by JL Bryan
Seven new MISSING posters hung in the front hall at school on Monday, featuring Jared and his friends.
Carter expected a grim scene when he walked into biology class. Wes McKinley’s younger brother Finn was among the missing, and he was startled to see Wes rolling his eyes and rambling in his usual condescending tone.
“Finn’s a stupid pecker,” Wes was telling Sameer, while David Huang and Emily Dorsnel listened closely. “All he does is lift weights, drink beer, and try to hook up with girls.”
“Sorry about your brother,” Carter said as he sat down.
“Don’t be sorry. He’s not dead. They’re probably all off on a road trip in a stolen car, that’s what I think,” Wes said. “Finn and his stupid pecker-brain friends.”
Carter nodded, not sure what else he could say. Wes was the last person who would believe him if he started talking about ghosts and supernatural carnival barkers.
It was far from a normal day at school. The police were on campus, interviewing students about all the missing kids.
Carter himself was pulled out of class during third period, AP American History, where they were studying The Federalist Papers, and sent to the principal’s office. Chief Kilborne himself waited there, having taken over the office for the day.
“Mr. Roanoke,” Kilborne said, looking him over as he sat down. Kilborne turned to a female deputy sitting at the side of the desk with a laptop. “Why don’t you take a break, Deputy Patterson?”
She frowned, but left the room without protest, closing the door behind her.
The police chief took his time reading over some notes before he looked up at Carter. “I assume you know why we’re here,” he said.
“The missing kids?”
“Jared’s mother listed you as one of his best friends. Is that right?”
“We were friends in elementary and middle school. Not in the past few years, really.”
“Why not?”
Carter shrugged. “I guess I focused on school, and he was more focused on...having fun or whatever.”
“I’ve seen his academic records and I’ve seen yours. You’ve got plans for the future, don’t you? College?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your buddy Jared has his own file folder down at the police station. His discipline file here is a whole lot bigger than his academic one.” Kilborne spat tobacco juice into a foam cup. “You have any idea just where this gang of delinquents might have gone and disappeared to?”
“You might check Starland.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Lots of people are talking about it this year.”
“You mentioned that last time we spoke. When you showed up with a picture of Shoot-Em-Up Puppets and said they were the bodies of those first two boys.”
Carter didn’t know how to reply.
“Tell me something, Carter. Is ‘everybody’ talking about it because of you and that new girl? You been going around bragging about how you broke into the old place?”
“No, sir.”
“And your girlfriend? Has she been going around showing folks pictures she took inside the park?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you want to finally explain to me just what the hell you two were doing in there? Why you really came to the police station last week?”
“It’s just what we said,” Carter replied. “We saw the bodies of two kids. I still don’t understand what happened with the pictures—”
“I don’t have time for crazy bullshit,” Kilborne interrupted. “Do you know Paul McCorter? Gavin Lassiter?”
“No, sir. I don’t recognize those names at all.”
“They’re sophomores here at your school.” Kilborne brought out four pages from a folder and spread them out on the desk, facing Carter. They showed black and white images of four younger boys, labeled with names he didn’t know. “What we have here is four kids who went missing Saturday night. Two sophomores, two freshman. You know any of them?”
“No, sir.”
“I gather that Reeves Mayweather was known to associate with Jared and his crowd,” the police chief said. “So that’s a connection. What about these four? Were they friends with anyone you know?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Carter said. “I don’t know those kids at all.”
“Apparently the four of them...you ever heard of this thing called LARPin’?”
“Live action role playing?” Carter asked, after thinking it over for a second.
“Apparently these four boys like to go out in the woods and dress up like wizards or some crap like that. They were heard to say they were planning a ‘campaign’ in Starland. Guess that’s what they call their games. Anyway, these four weird, nerdy kids bragged to all the other weird, nerdy kids about it. Then they disappeared.”
“Four more?”
“A total of thirteen missing,” the police chief said. “I knew this was going to be a bad year when you showed up at the station like that—local boy babbling about craziness in the old park. I hoped it was the last I’d hear of Starland, but it just keeps coming up. So tell me again: why do you think these seven kids went into the park? Did you give them the idea their two missing friends might be in there?”
“Maybe,” Carter said.
“Either you did or you didn’t.”
“All I said was they could have gone into the park.”
“When did you say this?”
“Last week, I think.” Carter felt very uncomfortable and sweaty in his chair. He wanted to help find the missing people if he could, but there was no way the police would believe the truth.
“All last week? Day after day? Or was there a specific day?”
“I’m not sure exactly, sir. I think it’s worth searching the old amusement park, but you’ll want to bring a lot of people if you do. It’s crazy in there.”
“How do you mean?”
“I think...it could be haunted.” Carter felt stupid for saying it. He knew it was true, and that whatever was happening at the park was a hell of a lot more than a simple ghost or two, but it still sounded absurd in the light of day, in the principal’s office at school.
The chief glared at him for a long moment.
“Get the hell out,” Kilborne finally said. “Expect to hear from me again.”
“Yes, sir.” Carter didn’t waste any time leaving. He was shaking. School no longer felt like an island of normality and order. It felt as though whatever had happened in the park was reaching out to engulf the whole town. He imagined the sinkhole quietly spreading underneath the roads and buildings of Conch City, like a mouth widening until it was ready to swallow everything at once.
He’d often thought of the sinkhole as a living thing, a kind of gigantic primordial worm with a ring of rocky teeth, eyeless and blind, drawn up from its deep subterranean lair by the music and laughter, the screams of delight and the smell of fresh meat.
At lunch, Victoria was shivering when he sat down beside her. She stared past him into the courtyard.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Look. You can tell they’re gone,” she whispered. “It’s like a hole in the crowd.”
He followed her eyes to the wide concrete planters where Jared and his friends usually sat. The space was occupied by a couple of freshman in black concert shirts, who looked around blinking like cows that had lost their herd. Everybody in the courtyard was quiet, an extremely rare thing at lunch time.
“How are you feeling?” Carter asked.
“Like you’re avoiding me.”
“I seriously had a ton of homework. I told you about my AP classes. I barely slept.”
“I barely slept, too.” Her knees were bouncing nervously. “I don’t want to sound freaky right now, but you’re kind of the only person who makes me feel sane, after what we saw. The rest of the time, I feel crazy. So I sort of need to know you’re not pulling away from me. At least not this week, or this month. Okay?”
“I’m not.”<
br />
“Seriously?”
He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close, and she rested her head on his shoulder, the top of her hair grazing against his cheek.
“Are we going crazy?” she asked after a minute.
“Yes.”
“Who do you think he is? The man in the striped hat?”
“I don’t know. I told the cops to search the park.”
“Do you think they will?”
“I hope so,” Carter said. “Somebody needs to go in there and figure out what’s happening.”
He turned his head slightly, trying to look at her, and found his lips grazing the top of her head. She looked up at him for a long moment, then pulled away and drew up her knees in front of her.
“Sorry if I’m being weird,” she said. “I’m going to call that Hanover guy’s office right after school and see if they can put us in touch with Artie Schopfer. Maybe he can tell us why the amusement park he designed is full of angry ghosts.”
“That would be convenient,” Carter said.
After school, Carter went home to study. Happily, the volunteer search parties had been temporarily suspended while the police tried to deal with eleven new missing kids, so he had time for both homework and a full night’s sleep.
At a few minutes past ten, he tossed his clothes on the floor and climbed into bed. He left his desk lamp on, but found he was still too scared to close his eyes. He considered looking around for some NyQuil to knock himself out, and then his phone rang.
He assumed it would be Victoria, since they’d been texting each other all night, but instead it was a call from UNKNOWN NUMBER. He answered it.
A recorded voice informed him that someone was trying to make a collect call, and told him to press one if he would accept the charges.
Then another brief recording played, and it was a voice he recognized: “Carter, it’s Jared. You have to answer the—”
Then it cut off with a beep. Carter’s finger shook as he pressed one on his phone. He had no idea what to expect—good news that Jared was alive, or maybe the menacing man with the flat monotone, taunting him.
“Jared?” Carter asked.
“Dude, you have to pick me up,” Jared said. “I lost my wallet, I lost all my shit, somebody towed my car—”
“Where are you?”
“The Q-Mart. Come get me, okay? I lost my fucking phone, and the only phone numbers I know by memory, are yours, my parents, and my grandfather’s, and I’m sure as hell not calling them.”
“Okay, I’ll borrow my dad’s truck. Where have you been?”
“In Starland. Didn’t you get my message?”
“I haven’t heard from you since Friday,” Carter said. He hurried to get dressed again while he talked.
“What day is it now?”
“Monday. Monday night. You’ve been missing for three days.”
“What about Becca? Is she okay?”
“Nobody knows. Everybody’s still missing, thirteen kids missing. Um...twelve, now, if you’re back. I’ll be right there,” Carter told him. “The Q-Mart at West Beachview and 98?”
“That’s the one. And bring some money. I’m fucking starving. And pants.”
“You said pants?”
“Just hurry.”
Carter went to the kitchen, where his dad was assembling a small remote-control go-kart at the table and asked to borrow the truck keys. His dad had recently begun wearing glasses, and Carter still wasn’t used to the sight of them.
“Are you going to see that girl?” His dad looked at him over his glasses. “Kind of late, isn’t it?”
“I just have to give somebody a ride home. Because of, uh, a flat tire. I’ll be right back.”
“Keep it quick.” His dad handed over the keys.
Carter drove to the Q-Mart and parked under the big white sign with a yellow duck driving a convertible. In its day, the Q-Mart had been like a twenty-four-hour general store, selling everything from beer to bathing suits, but it had since shrunk, renting out half its space to a dry cleaner, and now closed at eleven every night—just a boring, rundown gas station with really disgusting bathrooms.
Jared emerged from behind the convenience store. He wore one shredded sock, badly tattered boxer shorts, and a crisp new t-shirt that read I SURVIVED DARK MANSION AT STARLAND AMUSEMENT PARK. Except for the shirt, he was smeared from head to toe in filth, as if he’d been crawling through chimneys and sewers.
“Jared, what the hell happened?” Carter asked.
“I’ve been inside Dark Mansion,” Jared said. “Three nights, three days. That place is different inside now, Carter. It’s huge. It goes on forever. I know that sounds crazy, but...Becca’s still in there. You have to help me get her out.”
“I’ll believe anything you tell me about Starland,” Carter told him. “I’ve seen the most insane things there, too.”
“What’s wrong with that place?”
“It’s full of ghosts. Here, have some pants.” Carter tossed him a pair of khaki shorts. “I could have brought shoes.”
“Ghosts?” Jared asked as he dressed. “They were all over the mansion. Can we eat?” He pointed at the blue International House of Pancakes sign across the street. “I’ve been staring at posters of pancakes for at least twenty minutes. I haven’t eaten since Friday. You got any smokes?”
“Nope.”
“Damn it!” Jared climbed up into the truck.
Carter drove across the highway to park at the pancake house. It was open all night, but the hostess refused to seat them, pointing to Jared’s one sock and citing their policy regarding shirts, shoes, and service.
They ordered take-out and waited in the parking lot, sitting in the bed of the old pick-up.
“So what happened in there?” Carter asked him. “By the time Victoria and I got there, everybody was gone.”
Jared told him about the copious amounts of free beer and food. “I don’t know what happened to everybody else after that. Me and Becca snuck off to Dark Mansion to get away from everybody, right? And then this trap door opens and the haunted house basically swallows her up. So I keep searching for her, for hours, and I realize that the mansion’s a lot bigger now, somehow. I don’t know how many rooms I walked through full of bookshelves, rugs, paintings, fireplaces, and there’s always a secret door in the fireplace or a staircase hidden behind a painting or a trap door under the rug. Always more doors and stairs and rooms, and the rooms got really weird, decorated with skulls and coffins and....” Jared took a breath and shook his head. “I spent hours in crawlspaces and attics full of old chests that opened onto ladders leading into hidden rooms...the goddamn place just went on and on, and I couldn’t find the entrance or the exit. And it’s darker and I’m seeing faces in the shadows and the mirrors and weird whispering voices and this one girl giggling like she’s going to eat my brain.”
“That’s where you’ve been?” Carter asked. “Three days inside Dark Mansion.”
“Yeah, and I’d get tired and almost fall asleep somewhere, and these cold little hands would come out of the darkness and claw at me, rip at my face, my clothes, my shoes...” Jared said. “I never saw them, it was always dark. They always got me as soon as I closed my eyes.”
“You haven’t slept in three days?”
“Slept or eaten. How long does it take to make a fucking omelet and pancakes, anyway?”
“I’ll go check.” Carter went inside and collected their to-go boxes and Styrofoam cups filled with cola. When he brought it back to the truck, Jared tore open the baggie of plastic silverware and dug into his meal—a big omelet stuffed with ham and cheese, plus six pancakes, hash browns, and a little container of bacon. Carter slowly ate the hamburger he’d ordered while Jared gorged himself, not speaking again until every bite was gone.
“I gotta get some people together,” Jared said. “We have to go back in there and search for Becca. Would you help me do that?”
“Things are a little different now
,” Carter told him. “The police are all over it. Lots of people are missing.”
“I don’t want to go to the cops. Chief Kilborne already hates me.”
“If you don’t, they’ll come to you when they realize one of the missing people is back. They’ll have a ton of questions.”
“They won’t believe me.”
“So tell them something they can believe,” Carter said. “Tell them there’s some crazy guy living in the park, and he locked you into a room in Dark Mansion until you escaped, and you don’t know what happened to anybody else.”
“I don’t know what happened to anybody else. That’s why we need to go look for them.”
“That’s why you need to convince the cops to do a big search of the park.”
“They won’t do that just for me,” Jared said. “The park is like the most forbidden place in town.”
“They’re desperate for something to do, and they won’t be able to ignore what you say. The sooner you talk to them, the sooner they’ll open up the park and search it.”
Jared rubbed the sides of his head with his fingers, like he was developing a bad headache.
“But what’s really happening?” Jared asked. “That’s what I don’t understand.”
“Victoria and I have been trying to figure that out. You know Emily Dorsnel?”
“Is that Emily Dork Smell?”
“She’s into parapsychology. She told us that some places are just a little haunted, like you might see or hear a ghost for a second. Other places are much worse. They trap souls inside, and they’re called dark places.”
“Starland is definitely some kind of dark place now,” Jared said.
“That’s what Victoria and I think. We already spoke to Mr. Hanover, and Victoria’s trying to get in touch with Artie Schopfer, the guy who designed all the big rides, including Dark Mansion. Victoria and I—”
“‘Victoria and I, Victoria and I,’” Jared repeated, mimicking him. “Is she your girlfriend now or what?”
