Lost in Wonderland

by Nicky Peacock

  “Yes, all the lost belong to me. She looks lost, her and that odd brother. They seem familiar too. Not too many Tlingit people round these parts anymore. She reminds me of that beauty I had a decade or so ago, the one I watched put out her white washing on that sunny morning, before I lured her into the woods.” For a moment it falters on the sweet memory that has wound its way up to the top of its brain like a whip of fresh cream with blood-red sauce. It thinks about how she begged for her children’s lives, how it used that to make her pack a bag, to give the impression she’d run away. Give it more time with her before they would realize that she was gone for good. And it did spend more time with her. She lasted for days. Not like that white-haired creature that hid her delicious pink eyes behind dull contacts; she died within hours.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Mouse

  There’s yellow police tape wrapped around the property. It looks like a scene from a movie, only the tape isn’t new and crisp; it appears as if recycled. Fresh snow has settled over it, the weight breaking parts and letting them wave in the light breeze, like bright yellow intestines.

  “Mr. Custard says…” Shilo says as we push past the tape and through the front door. “Why shouldn’t I tell her you saw it?” I haven’t answered him; he’s continued his conversation on regardless of me and my lack of participation. I’m guessing Mr. Custard has some outlandish theory about the curator. To be honest, I do too. Maybe I should listen to imaginary friends more. Surely it couldn’t be any crazier than my life in Wonderland?

  I put down my bag and keys, then turn on the lights. It’s still light outside, but it won’t be for long. It’s more of a reflex than a need. When you’re bait you learn to keep constant vigil on your surroundings. The light is your friend. It’s darkness that brings the monsters, or so we are all told. I have to remind myself that I’m not bait this time. I’m a hunter, and the dark is now my friend.

  The first thing that draws my attention is a massive bloodstain on the living room carpet. Rabbit is dead. There’s too much blood. My friend is gone. I won’t get to talk with her ever again. Share my missions with her. Beat her at Monotropolis or guess what type of contact lens she is wearing. This isn’t a rescue. This is vengeance.

  But at least now I know who to aim my sights at. The curator. That asshole has been cutting his way through women in this state for years. The job would afford him the traveling for his abductions. He has the perfect setup. I sit on the couch and take a deep breath. I want to call Bob and Jon, or even Mom and Dad. But I know what they’d say: Wait for backup. But even if I did, he knows he’s been rumbled. I wasn’t exactly covert when I left the museum. He’ll come here tonight, come to where he knows we’ll be, where he took Rabbit from, where he took Rabbit’s life from me and the rest of the world. I’ll make him pay for that, just like I’ve made them all pay.

  “Are you okay?” Shilo gently sits beside me. It’s painful how physically far away we actually are. He’s scared to even put his hand on my shoulder now. Siblings shouldn’t be so uncomfortable with one another.

  “What was the hospital like?” I ask.

  “I didn’t like it there. But the drugs were good.” He grins at me, or maybe just at his own joke.

  I force a laugh. Pushing it out is like choking up broken glass. His gaze moves from me to just beyond my shoulder and I know that he’s listening to something that a non-corporeal being dressed in a yellow suit is saying about me. He started telling me about Mr. Custard after our father killed himself.

  Shilo looks thoughtful, then blurts out, “Mr. Custard says that it was a Kushtaka costume in the case, not a model. It had fresh blood on it.”

  I look at my brother. “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense.” My mind starts to work out the curator’s Scooby Doo scheme.

  “What do you remember about the day Mother was taken?” I now know she didn’t run away. She was taken by some Tlingit bogey man, albeit in truth a madman dressed like one…

  “She was hanging out the washing. One moment she was there and the next I heard voices. I got up to see because I thought Dad had come back home. But it wasn’t Dad.”

  “You saw the Kushtaka?”

  “Yes. I told you that day and my story has never changed.” He suddenly gets up and clenches his fists. I’d be worried about a possible violent outburst, if I didn’t know seven ways how to kill him using just my little finger.

  “I know, Shilo. Your story has never changed. But if you had had half a brain, you would have changed it, just on the outside. Then you wouldn’t have been locked up for so long.”

  “You think I wanted to be locked up?”

  “You didn’t work too hard not to be. Mr. Custard certainly didn’t help you there.”

  His gaze isn’t wandering anymore. It’s fixed on me. “I’d rather be honest, Kayla.”

  “Mouse.”

  “Why do they call you that? It’s not your real name. It’s not even a nice name.”

  “It is my name now.” I look up at him and smile. I get it. He wants his little sister. Problem is she’s long gone, frozen into the Alaskan landscape like one of those museum’s dioramas. I am rubbing my forearm again.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Shilo sits down again.

  “The curator.”

  I look over at the boarded-up window. The one he used to get in and take Rabbit. The wood is all crooked and there’s a small gap between it and the frame that is letting in a cold wind and a sliver of dying daylight.

  “Will he come to get us?”

  “Yes, tonight, before we can share his secret.”

  “Then we need to be ready for him.”

  “I am ready for him. It’s what I do. You should go upstairs, wait till it’s over. I don’t want him to hurt you.” I don’t look at him when I say this.

  “I won’t leave you again.”

  “You’re not leaving me. You’re helping me bait a trap. We’re hunting a monster.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Shilo

  He wrinkles his nose at the heavily seasoned chips. They taste horrible but make a satisfying crunch when he eats them.

  “Don’t eat too many,” says Mr. Custard. “You’re not used to them.”

  There were a great many things that Shilo had to get used to on the outside; the bland food of the hospital was now a distant memory on his palate.

  He’d curled up on the bed and had eaten most of the junk food he’d found in the kitchen. The television is on low, but it’s odd without a cage around it, too bright and clear.

  “Stop crunching and listen.” Mr. Custard puts his hand up to stop Shilo from eating another chip.

  They listen…

  There’s tapping downstairs. It’s light but they can both hear it.

  “What should I do?” he asks.

  “We need to go down there.”

  Suddenly the world seems very big. Shilo scurries beneath the covers. “What if it’s the monster?”

  “We know that it’s not. It’s that weird guy from the museum. He’s just pretending. He could hurt Kayla!”

  “She’s dangerous. She can take him.”

  There’s a massive crash and cracking noise from downstairs.

  “Quickly, Shilo!”

  “That’s okay, I’ll get help!” He plucks out Bob’s cell and dials Jon, who answers immediately.

  “Shilo?”

  “Kayla’s in trouble. We found the monster, but it’s another one.”

  “What?”

  “She’s baiting him.”

  “Christ, Shilo, she’s not prepared, help her. We’ll be there as quick as we can. We’ll call some local Suits to trace her chip. Just help her!” And with that Jon hangs up.

  His bladder pulses and for a moment he thinks he’s dreaming. If he wets the bed the nightmare will stop and he’ll wake up in the hospital.

  There’s a succession of crashes and screams downstairs.

  He dives back under the covers and cl
asps his hands over his ears. “No! No!”

  “Shilo!” Mr. Custard shouts. “Please, he’s taking her.”

  “Shilo,” a small voice whispers from under the covers. “Shilo.”

  He flips the covers back and on the bottom of the bed sits a young woman with white-blonde hair and pink eyes. She’s wearing a bright white fur-covered cat suit with a tweed waistcoat and a pink beret with three tightly woven plaits poking out and dripping down her back. She scoops out a gold pocket watch from her waistcoat pocket and flips it open. “You’re going to be late, Shilo, late for a very important date.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Mouse

  It’s the smell that gets me. Like the museum, only deeper, muskier, and more gag inducing. He puts his arms around my waist and lifts me off the couch, where I had pretended to be asleep. I fight, not to be released but to put on a good show. My flailing limbs catch random ornaments and tourist knick-knacks. I even manage to kick through another window and overturn the couch in our struggle. His grip is strong and he’s breathing heavily under the matted suit. He applies pressure on my neck to put me asleep. I fake it. I go limp and he hoists me over his shoulder. He trudges back out the front door he used to gain access. Not many monsters do that, pick locks and go through the front door. As we get out into the dark night a blast of cold slaps my face and I almost huddle into him. My hand goes to my forearm. He stops. He knows I’m awake. He throws me onto the ground in front of him, the impact winding me; this would cause panic in a normal girl, but for me it’s the start of a familiar dance. He raises a long, curled, fake talon and slashes at me. My arm goes up to protect my face and pain radiates across it. Blood splashes onto the snow. I look down to see how bad it is and notice a piece of metal sinking into the snow. My chip. My little friend has left me. It slowly sinks into the snow, falling further away from me. I grab at it. Screams push out of my body and I break out into a hot sweat. My fingers fumble over it, numbed and slippery. My blood is still oozing from the wound and no matter how hard I try to retrieve my chip, it defies my cold, clawing fingers. The killer stands before me, watching my reaction. Without my chip they’ll never find me. I’ll be lost again. My breathing is all I hear, short, rapid, and ragged. I look up and see a blur of movement. Then darkness sucks me up.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Shilo

  Following the strange white-haired girl, Shilo runs downstairs to the living room. It looks like it’s been torn apart, the house gutted and its windows broken both from the inside and out.

  “Quickly!” she yells at him.

  Mr. Custard moves to speak with this new friend. Shilo can’t hear them, but he begins to feel tired. A familiar panic is creeping over his senses. He slips his body down onto the upturned sofa; it’s pointy and uncomfortable, but he wants to stay there, to curl up and…

  “Shilo,” Mr. Custard crouches by him, “I have to go away for a while.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, you need White Rabbit more than me. She knows where he takes them. She can lead you there.”

  “Come with us.”

  “I can’t. Having two … friends … drains you. You need to let me go and let her take you to your sister, understand?”

  White Rabbit is so odd-looking that Shilo recoils when she comes over to him.

  “Please, there’s no time. We have to find our sister. She’s lost again and she doesn’t have her chip anymore.”

  He takes a breath and looks at Mr. Custard. His yellow suit seems a little less yellow in this light, and when he smiles, Shilo feels a kind of warmth that he’s not experienced in long, long time.

  “Okay,” he whispers.

  “Good boy, I’ll be back.” Mr. Custard tips his hat and fades away.

  White Rabbit bounces up and goes to grab Shilo’s hand, but hers simply melts through. “Sorry, I’m not used to this yet,” she explains. “Come on!” She beckons him off the sofa, and with renewed vigor Shilo bolts through the broken window and out into the backyard. Blood on the snow stops him. Déjà vu cripples his courage.

  “Not again,” he says, reaching to touch the now cold blood.

  “You’re late, let’s go!”

  White Rabbit runs off into the woods, and Shilo takes a deep breath and bounds off after her. He follows the bouncing head of white hair as she runs and jumps her way through the snow-covered wilderness.

  “We’re close,” she says, then stops to bend down and point at some branches on the ground. Shilo moves them aside. Beneath is a trapdoor, and in the near distance is an old house.

  “Kushtakas don’t live in basements,” Shilo says.

  “That’s because it’s not that type of monster, remember?”

  Shilo hugs himself and watches as White Rabbit sniffs around the entrance. It’s then that he feels it. A cold stare, eyes between the trees. Something else is watching them, waiting its turn.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Mouse

  You never get used to waking up bound and gagged, even if you’ve been trained for it. I shift on the ground, trying to get a look at my bleeding arm. I’m trapped in a tiny tunnel, making me feel far too big for my surroundings. I never feel big; I’d have laughed at the irony if my arm wasn’t throbbing so badly. It is covered with all sorts of horrible dirt and grit, but it has stopped bleeding. I’d need some serious antibiotics, but apart from that I’m okay. I then remember my chip lying out in the snow. The cold and the moisture will have destroyed it now. Wonderland will think I’m dead, and that will be the last location that they can track me to, just like Rabbit. I move around so I can examine my bindings. Zip ties. Whoever introduced these little plastic bastards to the serial killer’s kill kit needs strangling with them. Almost impossible to get out of them, unlike handcuffs that I could have easily slipped my thin wrists out from. I’m going to have to hope I have time to work on. I find the sharpest rock I can and start rubbing it against my wrists. Mostly I’m just grating skin, but eventually I start to feel the plastic catch.

  A thought slams into me. Where am I? I’m obviously in some crazy underground lair, but apart from that, I don’t know. My breathing starts to quicken and I worry about how much air there actually is down here. Is this where I’ll die? Is there where Rabbit died, lost and alone, waiting for help that never came? Will Shilo find me? Doubtful. I’ve got better odds of being rescued by Mr. Custard. My body will probably never be found. I’ll get encased in wax and will stand guard over some enchanted-looking poncho forever, as tourists gawk at me and praise that scumbag curator on his lifelike Tlingit girl.

  After about ten minutes of rubbing and panicking, the plastic snaps break. It’s like I can breathe again. With both hands free, I make short work of my leg ties, then crawl forward through the small, shallow space. It’s very dark and hard to see if I’m making any progress at all without a light to head toward. I edge forward, cold dirt scraping over my skin. But finally I see a light. The tunnel begins to open up and I find myself coming out of it on a kind of ledge. I jump down into a large room. It’s more like a proper basement. There’s a makeshift bed in the middle and a tool rack, both spotted with blood. I move into the room and a massive ornate cabinet catches my eye. I walk toward it. It’s not locked, so I open it. Before me are five separate shelves covered in glass jars. Each jar has a clump of hair in it, and an old Polaroid. I begin to pick them up and examine them. It takes ten jars before I find my mother. Her face in the photo is blurry, but there’s no mistaking that black, poker-straight hair coiled in the jar. “Oh my…” I whisper. My eyes scan the rest. There are over a hundred. One has a long, white clump in it. I pick it up and see familiar pink eyes in the photo.

  Fear can sap your energy; it diverts it from where it should be. It cripples the weak and makes you act against your own nature. Anger, however, can invigorate you. It heightens your senses, makes you brave. I am alone and I have no chip. I’m somewhere I don’t know, without a phone, but right now none of that matters. This asshat has a worl
d of pain ahead of him. I’ve killed monsters that have murdered strangers. I’ve made each of them pay with blood and pain without remorse or hesitation. Perhaps I did lose myself in Wonderland, but sometimes being lost can be a good thing. Sometimes it forges you into who you need to be.

  I look through the tool rack and pick out a large-headed hammer. Its weight is comfortable in my grip. I’ve been trained for years for this moment; this is my operation, my vengeance. I push all the jars back and crawl into the bottom of the cabinet. I gently pull the door closed. And wait.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Shilo

  “I can’t get the door open,” Shilo says.

  “There,” White Rabbit points at one of the larger tree branches, “you can use this to lever it.”

  Shilo lurches forward and grabs the branch. He then digs it in the gap between the door and its frame. With a bit of effort he heaves up the door with a satisfying creak.

  “Good job!” White Rabbit jumps, clapping her hands. Her watch springs from its pocket and jiggles up and down as she moves.

  Shilo peers into the dark and hesitates. The forest around them is silent. Shafts of moonlight trickle over the fresh snow, making it look like glitter. Something moves just beyond them. He can feel it watching. Would the real Kushtaka be angry at the man for using it as a cover for his many misdeeds? Or would it savor the fresh blood of every kill, considering the crazy curator a kind of protégé, a monster in training?

  “Come on, you’re late!” yells White Rabbit. “Down the hole you go.”

  Taking a deep breath, Shilo leans forward and tumbles into the darkness.