— Know Your Ghosts: A Guide to Ghostland
"Buckle up, babies," Virgil said to his passengers. "You're in for one hell of a ride."
Before any cowards could change their minds, Virgil threw the switch, and the train lurched down into the dark.
— Rex Garrote,
A Roller-Coaster Ride Thru Hell
GHOSTED
Four years later.
BY THE AGE of eighteen, Ben already knew what it must feel like to be a ghost.
In the four years since he and Lil had watched Rex Garrote's house roll down Main Street, he'd spent most of his time either at home or shuttling back and forth to medical appointments. After the open-heart surgery, his parents had pulled him out of school for the coming term. One semester became two, and Ben had fallen behind. His parents had turned to home-schooling.
If he'd been an outsider before—and he definitely had been—he'd become even more of one then. Nobody liked home-schooled kids. That was an undisputed fact. And no one wanted to be reminded of their own mortality, particularly not by someone their own age or younger. So while the town had essentially shunned him, Ben had withdrawn into himself, into books and movies and video games. What little time he'd spent in the outside world, he moved about avoided and unnoticed by other kids, even by many adults.
He'd become invisible. A living ghost, like the main character of Rex Garrote's Shōki.
Ben hurried to catch up to Lil outside Duck Falls High when classes let up on Friday. It was the last week of April and their final school year would soon be over. It was also the day before Ghostland would open to the public. The two of them hadn't spoken in years, although Ben had tried many times, less so this past year. He knew she wouldn't want to see him, but he needed her—his old gaming partner, his former best friend—by his side when he walked through Ghostland's front gates.
Lil kept heading toward the sidewalk, pretending she hadn't seen him. He was used to it. She'd been avoiding him for almost four years now. It still hurt, much more than the others, but he could understand why she wouldn't want him around.
Kids called him names. It embarrassed her to be seen with him.
It was embarrassing to be him.
"Hey, wait up!"
Lil flicked a glance over her shoulder and hurried on toward the fenced-in path alongside the school's brick parking lot wall.
"Would you hold up a second?" he called after her.
The two of them alone on the path, Lil finally turned. Shimmering in the afternoon sun, her sleek black hair flipped over the shoulder of her jean jacket. "Leave me alone, Ben." She didn't look up from the cracked pavement between them. "Please."
"I just want to talk, okay?" He felt like an asshole having to chase after her, like some sexual predator or something, when all he wanted to do was talk. "I never get to see anyone anymore," he said. "You know what the worst part of homeschooling is? You can't even watch the clock waiting to go home."
He grinned at that and Lil looked up, locking eyes with him. It looked like she couldn't decide if she should be angry or sad or laugh.
"I have an appointment," she said, her gaze darting away.
"Can I at least walk with you?"
She shook her head. "Fine."
Lil turned and resumed her hurried strut down the path. Some kids Ben didn't recognize ran past the wall at the end of the path. He barely remembered anyone these days, they all looked so different from four years back when he'd still gone to school with them. The three of them stopped there, two burnouts and a jock, and laughed riotously before continuing on their way toward trouble.
Ben wasn't sure if they were laughing at him or Lil or something else entirely. He didn't understand kids much anymore. The few people he talked to these days were adults: relatives, friends of his parents, Grandma Laramie, Lil's mom, the cashiers at the grocery store.
Lil raised the collar of her jean jacket defensively, hiding behind it.
Because everyone knew The Dead Kid.
Ben Laramie was practically a local celebrity. His heart had stopped beating at the same time Garrote House passed through town on its way to Burt Bucklebee's old farm, land bought up by the late horror writer's estate for a haunting-themed amusement park.
Two other people had died that same day: an old lady had passed away knitting on the porch of the retirement home kids called the "Cripple Castle," and Burt Bucklebee himself, who'd sold his land for a small fortune and had been planning to go to Disneyland, according to the Duck Falls Squawker. But old people died all the time. It wasn't every day a fourteen-year-old kid had a heart attack and died only to be revived by a short time later.
A story like that spread fast in a town like Duck Falls.
People called him zomboy. The Dead Kid. Freak.
"I guess you heard about Ghostland?" he asked Lil, trying to sound casual.
She stepped off the path and kept forging onward, crossing diagonally on Maypole Lane. "Duh. Everyone's heard about it. It's all everyone ever talks about everywhere."
"Well, are you gonna go tomorrow?"
She turned on the heels of her black Chuck Taylors. "Why would I want to go to that place, Ben?"
Back when the two of them had been best friends, Lil never would have asked him that question. She'd been as obsessed with horror as him. But she was different now. Instead of loose-fitting jeans and oversized T-shirts she wore mostly skirts and dresses. She did her hair up fancy for school instead of tying it back in a ponytail, and she even wore makeup, covering up the freckles across her nose and cheekbones.
He supposed much of that was due to their age. She was no longer the impetuous "tomboy" she'd been when they were fourteen. They were eighteen now, and would be heading off to college soon. Mrs. Roth had mentioned something about a scholarship, though she and Mr. Roth were worried Lil didn't plan to go—that she would rather stay in Duck Falls with her friends than move out and experience the world.
"Why wouldn't you want to go to Ghostland?" Ben asked, chasing after her again. "It's like I don't even know who you are anymore, Lil."
"No one calls me Lil."
"Lilian then," Ben said, rolling his eyes. "Whatever. I just don't understand what happened with you. Everything was fine until—"
She whirled on the sidewalk, the soles of her shoes grinding the pavement. He could tell what her expression was now: unbridled fury. "I don't want to talk about it, okay? God, it was almost four years ago! Why can't you just let it go?"
Ben opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. "You act like you're the one who died," he said finally, his voice quiet.
"You didn't die. Your heart stopped. There's a difference."
"Not according to everyone at your school there isn't," he shot back. "They still call me the Dead Kid, don't they? They still say I'm a freak?"
Lil gaped at him a moment, seemingly undecided whether to tell him the truth and break his heart or lie and make it worse. Instead, she turned and stormed away.
Ben stood in the middle of the road watching her walk away from him until a car honked. He turned to the woman in the minivan, scowled at her and her baby in the backseat, then crossed to the sidewalk.
Lil had headed left toward her therapist's office. Ben turned right toward home.
Lilian sat in the waiting room at Dr. Wexler's office, trying to distract herself from thinking about her encounter with Ben.
She'd done such a good job avoiding him during the past few months that it had almost felt like he didn’t exist, like he had actually died that day, like his mother hadn't come home early from showing a house on the other side of town just a few minutes after Ben's heart stopped beating and found him lying on the bedroom floor in a mess of horror books, his hands clenched into fists and his face blue.
Not having to worry about running into Ben around town, kids at school or her parents asking about him—as cold and morbid as that sounded, Lilian couldn't help feeling comforted by the idea.
She looked ar
ound the waiting room. A middle-aged white woman wearing a sari sat opposite her, texting, the phone clicking with each keystroke. She recognized the woman as a local yoga instructor, a recent addition to Duck Falls from somewhere out of state.
The TV in the high corner showed the Baltimore traffic report. Behind the woman in the sari was a poster that said IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT THINGS, spelled out like an optometrist's eye chart. This hokey motto never seemed to jibe with what Lilian knew of Dr. Wexler, a no-nonsense woman with a take-charge-of-your-own-destiny attitude. It felt incredibly phony, which Lilian—much like Holden Caulfield—couldn't stand.
Her gaze drifted to the magazines. On top of the stack, the Time magazine cover showed a somber-looking black woman with large, thick-framed glasses. Lilian knew her from television. The most-recognizable woman in the Western world at the moment wasn't a reality-TV star or royalty or even a politician. The title beside the photo said LIFE AFTER DEATH? The Brilliant Mind Behind Ghostland's Terrifying AR Experience. She was Sara Jane Amblin, inventor.
Lilian reached for the magazine to flip it over but the woman in the sari got to it first.
"Oh, did you want to read it?" the woman asked. "I just love her."
Lilian shook her head brusquely. The woman gave her a befuddled look and opened the magazine, so that now the inventor of the "Recurrence Field" was practically staring at Lilian across the table.
I guess you heard about Ghostland.
Everything was about Ghostland these days, and when people spoke of Ghostland what they meant was ghosts. Death. The paper-thin veil between the living and the dead. Lilian couldn't go a day without seeing something about it on the news or hearing someone talk about it in class. Last month the school board had voted on whether to add a special "death and bereavement" segment to the health curriculum. Despite a few protests from religious types it had passed unanimously, which meant next year kids would be hearing about it in gym class too.
Death was all Dr. Wexler wanted to talk about. And it was all Lilian could think about whenever she saw Ben.
On the television in the high corner of the room, an ad came on for a 60 Minutes interview with the inventor. Lilian had to clench her fists to stop from screaming in frustration.
The door to the inner office opened then, drawing her attention away from the TV. A meek-looking man with an undercut and an ugly wolf-howling-at-the-moon sweater stepped out, followed by Dr. Wexler herself.
"See you next week," the therapist said.
The little man nodded with his chin tucked into his shoulder and shuffled out of the office.
"Lilian?"
Lilian stood up, gathering her knapsack and phone. Dr. Wexler smiled and ushered her in. She was fortyish, maybe as old as forty-five. She kept her dark hair in a high bun and wore awful primary-colored pantsuits. But she always had her nails painted black, which Lilian thought was an odd juxtaposition, considering her age and the I'm With Her outfits. She was also undeniably attractive, Lilian thought, for a woman her age. The fine lines on her pale skin accentuated her good looks rather than detracted from them. In a little black dress, she might even look elegant.
Lilian stepped into the office and flopped down on the sofa. Dr. Wexler closed the door and slipped into the hard, boxy accent chair she seemed to prefer to the plush leather rolling chair behind the desk. Lilian thought she liked it because it was as severe as Dr. Wexler herself.
The therapist crossed her legs at the knee and laid her hands one on top of the other upon them. "So… how are you feeling today?"
"Fine," Lilian lied.
"Fine? Not good?"
"Your powers of deduction are astounding, Doctor."
The therapist engaged her in a staring contest. Lilian blinked first.
"I saw Ben today," she said.
"Ah," the woman replied.
"Ah?"
"Ah." Dr. Wexler nodded. "As in, I see."
"You don't have to be sarcastic."
"What should I be then, Lilian? You've been coming to me for six months. I ask you questions, you shy away from them. Your parents are concerned about you. So am I."
"Why? My grades are good. I'm not a loner or a bully or bulimic or cutting myself. I haven't shot up my school. Why can't you all just let me live my life in peace?"
"Because you refuse to live," the doctor said. "Because you're so terrified of death it's crippled you on an emotional level. Lilian, you refused to sit shiva when your grandmother passed last March. Just two weeks ago, you had a panic attack after seeing a dead baby bird on the sidewalk. I can help you. But only if you let me."
Lilian made to speak but couldn't find the words.
After a moment of silence, Dr. Wexler asked, "Is that new?"
Lilian wasn't sure what the woman meant until she realized she'd been fiddling with her bracelet again. Her parents had bought it for her when her Mid-Year Report had gotten her a scholarship. It wasn't much—though it had cost more than they should have been spending—but she'd come to fidget with the beads in times of stress like a Catholic counting her rosaries.
She gave the doctor a brief synopsis of its origin, adding, "I think it's kind of ugly but I don’t have the heart to tell them."
"Really. I think it's quite lovely."
"You want it?" Lilian held out her wrist.
"I can't take your bracelet, Lilian. But I wonder…"
Now it was Lilian's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Wonder what?"
"I wonder if the reason you don't like it is its intended purpose, to encourage you to accept this scholarship. And I wonder if your fidgeting with it in times of stress might be tied to your hesitation to make difficult choices about your future. Stanford is all the way across the country, after all. Far from the security and stability of home."
"Gee, you really got me figured out, Dr. Wexler."
The therapist grinned. "Do you know the five stages of grief?" she asked.
"Ben never died," Lilian told her for the hundredth time.
Dr. Wexler gave her a thin smile. "Not in a literal sense. But to you, he was dead. For those few minutes. You heard his mother screaming. Giving him CPR. And you couldn't do anything to help him. It was a devastating emotional trauma, Lilian. People experience similar traumas all the time and never bounce back from them." The therapist tented her black fingernails against her lips. "But because Ben didn’t die, because his mother was able to revive him, you've never allowed yourself to experience the final stages of your grief. You're caught in a limbo of denial."
The therapist arched her left eyebrow. In Dr. Wexlerland, this was an indicator of amusement or self-satisfaction, depending on the context. Here it meant she was pleased with a turn of phrase. "In a sense, it's as if a part of yourself died that day," she finished.
"That's what Ben said," Lilian muttered.
"What else did he say?"
"It's stupid."
"Well, it's obviously disturbed you. Last week you weren't so evasive."
"He wants me to go to Ghostland," Lilian said. "See? Stupid."
"Hmm."
"What do you mean, hmm?"
"I don't think that's stupid at all. In fact, I think… it might be helpful."
"Helpful?"
Dr. Wexler held up a hand. "Hear me out. From everything I've heard about Ghostland, it appears to be a safe environment where you could—" She smacked her tongue against her lips, choosing the right word. "—explore your phobia without harm," she finished. "Exposure therapy, let’s call it. Of course, I'd be happy to escort you myself—"
"Escort me? My parents can barely afford to send me to you once a week."
"I'm not asking for money, Lilian." The therapist uncrossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees, positioning herself closer to the sofa where Lilian sat, and eyeing her with intent. "Consider it a field trip. As a matter of fact, I've been thinking I should go there myself out of professional curiosity anyhow."
"Great." Lilian rolled her eyes. "Then maybe you could
pay me to go."
"So it's settled? Shall I pencil you in for nine A.M., tomorrow?"
Lilian shrugged, shaking her head. "Why not? What's the worst that could happen, right?"
HOME
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Ben woke early and tucked some things he'd need for the day into his backpack. He wasn't sure if security at Ghostland would allow him to bring in outside food but it was always best to be prepared. Few things were worse than getting stuck somewhere without anything to eat. As his mother would often remind him, he was a growing boy. Although it was obvious to anyone other than his mother that he hadn't grown an inch since his heart attack.
He packed smartly: a bottle of water, a few Nature Valley granola bars, his heart pills (which he hoped wouldn't be necessary, but it was better to be safe than sorry, particularly when "sorry" potentially meant death), some carefully folded tissues, a pack of gum and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. He'd tucked an ex-library copy of Rex Garrote's The House Feeds in with them, along with a few other items he'd need, zipped discretely into the false bottom of the bag.
In the past few weeks, he'd spent a fair amount of time researching Ghostland's exhibits. In spite of its reputation, the house he and Lil had watched roll down Main Street nearly four years ago, Garrote House, wasn't its most haunted exhibit. Bright Falls Sanitarium was worse, allegedly haunted by the spirits of nuns and mental patients and homicidal doctors, and Fontaine County Correctional, which had put at least a hundred men to death in its day, was said to be the most haunted place in America. The Ghostland website claimed you could take part in an "authentic prison riot experience," except that all the prisoners were long dead.
He'd also spent a good portion of the past year re-reading Rex Garrote's novels. It had been a long time since he'd read some of them, and he'd forgotten how brutal they were. Garrote's prose was a blunt-force strike directly to the fear center, mainly concerning itself with flawed protagonists, sex and death. Everything else was set dressing.
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