“And how do you propose we do that?” Audra’s cigarette had fallen to the ground, though she didn’t notice.
“Simple. We let ourselves in.” From her pocket she pulled out the ticket she’d kept over the years. The text was faded and the edges were badly crinkled but it was still intact. She wished her therapist could have been there for this.
“An old ticket? How the hell’s that going to help us? Are you sure that book you’re writing isn’t fantasy?”
Regina stepped up to the front gate and hesitated for a moment. She eyed the ancient ticket and the rusty lock and heard her therapist tell her she’d lost touch with reality again. This was a piece of cardboard and nothing more. It held no magical powers because there were no such things. Regina set the ticket against the lock and smiled as she heard a distant click. She mentally told her therapist to fuck off, unwrapped the chain, and tossed it onto the ground. The gate screeched as she opened it. The sound reminded her of the things that were probably running around inside this very moment. For no reason at all she slipped the ticket back into her pocket. It was useless now.
“You coming?”
“You promise me we’re both not just crazy?” Audra said.
“Cross my heart.” She removed the picture of Steven from her pocket, looked at his dead eyes, and tossed it onto the ground. The wind blew it away, toward the mountains and the blackness that covered them.
She and Audra stepped through the gates.
Chapter Sixteen
Vince was thinking about Audra. About how she’d almost convinced him not to come here. About how he’d all but lost her these last few years, not through arguments or infidelity but through distance. Even when they were making love she was wasn’t there, not completely. Her eyes would tune out, her tattooed husk of a body all that was left. He knew she didn’t love him anymore and he knew he should stop loving her. After all, he’d done nothing wrong. He’d worked two jobs and gone to night school, taken up a career where he hid his arms under long sleeves and sweated through his shirts on a daily basis. All to provide for her and the boys, without a single complaint.
But he could not stop loving her, no matter how foolish it seemed. You did not choose the ones you love. That was left to something much higher than Vince’s comprehension, much like what was going on at Dream Woods.
He was still huddled inside the front doors of the dinosaur park. He had not moved for a long time and his legs were swimming with pins and needles. His feet felt like they’d fallen off.
Behind him the things that were not dinosaurs still moved through the trees and bushes. The leaves rustled back and forth constantly and not just from the wind. They were not here to kill him. If that were the case, he would have been dead already.
They were waiting him out, drawing closer so that he’d have no choice but to step through those doors. Into whatever hell had transpired in the last hour.
Things had quieted down some but there were still screams every few minutes and grunts that sounded in response, noises that were surely not human.
In the distance thunder began to rumble. It sounded like some giant stepping down from the mountains, taking its time as it neared the park. It could have just been the fear playing tricks with him. It was impossible to tell what was real here. This wasn’t Dream Woods anymore.
It was more like Scream Woods and he’d begun to realize the rumors were not rumors at all. It was hard to deny when you had things stirring behind you and things feeding just outside the door you were leaning against.
He breathed deeply, prepared to move. He knew there was a good chance he’d die out there. It sounded like there had been plenty of that already. But he could not sit here and not try to save his family.
They’re already dead, dumbass. You must know that. Now is not the time to play that everything-will-be-just fine-in-the-end shit. They’re just a puddle on the ground now so come ride the rides and have yourself some fresh cotton candy. So sweet, so delicious.
He rubbed his temples. The park was getting into his mind, trying to confuse him.
Audra, Tim, and Andrew were out there somewhere and he needed to find them. His family wasn’t stupid. By the time the quake began they’d probably already made it to the hotel. They’d probably huddled next to each other in the bathroom and waited it out. They probably tried to escape and headed back to the room when they heard the screams and the sounds of ripping flesh.
Probably. That was the problem.
But he could not think like that because his mind already threatened to come undone. He needed to believe they were alive and that he could save them.
He moved his feet, tried to shake out the pins and needles. He would need to run when he got outside.
The things behind him drew closer. He could almost hear them shout with joy as he reached for the door handle. He steadied his hands, slowed his pulse, swallowed into a dry throat.
And opened the door.
He did not move. Not at first.
It was too much to take in. The sun was gone and so were the sky and the clouds and even the stars. There was only blackness above, pure and solid blackness that swirled like the world’s biggest tornado was beginning to form. In the distance he could still see the mountains, though they were not the Berkshires anymore. They were impossibly tall, jagged structures that resembled arthritic fingers pointing upward.
Things were worse on the ground. There was blood everywhere. It looked like a squall had passed through, bringing death instead of rain.
Amongst the blood were other things, limbs and organs and hair and chunks of God knew what.
From all around he saw movement. Things. Not humans but something else. They were vaguely humanoid but that’s where the similarities ended. Their skin was dark grey. It looked charred and dry, sandpaper left in the desert for eons. Their heads were slick and smooth with no trace of hair. Their mouths were too large, filled with teeth the size and width of giant icicles.
He knelt down and moved quickly to the left, hiding behind a ticket booth.
Across the way two of the things were carrying the body of a dead woman. Her chest was an open cavity and everything that had once lay inside was now scattered along the ground. They tossed her into what looked like a wooden cart.
Vince thought of the black plague, townspeople disposing of the victims. He bit his lip, tried to conceal an impending scream.
The things grunted at each other, some primal language that should not have existed. One of them nodded, pointed to another corpse across the way. They walked forward and pulled the cart along until they reached the body. They hefted it onto the cart and continued the process.
Vince looked to his left. The ground was soaked with blood and other things but there were no creatures that he could see. He kept low and headed past the Haunted Tunnels, trying to assure himself nothing would speed out of the doors and grab him from behind.
As he neared the water park he heard movement to his right. He ducked beneath an information kiosk and closed his eyes. He knew there was something on the other side and he felt eyes boring into him. If he did not look he was safe. It was simple as that. He told himself this several times.
Then he opened his eyes.
There was an old woman on the other side of the kiosk. She lay on her stomach. One of her eyes was swollen shut and blood bubbled from her mouth. She reached toward Vince with a mangled hand.
She struggled to open her jaw but her tongue did not work properly. She managed to say one word. Though it came out in a gurgled whisper, it was easy enough to understand. “Help.”
“Stay there,” Vince said. “Don’t move.”
“Help.” Two liver-spotted fingers dangled by strings, the bone beneath exposed.
“Put your head down and pretend you’re dead. I’ll come around.”
Just as he began to move, the woman screamed. More blood leaked from her lips as she was dragged from behind. One of the creatures held onto her feet and flipped her over
. She tried to kick at it but her legs were bent the wrong way. The thing let go of her, stepped forward, and raised a deformed foot with toenails the size of bricks.
“No,” Vince moaned, his hands covering his mouth.
The thing brought its foot down and the woman’s face became less than solid.
Vince turned around and vomited onto the ground. He wiped spittle from his mouth and waited for the woman’s body to be dragged away.
He did not move again for a long time. When he was sure it was safe—if there was such a thing at Dream Woods anymore—he began to crawl past the remaining roller coasters, which now looked completely different. Their tracks no longer held any patterns, as if the rides changed directions each minute. The coaster closest to him was not made of metal or nuts or bolts but rather something that looked a lot like bone, crudely welded together. The car was the skull of something large and impossible to describe.
He walked faster, past some restaurants and gifts shops, all of them run down and abandoned, as if the park had never reopened. Shadows moved inside the windows, horrible shapes watching him as he passed by. He turned the corner and the hotel came into view.
A creature dragged a few bodies from the front terrace, chewing on something along the way. From his position Vince thought it looked like a human arm.
He ducked down. When the creature passed, Vince broke into a run. He tried to ignore the smell of blood and death and shit as he stepped through the front doors of the Roaring Twenties and into the main stairwell.
One of the bulbs inside had gone out and the others were flickering. The stairs were smeared with red as if someone had been slowly dragged down each level while they bled out. He did his best not to slip as he ascended.
By the time he reached the top he was winded. He held onto the railing for support. His feet felt unsteady and he thought he might faint.
Not yet, you son of a bitch. This trip was supposed to save your family, not kill them. You don’t get to call it quits until you know they’re okay.
He kicked open the door, looked both ways, and headed for their room.
They would be in there, he told himself. They had to be. It was the only option.
He could see Audra telling the boys everything was okay as they waited it out in the bathroom. He had been with her long enough to form an almost psychic bond. He supposed it happened with most marriages. Despite the distance and the cold shoulders, he thought they were still tuned to the same frequency, even if the transmission had faded in recent times.
He removed the room key from his pocket and slipped it into the slot below the knob. He opened the door and called for Audra.
When she didn’t answer he checked the bathroom and the conjoining room and the second bathroom and finally the two balconies. Nothing.
The beds were not wrinkled. The furniture was not overturned. The glass on the terrace doors was not shattered. There was no blood, no signs of a struggle. They were okay, he told himself.
They were just gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Tim saw only blackness. He felt weight on his entire body as if he’d been placed into a vice grip. His eyes and ears and brain felt ready to give from the pressure at any moment. He tried to move, found it impossible.
He reasoned he was either asleep or dead.
The last thing he remembered was sitting by the pool with Andrew while his mother had gone off for a cigarette. She thought her habit was a secret but he’d smelled smoke in the house plenty of times. She had put on sunglasses and tried to hide her crying but she wasn’t fooling anyone. Her bottom lip had trembled as she told them she’d only be gone for a few minutes. He had wanted to tell her everything was fine but just then he hadn’t been certain himself.
“Do you think they’re getting divorced?” Tim asked Andrew.
Andrew didn’t speak at first. He looked tired and scared but he was still too stubborn to admit something was happening at Dream Woods. He watched a girl pass them by, her breasts nearly falling out of her bathing suit, but there was no real satisfaction in his smile. He was on autopilot.
“Andrew. Well, do you?”
Andrew shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. They’ve argued plenty before and they’re still together. Maybe it would be better if they did get one.”
“You really think so?” He dipped his feet into the pool, winced at the sudden coldness.
Andrew shrugged and turned his attention toward something in the distance that Tim could not see, though he got the feeling whatever it was looked awful. He got the sense that some things existed in the park whether or not you could see them.
He shivered and removed his feet from the pool. He opened his mouth to ask Andrew what he was staring at but he was cut short.
The world began to shake. There came the sound of something enormous being torn apart, like the ground was opening up and whatever lay beneath was in a hurry to meet the surface. His stomach lurched and he fell backward, slamming his head against the side of the pool.
From his left the girl with the flimsy bikini screamed. He thought he saw something grab onto her, something with grey skin and too many teeth.
Another shock went through the ground. It was an earthquake or a tsunami, some natural disaster that would bring landslides and mudslides from the mountains. He tried to hold onto something. He grabbed the nearest beach chair and dragged it into the pool with him as he fell into the frigid water.
He bobbed above the surface once or twice, saw things he couldn’t quite comprehend, creatures he told himself were the product of panic and the pain in his head.
Then he’d gone under and he couldn’t quite remember surfacing after that.
That was it then. He was dead.
But that wasn’t right because he could still feel his heart beating within his chest. He could feel his lungs struggling to breathe, though they felt blocked somehow.
He thought he heard his name being called in the distance. The voice was far away, the distance inconceivable. He was exhausted, couldn’t imagine following the sound.
Tim, wake up.
He felt someone smack his face, winced at the pain, and kept his eyes closed.
He knew he should follow the voice. It was his one shot at staying alive. But he was so very tired and it was comfortable in the blackness. He did not have to worry about blood sugar or glucose or his pancreas someday giving up on him. He could lay back and relax for the first time in his memory.
The voice grew louder and the slaps grew harder.
Tim. Wake the hell up, will you?
He opened his eyes and thought at first that he was blind. Everything was pitch black. It was the sky, he realized. It looked like night had fallen, though he knew that it was still daytime.
Another slap on his face. He shook his head, blinked twice, and saw Andrew staring down at him. “I thought you were dead. Get up. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“What… what happened?” He touched the back of his head. It throbbed with pain. His hand came back bloody.
“I don’t know but it’s not good.” Andrew held out his hands.
Tim looked at his surroundings. For a moment he was certain he was still asleep and this was all just a nightmare, one for the record books. There were bodies everywhere. Some of them lay motionless while others were convulsing, pleading for someone to help them. A muscular man nearby reached to the sky with a broken arm, the bone poking out of his shredded skin, before he fell limp and closed his eyes for good.
Among the bodies were other things, creatures he told himself were not real just moments before but you could not deny their existence when you watched them toss people into the air effortlessly and bite into their flesh like it was popcorn.
He watched as one of the creatures stepped into the closest gift shop empty- handed. It came out a few moments later with a man and woman on each arm. The man hung limp. The woman pounded the thing’s back, scratched into its grey skin with long fake nails. Several small cu
ts opened up along its shoulder and it began to bleed thick black ooze. It didn’t seem to notice the lacerations as it tossed the man into a wooden cart, then the woman. She tried to escape but the thing was much too fast.
It snapped her neck in a single motion and she too fell limp.
It turned toward Tim and Andrew and sniffed at the air. From here it looked like it was salivating.
Andrew tugged on his shirt. “Tim. We’ve got to go.”
“They can’t be real, right? There’s no way they can be real.” He could not pry his eyes away from the tall grey thing with teeth so long and sharp they should have weighed its head down.
“They’re real and so are those dead people and if we don’t hurry we’re going to wind up in that cart.” He punched Tim in the shoulder. “For once—just once—don’t be an idiot.” He grabbed Tim’s sleeve and pulled him up from the ground.
When Tim stood he witnessed more of the carnage, heard more of the screaming that filled the park. For as far as he could see there was death and blood and things that should not have existed in reality.
The thing near the gift shop began to move toward them.
Andrew pulled him harder and they stumbled away from the pool and past the restaurant. Just as they were nearing the hotel entrance, one of the creatures turned the corner and blocked their way.
Tim and Andrew froze. They could not outrun this thing. Tim hadn’t seen how fast the creatures could move but he got the sense they would catch up no matter how hard you tried to escape. The creature reached forward with a clawed hand.
Dream Woods Page 11
