by Drew Hayes
“That’s surprising, and encouraging.” Richard finally stopped rubbing his ears, though he watched the ride warily, as if he didn’t trust it not to spring back to life. “Lonnie may just get his money yet. Anyway, Sally and Gideon are still on the Ferris wheel, and after that, they’re going to the carousel, so I think our next stop should be the Haunted Fun House. There’s a whole row of small food booths by it, and if the mechanics are in good condition, it could be a major draw.”
“Lead the way.” I paused, remembering why I’d originally darted out of the café to begin with. “Hey, Richard, did you run over here before the music started?”
“I was on my way,” he told me. “Run might be a strong word for it, though. Why, did you hear something?”
“I thought so. It sounded like someone running.”
Richard and Bubba exchanged a brief look. “You hear anything?” Richard asked.
“Had my head in the guts of this machine,” Bubba replied. “May have been a wild animal; bound to be some holes in the fence around here somewhere.”
“Hmm.” Richard glanced back at the café, then to me, and then back to Bubba. “It could have been me; my natural pace is brisker than most people’s. Since I didn’t hear anything either, that seems like the most likely explanation. Still, everyone keep an eye open just in case. Places like this sometimes draw in unsavory sorts of parahumans. It’s unlikely, since the maintenance company is regularly coming through here without incident, but anything is possible.”
“Should we tell Gideon?” I asked.
Richard hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary quite yet. All we have are a set of footsteps that might have been mine. I don’t smell anything out of the ordinary, plus Gideon is virtually impossible to sneak up on. If I told them, all it would do is scare Sally, and I’d like her to enjoy this. It may be the only time she can go to a carnival without Gideon having to kill someone. Let’s just all keep our eyes peeled and our wits about us. Should we actually discover something dangerous, we can decide how to proceed from there. Until then, we focus on the job at hand.”
It made sense, and the more time went by, the less sure I was about the speed the steps had been moving. Richard was probably right; I’d just overheard him and mistaken the pace. Not every place I went was some seedy parahuman nest waiting to attack. Sometimes, an old carnival was just an old carnival, and if Richard financed the restoration, it wouldn’t even be old for much longer. I was almost certainly just being paranoid.
At least, that’s what I told myself as we headed off toward the Haunted Fun House.
3.
Unlike the café, the long line of food booths weren’t nearly as well persevered. Then again, since they’d been constructed from canvas and cheap lumber, that wasn’t especially surprising. Bubba gave the machines inside a once-over—what few appliances there were to be found—and declared that while some might still work, they were so old and had seen enough exposure to the elements that using them would almost certainly be a safety violation. I wasn’t as put off by the news as might be expected though, because, in truth, I could see more potential for this area than just a string of unconnected food stalls.
I imagined it would be cheaper to create one centralized kitchen and use the booths only to host service personnel, each one offering a single specialty item. That would spread the lines out, give more room for clerks at each respective booth, and overall increase the general speed and potential profit. Plus, we could update the menu offerings. I couldn’t read many of the signs left, but it was hard to imagine “Hot Cherries on a Stick” and “Fried Bubblegum” were quite the draws they’d once been.
Despite my initial hesitation to take on this job for Richard, I found myself getting more and more enthralled with it. I’d been in many businesses through the years, usually just working on their books; however, it seemed I’d picked up a small bit of practical knowledge here and there. While he’d clearly need to bring in a real specialist to get things optimized, I was having fun working outside my usual boxes.
Perhaps that cheerful mood was why I followed along with Richard and Bubba as they headed to the Haunted Fun House, straying from my proper duties to take in one the carnival’s main attractions. It was certainly an imposing structure, built to resemble a Gothic manor, though only in the most cheap and cursory of ways. A small track with a line of three cars meant to seat two people each was set in front, flanked by a wide pair of doors on either side. Further over, off to the left, was a massive arc of a doorway closed off by a door so tall even Richard could pass through without ducking. It was painted pure black, a feature that would have been far more intimidating if not for the chips showing the oak color underneath.
“Looks like they decided to save space and combine two attractions into one.” Richard surveyed the structure carefully, no doubt checking for any outward signs of decay—aside from the decorative ones, obviously. “The cars probably take you through a standard haunted house with stuff jumping out, and I bet the door leads up to the usual fun house fare, probably with a spooky theme. Given that space is at a premium in these sorts of places, it’s not a bad idea.”
As Richard had been speaking, Bubba walked over and fiddled with the control panel. The sound of cackling laughter filled the air as lights flickered on and the attraction sprang to life. Mercifully, this was not a repeat of the Lunch Thief’s soundtrack, as the laughing quickly gave way to someone doing a terrible Vincent Price impersonation, beckoning people to come inside if they thought they could survive.
“Want to see if we can take this thing for a ride?” Bubba gently tugged on the lead cart to see if it could move. “We can roll through and write down everything that don’t light up or jump out, then I can walk the tracks afterward and see how much work they need. Be a lot faster than checkin’ it all one piece at a time.”
“Is that safe?” My eyes were on the cart that, while seemingly able to move, certainly didn’t appear as if it had done so in many years.
“Not for most people, but I can’t imagine there’d be much in there that could hurt us,” Bubba replied.
Richard walked over and began easing himself down into one of the cars, filling the space meant for two and then some. There was a lot of creaking and groaning, but nothing snapped or broke apart, so that seemed like a good sign. “I’m glad to go if you can actually make this thing move, Bubba.” After a few more seconds of adjustment, Richard turned to me. “Fred, would you mind checking the upstairs? Just note anything broken that needs fixing, or anything mechanical that Bubba needs to check out when we’re done down here. It will save us a lot of time.”
“Happy to help,” I told him, because I was, and because I’d have done it even if that wasn’t the case. Fun as this trip was, I was still being paid to do a job, and that meant following the boss’s orders. Especially when he was nice enough to frame them as requests.
I walked up to the chipped black door, preparing to use as much strength as needed to shove the massive thing open. To my surprise, however, it took only the barest of pushes to send it moving inward. Grabbing the knob, I wiggled the door back and forth for a few moments, trying to figure out why it was so easy to move. The best I could figure out was that the wood was especially light, and there appeared to be some special hinge at the top of the entrance helping it along. I chided myself for not expecting something so mundane; this was supposed to be used by humans, after all. My time with Krystal and the others had given me a predisposition to seeing everything through a parahuman lens, it seemed. But this was just a fun house inside a carnival, one of countless thousands throughout the nation that normal people went to every year. Even I’d visited a few, back when the traveling ones came through my hometown. They hadn’t been a favorite pastime—I was never much of one for large crowds; however, in high school, it was an occasional entertaining diversion.
Making my way up the stairs, which were also painted black with the e
xception of two that had been replaced by new boards, I scanned the narrow entrance, searching for any areas with structural compromise or mechanical components. Bubba was right. While we were in little danger wandering a potentially unsound attraction, the same wouldn’t be true once the carnival had human guests. They were such fragile creatures, really. The longer I spent as a vampire, the harder it was to believe I’d survived as long as I had with a normal body. Sure, I had to worry about stakes, sunlight, and supernatural threats, but the overall number of things that could harm or kill me had shrunk to a fraction of its former size. No wonder the older vampires I’d met seemed so inhuman; if I wasn’t still around humans, it would be easy to forget what I’d once been.
When I crested the staircase, I found myself staring at a man. A pale man—thoroughly unremarkable, if I’m honest—wearing a sweater vest and khakis. Me, in other words. It seems the first attraction of the fun house was a classic: a hall of mirrors for guests to bump their way around in.
Allow me to digress for a brief moment, because while I’ve never explicitly covered this before, I’m sure some of you will be wondering at just how I was able to see myself in a mirror when vampires are supposed to lack reflections. The simplest answer is that the whole thing is bunk. How would that even work? Assuming our flesh was magically not to be seen in a mirror, which is a silly premise to start with, why would our clothes be absent as well? Does donning a shirt as a vampire somehow transfer some aspect of vampirism to the shirt, but only for the length of time that it stays on our skin? The whole premise is quite strange. As near as I can figure, and this is pure conjecture on my part, the rumor started because there was a time when a “mirror” was just a large hunk of polished silver, which vampires would of course avoid for obvious reasons. Still, that is only a guess; I have no certain idea as to where such an odd rumor came from.
At any rate, I found myself standing in a hall of mirrors, and proceeded to do what I’d been instructed: make my way through it. A steady thrum of ghostly music and standard spooky sounds played from speakers on the walls, likely meant to instill a bit of terror as I wandered about. Cackling laughter, like at the entrance, heavy panting, doors slamming, wailing moans, muffled footsteps, unintelligible whispers, all the usual stuff one would find on a $3 Halloween album. When I listened carefully—a feat I rarely engaged in—I could make out the same music being played downstairs as well. Why pay for two soundtracks when they could just run the audio to different outlets? Food aside, I found myself with a bit of respect for the previous owner of this place. Pragmatism and creativity were always aspects to admire in an entrepreneur.
The whole area was something of a boon as well, since nearly all the mirrors were still in one piece. True, several were dusty, and occasionally I would find a shattered one with broken shards shimmering on the ground, but overall, it wouldn’t cost much to replace the few that were needed. If the rest of this fun house was in as good of shape, it was yet another tick in favor of making the investment.
Turning a corner near what I assumed had to be the end of the mirrors, I once again found myself looking at a man. This one wasn’t me, however. It was someone in dark jeans, a heavy coat, and with their face obscured by a bleached cat mask speckled with dirt. I froze as soon as my eyes fell upon him, and I stood there for several seconds, waiting for him to make a move. When nothing happened but a fresh round of cackling in my ears, I remembered where I was. Right: spooky fun house. There were bound to be a few surprises scattered about to give the guests a scare.
It was a pretty good one, too. I’d certainly been taken by it. Stepping forward, I moved closer to examine the prop. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment that my true mistake became clear. Whipping his arm forward, the man in the mask stabbed something sharp between my ribs. I yelped, more in shock than pain, and looked down to find a shard of broken mirror poking out from my sweater vest.
By the time I looked back up, the cat-masked assailant was gone. I tried to listen for him, but with all the music and sound effects blaring, it was impossible to tell what was real and what was just noise. I darted around the hall for a few moments, scouring for my attacker, but there was nothing to find. He’d apparently vanished after stabbing me.
With a grunt of annoyance, I grabbed the mirror shard and yanked it out. At least this time I knew I wasn’t mistaken. There was definitely something else in the carnival with us.
4.
“Yup, that’s a stab wound all right. Or what’s left of one. Y’all heal faster than we do, and it doesn’t look like it did much damage to start with.” Bubba examined the slice in my chest, now looking like little more than an accidental scratch, then nodded, indicating I could lower my shirt.
Getting out of the fun house had been a quick affair. Rather than plunging further into the unknown and trying to find my way out, I’d simply doubled back the way I’d come. It was a tactic probably frowned upon when the ride was operating normally, but given the circumstances, I felt justified.
“Damn. This complicates things,” Richard said. “Fixing broken-down rides and repairing booths is one thing, but if some parahumans have made this place a home, then I’ve got to worry about the backlash from flushing them out, or if I’m even going to be able to. Depends on what they are, and if they’ve got allies. First things first though, we need to find Sally and Gideon. Fred, can you tell us anything else about the assailant? We can keep a lookout while we head their way.”
“Just that he was large—by normal standards, I mean—wore a cat mask, stabbed me, and then vanished.” I’d have loved to provide more information, but nothing more jumped to mind, no matter how much I wracked my brain. In the moment, I hadn’t realized the need to pay attention, and by the time I was smart enough to look for details, he was already gone.
Bubba rubbed his chin as I listed off the small bits of information I had. “Could be a ghost, maybe. Been here alone long enough, might have gone crazy and just started tryin’ to drive off intruders.”
“Then why haven’t any of the maintenance people had issues?” Richard pointed out. “We’re probably dealing with something nocturnal. Ghosts are stronger at night, true, but I can’t imagine that one strong enough to use a physical object wouldn’t have caused at least a little daytime trouble. Given our location, it might be a lost forest spirit that made this place its home. Plenty of those only manifest at night.”
“Um, didn’t you just say ghosts weren’t nocturnal?” I asked.
“Ghosts are a type of spirit, one that used to be human,” Richard explained. “But there’s a whole list of other spirit types out there. Most are so weak you’d never notice them if you weren’t looking. Every now and then, you come up against one with real power though, and those can be awfully territorial.”
Bubba yanked out his phone. “I can call Amy and Neil, have them here handling this place in no time.”
“Hang on. Right now, all we have is a best guess. I’d prefer to get my daughter to safety, regroup, and come back here during the day with some experts.” Richard took a few steps away from us, lifted his head up, and took a long, deep sniff. I’d seen firsthand how good his tracking skills were, so I wasn’t remotely surprised when he nodded down the fairway in a direction we hadn’t been yet. “This place still stinks of cleaning chemicals and humans, but I can smell Gideon over there. Dragon is a hard musk to mistake for anything else.”
We began jogging down the fairway, eschewing an outright run so that Richard could take his time following their trail. Bubba quickly fell into line next to me and began speaking loud enough to be heard while still staying quiet enough that he wouldn’t break Richard’s concentration. “If this is a spirit, then none of us can hurt it. You fight those usin’ silver and magic, so we’re shit out of luck on both fronts. Gideon can whup their asses no problem, so we’re fine once we get to him. The upswing is that they won’t be able to hurt us either.”
“Tell that to my ruined vest,” I mutte
red. Perhaps I was an extra bit miffed because it was yet another that needed replacing, and in the span of only a few weeks. I bought quality, so the things weren’t cheap.
“I didn’t say they couldn’t annoy us.” Bubba grinned, and we took a sharp turn as Richard suddenly changed direction.
He led us deeper into the carnival, bringing us to a midway where he began to slow down. Richard turned to and fro, squinting his eyes and wrinkling his nose. “How much cleaner did these people use? It stinks of chemicals all through here. I can barely follow Gideon’s scent.”
Richard came to a full stop, looking up and down the different paths leading through the midway. I took a test sniff as well and found that he was right. This whole area did have a heavy scent running through it. It smelled like they’d dumped a whole vat of chemicals on the ground. The lingering stink made detecting almost anything else impossible. Still, I tried my best, because with every passing second, I noticed Richard was getting a little less composed. Even if she was with Gideon, he worried about Sally constantly. I didn’t know the whole story, but apparently she’d been the target of many a parahuman trying to turn the innocent girl into leverage. After Richard’s position cost his wife her life, he’d been determined not to see the same happen to Sally. And that had led to his strange bargain with Gideon: giving the ancient dragon his blessing to wed his daughter when she was of proper age, but only if she agreed to marry him. The blessing was one thing, but Gideon had to win her heart on his own. It was an uncomfortable situation rooted in a culture that wasn’t my own, so I tended to try not to think too hard about it. Richard was a man who loved his family, and when he’d been put in a hard position, he’d made the best call he could. That was the most any of us could do.
The sudden impact of Bubba’s hand smacking me on the back got my attention away from futilely sniffing the air. Nodding over to one of the game booths—the kind with undersized rings and oversized milk bottles—he drew my attention to movement. Someone was rising up from behind the booth. For a moment, I thought it was my attacker, but the body wasn’t right. Plus, on closer inspection, this one was wearing a rabbit mask, albeit one as sun-bleached and dirt-stained as the cat version.
