It opened its mouth, revealed a long forked tongue that glided over crooked and jagged teeth.
Andrew and Tim backed up until their shoulders collided with the closest wall. Tim turned toward the patio. The entrance was not more than twenty feet but he could see something in the doorway. It could’ve just been a shadow or it could’ve been one of those things. Either way it was a risk.
Tim closed his eyes and prepared for his imminent death.
He heard a crashing sound and opened his lids again. A man with an axe took swings into the thing’s back. It mewled and clawed at its wound. Black liquid spewed from gashes all along its shoulder blades. It fell face forward onto the concrete and shook for a while until it died.
“Thank you,” Tim said.
The man nodded and ran off. He got about halfway toward the other side of the park before another creature caught up with him. He dropped the axe.
There was movement near the hotel entrance. Tim spun his head and saw someone stepping out of the door. They had normal human skin and normal human teeth and they looked a lot like his father.
Tim pointed. “Come on, it’s Dad!”
Without turning around, he called for Andrew to follow and tried not to slip in the puddle of black blood beneath his feet.
***
The high-end science fiction hotel stood fifty yards behind The Roaring Twenties. The exterior was shaped like a space craft, something out of a 1950’s alien invasion movie. Its futuristic lights flashed on and off a few times before going out for good. Andrew could feel heat rising. The air filled with electricity, the feeling you got just before a thunderstorm. He could smell smoke, had to cover his mouth to breathe.
Tim was running too quickly ahead of him. Andrew called for the idiot to slow down but it was no use. He was speeding toward their father, arms held out like the little baby he was.
“Wait,” Andrew said, though his voice was lost in a thousand awful sounds. He could not project any louder without gagging and coughing from the smell of something burning.
He froze for a moment and turned around, saw the sci-fi hotel release streams of black smoke that blended with the sky. The air around it sizzled and Andrew thought: it’s going to explode.
There was no time to react. He watched in awe, paralyzed, as the structure imploded like a giant vacuum sucked its walls toward the center, and then there was the loudest sound he’d ever heard.
The night lit up so that he almost could’ve imagined it was daytime again. Red and orange and blue flames ignited. The force of the impact drove Andrew off his feet and into the pool. The water was no longer frigid. It felt ready to boil him alive. There were dead people floating along the surface. He paddled quickly across the way and came up at the other end.
Tim had made it to their father now. He was holding up his hands and pointing toward the pool, telling Dad that Andrew was back there somewhere.
Andrew would’ve liked to think this his father and brother wanted to go back for him. He daydreamed about them saving him, carrying him away through the front gates and when his father wasn’t looking, Andrew would claw his brother’s eyes out and shove them down his fucking throat. He’d be doing Tim a favor, bringing on his blindness quicker. Why wait when Tim could die now?
Another explosion sounded from behind. Shards of glass and steel rained down from the sky. His father and brother stepped back as one of the creatures spotted them from afar. They looked toward the pool for less than two seconds before turning around and running away, abandoning him.
Andrew made a vow to himself as he watched them flee. Should he make it through this alive, and should they also survive, he would kill them both. He didn’t care about having the spotlight anymore. He didn’t give a shit about his stupid fantasies where he was an only child and received all the attention in the world. He only cared about making them regret leaving him behind.
He imagined his brother begging for mercy, playing the diabetes card just like always. He would stab Tim with enough insulin to make his insides burst. He had tried to save that idiot, had risked his own life, and for what?
To be left behind? To be left to die?
He gritted his teeth too hard, felt one of his molars chip. There was no pain. There was only anger and fear and enough adrenaline to make his heart triple its pace. He got out of the pool.
“They never cared about you,” said a voice from behind. It was familiar somehow, though he was sure he’d never heard it spoken aloud. “You must know that, Andrew. Your mother didn’t want children in the first place and when she got two, well, she chose to love the sickly one more than you. She stopped caring about you the moment you came into this world. I know that must hurt but the truth is a powerful thing. It can change you, make you stronger than you ever imagined. Would you like that, Andrew? Would you like to be stronger?”
“Yes. I’d like that.” Andrew watched the spot where his brother and father had disappeared. To take his eyes away would let them win and he could not stomach the thought.
The person behind him stepped closer. “I can help you, Andrew. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Who are you?” He felt simultaneously scared and furious. It made him dizzy.
“You know who I am. Always have. I’ve been watching you for a long time.” A large shadow appeared on the ground in front of Andrew, blotting out some of the fire’s light. The shape was familiar. It was impossibly large but not because of a trick of the light or an optical illusion. Andrew’s mind filled in the details, automatically added the leather boots and gloves and the oversized trench coat, the tall collar that blocked out any trace of a face, save for the bulging eyes that never seemed to blink.
“How are you real?” Andrew spit onto the ground. A few shards of tooth clattered to the pavement.
“Everything is real here.” Raymond placed a hand on his shoulder. “Will you come with me, Andrew? I’d like to introduce you to someone.”
“You mean away from here? Away from Dream Woods?”
“No. Into the very heart of Dream Woods.” He turned Andrew’s shoulders toward the center of the park, toward the tall structure that looked nothing like it had earlier that day, before the quake or storm or whatever the hell had happened.
Dream Castle looked more like a nightmare. It had grown exponentially toward the black sky. It no longer resembled fairy tale scenery. It was dark and deformed and he once again had the sensation that something watched him from the balcony. He squinted, wiping grime from his eyes and forehead. The doorway was too dark from this distance but he swore he saw movement there, felt eyes on him just as he had back at the hotel room the night before.
“What do you say? Let’s go meet him,” Raymond said.
“Meet who?” For a moment his voice weakened. He was a scared little boy again, with no family to save him. He ought to go find them. Something was wrong here. His thoughts were all messed up. Surely they hadn’t just left him here. They must have been going to get help. Idiot or no idiot, his brother was still blood.
Blood.
His ears perked at the thought. The word calmed his nerves, soothed his worries. He would tear his brother’s throat and watch as heaps of blood sprayed onto him, baptized him.
Raymond squeezed his shoulder. “They call him The Director.”
Chapter Eighteen
Audra stepped through the front gates of Dream Woods and saw that the entire place, the entire world, had changed somehow. Every ride looked as though it broke the laws of physics. There were countless angles that should not have existed. Every shape, color, and detail in front of her eyes was impossible.
“What the hell happened?” She kicked at something on the ground. It resembled a bone.
“This is the real Dream Woods,” Regina said. “Now do you see why I’d want to write about this place?”
“No one’s going to believe a word of it. Not even me.” She winced as she looked at the sci-fi hotel. It was nothing more than flames and ash. The a
ir around it rippled from the heat.
“We ought to hurry. The fire’s going to spread soon.” Regina pulled Audra to the right, past the pool. The water was red now. Things floated along the surface that had once belonged to bodies. Things like fingers and eyeballs and ear lobes.
They pushed through the front doors and hurried toward the stairwell. The front desk was empty. It was the first time Audra had seen Doris’ desk unattended. It made her uneasy, not knowing where that shriveled face could have been. She was certain the woman—if that’s what she was—hid in the shadows somewhere nearby.
They passed the elevators, opened the first set of doors on the left, and started climbing the stairs. She tried to ignore the patterns of blood along the way. There were crimson handprints every few feet. She imagined someone bleeding out, trying to stand up for as long as possible but knowing deep down that they were going to die in the stairwell of an amusement park hotel.
In her mind that person became Tim then Andrew then Vince, cycling through her family as they stumbled to the bottom of the stairs, only to be dragged away by something inhuman.
At the top floor, Audra slowed. She tried to catch her breath as she opened the door and followed Regina down the hall. They froze as they neared their master suite.
Both doors were wide open.
There were no sounds, no light, no movement. She felt certain they were being watched from all sides. From her position she could see into the boys’ room and through the balcony windows. Things moved about the landscape outside. They were too small to make out but she knew they were not tourists.
“Come on.” Regina opened the door with her foot and turned on the light.
Audra prepared to see both of the boys face up on the beds, flayed and convulsing, the blood already starting to dry. But the room was empty.
So was the room she’d shared with Vince. There was no sign of forced entry or any struggle. She told herself that was a good sign. They were still alive, huddled somewhere and trying to ignore the sounds surrounding them.
She tried to look away from the bed.
We should do it again.
Her eyes clouded.
We should have another one.
She had brushed him away, any trace of desire lost in the moment, all because she didn’t want to have another child with the man she loved, the man who had never done a single thing that wasn’t in her best interest.
The man who may very well be dead now.
“Where do you think they could have gone?” Regina said. She opened the curtains and looked outside, studying their surroundings. She crossed the room, stepped halfway into the hallway, and looked in both directions.
Audra shook her head. “I don’t know. We barely got to look around before all this—whatever the fuck this is—happened. Knowing Vince, he’d try to find somewhere to hide out. He’d try to get the boys to safety.”
Regina nodded, still looking around the hallway. “We ought to get out of here.”
“What if they’re in another room?”
“Do you think they’d stick around when the place next door just went up in flames?”
“I guess not but maybe it’s safer in here. How long do you think it’ll take for that fire to spread? Maybe we could ride it out, wait for daylight.”
“We’d be waiting a long time. Daylight doesn’t exist where we are. We have to keep moving. The longer we stay in one place, the more likely we’ll be found.”
“Found by who?”
In the distance another explosion sounded. Followed by screams, pleas, and other sounds, mewling and grunting that made Audra’s skin drench with cold sweat.
Regina didn’t answer. She waved Audra out of the room and toward the stairwell. They tried not to slip on the blood as they descended.
From the bottom of the stairwell the door opened and something began to climb. The footsteps were distorted, echoing up the walls so that they disoriented Audra, made her feel like she was underwater. Whatever was down there moved quickly.
Regina pulled Audra through the fifth floor door. They sped down the hall, turned the corner, and stayed there for what seemed like hours, waiting for the stairwell door to open, waiting for something to come find them.
Audra finally risked a glance around the corner. The hall was empty, though that didn’t mean they were safe.
“There’s another set of stairs around back,” Regina said.
They started walking again but Audra froze. She recognized this floor. It was where Frankie and Sandy had been staying, room 527 if she remembered correctly.
“What’s wrong?” Regina said.
“I know someone who’s staying just down there. Maybe they’re in their room.
“Or maybe not. Do you really want to risk it?”
Audra ignored her and found room 527 just a few doors down on her right. The door was closed. She leaned her head against the frame, listened closely. It was just as silent as it had been hack at her room.
That’s doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding under the bed. Not everyone has to die tonight.
She knocked softly on the door. “Sandy?” she whispered. “Frankie? Are you in there? It’s Audra. Vince’s wife. From the restaurant.”
No answer. She kneeled down, tried to look through the tiny slit underneath the door, but it was too dark.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Regina said. Before Audra could say anything, Regina turned the knob and opened the door.
The stink was overwhelming. It wasn’t that of rotting flesh or decaying meat. It was more primal and immediate, something foreign that made her insides curl up, something at once salty and sour.
Inside the room there were two forms on the floor. They did not move and they lay at impossible angles. The light was still off. Audra preferred it that way. It was better not knowing what those two forms were. They could have been anything. A pile of blankets or pillows maybe. Perhaps the chambermaids had stopped halfway through their cleaning routine when the quake started. Or maybe they were suitcases. Frankie and Sandy had decided to check out early. All things considered, it was a wise decision.
Regina reached for the light switch.
No, don’t. It’s better not knowing. It’s always better to leave things in the dark.
Light exploded into the room, blinding Audra momentarily. A few seconds later her eyes adjusted and the source of the smell became obvious.
It was blood.
Fresh blood.
There were scratches all along the surface of Frankie’s skin. His neck had been snapped so that it was nearly turned all the way around. Next to him lay Sandy. A long slit ran across her neck like a second mouth. The carpet was soaking beneath her.
Her eyes were still open, unharmed and glossy. It seemed possible to Audra that the lids would blink at any moment and those globes would turn in her direction.
Something killed them. Something that was not human. The rumors were true, maybe every last one.
Scream Woods held up to its reputation.
Regina dragged Audra back down the hall and through the rear stairwell. There were no red smears this time, just a corridor that seemed bottomless. By the time they reached the first floor Audra was ready to faint. Her heart was pounding much too fast and she could hear her pulse in her ears.
Regina pulled her along, staggering every few steps, until they exited the front doors.
In the distance, non-human things moved about, tossing bodies onto what looked like wooden mine cars. They seemed to all be moving toward a single point, their final destination.
Dream Castle.
Scream Castle.
“What are they?” Audra said.
“Hell if I know. I’m not sure if there’s a name for what they are, but I do know what they were, what they looked like to the normal person in our world.” She turned toward Audra. “Employees.”
“Where do we go now?” Audra tried to look away from the grey creatures with the long teeth.
“Anywher
e but here.”
As they passed the pool Audra stepped on something and lost her balance. Her ankle twisted too far and pain flared up her leg. She rubbed the skin, winced, and stopped breathing when she saw the object on the ground. It was not a rock or a severed hand as she’d first feared.
It was much worse than that.
It was a small black rectangular pack with a zipper along the edges. It had become more familiar over the last year than her house keys or her purse. She had carried it with her religiously because Tim forgot half the time and Vince could not be trusted with it.
It was Tim’s insulin pack.
There were a few drops of blood along the fabric.
Still drying.
Chapter Nineteen
After attending three monthly meetings, Regina decided to quit her job at Dream Woods. Each time she met in the room with the barred windows and the long wooden table she began to see the truth. It was not some elaborate hoax, not some form of hazing as she’d hoped. The Director and the rest of the higher ups were not joking when they spoke of pacts with unseen things, though she was not high enough on the company totem pole to know exactly what things they were speaking of.
One morning she stepped through the front doors of Dream Castle, marched down the hall toward Human Resources, and demanded to speak with the woman in charge of recruitment.
“Is everything okay?” the woman asked a few minutes later, stepping out of her office.
“As a matter of fact, no. Nothing is okay and I’d like to give my two-week notice. I’ll have it for you in writing by the end of the day.”
The woman stared at Regina for a long time before smiling and shaking her head. “I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.”
“Then my oral resignation will be good enough.”
“No, Ms. Michaels. I mean that there’s no need to write or speak your resignation on account of there being no resignation. We do not accept them here.”
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