A point of orange light appeared below her, and she startled, her hand slipping off the support beam and rattling the plastic. She caught her balance, her heart racing, and a pair of green lights appeared, a few feet away from the first one. They vanished, then reappeared, and another pair, purple, sprang out of the darkness beside them, and this time Jessica saw the dark pinpoint at the center of each circle. Jessica tensed with an awful recognition, as more and more sets of colored lights appeared: Eyes. They’re eyes. The room below was slowly filling with sets of eyes, until it seemed impossible that so many creatures could fit into the space; they all stared upward, unblinking at Jessica. She moved slowly forward, her hands shaking as they found their way along the beams, and the eyes followed her as she went. Don’t look down.
Jessica set her gaze on the darkness in front of her and shuffled on and on for what felt like ages; each time she glanced down there were more pairs and pairs of watchful eyes, all of them rapt on her progress. Jessica shivered. She moved faster, still feeling carefully before she slid her hands and knees along, then the tube curved slightly, and a circle of dim light came into view. Jessica crawled for it as fast as she dared, the tube swaying precariously as she moved. She crawled through the hole and turned back: the room was in darkness again; all the eyes had vanished.
Jessica shuddered, revolted, then looked down at the room she now hovered above. The light was dim and unsteady, flashing strange colors at intervals, but she could see clearly. Peering down, Jessica saw that it was coming from the carnival games that filled the room, some flickering noiselessly and others giving steady light in every hue. She took a deep breath and looked ahead, trying to see where the tube led. I really hope there’s another way out, she thought, and started crawling again. The plastic tubing rattled as she went, the only noise in the dark room. Jessica swallowed; as the adrenaline waned, she was beginning to remember how much she hated enclosed spaces. Just keep moving. She reached a split in the tubing: one way snaked around the perimeter of the room, the other through another wall, into the pipe maze bolted to the ceiling of the next room. She scanned the room, then made her choice. She took the turn, taking the tunnel that fed through the neatly cut hole in the wall, and found herself back in the main dining room.
She paused and listened. There was no sound of movement in the dining room, and she craned her neck to look down through one of the large plastic panes, searching the area: the creature was nowhere to be seen. She had not noticed the play pipes that covered the ceiling before climbing up into them, but now she saw the extent of them, with no end in sight, and no way down. The playset she had climbed to enter the tunnels was utterly destroyed. How am I going to get out? She cast her eyes helplessly over the maze, tracing the paths she could take, and suddenly she saw it: the ball pit where she had thrown the baby crawlers was across the room, and it had a canopy made of climbing rope that stretched fifteen or twenty feet above the floor. The tube went directly over it. Jessica took a deep breath and crawled farther out into the room, bracing herself. She made it to the first turning point, and suddenly the pipe shook. She paused, but the structure shook again, and again. The light was being obscured from below her, and Jessica looked down.
The unskinned skull grinned up at her with yellow eyes, suspended below as if out of nowhere. The head swiveled sideways and elevated up and over the plastic tunnel. Jessica looked up in dread, and saw the body of the creature right above her, its limbs wrapped around the tube like a monstrous squid seizing a ship. She stifled a scream, and her heart skipped as she fought not to hyperventilate. The fox head lowered to eye level and snapped beside her, and she screamed and shied away; her hand hit the plastic floor between the support beams and the segment fell straight down. Jessica clamored back before falling with it, and quickly took a corner, heading off to a new direction. The fox head swooped upward in a blur and vanished.
Jessica crawled in a straight line, keeping her eyes fixed ahead. The structure continued to shake, and she could hear plastic breaking behind her, as well as large segments of the pipe maze crashing to the ground. Soon she reached the ball pit, and she stared down at the canopy of ropes through the bottom of the tube, hesitating. Now what? The structure shook again, but this time it was different. This time it trembled as though someone, or something, were in the maze with her. The entirety of the structure swayed and rocked on the bolts it hung from. Jessica kicked out the plastic below her, bracing herself on the sides of the tube as she looked down. Something moved in the pit below: three of the crawlers’ heads were above the surface, staring up at her disembodied with blank eyes. In unison, they snapped their little jaws, and she startled, hitting her head on the top of the plastic tube. “Stupid babies,” she muttered. When she looked down again, they were back in motion, swimming through the balls and snapping, apparently at random. Jessica shivered and froze, suddenly paralyzed at the next step of her plan. For a moment, she prayed that it wasn’t too late to just stay silent, and wait for danger to pass.
The structure trembled again, this time over and over in rapid succession. A spiral of shimmering metal flew through the tunnel, then she saw its gleaming fox’s head, its mouth open in an impossible smile. Jessica screamed and fell sideways through the hole, landing heavily on the rope canopy. It sank inward, giving her a split second before she began to slip downward.
She grabbed wildly at the net, the ropes burning her hands and entangling her feet, then she got her footing, and scrambled back up the slope to the top, wrapping her hands around the metal support bar. She watched the hole in the bottom of the pipe that she had fallen through, expecting something to come out, but nothing did. There was motion in the pipes, barely visible through the thick foggy plastic. Jessica searched in panic, trying to locate the creature, but there was movement everywhere: every pipe seemed to be crawling with life. Then she realized, all of the movement was flowing in the same direction. Jessica followed the flow with her eyes, through pipe after pipe, all the way up to a plastic end cap just above her. With a crash, the end cap burst out of place, and bolts rained down from the sky, hitting Jessica on the head. The fox head beamed down at her. More of its body pushed its way through, more and more limbs emerging as it balanced itself delicately on the edge of the pipe like a cat preparing to pounce on a mouse.
Something fell out of Jessica’s pocket with a ding. It was the earpiece, which must have been wedged into her other pocket. Jessica held steady, violently fumbling to retrieve the earpiece. The fox head craned sideways as the last piece of the monster exited the pipe and joined the rest of the metal mass, perched like a vulture on the rickety infrastructure of the pipes.
Finally, the fox lunged.
Jessica crammed the earpiece into her ear and jumped, and the creature slammed into the netting where she had been, its limbs shooting through the spaces in the net. Jessica landed on her back on the top of an arcade cabinet, then fell to the floor below with a thud, the wind knocked out of her, and she wheezed. The creature struggled to free itself from the net. The limbs writhed, then the whole body sank down with the net, tearing it off the frame as it went. The creature was stuck, its limbs tangled in the mesh. It thrashed and flailed, and its long, snakelike appendages lashed through the air. The net rocked back and forth, straining in its bonds, then gave way in an instant. The thing dropped straight down into the pit, sending colorful plastic balls splashing over the sides of the pit. It twisted frantically, still tangled in the torn netting, then suddenly it began to twitch. Jessica watched, wide-eyed, as the bound creature slowly sank into the ball pit with a sound like metal grinding metal; after a moment it vanished entirely, though the balls boiled up frenziedly as the gnashing sound continued. Briefly, she caught a glimpse of a black-eyed crawler, chewing contentedly. She drew in a shaky breath, then ran for the front entrance. Jessica burst out through the double door and into the cool night air, and swayed on her feet.
“Are you all right?” Marla asked with alarm.
“I�
�m fine.” Jessica looked at each of the children, confirming that they were all there, all safe. Except one. Carlton, do you have him? She forced herself to smile. “So, who wants to visit a police station?”
* * *
Carlton crept quickly down the hall, scanning the walls and floor for signs of struggle—of anything that would indicate something had passed through. There was another door a little way down the hall, and he paused outside it, carefully turning the knob while staying outside the frame. Bracing himself, he pushed the door in, and waited. Nothing came out and he cautiously peered inside: the room was completely empty. “Calm before the storm?” he whispered to himself, and shut the door.
When he reached the T in the hall he paused. Where are you, kid? He closed his eyes, listening. There was nothing, and then, a muffled scraping came from the wall behind him, back the way he and Marla had come. Carlton went toward it, and put his ear to the wall. The rustling continued. It was an odd sound he could not quite pinpoint, but it sounded like someone moving. He stepped back, examining the wall: It was plain, painted beige, with a large, silver air vent near the baseboard, about three feet high and almost as wide. That’s strange … Carlton knelt down in front of the vent and turned on his flashlight—which worked, somewhat impressively, after its extended use as a blunt instrument. He turned the beam on the vent, and squinted, trying to see inside, but the slats were too close together to make out anything.
A faint sound came from somewhere deep inside; it was indistinct, but it was unmistakably a voice. Carlton tugged at the grate with his fingernails, and it moved easily; he pulled the whole thing out, revealing a dark tunnel about four feet high. He shone his flashlight inside: The walls were concrete, painted red on one side and blue on the other in faded colors. Incomprehensible words were scribbled on them in crayon, and the yellow linoleum floor was scuffed with black sneaker marks, scratched, and turning up at the edges. “This place is brand-new, right?” Carlton muttered as he crouched down and crawled inside, keeping the light ahead of him. It was unsettling to think of someone carefully laying down a new floor, then marking it with deliberate signs of wear; adult hands mimicking children’s painstaking handwriting and simple drawings. He cast the light around: on the red wall there was a drawing of a house and stick figures; underneath someone had written My House with the e drawn backward. The sound of the voice came again, echoing faintly through the tunnel ahead, and Carlton crawled forward awkwardly with the flashlight in one hand.
The wall color changed every few feet, cycling through the rainbow at random, with childlike graffiti spaced unevenly all along the way. He came to what he thought was an opening to a new tunnel, but when he turned the light toward it, he saw that it was only a cubbyhole, small enough for a child to squeeze into. In the corner of it was a little blue sneaker, the laces untied, and Carlton swallowed. What is this place?
His flashlight lit on a silently screaming face, and Carlton jumped back, dropping the light. He snatched it up again, his heart thumping, and shone it on the figure: it was a jack-in-the-box stuck in its “surprise” position: a white-faced clown, its mouth gaping in perpetual laughter. “This isn’t a vent,” Carlton whispered, letting the light leave the painted face and continue down the colorful hall littered with hiding spaces and scuff marks. “This is part of the play area.”
The light fixed on a rainbow stretching above one of the hiding spaces. HIDE-AND-SEEK HALLWAY, it read. “This can’t be good.” Carlton winced. The child’s voice echoed again, this time a little louder, and he shook off the eerie sensation. I’m coming, kid, he promised silently.
He rounded a corner, but stopped short: there was an animatronic baby in a cubbyhole, motionless, laying on its back. Carlton’s elbows and knees trembled. Please don’t move.
Black, insect-like eyes stared blankly at him from a sweet, plastic face; the crawler did not move, apparently deactivated. He backed away cautiously, and turned his light on the path ahead; he was approaching a turn, but there was still no sign of an exit. He crawled on, passing stick figures and houses that were beginning to look suspiciously repetitive.
“I s-ee you …”
Carlton whirled around. There was nothing in sight but a closed door. It was the size of the other cubbyholes, child-height, with a small, heart-shaped window near the top. As he passed his light over the little door, something glinted through the heart-shaped window. Carlton stiffened, but before he could think to move, the door broke off its hinges as Freddy crawled forcefully out, a maniacal grin on his shiny purple-and-white face as he unfolded from the cramped space he had stuffed himself into. Carlton crawled backward frantically, and Freddy matched his motions, keeping a distance of inches between them. Carlton glanced around, then turned and crawled as fast as he could down the tunnel, his knees and hands slamming into the floor painfully as he raced to get away. He glanced back: Freddy was crawling behind him, his mechanical arms and legs thundering faster than Carlton could hope to escape. He rounded a corner, and Freddy caught his foot, the iron fingers digging into his heel. Carlton kicked with his other foot, wresting himself free, and got to his feet and started to run, hunched down to half his height and scraping the ceiling with his back. From behind, he could hear the sound of Freddy bearing down on him, his hands and knees pounding the floor with vibrating force.
Carlton turned another corner, and relief surged through him: there was a vent along the tunnel, an actual vent that led to a large room. Carlton kicked it out without hesitation and scurried through to the room on the other side.
The room was enormous, seemingly designed to house a single, giant carnival ride: it was a ring of seats set on an angle, held together by huge metal arms on a spiral, a terrifying variation on the merry-go-round that would whip around at high speed while tilting nauseatingly up and down. On the far side of it was a door marked EXIT. Before Carlton could run for the door, Freddy burst out of the tunnel, climbing to his feet, his eyes sickeningly reflective in the dark.
“I see you so clearly now,” said the speaker in Freddy’s chest.
Carlton turned to run, then smacked into the carnival ride, biting his lip and drawing blood.
He turned back just in time to see Freddy lunge at him, and Carlton ducked under the ride, the blow just missing him and hitting the metal side of the tilted merry-go-round. The sound rang out in the vast, empty room, and he shuddered, then leaped back as another blow hit the ride above him, reverberating so hard it rattled his teeth. Carlton looked up: the metal had bowed out above his head, caving to Freddy’s strength.
“You can’t escape …”
Carlton scrambled away, tripping over the heavy steel beams that undergirded the ride, bolting it to the ground. Freddy’s shiny purple-and-white calves stalked him calmly, keeping pace with him along the perimeter of the ride as Carlton ducked under heavy cables and mysterious, frightening-looking gears.
“I’ve alm-ost got you …” Freddy announced.
“Not yet,” Carlton muttered as he carefully untangled his foot from the heavy wire that had ensnared him. He craned his neck, trying to see the room around him: There was no way he could get past Freddy, and even if he did, he would pursue him relentlessly. Carlton was backed up against the tilted end of the ride, and up against the control platform. As he craned his head upward he could see a large on/off lever, which was almost in reach.
“Nowhere else to run …”
Carlton waited for Freddy to make his way deeper under the ride, pressing and contorting his body to get at Carlton between the beams. Carlton squeezed out from under the ride and hoisted himself just high enough to pull the lever and activate the ride, then dropped to the ground and covered his head. Freddy reached for him, but the ride tilted abruptly.
Carlton saw Freddy jerk about, wrenched by the moving parts, until the ride jolted hard. Carlton clutched his head as his ears rang with the impact, a growing shriek of tearing metal and grating gears as the ride slowed, wobbling unsteadily on its axis. Carlton d
idn’t move: from where he had landed he could see the apparatus in motion, shredding through the body of what had been Freddy as the machine ground on inexorably through its routine. Scraps of purple appeared and vanished, then fell to the floor, spat out by the machine. A yellow eyeball appeared in a space above two gears, and Carlton watched with shocked fascination as the rest of the precariously balanced body was pulverized by the alternating beams, then dropped to the ground in several distinct masses.
The machine screeched ear-splittingly, then slowed and sputtered to a dead stop. Carlton didn’t move for a moment. He got to his feet and cautiously moved away from the apparatus, carefully avoiding the littered scraps of metal and plastic on the ground. He didn’t dare climb under the thing again, but he prodded it gently with his toe, then yanked his foot back as something dropped out.
Half of Freddy’s head, one-eyed and still grinning insanely, fell out of the machine near Carlton, spun partially on the ground, then stopped moving, and its single eye flickered on, then sputtered and died. The speaker in the now-smashed chest piece, laying armless and legless nearby, crackled with static, then spoke, “Thanks for playing; come again soon!” The voice trailed away and went silent.
In the distance, the child’s scream came again, and Carlton was startled back to himself.
“Hang on, kid,” he whispered, and headed grimly for the door.
Charlie’s duplicate stared back at her, looking stunned for an instant, then Charlie watched her own face curve into a bright, cruel smile. The other Charlie didn’t move, and Charlie’s fear receded as she watched this strange imitation of herself, astonished. That’s my face. Charlie reached up and touched her own cheek, and the other girl imitated her; Charlie tilted her head to the side, and the girl mirrored her movement—Charlie could not tell if she was being mocked, or if the other girl was simply as entranced as she was. The duplicate was a little taller than Charlie, and Charlie flicked her eyes to the girl’s feet: her black combat boots had heels. She was wearing a red V-neck shirt and a short black skirt, and her hair was long and hung in shiny waves—a look Charlie had given up even attempting halfway through ninth grade. She looked polished; confident in her stance. She looked the way Charlie wished she could be: some version of herself that had figured out curling irons, and sophistication, and taking up space in the world without apology.
The Fourth Closet Page 21
