by Brian Harmon
He continued on, his eyes peeled, watching for any sign of the boy’s shaggy, blond hair.
The sound effects were as random as the music. He heard sirens, whistles, beeps, dings and twangs. He heard train whistles and truck horns. Engines revved and tires squealed. An elephant trumpeted. Somewhere, a deep, mechanical voice boomed at him to “Lock and load!”
As he walked past the largest game of Connect Four he’d ever seen, he could hear the nostalgic sound of Pac-Man music and sound effects playing somewhere nearby. In fact, he saw quite a few old school games repackaged for a new generation. There was a new Frogger and some kind of Plinko version of Donkey Kong.
He didn’t see the boy anywhere. He walked all the way to the far side of the arcade without finding him. Confused, he turned and looked back the way he came. What was going on here? How did he keep losing the kid?
There was something unsettling about this whole situation, something that made him not want to think too hard about it, much less speak it aloud.
He found himself thinking of a young girl he met in Upper Michigan last spring. Jordan was her name…
He pushed the thought away and went back the way he came, pondering the boy and the strange things he’d said in the restaurant.
Children in peril. Keys that weren’t keys.
Why couldn’t these things ever come with instructions?
As he walked past one of the arcade machines, the screen suddenly began to flicker and roll, as if broken. He paused, surprised, and looked at it. Something was there, sputtering in and out of view. It looked like a video feed from a closed circuit camera.
The game was called Fever Island 2. It was a horror-survival game, if the creepy artwork on the cabinet was any indication. Another zombie game? Or were those misshapen, shadowy forms with the glowing red eyes supposed to be mutants?
The screen sputtered a little more and the image cleared. He was looking at a black and white stretch of dark, empty hallway.
He stepped closer to the machine, curious.
The image flickered back to the game demo and then went black. A second later, it sputtered to a new image. This time, he recognized the scene. He was looking at the party room. He could see the tables and chairs. He could see the decorations. He could even see Karen setting out the refreshments.
He leaned closer, confused. What was this? How was this showing up on the screen? It looked like a security camera feed, except that the angle was far too low. It looked like this was being filmed from just above the tables near the middle of the room.
It didn’t make any sense.
The screen went blank again. Then it sputtered snow and white noise. When that cleared, he was looking at the first image again, the dark, empty hallway. Except it wasn’t empty now. Someone was there. A dark, shadowy form was standing in the middle of the corridor.
Eric felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. There was something wrong about the image. Something was subtly off, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
The screen twisted and began to roll. When it cleared again, the dark figure was gone. The corridor was empty again.
This was either the best horror-themed game he’d ever seen, or something seriously messed up was going on here.
The screen flickered again. This time, he was looking down at the arcade.
He could see himself there, leaning over the machine, staring at the screen.
He took a step back and looked around. For a second, he had to orient himself to figure out the angle of the shot. Then he turned and searched the far wall for a camera.
There wasn’t one. Not a visible one, anyway. The only thing looking out over the arcade was another of those ridiculous clown statues. It was crouching on the ledge of a little recess in the wall, grinning stupidly out over the room. Once upon a time, its colorful, polka-dot suit and bright, red hair might’ve looked cartoonish and innocent, but the paint was faded and chipped, giving it the appearance of a pale, undead thing plotting to eat someone.
But then again, clowns always looked like that to him.
There were security cameras scattered around the room, for safety, but none mounted at the place where the image on the screen could’ve been recorded.
Eric felt an icy prickling creep up his spine as it occurred to him that it was as if the game were showing him what the clown was seeing…
There was an unsettling thought.
He stared at the clown for a moment, half expecting it to blink at him, then turned to take a closer look at the image on the screen.
A gaunt, ghastly face stared back at him with wide, wild eyes.
He let out a startled, “Whaaa!” and jumped backward, banging his hip against an air hockey table and nearly falling over.
He stood there for a moment, his heart racing, steadying himself on the side of the table and staring at the arcade game.
The haggish face of the screaming woman was gone. The title screen of the game stared back at him, its bright, bloody lettering dripping down the screen, as if nothing had happened.
Eric glanced around. The arcade was still mostly empty. No one seemed to have seen him getting the daylights scared out of him. Even the guy at the prize counter didn’t seem to be paying him any attention. He still had his nose in his phone.
He stood up and rubbed at his hip, embarrassed.
That sucked.
He stared at the screen as it began replaying its demo. The graphics were bright and cartoony, a stark contrast to the black and white video feeds that had flickered in and out. The two didn’t seem to go together.
He looked down at his phone.
THAT WAS FREAKY
“Tell me about it.”
IF YOU WERE A NORMAL PERSON, I’D SAY IT WAS PROBABLY AN ESPECIALLY WELL-DESIGNED VIDEO GAME WITH SOME HIDDEN CAMERAS TO MESS WITH YOUR HEAD. BUT YOU’RE NOT NORMAL
“Thanks.”
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
He did.
ELECTRONICS CAN DEFINITELY BE MANIPULATED BY SUPERNATURAL FORCES. I’VE SEEN IT HAPPEN
“Really?”
WELL… NO. NOT REALLY. I GUESS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS THAT I’VE SEEN IT HAPPEN IN THE MEMORIES I’VE GATHERED FROM THE TRAPPED PEOPLE
“I see.”
Isabelle wasn’t the only person who’d become trapped in a strange, timeless state inside a mysterious structure built across two converging realities. Lots of people fell victim to such places around the world. But she was the only person who could travel between those locations. And she was the only one immune to the irreversible madness that seemed to consume every other person who suffered the same fate. And she had the curious ability to absorb memories and information from those unfortunate people, allowing her to gather a plentitude of sometimes very useful information about the weird, secret world most people never knew existed out there.
ONE GUY I RAN INTO IN CALIFORNIA HAD A CONFRONTATION WITH SOMETHING LURKING IN A HOSPITAL. HE HAD TO EXORCISE IT FROM THE COMPUTER SYSTEM
“Demon hunter?”
SOMETHING LIKE THAT
She’d met a number of self-proclaimed demon hunters in her travels. The problem with that particular career path was a blatant ignorance of the sheer depth of the world’s supernatural side. People were quick to call anything unnatural “demonic” when in fact there were a great many things it could be. (Isabelle wasn’t convinced she even believed in demons or hell.) As a result, most of these demon hunters had a bad habit of nosing around places they shouldn’t and many of them ended up in way over their heads.
HE WAS FOLLOWING COMPUTER WIRES TO SEEK OUT ANY OFF-SITE COMPUTERS IT COULD BE HIDING IN. THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE THE THING LURED HIM THERE
And now he’d never leave.
It wasn’t just him. Isabelle had assured him of that long ago. These kinds of things happened to people all over the world. So far he’d been lucky.
Eric eyed the Fever Island 2 machine. He’d seen too many weird things in his life to assume that he was bei
ng taken in by a clever gaming gimmick. It was far more likely that something was communicating with him through that machine. Was it a warning? A threat?
He looked up and caught sight of the boy again. He was heading for the stairs at the far corner of the room, behind the prize counter.
He hadn’t even realized that those stairs were there. That must’ve been how he kept disappearing.
Trying hard not to look like a predator on the prowl, he walked to the stairs as nonchalantly as possible, past the bored attendant with his big, red nose still in his phone, and then hurried up the stairs.
The second floor of the arcade was at least as big as the first. Bigger, he thought. There wasn’t a mirror maze separating it from the playland on this level.
Once again, the boy was nowhere to be seen. By now, he’d probably vanished back into the playland and was on his way down again. There wasn’t even anyone manning the second floor prize counter. The only person in sight was a young girl at the far side of the room playing Dance Dance Revolution.
From over his shoulder, he heard an exaggerated, girlish giggle. He turned to find a big, bright screen with an animated mermaid looking back at him. “Wanna see what’s under my shells?” she asked, then she let out another ditzy-sounding giggle.
The game was called Pearls and Shells, and seemed to have something to do with snagging random seashells scattered around the sea floor to claim points for tickets. It probably wasn’t an oversight on the part of the game designers that their oversexualized mermaid also happened to be wearing seashells as a bikini top to cover her oversized breasts, giving her question a naughty double meaning.
The bimbo mermaid swam around the screen, oohing and ahhing at all her sparkling shells, occasionally gesturing for him to come closer and randomly giggling at nothing.
He turned and walked away.
THAT WAS ONLY MILDLY OFFENSIVE, commented Isabelle.
Eric couldn’t disagree. He assumed the double entendre about peeking under her shells was as naughty as the game got or it wouldn’t still be here. Surely somebody would’ve complained.
He didn’t have to walk far before the mermaid’s voice was lost in the ambient noise of the arcade. When it had been completely replaced with the sound of casino winnings and spinning slot wheels, he stopped and glanced around again. He was now standing next to a pair of machines that let the player take the wheel of Batman’s Batmobile.
But there was still no sign of the boy.
YOU SUCK AT HIDE AND SEEK
“I’m doing the best I can. We can’t all be thirteen forever.”
“Who’re you talking to?”
He turned, surprised. The blond-headed boy was sitting in one of the plastic seats, both hands on the wheel, pretending to play the demo. He was small and easy to overlook, but Eric was sure there was no one there a moment ago, and yet he never saw him sit down. “No one,” he replied. “Myself.”
“Kind of weird, isn’t it? Talking to yourself?”
“I think it’s more normal than people think.”
The boy shrugged. “Maybe so.”
Eric watched him play for a moment, looking him over. There was something unusual about the kid. He was increasingly sure of that. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Todd.”
“Todd,” repeated Eric. “That’s a cool name. I like it.”
Todd shrugged. “Thanks. I didn’t pick it out or anything.”
He smiled. “Not many of us do. I’m Eric.”
“That’s an all right name, too.”
“Thanks.”
Without looking up at him, Todd asked, “Do you have any tokens?”
This caught him off guard. “No. I don’t. I wasn’t planning on playing any games.”
“Bummer. I’m bored.”
Eric stared at the boy for a moment. He looked like a perfectly normal boy, yet there was something about him, something otherworldly.
“Does this place scare you?” asked Todd.
Again, he was caught off guard. “What?”
Now the boy looked up at him. “Does this place scare you?” he asked again. Then he turned his eyes back to the screen. “Most people aren’t scared of it. Most people can’t see what’s hidden here. All they see is fun and games. They just don’t look any deeper.”
Eric continued to stare at him for a moment. “Yeah. I guess it scares me a little.”
Todd smiled. “I knew it. You’re smarter than the rest of them.”
“I don’t know that I’m smarter. I just know things that other people don’t.”
Again, he looked up at him. “Isn’t that what being smarter means?”
“I think being smarter means you know more than other people. I just know different things.”
“Oh.” He turned his attention back to the screen. “Still, you’re pretty special, I think. You might even be able to make a difference.”
The oddest thing about all this was that this wasn’t even the strangest conversation he’d ever had. Eric glanced around to make sure they were still alone. A couple of kids were playing on the other side of the room, but no one was within earshot. “You said something before about saving children. Are there children in danger?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Like, huge danger.”
Eric ran his hand through his hair. It was troubling how calmly the boy said that, as if it were no big deal. “These children… Are they inside this building? Right now?”
“Uh…yeah.”
Apparently, this was information he should already have and these were stupid questions.
“Where in the building?”
The boy glanced over at him as if he were being completely dense. “Everywhere.”
Eric cocked his head as he tried to process this. “Huh?”
“Have you not noticed all the kids running around in here?” He gestured at the girl playing Dance Dance Revolution. “There’s one now.”
Eric looked over at the girl, confused. It took a moment for it all to sink in. “Wait… You mean all the kids coming to this party? They’re the ones in danger?”
“Well, not just the children. Everyone, really.”
He stared at the boy. “Everyone,” he repeated. “The grownups, too?”
He nodded. “Everyone.”
“The employees?”
“Everyone. You do know what ‘everyone’ means, right?”
It was beginning to sink in now. “Karen…”
Again, he nodded. “Don’t forget you. You’re in danger, too.”
“Then we have to get everyone out of here.”
“That would be a bad idea,” said Todd without looking away from the game.
Eric squinted at him, confused. “But you said they’re in danger.”
“Trust me on this one. The worst thing you could possibly do is send everybody away.”
“But why?”
“It’s just the way it is. Do you have any money for tokens?”
“No,” he lied. He had about fifty bucks in his wallet, but that was none of this kid’s business.
“Bummer,” he said again, dropping his hands from the Batmobile’s steering wheel.
“Why are the children in danger?” asked Eric. “What’s here? What’s doing this?”
Todd turned away from him and stood up on the other side of the game. “I’m bored,” he declared. “Bring me some tokens and I’ll answer some more questions.” Then he turned and walked around the machine, heading toward the playland.
“What?” Eric walked around the other side to cut him off. “Wait. How do you…” But when he stepped around the other side, the boy was gone.
He was alone.
“What the hell?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, frustrated. Then he lifted the phone again and spoke the words he’d been reluctant to say aloud until now: “I don’t think Todd is…uh…of this world.”
DUH, replied Isabelle.
Throughout his weird travels, he’d met a number of seeming
ly normal people who turned out to have been long departed. People like young Jordan in Upper Michigan. Young Todd seemed to be among their ghostly numbers.
That certainly explained why he was so hard to find.
He was cheating.
“So what do I do now?”
GO GET SOME TOKENS, I GUESS
He didn’t have a chance to reply. At that moment, all around him, the arcade machines began calling out his name. They shouted it in a multitude of voices. Men, women, children, even voices too gruff and unearthly to be human, all shouting, “Eric!” in a haunting cacophony that would’ve made even the bravest of men’s hair stand on end. The effect was so excruciatingly creepy that he stumbled backward, tripped and dropped his phone.
Then, just as quickly as it started, it was over.
Everything was normal again.
Across the room, the girl was still rocking out to Dance Dance Revolution as if nothing odd had happened. Either that whole, odd experience had taken place entirely within his own head, or the music was loud enough that she hadn’t even noticed it. Either scenario seemed equally possible.
Not willing to stick around and see if it would happen again, Eric snatched his phone off the floor and hurried back down the steps to the first floor.
Chapter Five
That was eerily unnerving.
Eric quickly made his way around the perimeter of the first floor of the arcade, making it a point to not look at any of the game screens. His heart was pounding. He felt jittery. A mild panic was welling up inside him.
He needed to get away from all these bright lights.
It was odd. It shouldn’t have alarmed him so much. It was only noise. The sound of his own name shouted at him. A cheap trick, barely worthy of a Halloween spook house. It was nothing compared to some of the things he’d been through. And yet there was simply something incredibly unsettling about the experience.
He made it out of the arcade and into the party room, where the noise began to yield to the chaotic din of screaming children at play. Immediately, he felt a little lighter, but his heart continued to thump in his breast.
