by JL Bryan
“I wish it was,” Carter said. He looked at Victoria with a question in his eyes, and she nodded.
Carter told the man about their experiences at the park—the dead boys the first time, the ghosts the second, the man in the striped hat, and the twelve kids still missing. Victoria hopped in several times to add details.
Schopfer listened without asking questions, but he rubbed his eyes and sighed frequently while they spoke.
“We’re trying to find out who he is and what he’s doing in the park,” Victoria said. “And how to stop him from taking more people.”
Schopfer gazed at the ceiling for a minute. The room, and the facility around it, seemed dim and silent.
“There’s something else out there,” he finally said, his voice thin and weak now. “I could feel it all those years, following me like a wolf in the night. It kept me restless. It followed behind me, destroying all I created. Everything I showed you in my scrapbook is gone. There’s nothing left of what I built, as far as I know. It’s all gone now.
“The man in the striped hat isn’t me, and it isn’t Teddy Hanover, even if he did copy the silly pinstriped outfit,” Schopfer said. “I know who he is. First time I saw him, he was a peddler selling medicines and potions out the back of his truck. That was nineteen...” Schopfer’s brow knitted as he concentrated. “Nineteen-fifty. Had to be. Just before I got involved with Tatiana the Snake Girl. Next time I saw him was that day of the sinkhole—was that three years ago?”
“Five years,” Carter said.
“Five years ago. And I tell you, he looked just the same, like he never aged. Same old dead gray eyes, sand-colored hair, exact same face. Like he was frozen in time. He came into my room, and he took my hands away from me.” Schopfer held up his twisted, shaking fingers. “He said I would never create again, and I would live to see the destruction of all I’d created. Then I heard about Starland, and the sinkhole, and all those deaths, and I knew it was him.”
“Who is he?” Victoria whispered.
“He doesn’t like what I just told you about. The lighthouse, the radio tower, the broadcasting of light, the forging of connections and bonds between people. He wants each one of us to feel isolated, hopeless, cold, and dead inside. Because that’s what he feels, all the time.”
“Who?” Carter asked. He also felt the need to whisper, as Victoria had.
“The devil,” Schopfer whispered. “He is the devil.”
The room was silent again while Carter and Victoria looked at each other.
“In what way?” Victoria asked.
Schopfer laughed until he coughed again. “In every way, young lady. The one true devil.”
“And...he has nothing better to do than hang around an old amusement park?” Carter asked, half-certain Schopfer was joking with them, just as when he’d pretended there was ghost behind the curtain and his roommate had played along.
“He takes an interest in each of us, but particularly the young—so much innocence to be corrupted, so much potential waiting to be wasted and lost. Those are the most precious souls to him, I think,” Schopfer said.
“Did he...say he was the devil?” Victoria asked.
“He didn’t have to say it. The moment I watched my hands shrivel up like dead flowers, I knew. When I heard about the sinkhole at Starland, and saw those pictures on the news, it only made me more sure of it.”
“Then what’s he doing with Starland now?” Carter asked.
“I can’t tell you what he’s doing or why,” Schopfer said. “I can only tell you who he is. He’s the devil, and he’s taken my best work and turned it into something monstrous.” The old man gave a very thin smile. “He can create nothing of his own, you know. That’s why he wears Teddy Hanover’s old suit. He can only infest and inhabit what others have made. I’ve had time to study and think.” His warped fingers touched the side of his head.
Carter and Victoria shared another quiet, uncertain look.
“Then what do we do?” Carter asked.
“The only safe thing is for you to stay out of the park,” Schopfer said. “Whatever he’s plotting, you don’t want to be in the middle of it.”
“It’s too late for that. We’re already involved,” Victoria said. “People keep disappearing into the park, and we’re the only ones who understand what’s happening.”
“Not that we really understand it yet,” Carter added. “We have to figure out how to stop him.”
“How to stop him?” Schopfer shook his head. “He is ancient evil, young man. He’s as old as sin. I don’t believe he can be defeated.”
“We can’t just let him lure people to their deaths,” Carter said. “I’ve seen enough people die in that park already. You’re telling us to give up.”
“I’m only telling you it’s hopeless,” Schopfer said. “Whether you give up or not is up to you.”
“So you don’t have any idea what we could do,” Victoria said.
Schopfer looked between them, then sighed.
“You can’t defeat him, and you certainly can’t kill him,” Schopfer said. “But you can beat him for a round or two.”
“How?” Carter asked.
“I can’t say. I don’t know what game he’s playing, so I don’t know what the rules are, but you can be certain that there are rules binding him. If there weren’t, he would be all-powerful and wouldn’t need to resort to trickery.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about him?” Victoria asked.
“Probably not much you don’t already know, or would guess,” Schopfer said. “He trades in souls. The souls of the damned are already his, so he must focus his time on the souls of the innocent. Or the semi-innocent, at the very least, since few of us are truly innocent. Beware of bargains, deals, and wishes. He’s known to use these to trap your soul.”
“He had the chance to take us,” Carter said. “Or kill us, at least. Why would he let us go like he did?”
“Perhaps you’re already damned and not worth the trouble.” Schopfer grinned, a little maliciously. “Or, for some reason, he does not want you for his ghostly menagerie.”
“Why wouldn’t he want us?” Victoria asked.
“I can’t say, young lady, but if you can figure that one out, it might just be the key to discovering the rules of the game.” He coughed and gestured at the scrapbook. “Look in the back pocket.”
Victoria turned the last page. The inside of the hard leather cover had a pocket stuffed with old envelopes. Schopfer rapped his gnarled hand on one of them.
“That’s the one,” he whispered.
Victoria slid it out with a wondering look at Carter. It was a little manila envelope, smaller than an index card, sealed with a string looped around a cardboard button. She opened it slowly and turned it upside down.
A long, thin copper key tumbled out and landed in her hand. It had a single sculpted tooth at the one end, and the other end was circular, cut and drilled to resemble a skull.
“That’s a skeleton key,” Schopfer said. “I made it myself. It should open almost any door in the park, and certainly any attraction I built. If you insist on returning to the park, that may help you in some way.”
“Thank you so much,” Victoria said, staring at it. “We can mail it back when we’re done.”
“Or don’t bother,” Schopfer told her. “I haven’t needed it in many years, and I don’t intend to return to Starland again in my life. I may never leave this building again. I’m not sure the key will help you at all, but it can’t hurt. If he wants you to stay out of the park, then there may be something you can do in there to change the course of things. The only other advice I can offer is this: claim your winnings early and get out as soon as you can, because you’re playing in the devil’s house, and the house always wins in the long run.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Carter blinked as they emerged into the afternoon sunlight outside the nursing home. His ears felt worn down from listening so much, but he now understood
the history of his town and the amusement park far better than he ever had. The knowledge made him feel slightly better armed, but against an enemy that seemed impossible to beat.
“What do you think?” Victoria asked. She opened her hand to look at the key. “Is he out of his mind?”
“He didn’t seem that way to me.”
“Then we’re up against the devil? I didn’t even believe in the devil this morning, and now he’s living in our town, refurbishing the old amusement park? That seems more than crazy to me.”
“Everything’s been crazy since we first stepped into Starland,” Carter said. “This is kind of the first thing that makes any sense. At least it’s an explanation.”
“I don’t know.”
“I do know that I’m ready for lunch now. I’m so hungry. Let’s find the largest cheeseburgers in town.”
Victoria watched for restaurants along the side of the road and picked one based entirely on the name—the Mermaid Cafe, a low shack of a building with badly peeling teal paint. On the way inside, she made him stand in front of the chipped seashell water fountain by the door, which was about half his height. The fountain was water-stained and dusty, as if it had fallen into disrepair years earlier.
“I wouldn’t eat any actual fish or seafood here,” Carter whispered as they approached the front door.
“Come on, let’s live dangerously.” She led the way into the dingy old restaurant. It was more than half empty, and most of its customers were small clusters of elderly people talking in hushed voices among themselves. A very faded under-the-sea mural ran the length of one wall, and Carter could imagine the place when it was vibrant and new, packed with tourists on their way to and from the once-famous attractions at Silver Springs Park.
The place did offer enormous cheeseburgers, as Carter had hoped. Victoria picked the grilled chicken sandwich on toasted wheat.
“Grilled chicken? Is that how you live dangerously?” Carter asked.
“You realize your cheeseburger’s going to be floating in a giant puddle of grease, right?” she asked.
“I hope so. Then I can dip my fries in it.”
When the food arrived, they ate hungrily for a minute, both of them too busy to talk. The elderly restaurant crowd was quiet, muttering among themselves. Forks and spoons clanged on plates. Dust motes floated in the deep yellow afternoon light.
“So, the devil?” Victoria finally said. “Like the one who rules Hell and takes all the souls of evil people? That guy.”
“I don’t know if I believe it, but I think Schopfer does. I don’t think he was making it up or trying to trick us.”
“You bought into his ‘there’s a ghost behind that curtain’ trick for a second, too,” Victoria said.
“Yeah...do you have any other explanation for what we saw, though?”
“I don’t know. Are you religious?” she asked. “Do you believe in that stuff?”
“Not really,” Carter said. Aside from a couple of early-childhood visits to his grandfather’s dark, sweaty, Hell-obsessed rural church, he didn’t have much experience or contact with religion. “Do you believe in it?”
“I’ve never seen a reason to,” Victoria said. “Most of what I know comes from movies, but...let’s say it’s true, just theoretically. Why would the devil want to kill a bunch of kids? He can’t keep their souls, right?”
“Unless they’re evil little kids,” Carter said.
“But most of them aren’t. He can’t keep their souls, but Emily said a ‘dark place’ is somewhere souls are trapped. So maybe he keeps them there and turns them evil after death. Then they become his.”
“It’s a thought, but I still don’t see why the devil doesn’t seem to want my soul.”
The restaurant was very quiet, and Carter noticed the other patrons—an elderly couple and a family with two kids—staring at them. Even the waitress gave them a funny look. He considered what they’d been talking about.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” Carter whispered.
They hurried to pay and escaped back onto the highway.
When they reached his apartment complex, they sat in the car for a moment, not talking.
“I thought about going to the beach when we got home, but I’m not sure I want to be out there in the dark, with the park only a mile away,” she said.
“That might be why nobody in town goes to the beach. I have a lot of homework to do, anyway...” He looked up at the yellow lighted square of his living room. “I’ve always kept my mind on the future, you know, just waiting to go off to school so my real life could finally begin. Now it feels like I’ll never escape the past. I just want to leave town and never look back.”
“Am I part of the past you want to escape?” she asked.
“No. You’re from outside this place. You’re the first sign that the future might get better.”
She smiled at him, looking him in the eyes. On an impulse, he leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. She kissed him back, just a little.
He drew back and they looked at each other. She didn’t grab him for more, but neither did she freak out or get mad at him. She looked as though he’d given her a complex piece of information, and she needed time to think about it.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Call me if you want to talk more.”
“Okay.”
He climbed out of the car and started up the steps to his apartment. When he glanced back, she was smiling at him, and then she pulled away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Teddy Hanover Junior stood at the wet bar in the corner of his living room and poured himself a tall glass of Scotch. He deserved it, after the week he’d had with the cops and the newspapers, all of it involving that big white elephant hung around his neck, the old amusement park. It was the largest of his family’s many worthless properties along the beachfront.
“The sinkhole,” he muttered aloud, for perhaps the millionth time in his life. “The goddamned sinkhole.”
He splashed a negligible amount of soda on top of his Scotch before walking to the couch. The couch was a long, sleek, black modernist piece, which could seat eight people in front of the enormous projection screen television. He sat down, adjusted his bathrobe, and took a long, bracing sip of whiskey.
His father hadn’t been much of a drinker, but had stocked the cellar with wines and liquors for his frequent large parties. Teddy had killed the parties and claimed the booze for himself.
He lived alone. He was sixty-three years old, and he’d left his first wife fifteen years earlier, for his incredibly gorgeous, though incompetent, former receptionist. He now owed alimony to both of them, while his real estate business had only shrunk, and the family construction company had essentially become a dormant storage yard.
He’d learned to enjoy being alone, just as he’d learned to hire an unattractive but experienced receptionist who didn’t botch up deals and meetings through relentless stupidity.
Teddy lifted his remote and played the new DVD. It had arrived by UPS, in a package of similar DVDs whose arrival had marked the high point of his week.
Onscreen, a young woman in a cheerleader outfit stood outside a gray charter bus, looking antsy. Soon the door would open, she would board the steps—looking hesitant and more than a little scared, he hoped—and then she would bang the entire college football team. Hanover liked that particular theme, one girl passed around by a group of guys. It reminded him of a certain wild night or two from his fraternity days, decades earlier.
While the opening credits were still rolling, a shadow passed across the glass wall of the living room. He stood up, considered whether to grab his revolver, and settled for approaching the glass to get a closer look.
The south wall of the living room was inset with floor-to-ceiling windows and two pairs of glass double doors that could be opened to catch the ocean breeze. Outside, a cobblestone terrace overlooked the back lawn, which stretched away toward the palm trees bordering the beach. Little spotli
ghts and sconces glowed here and there.
When his father had died, the back yard had been full of playground equipment and little pedal-cars for visiting grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Teddy had removed all of it, taken the spiral slide off the swimming pool, and had the back yard re-landscaped to look more upscale and elegant.
The interior of the house had been even worse, painted bright circus colors and cluttered with cuckoo clocks, giant stuffed animals, pinball and gumball machines, and other absurd bric-a-brac. Teddy had sold off what he could, stored the remainder of the tacky junk in the basement, and had the house painted and decorated in sane, neutral tones.
Teddy couldn’t see anybody outside. He unlocked the doors and opened one of them.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
He heard nothing in response, not even the thousands of insects that should have been buzzing on such a warm night. The only sound was the slow, distant lapping of water against sand.
Teddy locked the door and hiked up the back stairs to grab the revolver from his bedroom. The gun was fully loaded. He liked to keep it that way, ready to fire at the drop of a hat. Sometimes Teddy fantasized about catching some street thug breaking into his house and blowing his brains out.
He returned downstairs. The movie played on the six-foot screen, and things were really happening now, the girl stripping on the bus while the football players cheered her on.
The movie didn’t interest him at the moment, though. He stood in place, gun in hand, and stared at what had appeared on his coffee table.
“Is someone in here? I have a gun. I called the police already,” he added, in a moment of last-second inspiration.
