Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series

by Sherri A. Wingler

  I couldn’t see anything, no matter how hard I tried, and I could swear someone behind me touched my hair; not just accidentally brushing up against it, either, but kind of stroking it. It wasn’t Alex; his hands were still in place on my shoulders. Um, ewww. I hadn’t counted on some lonely pervert getting his jollies in the dark, at my expense.

  My claustrophobia reared its ugly head, in a big way. Breathing became a chore, as my lungs felt like they weren’t expanding properly. The stuff coming out of the fog machine made my eyes burn, and the loud screams echoing off the walls gave me a mild headache. Just before I legitimately freaked out, we popped out into the hallway of the zombie basement. To my great relief, I could see no one behind us when we finally emerged. At least no one close enough to be petting me. I must’ve imagined it.

  A small group of people huddled in front of a large set of wooden doors, waiting for instructions. A lady zombie waved people through in tiny groups of six or less. Although, it usually depends on how many people are walking through together in a party. We waited our turn and got the warning from zombie lady about keeping our hands to ourselves and our cell phones off. I saw Marc guiltily stick his phone back in his pocket. Little rebel.

  The big doors creaked open and a clawed, semi-decayed hand beckoned us through. Tendrils of fog crawled across the floor and started up our legs as we shuffled through the entrance. Someone screamed from deep inside the bowels of the basement/dungeon. I jumped a little when the doors slammed shut behind us, then laughed at my own stupidity. Gwen snickered. I could barely make her out in the dim light. Alex casually slipped his hand into mine. I hoped my palm wasn’t as sweaty as I feared it might be. If it was, he was sweet enough not to complain.

  Zombies shuffled out from behind hidden walls, in every direction, herding us towards the center of the room. Rubber body parts littered the floor, and fake blood splattered everything in sight. The zombies snuffled and groaned, some of them dragging limbs behind them. All of this was really spooky, but one of the girls in our group was apparently allergic to the fog machine because she spent the whole time coughing and wheezing. She sounded like an asthmatic Pug, and it kind of ruined the ambiance, just a little.

  Gwen grinned from ear to ear, looking almost maniacal herself. I was glad she was feeling better. She jumped and yelped when a zombie walked up behind her and hovered, swaying back and forth. He had sneaked up on her and got a better reaction than if he’d just come charging at her. He sniffed her like the zombie girl in line had done to me earlier, only he looked like he really might like to take a bite out of her. Marc tried to get between them, God love him, so the guy started sniffing him, instead. He tried not to cringe, but it was obvious that he was incredibly uncomfortable.

  Our zombies stayed with us, hovering and slobbering as we made our way through the basement. A few carried chains or pipes with them. Every once in a while one of them would hit the floor with a chain or smack the wooden walls just to scare the crap out of us. It worked. Even Gwen and I were jumpy, and we had been to a few haunted houses in our time. The guys were eating it up because every once in a while we jumped into them.

  In all honesty, I have to admit I was more nervous about that spiced leather scent that followed us than about the haunted house. I had the strange feeling that something huge was about to happen. Like the other shoe was about to drop, and it might just land on the back of my head.

  The zombie room narrowed down to a hallway again and someone started beating on the walls from the other side with a board, or a hammer. Plywood walls can make an awful noise if someone is really working at it. Deep, echoing booms set all of our nerves on edge.

  A pair of girls in front of us somehow ended up behind us as they squealed and giggled with nervous delight. I wasn’t sure if we were going too slowly, or they were just doubling back to get a better look at some of the actors. I couldn’t blame them; the make-up on them was top-notch. It was worth another look.

  I started to get hot and a little sweaty, but didn’t want to take my hoodie off and carry it. Laziness on my part, I know, but there it is. I also didn’t want to let go of Alex’s hand, in case we got separated. I figured there was a corn maze up ahead somewhere, so we would be outside again, and into cooler air, eventually.

  We climbed up a few flights of stairs lined with metal fencing along both sides. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to keep us inside, or to keep whatever was outside from getting in. Suddenly, another maniac showed up in a hockey mask and ran a metal rod across the fence, throwing sparks wherever he touched. Everyone in the group jumped back, startled. A panel opened up in the wall and hands made a grab for us. We turned and ran for the top of the stairs. So much for keeping our cool.

  We came out into another tight hallway. Whomever built this place loved to torture the claustrophobic. This led into a metal walkway that ran through a rolling barrel about forty feet long. Inside, the barrel was painted with multi-colored spirals of neon glow paint. Black light turned it all into a life sized, moving kaleidoscope. It was incredibly cool, but the tunnel made me dizzy as hell. I let go of Alex so I could hang onto the safety rails.

  It was like the room was spinning and the floor was coming up to meet me all at the same time. I’ve never been drunk in my life, but I bet it feels a lot like that. I started falling forward about halfway across when I felt strong hands at my waist, steadying me. Alex. I turned around quickly to tell him thanks, but nobody was there. Alex was about ten feet away from me; there was no way he could have moved fast enough to catch me. Spooked, I hurried to catch up to Gwen and Marc.

  At the end of the tunnel we stepped through several layers of gaudy, bright plastic streamers. They were more annoying than scary, but it gave everyone a chance to catch their breath before the next thing jumped out at us. Circus music played, too long, too loud, and too slow; it had a discordant tone running through it. Instead of cheerful, like at a real circus, it sounded legitimately creepy. This must be the Circus of Fear.

  A guide appeared, almost as if by magic, and beckoned us on with the crook of her bloody finger. Her brightly colored clown outfit was covered in blood and tiny fake spiders. Gwen elbowed me in the side and nodded her head slightly to the left. Marc obviously had a problem with clowns. No kidding, he was as pale as a ghost himself, and visibly starting to shake. He wet his lips nervously, and shifted from foot to foot, like he wanted to run. I wondered how long it would be before he had a total freak out.

  Our creepy clown rubbed her hands together and brought us together in a cluster, all around her. All, except for Marc. He stayed as far away from the clown as he possibly could. I rolled my eyes at Gwen. Catching my meaning, she snorted. He had to know none of this was real, right? He was so pale, the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose stood out like cinnamon on a vanilla cupcake. Sweat beaded his forehead and started to trickle down the side of his face. He wasn’t going to make it through the whole attraction.

  “Welcome to the Circus of Fear!” Spooky clown had a properly wispy, sinister voice. “Be careful as you enter, for not everything is as it seems. Feel free to scream if you feel the need, but remember that no one can hear you, if you do.” Well, that was ominous, but a nice opening to the same old speech about the cell phones. At least she tried to add some drama.

  The clown ushered us into a huge room laid out as a maze, only the “walls” were thin strips of metal and all of it was painted with the same day-glow paint that was inside the rolling barrel. It was all extremely disorienting, and looked more like a looney jail than anything else. It, too, was full of stuff meant to scare the crap out of us; and all of it glowed under black light. Alex looked around and smiled broadly. “This is so cool.” His teeth glowed blue under the light. I stopped myself from sniggering.

  “Yeah, it is. Um, check out Marc, over there,” I said, quietly. Alex’s eyes swung towards his friend.

  “Damn. I forgot he has a hang-up about clowns.” That was putting it mildly.

  Tin
y clowns with bloody, grease-paint smiles, and greedy hands reached to grab at us as we passed. Big aquarium tanks full of real snakes and spiders made up whole walls of creepy-crawlies. I cringed inside. I was terrified of snakes and the thought of them getting out of the aquariums was enough to make my blood run cold. I began to think poor Marc wasn’t as crazy as I originally thought.

  I was more than ready to find the exit when a giant, demon clown walked up to Gwen. Eyes so dark that they were nearly black, twinkled with silent laughter as he held out his closed hand to her. She giggled and put both her hands in her hoodie pockets. “Nope, no way. Not taking whatever you’re handing out, Buddy.”

  I laughed at her. “Aww, you made a friend, Gwen.” I nudged her forward. “Take it. How bad can it be? Everything in here is fake.” Well, almost everything. I avoided looking at the snake aquariums.

  “You take it,” she laughed at me. The giant clown waited patiently, like he had all the time in the world.

  “He wanted you to have it, not me.” The clown nodded, silently agreeing with me. Under all the paint he looked like he might be kind of cute, if you scrubbed his face long enough. And got him out of the over-sized, bloody clown getup. He was big, and broad in the shoulder; he had serious potential.

  “Fine.” Gwen put out a hesitant hand. Creepy clown grinned sharp teeth at her and carefully, almost tenderly, placed a large, hairy spider in her hand. At first glance, it looked fake, but the look of horror that washed over her face was legitimate. So was the blood-curdling scream she let out, followed by a round of curses that would have made a sailor blush. She dropped the all-too-real spider, and started to stomp on it, but the evil clown was quicker than that. He snatched his pet out of mid-air and sauntered away, laughing at her expense. I had to grab Gwen to keep her from going after him. “That nasty sonofabitch! Let me go, I can still catch him,” she snarled, thoroughly pissed. I was amazed I managed to keep hold of her. Alex helped me to calm her down; otherwise we’d probably finish the double date in the county jail. The last thing she needed was an assault and battery charge against her because of some asshole clown.

  “Calm down, Gwen. You wanted to be scared. He got you fair and square.” Well, there was nothing fair about it. Live spiders shouldn’t be part of the entertainment. There was no question he’d scared the crap out of everybody, including some of the other clowns, it seemed. The actors even looked confused about what had just happened. It made me wonder if he was part of the original crew, or a walk-on actor, hired just for the evening. For all we knew, he could be a crazed serial killer looking to fill his freezer with some unsuspecting teenagers. Yeah, not a pleasant thought.

  Gwen finally calmed down, but by then she was more embarrassed than anything else. She didn’t embarrass easily, but screaming like a five year old about to crap herself on the playground was sure to do the trick. The other people in our group left us behind as they maneuvered through the forest of giant glowing prison bars. “Let’s just get the hell out of here. This is like a demon version of Willy Wonka, with Oompa Loompas from Hell.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Wait. Where’s Marc?” I looked around, but he was nowhere to be found. At least not by me; I was at a serious height disadvantage.

  Alex spotted him first. Marc was cowered into a corner, having a controlled freak-out. A shadow separated itself from a corner of the room and glided towards us. It was one of the actors we’d been warned about that would be watching us. She didn’t have on any elaborate, scary make-up; she was camouflaged, more than anything else. “I think your friend has had enough.”

  “Ya think?” Gwen tried to help Marc to his feet, but not feeling well herself had taken a toll; he nearly dragged her down with him. Alex ended up helping him up. I saw Marc nodding at whatever Alex said to him. He walked determinedly towards the exit sign.

  Gwen took his hand. That was just so not like her. “I can take him home. I’ve had about as much fun as I can stand, myself.”

  “Are you sure? We can go with you, maybe go get something to eat?”

  “You guys go ahead and finish your date. I’ll see you tomorrow, Iz.” She waved us off as they headed for the exit. Poor Marc never even looked up. He was probably too embarrassed. Come Monday morning, the story would change, but for now, he’d had enough.

  Alex turned to me. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

  “Yeah, we might as well. Gwen wasn’t feeling good to start with; I’m surprised she held up this long. I think she’s coming down with something.”

  “Ok. There shouldn’t be too much more to get through.”

  By the time we made it out of the Circus of Fear, we’d lost the rest of the party we came in with. It was just the two us in the broken elevator. The elevator was rigged to spin around and do a controlled drop into darkness. The sudden stop was bone-jarring and as with everything else in this crazy place, highly disorienting. Alex caught me as I started to fall on my rear. He was making a habit of saving me, lately. The doors opened up and we suddenly found ourselves outside, in what had to be the Vampire Cemetery.

  There were people up ahead, but I still didn’t see anyone I recognize in our party. I guessed it didn’t matter. The ticket lady had said we would go through at our own pace. We surely weren’t the only ones getting left behind by our original groups. I couldn’t see a whole lot of anything; not with all of the fog covering the ground. It creeped over the tombs, and played peek-a-boo in the mausoleums. Just to the right of us, a coffin groaned open, and a vampiress glided slowly out. She must have practiced that move for months, because it was as smooth as silk.

  Vampira was obviously going for elegant, yet slutty, vampire couture. She had on thigh high boots with a gown that barely covered her goodies. Well, whatever worked for her, I guessed. I personally thought the night air a tad too chilly for an outfit that left nothing to the imagination. She was gonna freeze her tatas off, if she wasn’t careful.

  The cold air was nice for me, however, after the hot and stuffy air of the haunted house. “Thank God, I was burning up in there.” I fanned myself with my hand as I waited to cool off.

  “Yeah, me too.” Alex looked around the graveyard, trying to find a clear path. “Have you ever noticed that there are sexy vampires, sexy nurses, sexy everything outfits for Halloween, but no sexy zombies?” At least he wasn’t staring at Vampira’s boobs. Most guys would have been; I had to give him credit for that.

  I snorted. “Well, it’s hard to be sexy when you’re supposed to be rotting.”

  He nodded. “True. I bet you could pull it off; you could be a sexy zombie.”

  “You say the sweetest things.” I still couldn’t see any clear path to get through the vampires. “No guide, so I guess we just wander around till we find the exit.”

  “Don’t let these guys take a bite out of you.” Vampires rolled out of their coffins in all directions. Some looked pretty gory: fake blood covered most of the outfits. Every once in a while one popped up like the first one, looking like an undead call-girl. “Don’t take anything they hand you, either.” Alex laughed. “I still think Gwen could have kicked that guy’s ass if you’d have let go of her.”

  “He was a good half a foot taller than her. And that’s pretty impressive since she’s a freaking amazon. Still, if you insist, we can go back and track him down for her. I can gnaw on his kneecaps while you kick his ass, and restore the family honor.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Who are you kidding? You don’t reach his kneecaps.”

  “Ouch. Smart ass.” I started walking in the general direction I thought we were supposed to go. “Come on, before Vampira gives you a hickey, or something worse.” I tried to keep my voice low enough nobody heard me but Alex.

  He eyed the trampy vampire with distaste. She looked like she was trying to dry hump a coffin. Not a seductive move.

  “Would you be jealous, if she did?”

  “You wish.”

  He sighed, dramatically. “I really do.”

 
; “I bet they got her from a strip club earlier tonight. Maybe they needed a fill-in for somebody who got sick?” Oh, crap, Vampira heard me say it. Her head swung around, and her eyes narrowed to evil slits. Her fangs showed as she hissed in our direction.

  Alex couldn’t stop laughing. Sometimes I have less filter on my mouth than Gwen, and she has zero filter on her mouth. Sometimes, the stuff that came out of my mouth was as much of a surprise to me as it was to anybody else. Some of it was just appalling. Still, I didn’t want to get our asses kicked by the stripper/Vampire.

  I picked my way through the tombstones; not an easy job considering all the fog pouring up out of the ground. There weren’t many stars in the sky, either. Visibility was crap, not to mention, every few feet someone would either kick open a coffin or grab at our ankles. Eventually, that all kind of just disappeared, though.

  This section of the haunted house appeared to take the longest. It seemed to go on forever, in fact, and the farther we went, the quieter everything got. That was surprising since for the last half hour, we’d been exposed to chainsaws, thumps, screams, howls, giggles, and bad parlor music. The quiet was almost more unsettling than all of the noise. Totally unnerving, in fact. That was the point to a good haunted house; to get under our skins, and it certainly worked. They did a five star job at creeping us out.

  Finally, I just stopped and looked around as I tried to get some idea of where the exit was. The funny thing was, we were alone when I really looked. No cheesy vampires, no weeping ghouls, no actors, no thrill-seekers. No people at all. And the fake tombstones were starting to look surprisingly authentic. Some of them were even pitted with age and exposure to the elements. I put my hand down on one and scraped it on real stone.