by Brian Harmon
“What is it?” asked Eric.
“I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake. I thought the demon was the master and the remnant the subordinate, but I realize now that it was the remnant that had been using the demon. It’s a far more dangerous creature than I first realized.”
“Is that bad?” asked Melodi.
“Time will tell, I’m afraid. But for now, it’s gone from here. I have a feeling it won’t be back. But it is out there somewhere…”
“And I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of it,” said Eric.
“At any rate, things here will move on, at least,” said Moira, smiling again. “I made a mistake not taking an active role in communicating with Helena and Lester when they first came here. I won’t make that mistake again.” She turned and smiled at Melodi.
Melodi looked uncertain. “I’m not sure I can handle all this. I mean… We have a nymph?”
“And a bunch of fairies,” said Eric. “Watch out for that Eliot kid. He’s kind of a jerk.”
She rubbed at her eyes, weary. “This is too crazy.”
“You might consider letting Kacie in on the secret,” said Eric. “I think she’d make a great Assistant Manager in Charge of Supernatural Affairs.”
She tilted her head to one side. “She would like this sort of thing, wouldn’t she?”
“And if anything like this ever happens again,” said Moira. “We can always call Eric.”
“Hopefully that won’t ever be necessary,” said Eric. Demon or not, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see this place again.
His phone rang. It was Karen.
“People are leaving!” she whispered. “What do I do?”
“Let them go,” said Eric. “It’s over.”
“Oh thank God…”
He nodded. God and a very brave, dead clown.
He kept thinking of that clown. What was going to become of him now? Was he simply trapped there? An eternity in that vault with a rat demon for his only company?
Was a demon capable of harming a ghost?
“Are you done then?” asked Karen. “Are you coming back upstairs soon?”
“Soon,” he assured her.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
Eric glanced down at the bite marks on his hand. The teeth marks were still visible. The skin around them was starting to bruise, but the bleeding had stopped. Then he pulled on the collar of his shirt and peered down at his chest. A large, painful welt was drawn across it from the lashing he took from one of the monster’s many rat tails. He had more of those on his back. They still hurt, but he was going to be okay. “Only a little. Nothing to be concerned about. Promise.”
“Okay… Don’t be too long.”
“I won’t.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.” He disconnected the call and lowered the phone. “Sorry about that.”
Moira smiled at him. Was it his imagination, or did she look even healthier already? It was difficult to be certain, but he thought her cheekbones and chin were less pronounced than when he first stepped out of the doll room. “She really loves you,” she said.
Eric glanced down at the phone again.
“And you really love her.”
“I do,” he said.
“These things you do must frighten her.”
He nodded. They did indeed.
“I wish I could tell you it’ll get easier.”
He looked up at her again, surprised.
“You don’t understand why these things keep happening to you, do you?”
“Do you?”
“I can’t say exactly what fate has planned for you,” she told him. “But you can be certain it will be something profound. All that you have seen and done so far, and all that you will do between now and the day of your destiny, it is all to prepare you for what lies ahead.”
Eric stared at her, unsure what to even say to that. A profound destiny? He was an English teacher!
“Trust in fate,” she told him.
It didn’t seem that he had much choice.
Chapter Forty-Five
Eric climbed the steps and walked out into the arcade. It was noticeably quieter now, with no kids in sight. Only the machines were making noise now. And even they seemed quieter somehow.
No longer did he get any strange vibes from the creepy clown statues. It was as if the unnatural life had left them again. They were only plaster and paint.
He withdrew the remaining tokens from his pocket and laid them on the Fever Island 2 game as he walked past. “Thanks, Todd,” he said as he walked on.
Behind him, he heard the tokens jingle as they were scooped up and he smiled.
The party room was still a mess. Kacie, Edna, Karen and Holly were all bustling about, cleaning up. Karen must’ve caught Paul before he could make his escape to the solitude of the bar. He was walking around, filling up a trash bag with empty cups and dirty plates, looking positively miserable.
Nobody paid him any attention as he walked past the mirror maze, so he took off his shoes, stuffed them in the circus train cubby and then slipped inside the empty playland.
It was astoundingly quiet in here now, which was precisely what he wanted.
He walked around the ball pit to the steps and sat down.
Alone at last, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
It had been a hell of a day. He discovered two new kinds of exotic energy for Isabelle to detect. He learned that demons, fairies and nymphs were real. He faced his longtime fear of clowns head-on. (Although he was never really scared of them; he just didn’t like them.) And he found that he had a new traveling companion named Tessa.
And of course he saved a few dozen lives. With the help of a clown, of course.
“Hey, hero.”
Eric opened his eyes to find Karen walking toward him. “Hey.”
She sat down next to him and looked around. “This place is kind of awesome when there aren’t fifty kids crammed into it.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Pretty crazy day, huh?”
Eric nodded. “It’s been a weird day.”
She smiled. “I can’t wait to hear about it.”
Like usual, he was far too tired to talk about it. He’d have to fill her in once he’d had some rest. “I see you put Paul to work,” he said.
“I found him just sitting at the bar. He’s being a big baby about it, too.”
It just wasn’t poor Paul’s day. “Did your mom and sister leave?”
She nodded. “About an hour ago.”
“So, before you could put them to work.”
“Uh huh.”
For a moment, they sat there together, staring at the ball pit, listening to the sounds of the arcade.
“I’m just going to throw it out there right away and get it over with,” said Eric. “I’m now haunted by the ghost of a naked woman.”
Karen nodded. “Oh. Well… That’s something, isn’t it?”
“Full discloser. Just putting it out there. I have no control over these things, whatsoever.”
She twirled a lock of her hair, a thoughtful look on her face. “What is it with you and naked women?”
He shook his head. “I really don’t know.”
“I mean, naked ghosts, sex-obsessed agents, strippers, nudists…”
“Not even a clue. Really. It’s like my whole life is being orchestrated by some weirdo with a really strange sense of humor.”
“Huh.”
He leaned back against the padded steps and rubbed his eyes. “I’m exhausted. This whole thing was a mess. And those damn kids wore me out.”
She leaned back, too. She turned her head and looked at him. “So would now be a really bad time to tell you I’m pregnant?”
Eric opened his eyes and turned to meet her gaze. “Horrible time, yeah.”
“Okay then.” She smiled. “Maybe later.”
Eric turned and looked up into the playland for a moment. Then he turned and looked at her again. “You w
ere joking, right?”
Karen laughed. “Yes. I was joking.”
“You’re not really…”
“Not really. No.”
He nodded and looked up again. “That’s good.”
Karen smiled.
“Kids are freaking crazy.”
About the Author
Brian Harmon is an independent author of horror fiction, suspense and dark adventure. He grew up in rural Missouri and currently lives in Southern Wisconsin with his wife, Guinevere, and their three children.
For more about this author, visit
www.HarmonUniverse.com
