My bedroom vanishes from sight.
Darkness surrounds me. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.
I don’t want to upset the snakes I hear hissing in the shadows, the snakes waiting to strike.
As I strain my ears and try my best not to move, as I wait for the inevitable sting of fangs on my ankles, or for the clown’s taloned hands to slip around my neck, I start to realize the hissing doesn’t sound like snakes. It’s too constant.
Light slowly materializes, blinking into existence, and I realize I’m most definitely not in Kyle’s house. Not unless his parents have a very strange interior decorating style.
The room I’m in is dark and dusty, with a concrete floor and bare pipes overhead. A few of the pipes emit loud streams of steam, which is what I’d mistaken for snakes hissing. But the only snakes in here are the brightly colored stuffed animals draped from the pipes and rafters, and the neon snake lights flashing all over the walls, and the silly rubber snakes littered on the floor. I push myself up to standing and look around.
I’m alone.
No real snakes anywhere. No clown anywhere. Just the strange, empty room and an open door against one wall. Distantly, over the hiss of steam, I hear music. Pipe organ music.
One of the neon lights is actually a sign, blinking green against the wall: FUN HOUSE.
Wait … am I back at the carnival?
Before I can wonder how in the world I was transported here, I see a flash of clothing through the door.
My heart leaps into my throat.
Kyle.
I know it’s him.
“Kyle!” I yell out.
He doesn’t answer, but I hear his feet running down the hall. I don’t pause to think. I run after him.
I jump into the next room and stop in my tracks. This room is filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts—piles of pharaoh’s gold and glittering scarabs, giant statues of cats and the god Anubis, torches of live flame. And a sarcophagus.
“K-Kyle?” I stammer.
I take a hesitant step forward. The door behind me slams shut, and I hear a lock slide into place. I don’t need to turn around to know that I’m trapped.
There is no other door.
This is a fun house, I tell myself. A carnival ride. Nothing in here is real. Just like the snakes, they’re all tricks.
I wish I could bring myself to really believe it.
Something creaks, and I freeze. Nothing else moves.
It’s the sarcophagus lid. I know it.
I glance around the room. Kyle isn’t anywhere. The exit isn’t anywhere.
My gut drops as I realize where the exit must be hiding.
It’s all just a ride, I tell myself again.
Then I take a hesitant step toward the sarcophagus.
Instantly, the scarab amulets around the room start coming to life. They clack their golden wings and blink their ruby eyes. They each grow a set of large golden pincers that drip green venom. It makes it much harder to think this is all just a silly ride. Especially when they start scuttling toward me.
I don’t hesitate any longer. I run forward, toward the large golden sarcophagus, the beetles swarming behind me.
I nearly reach the sarcophagus when it opens, emitting a foul bellow of green mist.
From the fog steps a mummy, arms outstretched.
I can’t stop the scream that rips from my lungs. I skid to a stop, but there’s nowhere else to go. The scarabs swarm around me, only a foot away, their pincers clicking devilishly, and the mummy staggers in front of me, swathed in old linen wraps with blue eyes glowing in its sallow skull, my name echoing from its mouth.
“Andreeesssss,” it wheezes.
I have to get out of here. Have to—
“Ouch!” I yell. Pain sears my ankle. I kick on reflex, and one of the scarabs flies forward, toward the mummy. It latches onto the mummy’s head and squirms around its eyes, momentarily causing the mummy to lose focus. I dodge past it, leaping over the scarabs with their venomous talons, and head straight into the shadows of the sarcophagus. I hope against hope my instincts are correct.
Behind me, the sarcophagus lid slams shut, throwing me into complete darkness. I can hear the click of the scarabs as they scuttle across the golden surface, trying to get in, and the thrashing of the mummy, trying to find me.
Tentatively, I reach out my arms. My fingers brush against something soft and sticky, and I recoil in shock.
Spiderwebs.
But there’s no wall beyond them.
I have to hope it’s the way out.
In complete darkness, with one hand in front of my face to keep spiders from dropping into my eyes and the other held way out front, I make my way forward … through the veil of spiderwebs.
Something scuttles down the back of my neck. My skin prickles.
I don’t bat the spider off. Even though I want to with every speck of my being.
I know there are worse things in front of me.
After a few steps, I don’t encounter any more webs. Just empty space. I keep my hands raised, just in case.
“Hello?” I call out. Well, whisper.
Light flashes, so bright it blinds me.
I wince and squeeze my eyes shut as darkness closes back in.
In the afterglow of the flash, I see my surroundings.
A hallway.
My reflection staring back at me.
Another flash. I keep my eyes squinted partway open. Enough to see that, yes, I’m in a hall. A hall of mirrors. And above me, lights strobe slowly, illuminating my way forward.
Flash!
At the far end of the hall, I see a figure. Kyle. But by the next
Flash!
he is gone.
“Kyle!” I call out.
I walk toward him, faster this time. I try to keep my eyes straight ahead, toward the end of the hall of mirrors. But with every
Flash!
I catch my reflection from the corner of
my eye.
I wish I wasn’t seeing my reflection at all. Each reflection is worse than the last.
Flash!
In the reflection, I am underwater, surrounded by sharks.
Flash!
And I am surrounded by floating skulls.
Flash!
And there are graves in front of me.
I pause.
Flash!
In the reflection, I’m kneeling in front of the graves. My family’s graves. Their names carved into the tombstones.
Sadness hits me like a punch to the gut, an emptiness I can’t shake. Because now, in between flashes, the vision doesn’t go away. I watch in horror as my reflection in the mirror places roses on my parents’ graves. Flash and my reflection lays a stuffed bear on the grave of my youngest brother.
And I know then what will happen if we fail. The clown won’t stop at haunting us. It will keep going. It will tear our families apart.
It will kill everyone we love.
Rather than filling me with courage, it fills me with fear. With a bone-deep sadness.
Because I know we are going to fail.
Flash!
And there is someone else in the reflection.
Kyle, standing right behind me.
Flash!
He is crouched at my back. Only it’s not just reflection. I feel him there. The heat of him. His breath by my ear.
“This is what happens when you stand up to the clown,” Kyle whispers.
Flash!
Kyle’s eyes burn into mine. They burn blue.
“This is what happens when you fight. Give in, and maybe it will let your family live. Give in. You were never their favorite, anyway.”
Flash!
His hands are on my neck.
“They won’t miss you,” he whispers. “They’d be happier without you.”
Flash!
His hands tighten.
“We all would be happier without you.”
Flash!
Only this
time, it’s not the strobe but stars flashing across my vision as Kyle strangles me.
I reach up in vain. Grab at his hands clenched around my neck.
“Kyle, please,” I gasp.
Flash!
Kyle smiles as he chokes me. But in the reflection, he’s no longer Kyle.
Flash!
He is his father, snakes around his shoulders.
Flash!
He is the clown, dark diamonds around his burning blue eyes.
Fear floods me.
I’ve lost him.
I’ve lost him.
There isn’t another flash.
Only darkness.
Only darkness, as the world around me fades, along with my hope of rescuing the boy I love.
I blink.
Flashes of light.
I crouch behind Andres, my hands on his neck.
Why are my hands around his neck?
What am I doing?
In the reflection before us, I don’t look like myself. I look like my father.
I look like the clown.
No. No.
I shake my head. Try to loosen my grip. Why am I doing this? Why?
“Give in,” growls a voice in my ear. The clown’s voice. “Give in to who you are. Who you are meant to be. They never loved you. Never cared.”
“You’re wrong,” I whisper. I try to unclench my hands from Andres’s neck. They won’t move. Can’t move. “I’m not like you,” I say to my dad’s reflection. “I never was.”
Flash!
A thick white boa constrictor curls around me, tightening, squeezing. A boa with burning blue eyes. The clown stands behind us, watching, waiting.
I won’t let you hurt him, I tell myself.
The boa tightens.
My grip tightens.
Memories flash: Andres and me at the park, laughing as we rock back and forth on the swings; Andres helping me move my things from my parents’ house; Andres at the carnival, worrying we were growing apart.
Andres holding my hand, telling me he’d never abandon me.
The snake squeezes.
I force my hands to unclench. Darkness closes in, but I have to save him.
I won’t let you hurt him.
I won’t.
I won’t—
My knees shake as I walk down the boulevard of the carnival. The air is thick with the scent of rot and popcorn, and the sky above is filled with clouds and churning red light. Music drifts around me, eerie and twisted.
The figure waving me in earlier is nowhere to be seen. But now I know where the rest of the town is hiding.
They’re trapped on the rides.
My neighbors and classmates careen past me on a roller coaster that I know wasn’t there the other night, screaming at the top of their lungs. Other adults howl in fear on the Tilt-A-Whirl, while a group of kids cry out from the spinning swings that endlessly twirl them over my head. And there, up ahead, are Mom and Freddy, strapped to the horses of the carousel. The horses go faster than they should, and their eyes burn blue; their teeth are wicked fangs. I run forward. But there’s no way to reach them: The carousel is going far too fast to jump on, and when I run to the operating booth, I find the levers and buttons controlling it have been snapped off and graffitied with a clown’s grisly face.
I run back to the carousel, any hope of finding Andres and Caroline immediately pushed from my head. Tears fill my eyes as I call out to my family. But maybe they don’t hear me over the horrifying pipe organ music, or maybe they can’t see me because it’s going so fast.
Or maybe they’re trapped in their minds, in the horrors the clown is creating for them.
No matter how much I yell and jump and wave, they don’t look over. They stare straight ahead, eyes and mouths open wide in fear, screams silenced.
“Mom!” I yell out again. I drop to my knees in the dirt, staring up at the carousel as it spins out of control. “Freddy!”
“Don’t cry,” comes a voice behind me.
“You can join them,” comes another voice.
“We can help,” they—and others—say in unison.
The blood in my veins freezes as I turn my head …
… to see my classmates—those dressed in their Halloween costumes, their faces smeared with clown face paint—standing behind me.
“Yes, April,” they say, their voices perfectly in sync. “Join us, and you can play with them forever.”
As one, they take a step toward me. I leap to my feet.
There’s a dozen or so of them, spread in a line. I don’t know if I can make it past them, but I have to try. If I’m going to save anyone, I can’t get caught here.
Their smiles all crack wider; their heads tilt to the side. As if they can read my thoughts. As if they know there’s no way for me to escape.
There never was.
“You can try to run,” they say. “But you won’t save them. We’re too powerful for you now. We have all the fears in your town to play with. And you, April. We will have the most fun tormenting you.”
They take another step forward. Their eyes blaze brighter blue, and the air around them darkens with shadows.
As they step again, hands outstretched, I leap to the side and run.
I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I have to get out of here as fast as I can.
The carnival is a blur around me as the clown classmates’ feet thunder at my back, gaining on me with every second.
I race around a corner, and a terrifying sight faces me. The boulevard stretches far in front of me, way past the normal carnival boundaries. Rides and terrifying games border each side of the dirt road.
The dirt road that stretches up toward the hills, toward the graveyard.
Toward a house at the very top of the hill.
The hill that I know holds the clown’s grave.
Even from here, I can see the house for what it is.
Kyle’s house. Only larger, more desolate, with broken black windows and unhinged doors and a large neon sign in front that reads HOUSE OF HORRORS.
My gut twists.
For a moment, I consider turning back and going another way, but the clowns behind me are gaining fast and I know there’s nowhere to hide.
Besides, I know if the clown is hiding my friends anywhere, it will be there.
I double my speed and run forward—
—only to be tackled from the side.
I cry out in shock as the kid barrels into me, but he doesn’t knock me to the ground. Instead, he grabs my arm and propels me forward, toward the house.
It takes a second to realize who it is.
“Deshaun!” I cry out. Relief floods me. He’s here! He’s okay!
I want to hug him, but he doesn’t slow down.
He grins at me, but he keeps his focus on the house up ahead.
“Did you really think I wasn’t going to fight my way back to you?” he asks.
“But how—”
He shakes his head. “Later,” he says. His eyes narrow as we race up the dirt pathway, toward the hills, toward the haunted house.
“First,” he says, “we have to defeat the clown.”
I see them race past the booth. April and Deshaun.
Heading toward the last place I want to go.
And behind them, gaining with every second, are the clown kids.
If I don’t do something, the kids will overtake April and Deshaun. If I don’t do something, we’ll all lose.
I glance around quickly. I’ve spent the last ten minutes hiding in one of the game booths—the dart game that Andres and Kyle had been playing the other night, only now, the balloons are filled with writhing snakes and bugs.
I need to make a distraction …
There, behind the counter, hidden behind teddy bears wrapped in plastic, is a megaphone.
I grab it without thinking and stand. Deshaun and April are only a couple of yards away from the base of the cemetery hill.
“HEY, CLOWNS!” I y
ell out, my voice amplified by the megaphone. “I’M OVER HERE! BET YOU CAN’T GET ME!” I jump and wave, and grab a dart from the counter and stab at the remaining balloons, creepy-crawlies flopping to the dirt, trying to make as much noise as I can. I worry it doesn’t work.
But then, as one, the clown kids stop and turn to look at me. Their eyes burn bright blue.
They divert course and run straight toward me.
I drop the megaphone and run as well. I can only hope that Deshaun and April don’t try to come back for me, otherwise this will all be in vain.
I dart through the stalls, knocking over pyramids of stuffed animals and pushing aside cotton candy stands and rusted popcorn carts and anything else that can slow the possessed children that chase at my heels. I kick over a trash can, spilling rats and garbage all over the street.
When I look forward again, I scream.
My mother’s ghost floats in front of me.
She’s more decayed than before, with chunks of her skin missing and her dress covered in dirt and mold. Worms crawl from her lips and the hollows of her cheeks, and the scent of her makes me want to throw up.
“You did this to me, Sunnybunny,” she growls. “I’m dead because of you.”
“No!” I yell out. Anger burns in my chest. Anger that the clown would throw this at me, anger that I almost let myself believe it. “She died because she was sick, not because of me. You are nothing, you hear me? Nothing!”
She howls in anger and lunges forward, but I leap to the side and run past her.
I don’t look behind me to see if she follows. I don’t care. I know it isn’t her. Just the clown. All of this is just the clown.
I make a circle, running as fast as I can and trying to keep out of sight, grateful that I’d been in track, until I’m back at the boulevard leading to the house of horrors. Thankfully, Deshaun and April are far ahead, nearly to the door.
My relief is short-lived.
The clown kids stumble out of the game booths behind me. Even though I’m panting, they don’t seem tired in the slightest.
I run.
Kyle’s house looms in front of us. The graveyard is littered with tombstones and is as cold as winter. Up here, I can’t hear the music from the carnival below, just the low, sad wail of the wind and the rustle of bare branches. The carnival itself stretches out to the foggy horizon, impossibly large. As far as I can see, there is nothing but blinking lights and terrifying rides.
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