Highway to Hell

by Val Crowe

  I belonged in a place like this.

  How could I not have realized it before?

  I was sensitive to the supernatural. Therefore, I should be among supernatural beings. I belonged here in Point Oakes. This was home. Maybe I’d always known that deep down. I was awakening to my destiny.

  As I walked, I began to hear strains of music. Since I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I decided to walk in the direction of the sound. As I got closer, I began to recognize the song. It was The Cure, “Lovesong.” I had always thought it was a pretty song.

  I liked The Cure, as far as it went. I had never listened to a Cure album or anything, I had to admit. I pretty much only knew them from their hit singles. And I always wondered why they were supposedly a depressed, emo band, because all the songs that I knew by them were pretty poppy and happy and upbeat. “Lovesong” wasn’t a snappy number exactly, but it wasn’t a depressed song either.

  I rounded a bend, and there was the Tunnel of Love ride, blaring The Cure and all lit up.

  It was bright and brilliant and new-looking. No rust or decay. No wear and tear. All the paint was perfect. The ride looked pristine.

  I surveyed it, chuckling to myself. What was this?

  Wait, there was someone at the front of the ride. I could only make out the figure in shadow, but it looked like a female form.

  I made my way to the entrance of the ride. As I got closer, I could see who the figure was.

  “Mads?”

  She turned to look at me. Her dark brown hair was down around her shoulders, falling in soft waves. Her big brown eyes were luminous.

  “Is that really you?” I said.

  “Deacon!” Her voice cracked. She ran for me.

  I ran for her.

  But when we got close, we both stopped short.

  Her gaze searched mine. “Deacon, what have you done?”

  “Where have you been?” I said.

  “I’ve been outside the gate,” she said. “I saw you put that lock on. What are you thinking?”

  “I…” I furrowed my brow. That made sense, putting the lock on. It made sense, because… “I need to find out about Negus. I can’t leave.”

  “You have to leave,” she said.

  Something about her seemed… On impulse, I suddenly reached out for her. I raised my hand and stretched out my fingers. I wanted to touch her cheek, but I knew I couldn’t. Anytime we tried to touch, I simply went right through her. So, I got close, but not close enough to touch. Close enough for the illusion of touching.

  Except I could almost swear I could feel the softness of the tiny hairs on her skin there.

  She gasped.

  I knit my brows together.

  “Deacon, this place, what they’ve done. They took something from you to power this. We can’t let them—” But her words died in her throat.

  Because I had just made contact with her skin, the tips of my fingers sliding against her jaw.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Her fingers were over my fingers, holding my hand against her cheek, and I could feel her. She was touching me.

  We stared into each other’s eyes for several long moments, neither of us saying anything, just gazing at each other.

  “Deacon,” she finally whispered.

  “Yeah?” My voice was raw. What the hell was going on here? Why could I touch her? Was this really Mads? This could all be some awful trick, and I had been so confused lately. Everything about this place seemed to be screwing with my head. I had thought all that strange stuff had happened with Lily, but then I had realized it had been a dream, or that I had been sleepwalking or…

  Wait.

  Had I been sleepwalking?

  Oh, why was I thinking about this now? I was here with Mads, and we were touching. There was nothing else to think about.

  “It’s you?” I said. “It’s really you?”

  She nodded. Her fingers slid down my hand, and then she twined her fingers with mine, moving my hands away from her cheek. Holding onto my hand, she closed the rest of the distance between us so that there was barely an inch between our bodies. She swallowed. Her other hand came up and she ran her finger over my bottom lip. Then she pulled her hand back. Both of her hands. “You have to go.”

  “Wait, what?” I said.

  “You have to get out of here.” She bit down on her lip, looking incredibly distressed. “They’ve done something to you, and you’re all discombobulated, and they’re going to hurt you, Deacon. You know that, right?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I grabbed her hand again. “We are touching.”

  She tried to pull her hand back, but it was like she didn’t quite have the will to do it. She gave me an agonized look. “It’s a trick, Deacon. They are taking your essence and using it against you. They want to lure you in, and you won’t even protest while they do it, because you’ll think…” She looked away.

  “Mads…” I tugged her.

  She didn’t resist. She collided with me, her hand on my chest. She looked up at me, a little breathless. “They’re playing a dangerous game, trying to get me complicit in this. But they can tell that I want…”

  “What?” I rasped. “What do you want?”

  She shut her eyes.

  I reached under her chin and tipped it up.

  She opened her eyes.

  I looked at her lips. I looked back into her eyes.

  She let out a shuddering breath.

  I started to lean closer.

  “No,” she breathed, her voice barely audible. “No, I won’t be able to bear it if you…” She took several steps away from me, but she didn’t let go of my hand. She pulled me toward the entrance to the Tunnel of Love. “Let’s just ride the ride.”

  I let her lead me into the entrance.

  There was a single car there. It was floating on shimmering water, lit from beneath by diffused blue lights. Together, we climbed inside.

  The music swelled.

  And the ride began.

  We floated over the water, moved forward by a track beneath that urged the car forward. We went under an archway decorated with dripping white flowers and then we were in a dimly lit tunnel.

  Mads rested her head on my shoulder. She started to speak softly, and her voice was full of tears. “You don’t know what it’s like, Deacon. You don’t know how lonely it is out there.”

  I squeezed her fingers. “Hey, we’re together now. You don’t have to feel alone.”

  “I was alone. I don’t even know for how long. It was years or decades or centuries. I don’t know. I could see the spirits around me, sometimes, they would stream past me like ribbons, but there’s nothing to them. They have no real thoughts or reason. They’re only hunger and desire. They want to gorge and go looking for energy, and whatever traps them, makes them. But then… then there was you.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you know what it’s like to go forever, to go so long you don’t even know who you are, without another person to talk to? No, of course you don’t know.”

  “I don’t,” I murmured. “But I can imagine it would be hell.” In fact, I’d often thought that I’d rather cease to exist than be a restless, trapped spirit, unable to contact anyone. That was Mads’s existence before me?

  “I can’t lose you,” she said. “You have to leave this place.”

  “But…” I swallowed. “If we can touch here, why would I leave?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If you’re lonely, if you want me to be with you, then isn’t this really being together?” I said. “We could… we could do everything.”

  “No,” she said. “No, we couldn’t. Because you need to live, and they can’t keep you alive here. They’ll… use you, drain you, and when you’re nothing more than a husk, they’ll let you rot.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, then I’ll leave. But after I find out about Negus. And after you and I…” I didn’t finish the sentence.

  We ro
unded a bend in the ride and the interior of the walls was now decorated in roses.

  She raised her head from my shoulder. “After we what? Kiss?”

  My gaze zeroed in on her lips again.

  “And then what?” she whispered. “And then you leave, and then we can never touch again, and I have to remember it, and I know it can never happen again, and it kills me watching you want other women, real women, and…”

  I looked away.

  “Anyway, you’re not acting like a person who’s leaving,” she said. “You locked yourself inside. I saw you do that. Why did you do that?”

  “I just… it seemed like the thing to do.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure now.

  “Listen, climb the fence if you have to, but get the hell out of here, Deacon,” she said. “Will you promise me that?”

  I didn’t respond. Because, yes, I guessed I should get out of here, but… “They’re going to tell me about Negus. Isn’t that important? He’s still after me. And he wants to hurt me—”

  “They want to hurt you. God, it’s like you’re dense. Can’t you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I…” I blinked hard. And when I did, the ride flickered. Instead of a bright, pristine tunnel, lit and freshly painted, I saw a graffiti covered wall with moss growing over the scummy water. And I could see through Mads next to me. Panicked, I squeezed her fingers again.

  “Deacon,” she whispered. “Oh, Deacon.” She leaned forward and she pressed her lips against my forehead, and I could smell her, and she smelled like cinnamon and jasmine, and I wrapped my arms around her waist, and I tried to hold her there, but…

  She was gone.

  The music was gone. The lights were gone. I was inside this awful tunnel in the dark. Alone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I stumbled out of the Airstream the next morning, feeling tired and a little off. My head was hurting. Everyone else was already awake, sitting in front of my mother’s motorhome and eating some kind of potato hash.

  “You got a cell phone?” said Patrick by way of greeting.

  “Uh…” I pretended like I didn’t know what he was talking about and ducked back into the Airstream to pretend to look. I came back out right away. “No.” Adopting a wary and confused look, I strode over to them. “You guys don’t have phones either?”

  “How do you know that?” said Patrick, folding his arms over his chest. “Did you take the phones?”

  “Kiddo, we just want our phones back,” said my mother.

  I turned to her. “What? You think I took them?” I was a little peeved. I mean, I had taken them, but I would think that my mother would think better of me. On the other hand, my mother would not admit that she had been possessed by Negus, so there were other problems in our relationship. I’d come here to reconnect with her, and that hadn’t happened. Now, all I could do was to try to find out the information about Negus, because I had no hope of finding anything with my mother.

  Negus was what was important.

  Admittedly, everything was a little confusing. I remembered being with Mads last night on the ride, and she had said that I was in danger here, and that I should climb over the fence and get out. But…

  Well, I didn’t think Mads was lying or anything. I knew that she wouldn’t do that. But I thought maybe she was being overprotective. Because I wasn’t in danger. The spirits here were doing things to appease me. Like making Mads corporeal. I had rejected what they’d done with Lily, so they had given me Mads instead.

  The spirits were on my side.

  It was everyone else—Patrick and my mother especially—who were against me. They wanted to leave this place, and I couldn’t leave until I found Negus.

  It was stupid thinking this through over and over. I was decided. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. Why did I feel like I needed to justify my actions to myself? I shouldn’t need to do that. I wasn’t going to do it anymore.

  I’d taken the phones and that had been a good call, because it meant that no one could call the police. And with the gate closed, we were all stuck here. Which was the way I wanted things.

  My mother was giving me a sympathetic look. “Well, I didn’t really think so, kiddo. It was only that Patrick said that maybe it was you.” She turned to Patrick. “It’s not Deacon doing these things.”

  “Oh, we’re just supposed to take him at his word?” Patrick sipped at his coffee and glared at me. “I don’t think so.”

  My mother bit down on her lip. “Well, Lily, what do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Lily spread her hands. “I mean, I didn’t know that ghosts could steal things. Or lock gates.”

  “Well, they can’t,” said my mother. “I don’t think they can. They can’t affect corporeal things.”

  Patrick eyed me. “He was saying something about possession.”

  My mother blanched.

  “I’m not possessed,” I said.

  Patrick sucked in a breath, as if it was hard for him to say the next thing. “You said that Lily was possessed.”

  Lily stood up. “Wait a second, you think I took the phones? Why would I do that?”

  “Let’s all calm down,” said my mother. “Assuming that the ghosts even could do any of these things, why would they want to keep us here?”

  No one answered.

  “Well, we should have a seance and ask them,” said Patrick.

  “That’s not going to get us any real answers,” I said.

  My mother shot me a wounded look.

  “Why won’t it get us real answers?” said Patrick.

  “It might,” said my mother, raising her chin. “You heard all those knocks last time. And then we all saw Molly. She was a fully-formed specter. That’s very rare for something like that to be visible to all of us. The spirits here must be very powerful.”

  I felt uncomfortable and confused again, because of something that Mads had said last night. Something about the spirits using me up and leaving me a husk. And when Lily had been possessed, she had sucked out my essence, just like Negus used to do and—

  I shook myself. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to think about this stuff anymore, hadn’t I?

  A thought surfaced, that I was the one powering the spirits, just like back in Ridinger Hall with Wade and Rylan.

  Wade. He’d called me, and I hadn’t called him back.

  Screw this. I poured myself some coffee. “Look, if the spirits took the cell phones, maybe they left them in the park someplace. I’ll go and look for them.”

  “Go and look where?” said my mother.

  “I don’t know. The maze. The carousel. The roller coaster. All the usual spots. We’ll see if I can’t find anything.” I put some cream and sugar in my coffee. Then I took my coffee and walked off. Trying to have that conversation was only confusing me.

  * * *

  A few steps away from them and my head started to clear right up. Nothing was bothering me anymore. I knew what I needed to do. Not find the cell phones, of course, but find out information about Negus. I’d locked us all up in here for that precise purpose, after all. The spirits thought that what I wanted was a corporeal Mads, but they were wrong. I wanted information on Negus.

  And I was going to get it, no matter what.

  I walked through the park, sipping my coffee. When I was finished, I set the cup down and kept going.

  I strode into the center of the park, right next to the maze, and I spread my arms wide. I threw back my head and yelled at the sky, “I’m waiting!”

  When I lowered my head, Molly was standing there.

  Her hands were outstretched, and ropes of pearls were spilling over her fingertips. Nestled in her palms were glittering rings and pendants.

  Huh. Look at that. The jewelry.

  I really didn’t care. I strode over to her, and I tried to take her by the throat.

  But I went straight through her. She flickered out and then reappeared, right where she’d been when I walked through h
er. Now, her back was to me. She was talking.

  “Please, it’s worth more than what you asked for,” she said.

  I strode around her, staring her down. “Hey, Molly.” I snapped my fingers. “Let go of this incarnation you’re stuck in and talk to me about Negus.”

  “I couldn’t get cash,” she said. “I tried, but this was the best I could do. I swear to you it’s real.”

  “Molly,” I roared. “Focus. I need to know about Negus.”

  “These are my mother’s jewels,” said Molly. “And she’s gone. It kills me to let them go, but I know she’d want him gone, the one I’m hiring you for. You are going to take them, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not.”

  “Why?” Her eyes were filling with tears.

  “Because,” I said. “I don’t want your stupid jewelry. I want to know about Negus. When I came here, I was promised information. You claimed you had it. And instead, you’ve been killing people and throwing various girls in my path. But all I want is information.”

  She flickered again. Her face twisted, and she laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?” I said. Rage was building inside me. I didn’t want to be toyed with. I wanted to take this whole stupid park by the shoulders and shake it until it gave me what I wanted. “This is not a joke. This Negus thing wants to kill me. He’s already tried, through my mother. Now, if you won’t tell me what you know—”

  “Then what?” said Molly. “If we don’t tell you what we know, then what?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn’t have a response, and she knew it.

  She laughed again. She advanced on me, gathering up the jewelry into her hands. Her face flickered, and it wasn’t Molly for a second, but something beneath, something with dark pits where its eyes should have been, something with sharp teeth. And then it was her face again, and she was on top of me, and she was prying open my lips and shoving the jewelry between my lips, cramming my mouth full of pearls.

  I fought her, but my hands went through her body.

  How could she touch me when I couldn’t touch her?

  “We have given all we will give,” she whispered, still pushing. Pearls were crowding my throat. I gagged. She continued to push. “It’s time for you to give now, Deacon.”