Deep Trouble

by Gail Z. Martin

  He carried a musket in one hand, and we both aimed and fired at once. I swore as a piece of lead shot grazed my left shoulder, sending warm blood trickling down my arm. My aim fared better, blowing away the pirate’s hat and most of his head. Damn tulpa was taking different shapes, matching its appearance to the theme of whatever was nearby. The tulpa vanished, but he made his point.

  He’d drawn blood. This was real.

  It’s all fun and games until somebody dies.

  “Quit running!” I shouted at the darkness. “Some big, scary monster you are! Nothing but a scum-sucking coward. You don’t scare me!”

  Famous last words.

  The wolf’s howl was louder, closer. I turned slowly, looking for the source. If it were a real wolf, my Glock would serve me better than the shotgun, since a hollow point does more damage than rock salt. But there hadn’t been real wolves in these parts for a long, long time. I kept my shotgun ready, betting my life that the tulpa and the wolf were one and the same.

  The last buildings in Mother Goose Land were a tidy cottage on my right and three small houses on my left. Since the left-hand structures had been decorated to look like they were made of sticks, straw, and bricks, and the right-hand cottage was decked out in red, I figured the wolf fit right in.

  “Come on, you bastard. Show yourself!” I had better things to do than tromp through high grass in a defunct theme park looking for a monster that wanted to play coy.

  He was out there, watching. I could feel it, that primal prickle at the back of the neck that warned of danger. The hindbrain memory of long ago when humans weren’t the top predator.

  A dark form came at me from the shadows, hitting me on my wounded left side. The weight of it took us both to the ground, slamming me onto my back hard enough to knock the wind out of me. A black wolf that probably weighed as much as I did pinned me to the ground, its muzzle snapping dangerously close to my throat.

  I had forgotten the first rule of tulpas. They’re as real as they want to be.

  My knee came up, hitting the wolf hard in the belly, distracting it long enough for my left hand to grab the iron knife from my belt sheath and stab between its ribs. The wolf’s body jerked, and the head came down again, mouth open, lips drawn, teeth bared. I slammed the stock of the shotgun into its nose, and it reared back. Not enough for me to have room to fire the shotgun, but plenty to change how much leverage I needed to throw it clear.

  I scrambled to a crouch, drew my Glock, and fired.

  The shot hit the tulpa in the shoulder, but that didn’t slow it down. It leaped, and as I rolled to get out of the way of its snapping teeth and sharp claws, my second shot went wild. I felt claws rake across my chest, barely missing my throat. Before I could fire again, the tulpa vanished.

  Shit. I sat up, breathing hard as my heart hammered. My shirt and jacket were tattered and bloodied, between the musket shot and the wolf’s attack. I was wounded and stank of blood, which was an “Eat at Joe’s” sign pointing right at my head for predators. A sane person would have retreated and called for backup.

  My ex-wife always said I was crazy.

  My gear bag includes a med-kit. I sprinkled salt and holy water in a circle around myself and lit a bundle of sage to protect me while I patched myself up. The alcohol wipes stung like hell, and I knew I’d need some of the healing poultice the bookstore coven made for me, effective against supernatural contamination. But as I daubed away the blood, I realized that the musket ball wound wasn’t serious, and the shallow grooves dug by the wolf’s claws probably wouldn’t require stitches.

  The tulpa was toying with me, playing with its food. That just made me even more set on destroying it.

  While tulpas might begin as a thought form, they grow more real, solid, and sentient as others believe in them. We had proof that this tulpa could kill. I couldn’t unthink it or choose not to believe in it, not without ending up dead. If it was as easy as magicking it away, the coven would have done so. And since the whole abandoned park was steeped in disappointment and despair, waiting for the tulpa to starve to death wasn’t going to happen.

  I had a theory about how I might destroy the tulpa. Father Leo had already ruled out exorcism, since it wasn’t hell spawn. That meant I had to get creative. Sending Billy’s ghost on was part of the plan. I’d cleansed the pumpkin where I sensed bad juju. I didn’t know if the spirits of the trespassers who got killed had hung around, but if they had, sending them on could help loosen the tulpa’s hold. I headed for the building I figured was the heart of the problem: Gumdrop Dreams Castle.

  I grabbed my stuff and walked deeper into the park, grateful that I hadn’t found a pressing reason to visit the Fairy Woodland. The Fey were real, and real trouble. I had no intention of messing with them, especially after all the trouble they caused a friend of mine. And the Minotaur Maze? Hell, no.

  That didn’t mean I was thrilled crossing the Enchanted Forest. This didn’t look like the woods in cartoons filled with happy bunnies and singing squirrels. The trees of the forest weren’t real; they had been fabricated from the same wire, wood, and concrete as the rest of the park’s attractions, and these trees weren’t friendly. The gnarled trunks and long branches loomed over the walkway, ready to snag anyone who stepped off the path. Some of the trees had eyes painted onto them, while others had full faces twisted in expressions of hunger.

  A parent would have to be nuts to bring their kids through here, but I could just imagine the older kids, like Billy, daring each other to run through. During the day, the ominous overhanging limbs and hulking trunks would have been intimidating enough, but at night, they took on a whole different level of freaky.

  I’ve always figured that a good offense is the best defense, and I decided to start offending. I brought out the biggest, brightest, blindingly bright flashlight in my bag and snapped it on. It lit up a ten-foot circle like high noon and cut through the shadows at least twice that far. In the cold light, the spooky trees were just sad-looking props, badly weathered and slowly crumbling into dust.

  Just to be obnoxious, and to buck up my spirits, I started reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the top of my lungs, then moved on to the Hail Mary. I’m not very religious, so when I ran out of prayers before I ran out of forest, I started on Christmas carols.

  The black wolf appeared in the middle of the path, head lowered, red eyes glaring. My, what big teeth you have.

  I shot; he dodged. But by taking physical form, the tulpa was hemmed in by the terrifying trees, just like I was. Whoever designed the forest made sure that the branches and trunks formed a barrier that kept visitors on the path. It really wasn’t possible to wander away. That meant the wolf and I had to square off like gunslingers at the OK Corral.

  I never really liked Westerns.

  The wolf leaped at me, and I dropped and rolled. I knew I’d never be able to hit him with a shotgun blast while he was moving, so I shot at the tree behind him and dove forward out of the way. Normally, rock salt shouldn’t have done a lot of damage, not like buckshot would have, but the old concrete was damaged enough to be brittle, and a huge, heavy branch collapsed, right on top of the wolf. The twisted limbs trapped the wolf like a cage, and I racked another shell, aimed, and fired. He vanished with a snarl that boded trouble if he ever caught up to me.

  I might have bought myself some time since the tulpa seemed to need to recharge after being dispelled, but I had a feeling I was running straight toward the monster’s true lair, where odds were good he’d be at his strongest. I didn’t count on having as much of a break between attacks as I’d had toward the edges of the abandoned park and stayed on alert as I picked up my pace to a jog eager to get through the nightmare forest.

  On the far side of the grasping trees was the carousel. The music must have been a trick of the tulpa’s because the once-beautiful ride didn’t look like it had played its calliope for decades. Seeing the old merry-go-round looking so decrepit made me sad. If the owners of the park had been hard-pressed for
money, surely they could have sold off the carved horses and beautifully painted friezes to collectors for cash. Now, the wooden horses, giraffes, and other exotic animals were weathered, their wood splitting, faded paint peeling. If I had to pick one image to sum up Wonderama with all its squandered promise and broken dreams, this would be it.

  Hearing carousel music playing when it couldn’t possibly come from the ride was creepy as fuck.

  If the tulpa was messing with my head again, it bounced back quicker than before. Then again, I’d almost reached my target, the Gumdrop Dreams Castle.

  Compared to the big-name theme parks with castles, Wonderama was definitely low-budget. Its Gumdrop castle didn’t soar high into the sky with flag-tipped spires or boast mosaics of Italian glass in its entrance hall. Instead, it looked like a two-story house with delusions of grandeur. The boxy shape had what looked like a silo on each end, but with a pointy top instead of rounded. Its stucco finish had faux stonework painted onto it, but the thin material had weathered badly, cracking and mildewing, and in many places, chunks had fallen away exposing the plywood beneath. A “moat” beneath a rickety drawbridge was no more than a shallow ditch, filled with mud and high grass, more likely to harbor ticks than a sea serpent.

  All of the dead bodies had been found in and around the castle. Of course explorers would make their way here; any video game player could tell you the castle was the ultimate destination. All of Wonderama’s banners and pennants had featured Gumdrop Dreams Castle, with its turrets topped with plaster candy and a fence row of brightly colored lollipops. Now, the giant faded treats looked more like an enticement to the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel.

  I was going to have fun storming the castle. What fed a dream monster? Hopes and wishes, and childhood fantasies of princesses, knights, and dragons. Gumdrop Dreams Castle encouraged all of that, with a Wishing Well in the center of its courtyard that begged children to drop in coins for charity and think their dearest desires. In its heyday, the castle had come alive with kids living out their daydreams, battling inflatable dragons, braiding daisy chain crowns, and sitting on the rock candy throne. All of that energy should have been happy and positive, but the park’s bad luck darkened and twisted those dreams, and the tulpa rose from the shadows of those grim fairy tales like a secret Id.

  Time to burn the fucker down.

  I grabbed a few essentials from my pack, but I’d already put the most important pieces in my tactical vest. If the police caught me, I was totally screwed, unless my cop buddy Louie Marino could call in a big favor. Since I was supposed to have a date with Sara tomorrow night, I had no intention of standing her up for a stint in the county pokey.

  An ear-splitting roar, loud enough to make the ground tremble beneath my feet, froze me in my tracks. Standing guard at the entrance to Gumdrop Dreams Castle was a huge, bat-winged dragon. Not the cute cotton candy-colored flying reptile from the Wonderama map, but a fire-breathing, dwarf-eating, treasure-hoarding monster whose smoke and brimstone breath could cause plenty of smog. Of course, the tulpa would be a dragon. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  And me without my shining armor.

  A blast of fire singed past me as I threw myself out of the way, unwilling to get incinerated trying to prove it was all an illusion. A slew of dead men and missing-presumed-dead explorers proved the tulpa was real enough to kill.

  I didn’t have a magic ring to turn me invisible, and the dragon kept me in its sights, giving me the slit-eye as it moved with disturbing speed to roast me again. I had the ammunition I needed to take out the wishing well and the castle, but I didn’t want to fire through the dragon, in case it could foul my aim or neutralize the payload, and I didn’t have unlimited rounds. That meant I had to fight him. Yippie-ki-yay, muther of dragons.

  The beast had a long, sleek body with bat-like wings and a head with a narrow snout. Its scales were dark red, and its slit eyes were bright yellow. The tulpa eyed me like dinner, probably figuring it was just a matter of time before it added me to its list of victims. I swallowed hard, wishing for a magic sword. The overgrown lizard filled the castle entrance, putting itself between me and the targets that might make it vulnerable. I had to get inside the castle to be able to kill the tulpa, but I had to get past the dragon to do that.

  A round of rock salt bounced off the red scales without even making an impact. The rumble from the creature almost sounded like a laugh, daring me to do better, confident that it already knew who would win. I hadn’t brought armor-piercing bullets with me, or a Howitzer to take out a monster bigger than a tank. None of my knives would even scratch that tough hide, and I bet that even my Glock’s hollow-points would be useless.

  So I was going to need to play dirty.

  The next time I fired my shotgun, I aimed for the dragon’s eyes. Salt hurts, and while the dragon tried to blink away the sting, I sent my next shot right through the crumbling castle wall, blowing through it in a cloud of plaster dust and splinters.

  I dove through the hole as the tulpa roared, barely evading the long talons on the end of its front foot. I wasn’t as lucky dodging the powerful tail, which knocked me halfway across the courtyard with one swipe. Still, I’d gotten inside, and the dragon’s bulk wouldn’t allow it to turn around in the entranceway, so it either had to go out or back up. Maybe the tulpa hadn’t thought out is new form very well because while it was fearsome, it had the maneuverability of a gunboat, at least on land.

  Shit. If it went forward, it could get lift off, then circle around and fry me to a crackly crunch. New strategy. I reloaded with buckshot, rolled, and came up shooting, aiming for the wings instead of the tough hide. Iron pellets might not have penetrated the scales, but it tore through the thinner skin of the dragon’s wing. The creature’s tail lashed, but I scrambled out of range before shooting at the other wing and managing to put a hole in it.

  The dragon roared, shimmying forward, but it needed a few minutes for its bulk and length to get out of the narrow castle entrance before it could turn around and charge back to kill me. My best bet lay in doing what I came to do and worrying about the dragon afterward—as stupid as that sounded.

  Inside Gumdrop Dream Castle, Wonderama’s faded glory had its last hurrah. The candy cane throne had aged badly, revealing it as a weathered chair backed by warped, splintering boards. I could barely make out what had once been colorful murals, as the mold and decay destroyed the stucco and the paint faded in the sun. In the center of the courtyard, the wishing well was a ruin. Most of the shingles were gone from the roof, and the bucket hung askew.

  I reached into my bag and grabbed my grenade launcher, already loaded with a shell holding my special concoction of salted holy water and iron filings. The dragon had slithered its wide hips out of the castle entrance like shedding a too-tight pair of pants, and its lumbering steps thundered in the quiet night. If it made it back here before I finished, or if my hare-brained plan didn’t work, I was toast.

  The bang of the grenade launcher reverberated from the castle walls as I fired straight down into the depths of the well. Maybe the cash-starved owners had gathered up all the dimes and quarters thrown in by hopeful children, but I figured that they’d left those wish-coins down there, not realizing those thwarted dreams would spawn a monster.

  The shell detonated when it hit bottom. I heard the dragon roar, but this time, it sounded more like pain instead of belligerence. Tulpas were thought-forms, created from belief and dreams. The wishing well was the heart of the Gumdrop Dreams Castle, where thousands of children had visualized their most cherished fantasies, as sacred as prayers. That bastard tulpa twisted that innocence into something monstrous, and it was time that came to an end.

  The next part of my plan was trickier. The whole castle had to go. It was, after all, about Gumdrop Dreams, and the fact that this was where the tulpa brought its victims told me that it felt most powerful here.

  That meant I needed to commit a little arson, for the good of humanity.

  The t
ricky part would be getting out after I set the castle on fire and before the tulpa fried me or ate me. While I felt sure I’d wounded it by destroying the wishing well, I couldn’t be sure that torching the castle would get rid of the tulpa for good. It wouldn’t be the first plan I’d hatched that didn’t turn out as planned, but it might be the last.

  The tulpa-dragon roared, and I knew it would come thundering through the castle gate any minute. I fired a shotgun blast to give myself a back door through the ruined rear wall, then chucked my shotgun and grenade launcher back in my bag and picked up my rifle.

  Incendiary bullets are a beautiful thing. I squeezed the trigger and laid down a line of fire across the front wall of the castle, then turned to continue shooting until I ran out of ammo. The rounds pierced the stucco façade, and the old plywood and timber went up like tissue paper, lighting up the night. I took my chance while I had it and dove out of the hole in the back wall, with my arms over my head to protect me from the splintered wood. The walls caught fire with alarming speed, and I knew that I’d have to dodge the local VFD as well as the tulpa to get back to my car.

  I landed wrong and went down with a curse as my knee folded under me. When I tried to get back on my feet, my knee had other plans, and I almost fell again, but I managed to put some limping steps between me and the flaming walls.

  That’s when the dragon burst through the fire, coming straight at me.

  I stumbled backward, knowing that I’d never be able to outrun the monster, not with a bum knee. Of all the ways I thought I might die, getting eaten by a dragon had never crossed my mind. I had a lifetime of regrets, too many to flash before my eyes, but one, in particular, stood out. If I died here, turned into lizard-chow, I’d never find out whether Sara and I really had a chance. And that would be a damn shame.