by Brian Harmon
Presumably, there was a utility room of some sort. Maybe even a separate electrical room. But that still left a lot of space. And now that he was thinking about it, there weren’t very many doors down here to account for all that space. In fact, besides the two stairwell doors, the doors to the go kart track and the trashed storage room, there were only two other doors visible. One was at the far end of the hallway. The other was on the right just ahead of them.
He stopped. “Wait…”
But Paul beat him to it: “Weren’t there more doors down here last time?”
It was true. At least half of the doors had inconceivably vanished.
Paul rubbed his hands together and looked back to make sure the stairwell doors hadn’t vanished, too. “How do doors just disappear?” he asked.
Eric wasn’t concerned with how it happened. Lots of things had a tendency to disappear these days. It was why the doors had disappeared. “It knows we know about the hidden door,” he realized. “It’s making it harder on us.” Not only did they have to find the hidden door, but now they had to find the right hidden door.
It was buying itself a little more time. And a little might be all it needed at this point. He was going to have to be extremely careful.
“Fucking demons…” grumbled Paul.
Eric nodded. That did seem to sum it up nicely.
Still concentrating on the children, careful to make sure their screaming voices didn’t begin to fade to silence, he walked up to the nearest door and unlocked it. Inside was a fairly large workshop. There was a long work bench on the far side of the room, covered in tools that looked like they’d been idle for a very long time. The rest of the room was filled with all manner of junk, including a vast collection of broken circus things.
It seemed that someone, probably Melodi’s grandfather, had once made a hobby of collecting this sort of old junk and fixing it up again, either for use in the playland or as decorations on the walls of the restaurant.
That was probably where most of the building’s nicer décor came from.
His eyes fell on an old carousel horse leaning against the wall next to the bench. It was clearly in the middle of being restored to its original condition. The white of the horse’s body was bright and crisp, as was the deep red and gold of the reins and saddle. But the brown, blue and silver details were still dull and faded. He didn’t pretend that he liked circus things, but he couldn’t deny that the horse was kind of cool. It would’ve looked fantastic finished and displayed with the other decorations in the restaurant.
Most of the other stuff…not so much. He saw a creepy marionette, some more of those knock-em-down dolls and another fortune teller machine, this one with a grizzled old pirate sitting behind a cracked crystal ball.
There was no rat summoner in this room, demonic or otherwise, as far as he could tell, so he closed the door before any of the things inside could come to life and try to eat him.
The workshop was fairly big, but not big enough to account for all the space between it and the go kart track. Looking back and forth, he thought there were at least four more doors when he was last here, maybe five. That meant five or six doors, including the one he needed to find, since it was probably already missing when he arrived that morning.
“Do you feel any unseen energy?” he asked, looking down at his phone.
NONE, replied Isabelle. I DON’T THINK IT’S THE SAME KIND OF HIDDEN
He didn’t think so either. This rat summoner thing could bring inanimate objects to life, displace him from one part of the building to another, create whole worlds and even make him see things that weren’t real. It stood to reason that it could easily make a bunch of doors disappear with the same power.
“So what do we do now?” asked Paul.
But Eric wasn’t sure at this point. There were two tasks before him. He had to locate the door. The right door. And he had to find a way to reveal it. “What was it Judith said? We need to find something to unlock a spell?”
SOMETHING THAT CAN UNDO THE DEMON’S CURSE
“Right. That.”
“Sure,” said Paul, who was reading over his shoulder. “Let me just look that up on Amazon. I’m sure they’ll send a drone right over with it.”
Eric ignored him. The demon’s curse. What did that mean?
“Uh…Eric…”
He turned to find Paul staring past him, toward the end of the hallway.
“What’s that?”
He turned. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was talking about. But then he saw it. Movement in the icy fog, far down at the end, where it was difficult to see.
Something was moving there, churning the mist.
No… Several somethings.
Little somethings.
“Remember the children,” he said.
“Huh?” said Paul.
“Focus!”
“Right!” He nodded. “The kids…”
“Are you listening to the kids?”
Again, he nodded. “I’m listening.”
It was muffled, but he could still hear it. This time, he wasn’t going to lose it, no matter what was thrown at him.
Something was scurrying toward them, leaving a ghostly wake in the fog. Two somethings. Three. Four.
Dark shadows began to appear in the mist.
Rats.
“I can barely hear them,” said Paul, taking a step back.
Eric glanced over at him. “Focus.”
“I’m trying! But they’re too far away!”
“They’re not. You’re slipping. You need to focus. This is going to get really bad if you don’t concentrate hard on those kids.”
As the first rat slowly came into view, it was clear that there was something wrong about it. It didn’t move like other rats. It sort of lurched along, weaving from side to side, almost dragging itself across the ground
Eric stared at it as it approached, trying to wrap his head around it. It looked sick.
No…
He took a step backward.
Not sick. Dead.
As it ambled closer and closer to his feet, he could see its bones protruding from its rotting flesh.
More were coming. A swarm of them. A hoard.
He took another step back and concentrated hard on the children. They weren’t as loud as they were before, but he could still hear them. “It’s not real,” he said. “Just listen to the kids and keep telling yourself it’s not real.”
But Paul didn’t answer.
When he looked back, Paul was gone.
He was alone with the zombie rats.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eric cursed and backed away from the encroaching swarm.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to get through it together. They were supposed to keep each other grounded.
His concentration wavered. The children’s voices grew more distant. The rats drew closer and closer.
His cell phone rang. He accepted the call and pressed it to his ear. “Isabelle?”
“Focus,” she said.
“I’m trying!”
“It’s only real if you let it be real.”
She made it sound so simple. Just ignore it and it’ll go away. But the last two times he was attacked by rats, they didn’t go away. They might not have been real, but they sure as hell felt real while they were eating him alive!
“You’re not alone. Just concentrate.”
But the swarm of dead rats was still approaching. More and more were appearing from the gloom. Thousands of them.
“They aren’t real,” she insisted. “Just like the thing in the wardrobe wasn’t real.”
The thing in the wardrobe… That was a truly terrifying ordeal. If not for Isabelle… No. Not Isabelle. The false Isabelle. The impostor.
“Stop retreating. Close your eyes. Concentrate on the children.”
“I can’t…” groaned Eric.
“You can. Just like you did last time.”
Last ti
me…
Eric stared at the rats, doubtful.
“I can see into your soul. I know you can do this. You just have to trust me.”
“You’re not Isabelle, are you?”
“Would it matter if I was?” Her voice had changed again. She sounded older, breathier.
“I trust Isabelle,” he told her, taking another step back.
Something didn’t feel right. The floor shifted unnaturally beneath his heel. He turned and looked behind him, only to find that the floor was gone and he was standing at the very edge of an abrupt drop. The hallway ended here. An endless darkness lay beyond, a bottomless abyss into which the cold fog poured like a ghostly waterfall.
The concrete floor crumbled beneath his heel, forcing him to take a step forward.
He was trapped again.
“You trusted me when you thought I was Isabelle,” said the stranger on the phone. “When I saved you from the vetala the demon sent to kill you.”
Vetala? Did she mean that creepy ass little girl who came out of the wardrobe?
The demon could send other monsters after him? That didn’t seem very sporting.
The first rat crawled up to his foot. He stomped it, crushing it beneath the sole of his shoe. That wasn’t going to work too many more times. There were far too many to stomp.
He could hear the children slipping away from him. Their screams were only faint whispers in the distance. He stepped forward and kicked the three closest rats, sending them each flying back into the swarm behind them.
“You can trust me, Eric. You must trust me. If you let yourself be dragged away again, you’ll never be able to save the children in time. Or your family.”
She was right. Whoever she was. He needed to trust her. He wasn’t strong enough to do this on his own. An endless mischief of undead rats stood before him and he had his back to an empty oblivion. And if neither of those things killed him, he’d surely freeze to death. The temperature was still dropping.
He stepped back as close to the edge as he dared and closed his eyes. “Okay. I’m trusting you.”
“Keep listening to the children. Imagine them playing. They’ve all been playing a long time. A little boy is tired and grumpy. His sister just pushed him. He fell down. He’s mad. He’s about to scream.”
And there was a scream. It was faint, but it was there. An angry, shrill shriek of a child. Suddenly, the noise was closer again. He could hear other kids screaming, too.
But now something was touching his foot. He kicked it away and forced himself to concentrate on the children.
“There are no rats,” said the woman. She didn’t sound anything like Isabelle now. How did he ever think she was? “You’re standing in a field of flowers.”
No…he was standing in a frozen hallway full of zombie rats.
“Imagine the flowers. See them growing in the field in front of you. You can see them fluttering in the breeze as you listen to the children play.”
Something was climbing onto his foot.
“Don’t move. Don’t open your eyes. Concentrate.”
How was he supposed to concentrate?
“Do it for Karen.”
Karen… If he failed, she’d die with everyone else.
He took a deep breath and steadied himself.
That wasn’t a reanimated rat climbing his pants leg. It was a wildflower brushing against him in the breeze.
“Picture the flowers. They stretch out into the distance, as far as you can see, painting the hillsides in vibrant colors. Can you see them?”
Eric nodded.
“What color are they?”
He almost told her he didn’t know. She hadn’t told him yet. But he realized that he did know the color. They were blue. A deep and icy blue. And the hills were painted with them.
Things were squirming around his feet, crawling over his shoes, scurrying up his pants leg.
Something was climbing his shirt.
But somehow, all that seemed rather distant.
“Can you smell the flowers?”
He could. They smelled a little like tulips. But also a little like roses at the same time. It was a lovely fragrance. Pretty. Soothing.
“And can you hear the children?”
How could he miss them? They were making so much noise.
“Open your eyes, Eric.”
He did as she told him. Immediately, he found that the cold, dark hallway was gone. Instead, he was standing in a sunny field of deep, blue flowers. It was just like he’d imagined it.
“How?” he asked.
“The rat summoner is a demon that weaves complex worlds from people’s darkest fears. That kind of thing requires more than power. It requires a great deal of imagination. Your imagination. And that means that it can be countered in the same way.”
Eric ran a hand through his hair. His imagination? What was this? The Muppet Babies?
“The door is behind you.”
He turned around and found that she was right. There was an enormous wall standing right behind him, where there was an abyss only a moment before. A single door stood right there, just like she said. He pushed it open and stepped through to find himself back in the stairwell.
When he looked back again, the field was gone.
It was only the hallway, exactly as it should’ve been. It wasn’t frozen. The lights were on. Not a single rat, dead or otherwise, could be seen.
But neither was there any sign of his brother. “Where’s Paul?”
“I’m afraid he let himself get lost. He’s trapped on the other side for now. Don’t worry. It’s unlikely the demon will kill your brother.”
“Well, as long as it’s unlikely,” said Eric, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“I have to go now. He’s fighting me. He’s strong… I can’t…can’t hold him back. Hurry. The last thing you need… Arcade… Save them.”
The line went dead then. Eric lowered it from his ear and stared at the screen.
WELL… said Isabelle. The real Isabelle.
YOU HEARD HER
I GUESS…
HEAD FOR THE ARCADE
Nodding, he turned and started up the stairs. He felt a little numb after all that.
“What’s a vetala?” he asked.
SUPPOSEDLY, IT’S A SPIRIT THAT INHABITS THE CORPSES OF THE RECENTLY DECEASED
“Oh.” He felt his skin crawl a little at the idea.
BUT I NEVER BELIEVED IN THOSE, EITHER
“Right.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Aaron was still standing behind the prize counter when Eric walked onto the arcade floor, still wearing his stupid clown nose. But he didn’t have his face in his cell phone. A pair of boys were trying to decide how to spend all the tickets they’d earned. They seemed to be taking forever and he looked as if he wished someone would put him out of his misery already.
It wasn’t quite as crazy in the arcade as it was before. Maybe most of the children who didn’t have any more money for tokens had grown bored with it. But there were still plenty of children chasing each other around the machines.
Several eight-year-olds seemed to be engaged in a heated game of tag that had spilled out of the playland and into the arcade. He paused beside a dinosaur hunting game and watched them for a moment. He remembered playing tag as a boy, but had it always been so…well…rough? It was less “tag” than “slap the hell out of some kid and then run away”.
It was probably just a matter of perspective. No one was getting hurt. Everyone was laughing. Obviously, he was just turning into one of those grumpy old men who yelled at kids to stop running, quiet down, get off his lawn and pull up their pants.
But not everyone was wound up. He caught sight of an eleven-year-old boy who’d apparently reached his limit for partying. He was sitting slumped in the seat of a race car game, his arms hanging over the sides, his eyes closed.
Eric envied him. He wished he could curl up somewhere and take a nap.
His cell phone ra
ng. It was Paul.
“Hello?”
“Get me out of here!”
“Where are you?”
“I’m still in the hall! Except now it goes on forever and all the fucking doors have disappeared!”
Like the mirror maze and the laser tag arena, the other world was reflecting whatever was nearest in the building and twisting it into something unnatural and terrifying.
“I turned around for a freaking second and you were gone. I got away from those dead rat things, but now I’m freezing my ass off. There’s snow on the floor! Snow! How does that make any sense?”
“Take it easy.” He walked to the middle of the arcade and then turned and surveyed the room around him. What was he supposed to be looking for here?
“I can’t take it easy! I swear to God, something a lot bigger than a rat is following me. It keeps making these sounds behind me. Like some kind of wild animal.”
“Just stay on your toes,” said Eric. “Keep moving. I’m wrapping this thing up now.” At least, he hoped he was. The mysterious woman on the phone said this was where he’d find the last thing he needed. It had to be the key Todd and Judith mentioned, the thing that would allow him to find and open the hidden door. But where was it? And what was it?”
“You’re coming to get me out of here first, right?”
“I don’t have enough time.”
“What?”
“It’s not going to matter if I get you out of there if I haven’t done what I came to do when the party ends, is it?”
“There’s something in here with me!”
“There’s been something in there with both of us every time we’ve been trapped. It hasn’t killed either of us yet.”
“Yeah, yet!” shrieked Paul.
“Just keep moving. You’ll be fine.”
“Goddammit, this is fucked up!”
“I know it is,” retorted Eric. “Now I’ve got to do this on my own. Thanks a lot.”
“Now you’re just being a shithead.”
“Stay calm. Keep moving. Don’t do anything stupid. You’ll be fine.” He disconnected the call, cutting off Paul’s next barrage of curses.
