wouldn't be the only one worrying.

  Ben chewed his granola bar and glanced around at the wandering crowd. Despite how he'd likely led Allison through the mirror maze to get her, Lilian, to safety, it was obvious his heart was no longer in it. It wasn't fair to make him continue while she and Allison remained blissfully unaware. She would have to suck it up and put her own glasses back on soon. Ben needed his partner back. Someone to watch his six for a change.

  The woman in the truck handed her an ice cream sandwich and Lilian paid for it, peeling off the plastic and biting into it as she returned to the table to sit opposite Ben.

  "It's okay to be scared," she told him.

  "I'm not scared," he muttered.

  "Ben. We're all scared. I'm shitting myself right now, okay? Look, I know you're supposed to be desensitized t
o this stuff. I get it, you watch a lot of horror. Maybe you've just got too much empathy for a place like this."

  He shrugged, looking off.

  "Ben, you're allowed to be scared. You don't have to be my rock. Remember back in the fifth grade when Logan Brody used to come over to my place after school sometimes and he'd always want to look at Rotten.com and Bestgore and sick stuff like that?"

  Ben nodded. It was one of the reasons they'd stopped hanging out with Logan even though he was one of the only other kids who was as big a horror fan as the two of them. His morbid fascination with real death and real gore—the way he'd laugh and cringe at the same time while scrolling through one macabre photo after another—had made Lilian wonder if there hadn't been something wrong with him psychologically.

  "What happened in the funhouse, it was worse than that," she said. "Way worse."

  With a shudder against a sudden chill, she forced herself to focus on something else. She watched the woman in the truck window shape heaping scoops of orange and black ice cream onto a large waffle cone for a child far too small to eat that much.

  "I don't want to think about what he might do if he finds me again," she said. She looked down at her treat, dripping vanilla ice cream down her thumb. She'd only taken a few bites and already the thought of eating any more made her want to puke again. "Do you want this?"

  "Yeah, okay." He took it from her, licked the side of it and wolfed it down in three bites while Lilian wiped the melted ice cream off her hand with a wet wipe from his backpack.

  "You don't always have to be the hero, okay? That's all I wanted to say. We're in this together, you and me. Dr. Wexler—Allison—she's a tough chick. And in spite of what you saw at the funhouse, I can be pretty tough too."

  "I know," Ben said. His looked up from crumpling the ice cream bar wrapper and held her gaze. "You're the toughest girl I know."

  She smiled. He smiled back. "I'm a boss bitch," she said with a grin.