Give the Devil His Due

by Blackwell, Rob

  “What all creatures crave most,” Kieran said. “Remember that many of these spirits have been trapped here for hundreds of years. They can’t move on and they’re stuck reliving their worst nightmares. It took Purcellville burning to motivate them to break out of that vicious cycle last year. But Kate can offer them something more enticing than the thought of home. She can offer them a way out. If Kate really is ‘the last,’ she can give them what they want most — she can set them free.”

  Chapter 11

  Quinn stared at the open black door in front of them, wondering if they should go through it.

  The problem was a distinct lack of alternative options. Behind them was the staircase and a doorway out to Halloweenland... as well as a mob of angry scarecrows. In front of them was likely to be something worse, but it was a chance they would have to take.

  Just as he’d done during his fight with the clowns, Quinn thought the best strategy was to move forward and wait for his opponent — whoever it was — to make a mistake.

  At least now he had a knife. He reached down and cut some flannel off a dead clown’s shirt, wrapping it around the naked blade before sticking it cautiously in his belt.

  He picked up another knife lying on the floor and held it out to Janus, who backed away and refused to take it.

  “No way, mate,” Janus said. “We’d be lucky if I didn’t decapitate all three of us with that.”

  “Suit yourself,” he replied and dropped it back on the floor. “You two ready?”

  They both nodded. Quinn turned and marched through the doorway.

  Quinn was unprepared for what awaited him. The room was almost completely black, other than some pinpricks of light on the ceiling. They seemed to be turning slowly around him. Quinn also heard a loud hum that made it hard to hear anything else. He turned to tell Janus and Elyssa to wait, but it was too late. They practically pushed him through and the door shut behind them.

  “What is this?” Elyssa asked.

  Before Quinn could answer, a voice piped up through the loudspeaker again.

  “Consider a man with delusions of grandeur,” the voice said in an uncanny imitation of Rod Serling. “Once a humble reporter in Leesburg, he has made a pact with dark forces to give himself and his lover unspeakable power. But he is about to learn that power is not everything it’s cracked up to be, especially in the vortex.”

  The points of light began moving faster and the hum became louder. Quinn reached out to the sides and gripped a cold railing. He realized he must be on some kind of catwalk because the lights also moved below him. As they sped up, the effect was disorienting.

  “Is everything in here a rip-off?” Janus asked. “First the Disney Haunted Mansion, now the Twilight Zone. It’s one giant copyright lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  “Not sure they can sue you in the afterlife, Janus.”

  The room was spinning faster now, or at least it seemed to be. Quinn had no point of reference anymore. The lights were moving so quickly around him that it felt like he was traveling through a long tunnel. He was dizzy and could barely keep moving forward.

  “I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” Janus said, practically shouting to make himself heard over the hum. “I covered a fall festival in Reston once when they were still banned in Loudoun. In the middle of their Forest of Fear walk, there was a big room like this. It’s just a cheap, optical illusion. We just need to keep walking.”

  Quinn nodded, but he found it difficult to walk. His stomach was churning, despite the fact that he was barely moving.

  “Close your eyes,” Elyssa yelled. “It’s better that way.”

  He complied and was surprised how different he felt. The intense nausea that had begun to plague him subsided, and the dizzy sensation faded away. He felt, rather than saw, Elyssa walk past him. He started to follow, using the metal railing as a guide.

  He wasn’t sure how big the room was — or even if there was an exit on the other side — but he couldn’t open his eyes to check. In the dark, he wasn’t sure if he would see anything anyway, and what he could view would just make him sick again. He started to pick up his pace when the loudspeaker turned on again.

  “Consider a know-it-all photographer, who documents daily life in rural Virginia, always convinced he is better than those around him. But he is about to find out exactly what he’s worth in... the vortex.”

  “Has it occurred to you that whoever is talking seems to have it out for us in a personal way?” Quinn shouted to Janus.

  His friend didn’t have time to respond. The room suddenly seemed to shift. The walkway beneath them began to tilt. At first it was just a slight incline, but it gradually became steeper. Quinn opened his eyes and instantly regretted it. The lights were whirling around him at an incredible speed, and immediately provoked the same nauseated feeling he had earlier. He shut his eyes quickly after confirming what his feet were trying to tell him: the catwalk was now slanted at a high angle. It was like walking uphill. He clung to the railing and kept his eyes shut tight.

  “We’ve got to move faster,” he called, but he wasn’t sure anyone could hear him. The humming noise was now all that Quinn could hear.

  He felt Janus grab on to his shirt from behind him. The two of them tried to run up the steep incline, every step becoming harder than the last. Quinn risked opening his eyes again and was stunned to see a doorway a short ways in front of him. Elyssa was already standing in it, looking back at them. The light streaming in from the open door helped to dissipate the effect of the spinning tunnel, but Quinn still couldn’t keep his eyes open for very long.

  It was only ten feet away, but the catwalk was now at a dangerously high incline. They were using the railing as if they were rock climbing rather than walking uphill.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Janus said.

  Quinn reached behind him and grabbed Janus’ arm.

  “I’m going to give you a push,” he said.

  “What about you?” Janus replied.

  Quinn didn’t respond. Instead, he helped Janus climb past him. The spinning sensation was becoming more intense again. Quinn looked up to see Elyssa apparently struggling to hold the door open for them. From what he could tell, the battle wasn’t going well. He wasn’t sure how much time they had.

  Holding the railing with one hand and pushing on Janus’ back with the other, Quinn helped them keep going. When Janus was just a few feet from the door, he yelled, “Ready?”

  He wasn’t sure if Janus heard him. Quinn could barely hear himself. He shoved Janus with all of the strength and leverage he could muster. He watched as Janus seemed to climb the railing as if it were a rope ladder, and then grab Elyssa’s outstretched arm. Janus was pulled into the safety of the doorway. The two of them successfully beat back whatever was trying to close the door and stood looking back at Quinn.

  Quinn felt a shudder in the floor beneath him and grabbed onto the railing with both hands. The walkway broke off and fell into the spinning room with a large crash. For a moment, the lights appeared to move slower and the hum receded, as if the catwalk was being ground up in giant gears. But it picked up again shortly afterward, leaving Quinn clinging to the steel railing in a dizzying maelstrom of dancing lights. He tried climbing it like a rope in gym class.

  He heard Janus shouting, but could barely hear him. It sounded like he said “look down,” so Quinn did.

  He immediately wished he hadn’t. Below him was the painted face of a pumpkin, carved into a leering grin. The mouth was open wide, and Quinn could see rows of sharp, metal spikes. If he fell, he would be impaled on them.

  The paint appeared to glow in the dark, so the face and spikes were the only things Quinn could see. In the disorienting spinning room, the face appeared larger than life, like an all consuming demon that would soon feed on his bones.

  Quinn dragged his attention back to the railing in front of him. He climbed up slowly, hoisting himself up by his hands until he reached a rung for his feet. Then h
e slowly repeated the process.

  Don’t look down, a voice in his head said, and Quinn was unsurprised to hear it was Kate. Just focus on the task at hand.

  He kept crawling up, not trying to rush. The room started shaking and now he could hear music playing. He was vaguely aware it was “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns N’ Roses. Instead of frightening him, however, he used it as a motivational tool, singing along as he inched up the bar. He dared to look up and realized he was almost there. He could see Elyssa and Janus framed in the doorway’s light. Janus reached out for him and Quinn stretched to grasp his hand.

  Just before he could fully grab Janus’ hand, however, the railing shook and he slipped. Quinn fell upside down, his body now facing the grinning pumpkin below him, the spikes in its mouth flashing at him. At first, he thought he was falling toward it, before realizing his legs were caught in the railing above him. He felt the knife slip out of his belt and plummet to the floor, lost amid the spikes.

  From somewhere he heard Axl Rose screaming, “You’re in the jungle, baby. You’re gonna diiiiiiiieeee.”

  Quinn fought down the stab of panic and slowly pulled himself up again, careful to keep hold with his legs. He succeeded in getting upright and realized he was still close to the exit. He was near exhausted, but not finished yet.

  He started his slow climb up once more with renewed determination. One of the figures in the doorway reached out to him and Quinn grasped the open hand.

  As he was pulled in, he noticed that the hand belonged to Elyssa. For just a moment, he wondered if she would let him fall to the spikes below. But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, Janus joined her and he was suddenly thrown safe through the doorway.

  Quinn landed with a thud and looked back. The physics of the place were insane. He stood in the doorway looking down on the vortex as if it were just another hallway with a painted pumpkin face at the end. It appeared perfectly horizontal. But he knew if he stepped back inside, the room would turn topsy-turvy again, and the pumpkin face would be at the end of a long, vertical shaft. Even now, the pumpkin face seemed to be smiling at him, mocking him.

  Janus shut the door and the spell was completely broken. They were in a plain hallway again, free of the spinning room and its monotonous hum. Quinn sat against the wall and looked around.

  “Thanks,” he said to Elyssa.

  She nodded back at him. Quinn couldn’t be sure, but he thought the idea of dropping him to his death had occurred to her too. He turned to Janus.

  “Why the hell did you tell me to look down?” he said. “That nearly killed me.”

  “I said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t look down,’” Janus replied. “I was trying to make sure you didn’t see it.”

  “Didn’t work.”

  “So I gathered.”

  Quinn looked at their surroundings. He still felt dizzy and weak from the long climb to the top of the room. But here at least they seemed safe. It was just a hallway, and unlike the one with the clowns, there were no doors on either side. There was just one innocuous doorway at the end.

  Quinn opened his mouth to ask what they should do next when he smelled the distinct odor of smoke.

  “Where’s that coming from?” he asked.

  Janus pointed to the door behind them, the one that had housed the vortex. Smoke poured in from underneath it.

  “And now, we come to the end of the line,” a voice said over the loudspeaker. “It really has been a pleasure seeing you again, Quinn and Janus, but you know what they say, ‘All good things...’”

  Quinn looked at Janus.

  “Again?” he asked.

  Janus shrugged, but Quinn was suddenly struck with an inspiration. If he was right, it made the situation even worse, something he didn’t think possible a few moments ago. The hallway was rapidly filling with smoke. Elyssa calmly walked to the other end and tried to open the door. It didn’t budge. Quinn followed her and tried to put his weight against it, but it didn’t move.

  “I locked them in, you know,” the voice said. “Something your friend never turned up in his research. He found a lot of things out, but not that.”

  “What is he talking about?” Janus asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Quinn responded.

  All three of them started coughing.

  “Down on the ground,” Quinn said, knowing it was futile. Smoke rises, but when there is nowhere for it to go, it heads back down. They had only a few minutes left, if that.

  “I waited until Halloween night of course,” the voice continued. “I locked the exits and blamed that poor schlub of a security guard. The fool didn’t even know he was innocent. I heard he drank himself to death three years later because of the guilt.”

  Quinn looked at Elyssa and Janus as they crouched on the ground.

  “Anyone see a way out?”

  There weren’t any good options. There was no going back into the vortex and the way ahead of them was blocked.

  “I set the fire too,” the voice continued. “You’d be surprised just how flammable a little wood and gasoline can be.”

  Quinn couldn’t accept it. How could they come so far just to be stuck with no way out? The more he thought about what they had encountered so far, the more it seemed like a game or some kind of test. If that was true, there had to be something he was overlooking.

  “What if we rush the door?” Janus asked.

  “I tried that,” Quinn replied. “It’s locked tight.”

  “What about both of us together?”

  Janus didn’t bother waiting for a reply.

  “Fuck this,” he said.

  He stood up, coughed, and made a run for the door, putting all his energy into it. The voice on the speaker laughed.

  “That won’t work, Janus, you pain in the ass,” the voice said. “Didn’t you hear me? I locked them in. Just like I locked you in. Welcome to the jungle, baby. You’re gonna die.”

  Janus hit the door with as much speed as he could muster. Quinn felt sure he would break his arm, not that it would matter for very long. Instead, the door didn’t just open — it shattered in an explosion of wood. Janus screamed in victory.

  “Fuck, yeah!” he said. “Janus for the win!”

  Both Elyssa and Quinn stared at each other.

  “I checked that door myself,” she said, and then coughed. She sounded almost defensive.

  “So did I,” Quinn replied. “Let’s worry about it later. Come on!”

  The two of them covered their mouths and ran out the door. Behind them, Quinn was sure he heard a cry of frustration and rage over the loudspeaker.

  At that point, Quinn thought nothing he found on the other end of the door would surprise him. But instead of more haunted house, or even more of the amusement park, the door led outside to a thick cornfield, with high stalks of corn swaying in the breeze. A white, glowing full moon hung overhead.

  Quinn saw a narrow, dirt path leading away from the haunted house and into the cornfield. A small sign stood to the right of the path.

  “Corn Maze of Death,” it read.

  “How come we can’t get the ‘Corn Maze of Nice Puppies,’ or the ‘Corn Maze of Beautiful Women?’” Janus asked. “Also, who named this shit? There’s no artistry to it.”

  “I think I can answer that question,” Quinn said.

  Janus looked at him expectantly.

  “I remember who mentioned Halloweenland to me once,” Quinn said. “Now that I think about it, it was probably a slip-up. We were talking about some fall festival in Fairfax County and whether we should check it out. He just mentioned Halloweenland in passing.”

  “I don’t suppose it was your Uncle Richard or something?” Janus asked.

  “No,” Quinn said. “It was Kyle Thompson.”

  “Oh shit,” Janus said.

  “Who’s Kyle Thompson?” Elyssa asked.

  “The psychotic killer who murdered Janus and nearly took out me and Kate,” Quinn said. “He called himself Lord Halloween.
And from what I can tell, he’s become a lot more powerful.”

  Chapter 12

  Kieran and Tim were still talking excitedly, but Kate couldn’t hear them anymore.

  The voices in her head had grown louder since Kieran told his tale and though she tried to quiet them, she couldn’t. She was dimly aware that she had lost her own voice amidst the squabbling.

  Quinn and Kyle bickered about everything, each insisting the other was lying. The Horseman occasionally weighed in, usually on the side of whoever wanted to commit the most violence. That meant that he supported Kyle more often than not, which didn’t make any sense to Kate. Quinn had defeated the Horseman and then assumed his form. Last year, he had no trouble controlling the phantom. She had never sensed any kind of internal struggle from Quinn, or if there was one, it was brief. But now the Horseman seemed to have a mind of his own, independent from Quinn. Why? Shouldn’t he still answer to Quinn?

  It’s all in your head, she thought. They aren’t real.

  In the room within her mind, where she found herself most often now, Kate realized it was the banshee who just spoke to her. The banshee never actually said anything out loud, but Kate occasionally heard her voice nonetheless. The others — for whatever reason — never heard it.

  That’s because I’m you, the voice said. There is no separation between you and me. It’s the others who are intruders here.

  But Quinn was here because she wanted him to be, and Kyle was here because she deserved it. She had murdered people in cold blood; she was a killer like him. And the Horseman was here because he was useful, and people were afraid of him.

  “Kate, are you listening?”

  At first she thought it was Quinn inside her head asking, then she realized it was Tim speaking. She nodded, but she could tell he didn’t believe her. It didn’t matter. Last time she tuned in, Kieran was talking about a cave filled with cats, which made no sense to her.

  That’s because it’s all a lie, Kyle said. Kieran’s just stringing you along, filling your head with false hopes and delusions of saving Quinn.