Castle by the Sea

by JG Faherty

  Dedication

  As always, I want to thank my wife, Andrea, and my parents for being my biggest supporters. They have been there through thick and thin.

  Special thanks go out to the people who made this book possible: Don D'Auria, who I've looked forward to working with since I got started in this business. The staff at Samhain, including their incredible artists who really do make some magnificent covers, and my writer friends who've helped in one way or another with getting this book completed: Rena Mason, Theresa Fuller, Shaun Jeffrey, and Stephen Owen. Also Tom Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, and David Morrell for the lessons they taught me, and Mort Castle for a boost of confidence when it was sorely needed.

  To Harley, who still continues to be my furry faithful companion, snoring next to my desk since I started writing thirteen years ago.

  Finally, many thanks to my friends in the business who help simply by being there when you need some advice or encouragement. And to all the fans of the Carnival of Fear and its many wicked tales – there will be more to come.

  The carnival appeared without warning, as it has always done and always will. This time it was the residents of Cannonsville, Oklahoma, who woke up on October 30 to find a Halloween carnival set up just outside town. Signs proclaiming Carnival of Fear—One Night Only! covered telephone poles, windshields and fence posts everywhere, as if magic elves had spent the entire night doing PR work.

  By noon, there wasn’t a man, woman or child in Cannonsville who hadn’t made plans to attend the festivities that evening.

  After all, how often did a Halloween carnival come to town?

  The setting sun was no more than a crescent of fiery orange atop the horizon when a tall, skeletally thin man in a multicolored suit entered the Tunnel of Love through a back door. A black stovepipe hat with a sunflower tucked into the band perched jauntily atop the bald dome of his head. Worm-pale lips stretched from one side of his moon-white face to the other in a hideous smile as he stroked a bony hand across the animal-shaped boats waiting for riders.

  He stopped at one, a graceful white swan with two seats. “Perfect,” he whispered, and the swan nodded in agreement, its eyes glowing red for just a moment.

  The Proprietor’s impossible smile grew even wider, the ends of it rising past the bottoms of his ears.

  “Ah, what fun Jason and Erika shall have tonight. What fun, what fun indeed.”

  Flashes of white arced across the night sky, leaving red afterimages in Jason Phillips’s vision. In the lightning’s wake, thunder crashed with bone-jarring intensity, as if the world were floating inside a celestial kettledrum. Jason gripped Erika’s hand and helped her struggle up the steep slope. Each step was an adventure; the freezing, drenching rain had turned the narrow path into a deadly torrent of mud and water that threatened to wash them away at the first careless moment.

  Jason tried to keep his mind on finding the right footholds and handholds in the brief bursts of light provided by the aerial pyrotechnics, but his thoughts kept returning to the reality—or unreality, he thought—of their situation. The suddenness of their displacement from the carnival, and the ferocity of the storm they’d found themselves in, had prevented them from discussing what had happened, but he knew they’d have to face the facts sooner or later.

  The evening had started so innocently. A romantic night at the carnival—they’d intended to see the sights, go on a few rides, maybe grab a candy apple or a corn dog and then head back to Jason’s apartment for a very different—but much more enjoyable!—kind of ride. Erika hadn’t stopped smiling and Jason, loath to ruin what was turning out to be an amazing time, had gone on ride after ride with her, each one more exhilarating than the last, despite the hour getting later.

  Then they’d decided to try the Tunnel of Love. Ordinarily, Jason would have objected—after all, it cost three bucks a ticket and all you did was float in some smelly water for five minutes. However, he recognized it as a chance to make a romantic gesture, something he probably didn’t do enough of. So he’d paid the six dollars and they’d let the rough-looking carny with the ragged scar on his face help them into their swan-shaped boat.

  Hidden speakers delivered the soft strains of “Muskrat Love”—the perfect corny love song for a corny ride—as the boat slipped away from the dock, taking its place in line behind the other swans. Jason pictured the other riders, some, like him, demonstrating they did have a romantic soft spot. Others trying to recapture their youth. Teenagers looking to perhaps get a little further than usual, cop a feel of a soft, young breast or experience the thrill of that first kiss.

  Smiling to himself, he wished them all good luck and hoped that thirty years from now it would be he and Erika reliving their younger days, clasping wrinkled hands and saying how much they still loved each other.

  He put his arm around Erika. She snuggled up against him, and in that moment everything was perfect. The music was no longer trite, the water didn’t smell like a mud puddle, and the cheap murals on the walls became as picturesque as a summer garden.

  Perfect.

  And then the entire world went to hell.

  The moment their boat slid into the pitch-black tunnel, the previously calm waters turned rough. Erika had cried out and grabbed on to him as the boat dipped and rose with stomach-churning intensity. Foul water splashed over them, soaking their clothes. Insane laughter burst from the loudspeakers, drowning out the soft melodies with painful intensity. Jason shouted for someone to stop the ride, but the only response was more laughter. The waves grew stronger and stronger until they thought the boat might overturn.

  And then it did.

  The world tumbled around Jason for an instant before his face hit the water and he went under. He tried to push off from the bottom but his hands and feet touched nothing. Another wave hit, spinning him over and around at the same time until he was so disoriented he couldn’t think. Water filled his nose and ran down his throat into his lungs, forcing him into uncontrollable coughs that quickly led to choking when he was unable to find the surface.

  There was a moment where he felt pure terror, knowing he was about to drown in a stupid carnival ride.

  Then, in the next instant, he found himself kneeling in waist-deep water, Erika on her hands and knees beside him, a horrific storm battering them with rain and wind. Flashes of lightning lit the sky like a giant lamp turning on and off, and he caught sight of land only a few yards away.

  “C’mon!” he’d shouted, grabbing Erika’s hand. Tumbling and falling in the pounding surf, Jason had led Erika to a beach made mostly of black stones and giant hunks of rock.

  That was when they saw the lights at the top of a long hill. Confused and disoriented, Jason had instinctively headed for them.

  Erika screamed, pulling Jason’s attention back to the here and now. She’d fallen again, her hand slipping from his. He wiped water from his face in a futile attempt to see better; the heavy rain hid everything behind a curtain of gray.

  Jason stumbled back down the path until he found Erika clinging to a rock with both hands as a miniature river swirled over her. He said a silent prayer of thanks that she was still with him. More than once during their climb he’d seen strange shadowy shapes moving through the rain, their forms rendered indistinct by the storm. Each time, the dim figures had faded back into the wall of rain and mist that blanketed the unfamiliar landscape, disappearing before he could get a good look at them. Even when they weren’t visible, the feeling of being watched remained.

  “Hang on!” Jason reached out, grabbed her wrists and pulled with as much strength as he could muster. He thought for a moment she’d slip away again, but then her grip tightened and she crawled to her knees next to him.

  He put his mouth close to her ear.
“It’s not much farther. C’mon!”

  Erika nodded, her blonde hair hanging in sodden tangles. Arms linked, they climbed to their feet and staggered the last hundred paces to the oversized wooden doors of the castle. They’d first spotted the edifice when they were halfway up the steep hill, the lights from its windows a beacon of hope guiding them onward as they’d fought their way through the downpour.

  They reached the castle without further incident and stepped into the recessed entrance, stumbling a bit as the ancient stone blocks sheltered them from the violent hammering of the raindrops.

  After catching his breath, Jason searched both sides of the door for anything resembling a doorbell or speaker. When he found nothing, he pounded on the door. The dull thump of his fist on the thick wood was instantly lost in the vehemence of the storm. He looked at Erika and shrugged.

  “I’m opening it. We can’t stay out here.”

  Erika nodded and he returned his attention to the door. A simple iron handle sat to one side. Jason grabbed it, and then found he had to use both hands to depress the lever. He put his shoulder to the wood and pushed the heavy door open just enough for them to slip through. Once Erika moved past him, he closed the door, cutting off the roar of rain and thunder. In the resulting quiet, Erika’s voice sounded unnaturally loud.

  “Oh my God.”

  Jason turned from the door, his heart kicking into overdrive. Erika stood statue still, her eyes wide and unblinking. Water ran from her hair and jacket in streams, creating a puddle around her feet.

  He started to ask what was wrong, and then understood what had her frozen in shock.

  A room larger than their whole apartment spread out before them in majestic splendor. An enormous fireplace, wide enough for a dozen people to stand shoulder to shoulder, occupied the center of one wall, a roaring blaze offering a welcoming warmth that reached them despite the size of the room. Broad windows covered another wall. Crisscrossed metal bars formed a honeycomb pattern on the beveled glass. Instead of paintings, colorful tapestries hung on the other walls, each woven cloth a magnificent work of art in its own right. The lifelike subject matter on the fabrics ranged from pastoral garden scenes to depictions of fox and boar hunts.

  The furniture was just as grand as the room. Oversized leather couches and chairs were set up in groups, creating a central space more opulent than the lobby of the finest five-star European hotel. Oil lamps burned in sconces, their flickering shadows creating the illusion of movement among the room’s inanimate objects. At the far end, matching staircases of dark, polished wood curved upwards to the left and right. Between them was an arched hallway that appeared to lead deeper into the castle.

  “What is this place?” Erika whispered.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of inn, or a bed-and-breakfast,” Jason said, wringing the water from his hair.

  “But where? We were at a carnival, Jason. Is this your idea of a joke?”

  Jason started to reply, but Erika cut him off, her voice rising into the high-pitched tones of hysteria. “How did we get here?”

  “I don’t know!” He stopped and took a deep breath. One of them had to stay in control, and it looked like it would have to be him. “Listen to me carefully. I didn’t do this. I couldn’t have done it if I wanted to. Something took us from the carnival. I don’t know where the hell we are, or how to get back.”

  “You’re in the ancestral home of Professor Johann Osvald,” a voice said.

  Erika gasped and clutched at Jason’s arm.

  For the first time, Jason realized they weren’t alone. A man and woman rose from chairs near the windows. They appeared to be about ten years older than Jason’s twenty-five. The man wore a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, which combined with his gray slacks to give him a somewhat professorial air. The woman had on plain-looking jeans—what Jason’s sister liked to call “mom jeans”—and a navy pea coat over a white button-down blouse.

  “I see you got caught in the storm as well.” The woman’s lips trembled slightly as they formed a tentative smile.

  Approaching the couple, Jason noticed their hair and clothes were still damp. Splatters of mud stained their shoes and pants.

  “Yeah.” Unsure of what to say next, Jason settled for staying silent. The other couple did the same, and for several heartbeats the only sound was the crackling of the fire.

  “My name’s Charles Burns,” the man finally said, holding out a pudgy hand. “This is my fiancée, Lilly Thorn.”

  “Um, I’m Jason Phillips, and this is Erika Snell.” He shook the man’s hand and then took a step back. “Where did you say we were?”

  Burns shrugged. “The maid told us it was the ‘ancestral home’ of this Osvald fellow.” Before Jason could ask his next question, the older man shook his head. “We don’t know anything else. We’ve only been here a couple of hours. Got caught in the rain and ducked inside before we could get totally soaked. A maid came in, gave us some towels and said to make ourselves comfortable, that the professor would be down later.”

  “But where is here?” asked Erika. “We were in a carnival, and the next thing we knew, everything changed.”

  “A carnival?” Burns’s eyebrows rose. “That’s where we were too.”

  “It wasn’t a Halloween carnival, was it?” Jason asked.

  “Yes! All the people working there were dressed up as freaks and demons and such. We were having a grand old time until we went into the Tunnel of Love.”

  Jason’s heart did a quick stutter step.

  “The Tunnel of Love?”

  Burns frowned at them. “Yeah. You too?”

  Jason nodded. “It seemed perfectly normal at first. Then the water turned all rough and the boat capsized, and poof! We’re knee-deep in the ocean in the middle of a storm.”

  Burns took a deep breath. “Same thing happened to us. Got soaked to the skin before we saw this place. Been waiting for this Osvald fellow to show himself ever since.”

  “Are you from Cannonsville too?” Jason didn’t remember ever seeing them before, but then, the town wasn’t as small as it used to be.

  “Cannonsville?” Lilly shook her head. “Never heard of it. We’re from Otisburg, just outside Buffalo.”

  “Buffalo, New York? We live in Oklahoma.” Something turned over in Jason’s guts as a sudden thought hit him, accompanied by a feeling that things were about to go from bad to worse if his suspicions were correct. “What year was it when you went to the carnival?”

  Burns gave him a curious look. “What year? Nineteen eighty-five, of course. What else would it be?”

  “Oh shit.”

  Erika grabbed at his arm. “Jason? They’ve got to be wrong! They can’t—”

  “Can’t what?” interrupted Lilly.

  “Where we came from, it was 2014,” Jason said.

  “That’s not possible.” Burns shook his head, his face going pale. “We—”

  “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” a new voice boomed in the hushed atmosphere of the sitting room.

  Jason and the others turned in time to see a tall, dark-haired man with a dour expression descending the stairs, accompanied by a very thin young woman dressed in a conservative gray skirt and jacket. Both of them had the pasty-white complexions of people who rarely spent time in the sun.

  “Um, hello,” Jason said. “I hope you don’t mind that we came in. We were lost, and—”

  “No, of course not.” The man strode toward them, the woman trailing behind. “Maria informed me we had visitors. But she only mentioned two…” The man, who Jason assumed was Professor Osvald, glanced at his companion.

  “I’m sorry, Professor,” she said in a timid voice that was a perfect match for the way she held herself, with her eyes cast down and her shoulders hunched up as if she expected to be slapped at any moment. “There were only two before.”

  “We, uh, just arrived,” Jason said, wondering if the professor beat the poor woman or if she was just naturally nervous.
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br />   “Well, the more the merrier, no?” Osvald’s face showed none of the joviality of his words. He didn’t seem angry or upset; rather, he had the appearance of a man who’d simply prefer to be anywhere else. It reminded Jason of the way his own father’s face would sag when his mother would say they were going to a musical with her sister and brother-in-law.

  It was easy to picture Osvald teaching at a university. He looked the part of a professor—tall and thin, graying at the temples, dressed in plain black pants and white button-down shirt. Close-set green eyes framed a too-long nose, creating a vaguely unappealing, ratlike profile. His sallow skin spoke of too many hours spent reading rather than enjoying the world.

  Maria was an altogether-forgettable presence, with dull-brown hair and plain features that made her almost invisible next to her overbearing companion.

  The man nodded at both couples. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Johann Osvald, Professor of Chemistry at Grayswitch College. Welcome to my home. You are free to stay for as long as you like.”

  “Thank you. I’m Jason, and this is Erika. We—”

  “Yes, yes.” Osvald flipped his hand at them, acknowledging and dismissing their introductions in one imperious swoop. “Well, I suppose I should make up for being remiss in my duties as a host earlier. I was involved in my work and couldn’t be disturbed. Maria, show these people to the guest rooms and find them suitable clothing. And set extra places for dinner.”

  He nodded to them again, turned around sharply and strode out of the room.

  “Please follow me,” Maria said in her small voice, looking anything but happy at the professor’s commands.

  “But we need to speak with the professor right away,” Jason said. “We have to find our way home.”

  “And where is home?” Maria asked.

  “Oklahoma.”

  “New York,” said Burns.