Ghostland

by Duncan Ralston

  Colored lights flashed in the darkness in the dim light beyond the doorway. Ben lead the way into a large, high-ceilinged room filled with black metal cabinets, each housing a dozen racks of electronics. The flashing lights and LED screens illuminated hundreds of switches and knobs, wires and cooling fans. Cables snaked from the backs of them and gathered in bundles above the door, trailing back the way they had come: to the exhibits, to the control center, to every ghost and hologram and mechanism in Ghostland.

  Each of them corrupted now, poisoned by Garrote's viral coding, his insane disease.

  "What now?" Lilian asked. The hum had grown so loud she had to shout to be heard.

  "Pull the plugs, if we can find them!" Ben shouted back.

  They entered the maze of cabinets. A metallic clanging rose above the hum of electronics from somewhere deep within. It happened twice more before she heard an old man shout gruffly: "Christ in a sidecar!"

  Ben turned with excitement in his eyes. "Someone's alive in here!"

  They kept moving, further into the maze, the darkness alternately lit up green and red like Christmas. She followed the outside, her right hand lightly touching the smooth, cold surface of the cabinets. It was a method she'd often used in video games, aside from the touching. One she knew would inevitably lead them to the exit. After several turns, the clanging resumed, followed by another curse: "Son of a bastard!"

  Much closer now. They had to be nearing the exit.

  "You gotta be kidding me!" the man shouted.

  This time Lilian was sure she recognized him.

  "Stan? Is that you?" Ben shouted over the hum.

  The detective's voice came back, filled with uncertainty. "Ben? You kids are alive?"

  "We're alive!" Lilian called back. "Where are you? Keep talking!"

  The detective stammered. "Uh, okay, umm… 'I am Javert,'" he sang tonelessly. "'Do not forget my name! Do not forget me, 24601—'"

  Lilian followed Stan's voice until they reached an opening in the cabinets. This was not an exit. Judging by the high vaulted ceiling, which appeared to continue away from them for fifty feet or more, the large space appeared to be at the center of the maze.

  Detective Beadle stood in the entrance gripping a fireman's axe. He was panting, sweating through the armpits of his shirt. His sport coat and fedora lay crumpled on the floor at his feet. Behind him the cabinets were laid out in an octagon, about ten feet in diameter. At its center a complicated-looking machine rose to touch the ceiling. Lilian couldn't see past the detective to get a good look at the base of it, but it glowed an unearthly shade of red.

  "Whoa," the detective said. "What's with the get-up, Major Tom?"

  "Are you really alive?" Ben asked, aiming the stun gun at him.

  Stan shook his head in confusion. Then he broke out in laughter. "I'm sweating profusely, my aching joints are a constant reminder of my fragile mortality, and my piles itch like crazy. If this is what death is like, then by all means, zap me into oblivion."

  Satisfied, Ben lowered the weapon. But Lilian remained cautious. "How did you get here?" she asked. "How did you find this place?"

  "Good old-fashioned police work, that's how." He flashed a crooked grin, wiped his brow with a forearm, and explained, "When the shit hit the fan—pardon my French—I started asking anyone I could find wearing one of those red and purple Ghostland T-shirts. Turns out there's a secret exit down here that leads to a mechanical shed on the other side of the wall."

  Lilian's heart leaped. She set her skepticism aside. "You know the door code?"

  The detective smiled and tapped his temple. "You don't think I'd come all this way without it, do ya?"

  Ben and Lilian shared a sheepish look.

  "Anyways, I finally get here and lo and behold the door's wide open. And then I find this…"

  The detective stepped aside, revealing a large glass cylinder within the machine.

  And there he was, in the flesh.

  Lilian couldn't tell if the thick, translucent liquid in the tank was red or if it had taken on the hue from the servers surrounding it. A fat, tight bundle of cables rose from a hole in the raised access floor and up over the top of the tank, coiling down into the red liquid, surgically attached to a naked, hairless man floating within: at the wrists, the legs and several directly into his shaved skull and torso, giving him the appearance of a modern-day techno-Frankenstein.

  Even with his trademark mustache shaved off, Lilian recognized him.

  It was Rex Garrote.

  A slow grin appeared on the detective's wrinkled face. "Told you he was fakin' it."

  "The water is red," Lilian said, in fear and awe. "Just like Allison said."

  "How could she know about that?" Ben wondered aloud.

  Lilian shook her head. The question troubled her, made her heart hurt as much as her brain. She said, "I don't know," and left it at that.

  "You kids wanna fill me in?"

  Lilian cautiously approached the tank, ignoring the detective. Garrote's body bobbed languidly in the thick liquid. Bubbles rose sluggishly from the bottom of the tank but not from his nose or his slightly parted lips. He didn't appear to be breathing. For all she knew he really was dead.

  "Is he alive?" Ben asked.

  "His brain is," Stan said. "Got him all wired-up live and direct to these computers, like some kind of human Duracell."

  Lilian saw Ben nod thoughtfully in his reflection on the glass. "The Singularity," he said.

  "The what now?" Stan asked.

  "The Singularity. All those books in his library about humans merging with machines. He did it," Ben marveled. "He actually uploaded his consciousness to the computers, into the Ghostland system. That's why his hologram seemed more realistic than the rest of them. And that's why he was able to shut down the Recurrence Field and take over all the ghosts."

  Stan blinked rapidly. "Excuse me?"

  "The Ghostland people thought it was a virus," Ben explained. "But it wasn't a virus. It was Garrote, working his way through the system, gobbling up lines of code like Pac-Man and spitting out clones of himself. Lilian saw it first on the Ghost Tram. He was taking control of all the ghosts in the park, one by one, probably from the minute they turned on the system. He could see through their eyes, control their movements, make them kill."

  Stan blinked again, seemingly unable to process what he'd heard. Then he turned to Lilian. "Is all that true?"

  She nodded. "It's true."

  "We have to unplug him," Ben said. "Before he figures out where we are. It's only a matter of—"

  He stopped and stared, his lower lip hanging open. Lilian followed his gaze to the tank and jumped back in fear verging on panic, her skin crawling.

  Garrote had opened his eyes.

  Stan gripped the axe in both hands. "Oh, Christ, Frankenstein's awake. I've been battering on this glass for the past five minutes but the damn thing just won't crack."

  "Have you tried the console?" Lilian asked.

  "Console?"

  She stepped up to the terminal, eyeing Garrote cautiously, certain he would reach out to spook her. One final jump scare. But he remained motionless, staring dead ahead, his glassy eyes blank. On the console was a digital screen with several complicated readouts that looked like they belonged on hospital equipment. One appeared to be brainwaves, another a heart rate—49 BPM—along with other numerical data and symbols Lilian couldn't decipher. On the upper right corner was the word LOCKED, surrounded by a thick black border.

  Her hopes sank. "Even if we could figure out how this thing works, the terminal's locked."

  Ben thought for a moment. "Let's just pull the cables," he said finally.

  The detective shrugged and gripped the axe in both hands. He turned to Lilian, who nodded.

  Garrote posed no objections, floating silently, staring into the middle distance.

  "Do it," she said.

  "Wait!"

  The voice came from the darkened corridor, beyond the reach of the
flashing lights, but Lilian recognized it immediately. Anywhere else, she would have sworn it was impossible.

  Here in Ghostland, the dead came back.

  Allison stepped out of the darkness, approaching them slowly. She bore none of the wounds she'd died of, and was dressed in a pale pantsuit, like the ones she'd worn in their sessions, its color impossible to determine under the flashing lights.

  Ben crept back to the corner of the small space until he struck the cabinets. He startled, looking back over his shoulder as if he'd walked into a spider's web. Stan kept looking between the three of them, seemingly unable to decode the change in the social dynamic, why Ben and Lilian would suddenly be afraid of this woman who'd until very recently been their friend.

  All the while a solitary thought repeated itself in Lilian's head, like a ghost caught in a Recurrence Field loop: That's not Allison. That is not Allison…

  "Ah," the ghost said. "You're surprised to see me, aren't you? I would be too, if I were you. In fact, I'm a bit surprised myself."

  Stan said, "I could use a little context, kids."

  "She's dead," Ben told him. "She died in the asylum."

  Stan looked momentarily afraid. But his features quickly returned to their normal expression of mild curiosity.

  "I died," Allison said. "But I've come back to warn you not to open that tank. If you disconnect him—" Under the flashing red and green lights it almost seemed as if her face grew dark along with her expression. "—it's all over. For all of us."

  Lilian felt herself on the verge of tears again, and bit her lip to prevent them. "How do we know we can trust you?" she asked.

  "Lilian," Allison's ghost said, disappointment in her tone. "I'm so sorry I failed you—failed both of you. We were supposed to protect you, but we didn't. We couldn't. How could anyone prepare for something like this? The whole world turned upside down. Everything we knew, took for granted—all gone. But you have to know, after all we've been through, all the time we've spent talking—we have a sacred bond, you and I. I take that very seriously. Not even death could break it."

  "Then tell me why I shouldn't pull the plug right now. Give me a reason." As Lilian spoke she gripped the bundle of cables at the back of the machine.

  "Because that's exactly what he wants!" the ghost cried. "He wants to be set free, Lilian. As long as he's trapped in that body, he can't leave this place. If you unplug him, he won't need the Ghostland program any longer. He'll be able to leave this place and go anywhere he wants. Infect the whole world with his poisoned mind."

  "But he needs us to open the door," Ben said.

  "Why? You said it yourself, he's in full control of the park. Why would he need you if he could just open any door he wanted as easily as switching on a light?"

  Ben turned to Lilian with a look of doubt. Lilian shared it. Could Allison be trusted? More important, was she right?

  If they pulled the plug, would they be playing right into Garrote's hands?

  The weight of the decision was too much to bear. She let go of the cables and stepped away from the machine, peering up at the motionless man in the tank, the man behind the curtain, wondering what the hell to do now.

  LOOSE ENDS

  WHAT NOW? BEN thought. He stood backed against the servers, his gaze flitting between Allison's ghost, his two living companions, and the living dead man in the tank.

  Harrison had told them to unlink Garrote from the servers, but how could they be sure the programmer had been telling the truth? He could have been working with Garrote. He could have been taken over by Garrote, another ghost gobbled up by his code.

  Whatever decision they made posed a huge risk. If they chose to stay here and possibly die to prevent Garrote and his army from escaping, the police would shut down the power eventually, break down the wall and potentially release them anyway. If they chose to escape, leaving Garrote linked to the computers, it wasn't certain his hold on the ghosts would be broken. If they killed Garrote right now, his code might simply break free of his body, as Allison seemed to suggest. Or it might die along with him.

  What the hell do we do now?

  Lilian interrupted his thoughts. "How did you know about the red water?"

  The ghost seemed flummoxed by the question. "What?"

  As she asked this, Ben saw Allison's face flicker. A digital glitch almost too quick to see, but long enough for him to make up his mind. For that split second, her face had become a dark reflection of the man in the tank. Garrote's mind virus had gotten to her, had made her his slave.

  Whatever she said was not to be trusted.

  "When you died," Lilian was saying, "you said Garrote wanted to drag us down into the dark, that he was waiting for us in the red water, and here he is, just like you said. How did you know?"

  "I don't know how I knew, I just—" The ghost shook her head. "It came to me. Like a vision. I saw the water, blood-red just like that." She nodded toward the tank. A squadron of slow, thick bubbles rose from Garrote's nostrils and broke on the surface. "His eyes were closed at first, and then they opened and he reached for me. And right away I knew this was exactly where he wanted us. In this room. Because he wants you to pull the plug, Lilian! You have to believe me—"

  "She's lying!" Ben said, pushing away from the wall.

  As they turned to him, he crossed to where Allison stood, a ghost which no longer belonged to her former self, her image stolen like a dead celebrity dancing in a vacuum commercial, her thoughts and memories appropriated by the madman wearing her face, who used his control over her now to shake her head.

  "I'm not lying," the madman said through Allison's lips, in Allison's voice.

  "I saw Garrote," Ben said to Lilian, to Stan, pointing at the ghost. "It was quick, but I saw him in her face. He's scared. He wants us to give up. To run away. He wants us to open the door for him. Let him out of his cage."

  Allison shook her head, weaker this time.

  "But without the program, he's nothing," he continued. "Ones and zeroes in the shape of a man, just like Sara Jane Amblin said."

  "You're wrong," Allison said softly, looking at the floor in front of her.

  "Stan, cut the cables."

  The detective seemed unsure. He hefted the axe in his hands as if testing its weight but he made no move toward the tank.

  "If you don't cut the cables, I'll do it myself."

  "Cut the cables, Stan," Lilian said, the hurt and confusion evident on her face.

  "Don't you do it!" Allison roared, and reluctantly, not wanting to harm the woman within—if any part of her essence still existed—Ben reached out with the stun gun and squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled the trigger.

  In the instant the charge hit her he was struck with the true bleakness of it. Allison had been the first to question the morality this place, this carnival freak show. The first to object to using the stun gun against the ghosts, who were once living, breathing beings.

  Now he was using it on her.

  He tried to convince himself she was already gone but as she screamed, the shock surging through her, he couldn't help but feel guilty. Before he could take it back Allison's form exploded in a supernova of multicolored light, a swirling galaxy of particles. Then she was gone, and the three survivors—possibly the only living souls left in the entire park—stood alone with Garrote's body naked and prone inside the tank.

  "Do it," Ben said.

  Without a word, Stan hauled the axe over his shoulder and swung it at an angle, striking the cables trailing down the back of the tank. Sparks flew as the wires on the outside of the bundle severed cleanly. He swung until the blade cut through the last cables and struck the glass behind them. Their severed ends slipped into the tank as the thick glass finally splintered, cracks webbing outward from the point of impact. Garrote's mangled body struck the center and the tank shattered outward, the thick, goopy liquid pouring out in a red wave. Garrote spilling out with it, landing with a wet slap on the floor.

  They stood around his
corpse, wires like thick black snakes still attached to his limbs, his chest and head. They watched for breathing, for a twitch in his limbs, for him to spring up from the floor and attack.

  None of this happened. His body remained still, his chest never rising, the slick liquid already beginning to dry on his goosebumped—horripilated—flesh. The lights on the servers continued flashing and the hum of their fans droned on. Only the terminal connected to the machine had changed: its screen flashed emergency red, the waveforms flatlined, the numerical readouts all zeroes.

  After a long moment, Lilian finally broke the silence. "That's it? It's over?"

  "You never heard the expression about looking gift horses in the mouth?" Stan said, letting the axe fall to the floor.

  "No. It's not over yet," Ben said, standing over the writer's corpse. He found it hard to believe the man was really dead. The world had believed Garrote had killed himself longer than Ben had been alive. For them to discover the writer had been alive all that time, that he'd faked his own death, and then find him attached to machines, all within the span of hours—now that he appeared clinically dead Ben couldn’t just let it go. He needed to be sure there was no life left in him, not even a trace of conscious thought caught somewhere within his lobes.

  The only way to be sure was with fire.

  He reached out with his foot and kicked Garrote's shoulder. The writer's body moved slightly, rising from the floor and falling back as Ben stepped away from him. Ben took a knee and checked the writer's neck for a pulse, the cold liquid slimy under his fingers.

  "We should go," Lilian said.

  Stan bent to pick up his sport coat from the floor.

  "We have to destroy the servers," Ben said.

  Lilian looked at him as though he'd lost his mind. "Why?"

  "It's the only way to be sure." As he said it, he reached into his pocket and brought out the lighter fluid. "Wipe everything out."

  Stan goggled his eyes at him. "Whoa whoa, hang on a minute. What are you doing, kid?"