by Brian Harmon
Isabelle would still be able to connect to them, because she communicated directly with the phones using her own psychic abilities. (Or, at least, that was her theory on the subject. She couldn’t be entirely sure, since she didn’t really understand how her abilities worked.)
Eric opened up his contacts list and called his brother’s number.
He answered immediately, foregoing the usual, “Hello?” in favor of, “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m here. Where’re you?”
“I’m still in that damn maze! This thing goes on forever!”
Eric walked out onto the floor and looked around. It still wasn’t that big. “You’re on the wrong side.”
“The wrong side…? What the hell does that mean?”
“You’ve crossed over to another world somehow,” explained Eric.
“Well no shit. I figured that much out for myself.”
“Ah. I guess you would, wouldn’t you?”
“Pretty clear I’m not in Kansas anymore, yeah.” And it wasn’t like he didn’t know about the existence of parallel worlds from Eric’s stories. “How the fuck do I get back?”
“I’m still working on that.”
“Well hurry it up.”
“I’m in the laser tag room now. You can’t be too far away from me.”
“Oh, laser tag. That’s what this place is. Jesus, these people take their games crazy serious in this town.”
“It’s a little bit smaller on this side. Just hang on. Try not to leave the area. There’s got to be a way to cross over around here somewhere.”
“Just hurry.”
Eric disconnected the call and looked up at the walls of the arena. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He had no idea how to cross between worlds. He usually just wandered around aimlessly and ended up wherever he ended up.
He looked down at his phone again. “Any ideas?”
NONE, replied Isabelle.
“Didn’t think so.” He lowered the phone and started exploring the arena.
He didn’t like it here. It was too dark, too isolated. He could still hear the noise from the arcade, but it was muffled. If it suddenly went silent again, he might not even notice it until it was too late. And it was far too easy to imagine something stalking him in this maze. There were countless places to hide for something that probably knew this room far better than he did.
He tried to wrap his head around all this.
The clown, with its strange, black energy, could appear and disappear at will and change its appearance to suit its needs. It could also manipulate reality somehow, bringing inanimate objects to life, or at the very least making him think that inanimate objects were coming to life. And on top of all that, it could transport people and things between worlds?
How was he any kind of match for something like that in any world?
Kacie had made him fear that whatever he was looking for might not be confined to the building, but what did that matter when the thing could access an entire alternate world? For all he knew, Bellylaugh Playland was infinite.
His cell phone rang again. The call was from Illinois.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Eric. It’s Poppy again. How’s it going?”
He walked on through the maze, looking around at the glowing arena walls, wondering if something might be watching him from any of those little windows. “Oh, delightful. I’m having a fantastic time. I should spend every weekend here.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I’m chasing ghost kids, getting my ass kicked by The Nightmare Before Christmas, was almost eaten by rats and now my brother’s lost in a parallel reality.”
“Wow.”
“How’re things on your end?”
“You know, I… I really can’t complain.”
“Awesome.”
It was quiet. Very quiet. But it wasn’t silent. He could still hear the arcade, when he listened. And he could still hear the soft hum of the ventilation system.
“We’ve been watching the water for you. I said we’d let you know if we saw anything else.”
“Yeah?”
“Some really weird stuff is showing up.”
Eric didn’t like the sound of that. “Weird how?”
“Well… For one thing, there’s a shadow we can’t explain.”
“A shadow?” He turned and looked behind him. Was that footsteps he heard, or only his imagination?
“I thought I was imagining it, but Alicia and Siena saw it, too. It covers almost the entire vision. It’s like there’s this huge clown hanging over the place.”
Eric stopped walking and scratched at the back of his neck, confused. “A huge clown?”
“What? No. I said a huge cloud.”
In the background, he heard Alicia say, “No, you said ‘clown.’ I heard you.”
“Did I?”
“You did,” said Eric.
“That’s weird… Sorry. I guess I’ve got clowns on my brain, now. I keep seeing them in the visions. They’re everywhere. It’s beyond creepy.”
“This whole place is circus themed. I can’t turn around without seeing one.” And indeed, even here in the laser tag arena, there were occasional clowns painted on the walls of the maze, watching him, laughing at him. “Even the freaking monster is a clown.”
“Ick.”
“I know.” He glanced around again. Was it just that she’d become tongue-tied for a second, or had she subconsciously meant to say “clown” instead of “cloud”? After all, there was a clown hanging over this place, in a manner of speaking.
“Anyway…” Poppy went on. “Like I was saying, it’s like there’s a huge, black cloud hanging over everything. And not just because it’s raining. There’s something there, just out of sight.”
“What kind of something?” asked Eric.
“That’s a good question. No matter what we do, all we can see is that shadow. It’s like it’s hidden. Or hiding, maybe. Like it’s intentionally being evasive.”
“So it’s something intelligent?”
“If it is, it’s something a lot more powerful than us. The only other time I’ve ever known something to deliberately hide from the divination spell was…well…when we met you.”
“The magic man,” said Eric. He felt a vast heaviness inside him every time he thought of that day.
“Yeah. But that was… It was different. I mean, Sissy… She knew we were looking for her. She was familiar with the spell. She was using the same magic.”
“Right. This has nothing to do with that. Isabelle and Holly both ruled out any kind of magic they can recognize.”
“Yeah, this is definitely something different. I don’t understand it.”
“Isabelle says she can feel a dark energy in this place. Is it possible it’s some kind of dark magic that you’re not familiar with?”
Poppy thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know, to be honest. ‘Magic’ is kind of broad term in a lot of ways. It varies from coven to coven, even from witch to witch. No two are ever exactly alike. So I guess it’s not impossible. If it is magic, it’s something completely different from ours. And something completely new to us.”
And if it was new to Poppy and her sisters, then it didn’t really matter what it was. He still had to figure out how to deal with it on his own.
“All we know for sure,” she went on, “is that there’s something super creepy about the whole thing. I thought it was just me, but we all felt it. Every time we try to push the vision, to let us see what’s making the shadow, it feels wrong. It’s…scary…somehow. You know that feeling you get when you’re watching a scary movie, and you just know something’s going to jump out at you? That’s the feeling we get every time.”
Eric turned and looked out over the maze. Something about that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.
“I just don’t get it. Sorry.”
“No, you’re doing great.”
“If Del were here, maybe she could t
ell us what it means. But she probably won’t be home until this evening.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“We’ll keep trying, too,” she promised.
“Thanks. Did you see anything else?”
“We did, actually. And this was weird, too…”
“Okay?” Again, he thought he heard something. Was somebody else in here with him?
“Are there any dolls at that place?”
“Dolls?” Eric frowned at a huge clown face painted across the panels. “No. But that’s a horrible thought.”
“We saw you surrounded by dolls in the dark. It was weird.”
“There’re a bunch of plaster clown statues all over the building, but they’re way bigger than dolls.”
“No… These were little dolls. They were all around you. Hundreds of them.”
“Delightful. I can’t wait to find them.”
“Sorry. They were just sitting there. It’s not like I saw them trying to eat you or anything.”
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we? What else was there?”
“Nothing else that made sense. We keep seeing that skeleton in the black dress. And the teardrop. And more clowns, of course. Oh, and we saw you walking through a huge forest at night.”
At night? He didn’t have until night. He needed to wrap this up in the next few hours.
“And I saw a tunnel of some kind. It was weird because there was something wrong with the floor. We couldn’t really make it out.”
So in addition to all the things she told him the first time, he was dealing with a mysterious shadow, creepy dolls, a dark forest and a tunnel with a wonky floor. This day just kept getting better.
“The only other thing I saw was a cross.”
“A cross?”
“Just a plain cross.”
That didn’t tell him much. “Okay. I’ll keep my eyes open for all of that stuff.”
“We’ll keep watching from here, too.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Talk to you later.”
“Sure.” He hung up the phone and ran his hand through his hair. Sometimes the divination spell was more trouble than it was worth. What the hell did any of that mean?
He felt the chill at the same time he realized that he couldn’t hear the arcade anymore.
He turned around, his eyes wide. He’d let himself get distracted. He didn’t notice the temperature dropping. He didn’t notice the room darkening. He didn’t notice the silence creeping in around him.
He was crossing over again.
And this time it definitely wasn’t his imagination.
Something was in here with him.
Chapter Twenty-One
He couldn’t see the ceiling anymore. Nor could he see the outer walls of the arena. Above him was an empty and endless black void.
Around him, the wooden panels were no longer glowing in crisp, neon colors. Suddenly, they looked faded, rotten and old. The paint was peeling off of them. Many of them were sagging and leaning. A few had fallen over completely.
Beneath his feet, the floor was covered in dirt and grime.
The air in here was cold and stale.
Clearly, he wasn’t in Bellylaugh Playland anymore. But he couldn’t even contemplate where in all reality he could possibly be. And he didn’t have time to think about it.
Something was moving around in the labyrinth.
He could hear it in the darkness. Footsteps were approaching, growing louder and louder, but he couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from.
He turned all the way around, listening, trying to pinpoint it.
It didn’t sound human. The footfalls were far too heavy. They knocked against the ground with a rough clopping noise, more like hooves than feet.
Closer and closer it came. It would be here any second.
His heart racing, he struggled to look in every direction at once. Where was it coming from? And when did it get so dark? It was right on top of him and yet he still couldn’t see it!
With all his being he wanted to bolt and run, but he had no idea which way was away and which way might take him right to the source of those mysterious footsteps, and likely right into the waiting jaws of something terrible.
Then, just as suddenly, it was moving away again.
It must have passed right by him, perhaps just on the other side of one of these flimsy walls.
He stood motionless, barely able to believe that nothing leapt out of the darkness to tear his face off.
In another few seconds, there was once again nothing but silence.
He dared to let go of the breath he was holding and looked down at his phone.
WELL YOU MADE IT TO THE OTHER SIDE
That much was certainly true. He turned on the cell phone’s flashlight and, as quietly as possible, began to walk. It didn’t take long to discover that the maze of panels on this side was just as Paul described it. It was utterly endless. There weren’t even any dead ends. Every path led to more paths. Every turn led to more turns. It went on forever in every direction.
There was no way out.
What was this place? Why did it look like the old laser tag arena in Bellylaugh Playland? Where did these walls of cheap, wooden panels come from? Who put them here?
IT’S A FRINGE
Eric frowned. “A what?”
A FRINGE. A PLACE BETWEEN PLACES. IN THIS CASE, IT’S SORT OF A MINI-FRINGE
“Mini-fringe?”
YOU’RE LITERALLY STANDING IN THE PLACE WHERE OUR WORLD AND THE OTHER ONE MEET. ELEMENTS FROM BOTH WORLDS ARE BLEEDING TOGETHER HERE, CREATING A STRANGE AMALGAMATION THAT I CAN ONLY IMAGINE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING FROM A NIGHTMARE
“That’s why it looks like hell’s version of the laser tag arena?”
YEP
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “So it’s like a fissure?”
NO, THAT’S DIFFERENT
This was confusing.
A FISSURE IS A CRACK RUNNING OFF FROM A SINGULARITY. THIS IS MORE LIKE THE SINGULARITY ITSELF, BUT MUCH, MUCH SMALLER
“Okay… Well, I thought you could only pass between worlds through fissures, portals or gates.”
USUALLY TRUE, Isabelle admitted. BUT THIS IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF WORLD WE’RE DEALING WITH. IT’S NOT SOMETHING THAT’S ALWAYS BEEN THERE. SOMETHING CREATED IT
“Something created another world?”
IT’S NOT AS CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS. IT’S REALLY NO DIFFERENT THAN CREATING A PSYCHIC PLANE
“A what?”
REMEMBER THAT PSYCHIC PARASITE WE RAN INTO IN THAT HOSPITAL IN ILLINOIS?
“The one that put me in that dream-like state?”
NOT A DREAM. A PSYCHIC PLANE. A SORT OF ALTERNATE REALITY
“Seriously?”
TOTALLY SERIOUS
He didn’t ask how she knew this. She knew it the same way she knew anything about the weird world. She got it from the trapped people, the mad, unfortunate souls who suffered the same, timeless fate as she, but without her peculiar ability to retain her sanity.
“This multiverse crap is confusing.”
YES, IT IS
Every time he thought he could almost wrap his head around it, he learned that there was another exception to the rules.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard a crash, as if something large had knocked over some of the wooden walls of the labyrinth.
“What can you feel?” he asked, lowering his voice to a barely-audible whisper, just to be safe.
DARKNESS
Darkness there and nothing more, he thought with a shudder. The clown was here. It was probably watching him right now. It might even be the thing that thundered by a moment ago. It’d already demonstrated its ability to change its shape at will.
How the hell was he supposed to find Paul in this place? As vast as this labyrinth was, he could be a hundred miles away. Or he could be just on the other side of any of these walls. If he was smart, he was keeping his head down and hiding f
rom the monster. In either case, they’d never find each other.
The only option he could think of was to call out to him, but that would also lure the monster right to him.
I’M CALLING HIM NOW, texted Isabelle.
“Good idea.” Even with her help, he wasn’t sure how they were going to find each other. It wasn’t like she could tell them where they were. But at least they’d know that he was safe.
Keeping his head down, he made his way through the labyrinth, his ears open, his eyes wide.
So intensely was he listening for danger that he nearly dropped the phone when it rang in his hand, startling him.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” hissed Paul.
“I’m looking for you!”
“I’m right here!”
“Oh, well that clears everything right up, doesn’t it?”
“Something’s out there!” he whispered. “I can hear it!”
Eric cocked his head and listened. He couldn’t hear anything. The monster that rushed past him a moment ago had moved away now. Was it the same creature? Or was there more than one of them? Either way, if Paul was hearing something right now, then he wasn’t anywhere nearby.
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know,” replied Eric.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know! What do you expect?
“You’re the one who does this all the time!”
“I don’t do it all the time! I’ve done it like five times! And I never know what the hell I’m doing!”
“Well you’d better figure it out because—”
Eric looked up, startled. “Paul?”
“Shhh... I think something’s coming…”
Eric shut up. He even held his breath, afraid that even the faintest noise would catch the monster’s attention and lead it straight to his brother.
He hated this. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to get them both out of this mess? How was he supposed to get either of them out of this mess?
Silence dragged on.
