Ghostland

by Duncan Ralston

  The boy was beyond saving. The soul-sucker had completely enveloped him and was undulating where he'd stood as if digesting a large meal.

  Ben swung out with the bag, holding it by a single strap, and barely managed to knock the pills out of the air. They hit the ground and the plastic lid broke off, pills scattering across the painted concrete floor.

  "Come on!" Lilian shouted back at him from the doorway.

  "I need my pills!"

  He let the backpack go and dropped to his knees, collecting the pills one by one with shaking fingers.

  "Ben!"

  "I'm coming, I'm coming!" He grabbed two more and stuffed them into his pockets, then caught up to her. Both of them flinched at a loud metallic clang that echoed throughout the cells. They looked up as another clang resounded. And another. Another. Lilian's eyes went wide as all around them the cell doors swung open and slammed against the bars, one clang following the next around and around the Circle of Death, and the monstrous prisoners they housed—tattooed hulks and wiry, gray-fleshed lifers—stepped into the light of day.

  Ben and Lilian didn't waste another second. They ran toward death row, and the headless football player and flattened railroad worker opened the bars as they approached. They dashed through the archway and into the cool, dank tunnel. The footballer player pulled the gate shut and Ben kept running. Lilian had sprinted ahead.

  Lightbulbs in metal cages hung from the ceiling but without power the tunnel grew darker the further he ran. The dog's excited barks echoed from somewhere in the dark up ahead. He saw Lilian pause near the far end of the tunnel with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

  Ben spared a glance back and stopped. The dead prisoners stood within the Circle of Death, several of them fighting off the Swarm, the orbs making the objects from his backpack swirl around them, with various other detritus from within the exhibit.

  Lilian screamed. Hushed voices calmed her. Ben ran for her, as fast as his heart would allow. He couldn't see any of them up there in the dark. They must have already rounded the corner.

  A moment later he found himself in a small lobby, DEATH ROW INTAKE painted on the wall. Cubby holes in a small inner room to his left were stuffed with prison jumpers, towels, shoes and toiletries. A dead body lay propped up against them, and the shock of sudden recognition struck Ben. This was why Lilian had screamed. It was Demont lying there, his face gray and lifeless. And even though Demont had already warned them, seeing his body there was a bitter pill Ben had swallowed many times today: any one of them could die here, at any time.

  No one was safe.

  The heavy metal door to death row lay open just ahead, not ten feet away. But something about Demont's corpse troubled him. With a glance back the way he'd come to make sure the prisoners had yet to follow—they stood in the archway, watching, shifting silently, the soul-suckers apparently defeated—Ben forced himself to approach the body on the floor.

  Demont's features had contorted with fear and his eyes looked horribly bloodshot. Blood had oozed over his left ear and down his neck from a gaping wound on the top of his head. But Demont hadn't said anything about a head injury, and there were no burn marks on his hands, no prominent veins or blackened fingernails to indicate electrical shock. Ben had seen too many autopsy photos to count from the morbid internet sites their former friend Logan had been obsessed with. What he saw here was not an electrocution victim but a man whose skull had been caved in, likely with some kind of blunt object.

  Why would Demont lie? he wondered.

  There was no time to guess. The orbs had started into the tunnel, casting a sinister Christmas tree glow on the ceiling and walls. Whatever really happened to Demont, Lilian was in death row with him. Whether they still chose to help him and the other ghosts to escape was something to worry about later. Right now, getting out of this hellhole before the rest of Garrote's army found them was more important.

  He dashed through the doorway into death row. Cells with a single slit at eye height and hinged slots for meals lined the walls on either side. At the end of the cell block Demont stood just inside the door, ushering him forward. Lilian stood beside him, desperation in her eyes, holding the door open. "Come on!" she said, waving her free hand frantically.

  With no other choice, Ben hurried ahead. He just had to hope Demont had lied for a good reason. He slipped through the door she held into a large room with several closed doors, each labeled according to its purpose: CHAPLAIN, WITNESS ROOM, DEATH CHAMBER. Directly ahead was a door with a red EXIT sign above it. Lilian pulled the door shut behind them. It clanged heavily, but Ben knew it wouldn't afford them any protection from the ghosts at their heels. They had to get out of here, into the open. This place was a death trap. It could come at them from all sides, even through the walls.

  "Streamroller! Mister Lim!" Demont shouted to his people. The football player and the railroad worker stepped out of the group, ready for orders. "Guard the door until we've gotten the children through!"

  Demont gave them both a pat on the shoulder and a brusque nod. Mr. Lim[xxiv] cupped his left fist in his right palm and bowed slightly. Steamroller[xxv] merely grinned, his severed head still tucked under his arm. Both men took up a stance on either side of the door, waiting to defend their temporary stronghold from the monsters at the door.

  The group parted again as Demont led Ben and Lilian to the exit. "When I open this door, you two run like hell to the end of the hall. We'll make sure it's open when you get there."

  Ben and Lilian looked at each other and nodded.

  "Enemy at the gate!" the Civil War soldier shouted, stepping halfway through the inner door and slopping his guts back through his long blue jacket. Without warning his body began to shudder, his facial features twisting until it was Garrote standing there, halfway through the doorway, his innards hanging out of the Confederate uniform. He grinned and began to sing: "'Well, I wish was in the land of cotton—'"

  Growling, Steamroller charged the door. As his neck stump and shoulders slammed into Garrote his body began to jitter and he lost hold of his severed head. Even as the helmet hit the floor and rolled toward Ben, he could see Streamroller's face changing shape and complexion, growing a brushy, dark mustache and a malicious grin.

  "Ooh! Fumble," Garrote's severed head cried from within the helmet.

  "They're infected!" Demont shouted. "Everyone out!"

  But it was already too late. Ben stood there watching as ghost after ghost morphed into another Garrote clone. He couldn't help feeling like everything they'd done, every moment, every failure, every struggle, all of it was for nothing.

  Lilian grabbed his hand and jerked him roughly forward.

  "Go!" Demont shouted. He'd drawn the heavy door open and was waving at them urgently. As they headed for him, uninfected ghosts floated by on either side. The dog dashed by at Ben's feet, panting. As the ballerina leaped by her body began to shudder. In mid-jump she twirled, her face shifting, widening, flattening out. She landed sprawled out on the floor and as Ben hurried past it was Garrote's hand that reached out to grab him, the writer dressed in the blood-drenched tutu, his hairy body stretching its pink fabric.

  "Wanna dance?" Garrote growled, and laughed maniacally.

  Ben leaped over the grabbing hand. He tripped over his own foot, took a few sprawling steps forward and likely would have fallen flat on his face if Lilian hadn't caught him by the arm and pulled him onward. At the end of the corridor, Demont reappeared and hauled open another heavy door. Sunlight flooded the room. The dog parked itself at Demont's feet and barked, foam flicking from its lips.

  "Quickly!" Demont shouted, pure terror in his eyes as more and more of his friends succumbed to the virus.

  Lilian rushed out the door. Ben threw all of his remaining energy into spurting forward. He dashed out into the waning late-afternoon heat, then lurched forward with his hands on his knees and retched. He spat between his feet and caught his breath, barely managing not to puke.

  "B
en," Lilian said. She was squinting down at him, her hands on her hips. He noticed she'd barely broken a sweat. "Can you make it?"

  "I'll be…" He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. "…fine."

  Freddie the dog bounded over to them. Demont didn't even bother to pull the door closed. He vanished from the doorway and reappeared at their side. "We have to go," he said. "Now."

  They stood under the shadow of something large with angles as sharp as teeth. Ben finally looked up at the house. It stood on a small rise across a short promenade, dark and imposing, silhouetted against the falling sun. A wall made of moss-covered stone surrounded the grounds. Ivy had crawled up the stone pillars and weaved through the rusty metal arch and the letters spelling out GARROTE HOUSE in wrought iron.

  Rex Garrote himself stood below the rusted arch, grinning. He began to clap slowly as he moved toward them. "I must say, I am quite impressed," he said. "You've come a long way, babies. But now the time has come to say goodbye."

  "You can't stop us, Garrote!" Demont shouted, his hands clenched into fists.

  "Oh no? Look around you. These are my people now."

  As he spoke dozens of ghosts shimmered into view, surrounding them in a wide semicircle, with several soul-sucking shadow creatures weaving through the crowd. To Ben it looked like a costume party in Hell. He took Lilian's hand. She looked fearless but she was shaking from head to toe.

  Demont turned to them. "It's not too late to save these people," he said.

  Garrote chuckled. "And just how, pray tell, do you plan to do that? I'll let you children in on a little secret. There is no service hatch in my house. I created that myth to lure you here—a very cunning trap, if I do say so myself. I'm afraid the only way out for the two of you is in pine boxes."

  "He's lying," Demont growled.

  Garrote's head twitched to the side. "Perhaps. Children, did you know you're in the presence of a true criminal mastermind? Isn't that right, Mr. Hudson—or should I say, Mr. Betruger?"

  Lilian frowned. "What's he talking about?"

  Demont shot them a fearful look. "It's not true."

  "Truth is relative," Garrote said. "You of all people should know that. You see, in life, Lance Betruger began his career as a banker and quickly graduated to con artist, bilking thousands out of their retirement plans. Stealing their dreams. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the authorities caught up with him. Far too cowardly to take his own life, Betruger wound up in a twenty-year stint at Fontaine County Correctional. Which is where your friend Mr. Hudson ran into him, much to his detriment. Or rather, where Betruger ran Mr. Hudson headfirst into the bars of his cell, crushing his skull."

  "He lies!"

  Garrote smiled, continuing unabated. "Betruger, you see, is what we paranormal enthusiasts call a 'doppelganger,' and like all doppelgangers he's able to change his form to whatever tickles his fancy."

  "You shut the hell up, Garrote!"

  "Although he doesn't like to be reminded of his current status—sans corps, as the French say. In point of fact it makes him quite upset, doesn't it, Betruger?"

  "You shut your filthy mouth!"

  Lilian shot forward, crying out in rage. She grabbed Demont by his shoulders and squeezed. The ghost—Betruger, Demont, whoever he really was—howled in agony as his clothes and flesh singed away from the electrified gloves. He tried to twist free, tried to turn and face his attacker, but Lilian held him firmly.

  Ben felt the sting of betrayal just as sharply and stepped forward with the stun gun. He depressed the trigger. With a single jolt, the man wearing Demont's face fizzled into oblivion.

  The ghosts shifted silently, reverently. In the silence, Garrote began to chuckle.

  "Bravo, children!" he said. "It would appear I've underestimated the two of you. Here I'd thought you'd survived upon the kindness of strangers, but you've really shown true grit just now. Chutzpah, you might say."

  "Fuck you!" Lilian said, spit flecking the inside of the clear plastic mask.

  "My, my, can't pay a girl a compliment anymo—"

  "Shōki!" Ben shouted.

  For an instant Garrote's eyes burned with fury. Then he smirked, like a man who knew a secret. "What do you know about that, shy boy?"

  The name sent a shiver of fear up Ben's spine but he wouldn't allow himself to back down. He'd gotten to Garrote. He needed to keep needling him, make him flustered, distracted. "I know what you're doing," Ben said. "I've read all of your books. You're collecting ghosts, like the Chung Kwei. The Shōki."

  Garrote's lips rose in a half-smile. "My number one fan, eh? How touching."

  Lilian leaned close and whispered, "What are you doing?"

  He ignored her. "Uh-huh," he said. "I've read all of it. All your interviews. Your non-fiction. Rex Garrote, the most terrifying man in the world."

  "Tell me, Benjamin Laramie… do you sincerely believe flattery will have me spare your life? You said it yourself, you've read my Shōki. You know as well as I do, only one man lives to see the end."

  "Except you're not alive, are you? You're not even a ghost." Garrote flinched at this, and Ben kept needling, taking a cautious step toward the dead man. "Without your army, you're nothing. Less than nothing." He remembered what Sara Jane had said, and hurled it like a weapon: "You're a computer algorithm. Ones and zeroes in the shape of a man."

  "A pretty ugly one too," Lilian added. "And old."

  Garrote stared at them a moment, and Ben realized for the first time that for all the realism the programmers and 3D modelers had put into the writer's avatar, he'd never blinked. Not once. It was enough to make Ben believe maybe they was a chance to survive this after all. They truly were fighting against an algorithm, and without the internet, computer programs remained subject to the boundaries of their hardware.

  Finally, Garrote laughed. "Really? Is that what you think? My appearance aside, do you truly believe I pose no harm without my people?" He tutted. "In here, I am a god. I control every aspect of this park," he said calmly. "I could kill you with an errant electrical wire. I could twist your headsets like vices to crush your skulls and paint my house with your brains. I could choke—"

  "Blah blah blah!" Lilian said. "We know about the red water, Garrote! We know about the dark red water."

  Ben turned to her, wondering how she'd known about the red water if she'd never read Shōki. The oceans had run red with the blood of millions and the sky had filled with ash.

  No matter how she'd known about it the effect was instantaneous. Garrote snarled, showing his too-white teeth, and raised a hand toward them in anger—

  Before he could attack, a pounding roar filled the air. He howled at the sky in frustration, like a man cursing God, as a helicopter rose above the house, thundering loud enough to shake the earth. The glass bubble-dome glimmered in the sun as it turned toward them, hovering thirty feet above the ground.

  Rescued, Ben thought. Finally.

  He waved his arms desperately. Lilian joined him, shouting for help.

  A police officer leaned out the open door, holding a megaphone. "THIS IS THE WASHINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT," the man's voice boomed. "PLEASE SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. WE WILL BE EVACUATING CIVILIANS IN ORDER OF SEVERITY."

  Lilian lowered her arms. "What? No! We need help!"

  "Help us!" Ben cried, still waving, refusing to give up.

  "They can't see the ghosts," Lilian said, realizing just as he did that the police weren't wearing headsets. "They can't see we're in trouble!"

  "TAKE IT DOWN!" Garrote roared.

  In an instant, the ghosts launched into the air to attack the police. A mental patient reappeared alongside the cop hanging halfway out the door, grabbed him by the collar and tore him from the helicopter. He fell screaming. Ben winced at the sound of his bones breaking as his body twisted sharply over the wall, audible even over deafening sound of the rotors. The megaphone smashed to bits below his broken corpse.

  The Swarm struck the helicopter next, batter
ing it on all sides. The aircraft shook and dipped, the pilot struggling to maintain control. A one-eyed pirate shattered the dome with his hook hand and grabbed the pilot out of her seat. He lifted her, the hook caught under her chin, until her head caught in the whirring blades and tore off. Ben and Lilian covered their heads from a rain of shattered glass and a mist of the pilot's blood. Her body followed a moment later, sprawling on the concrete at Garrote's feet.

  Garrote was watching his concerto of chaos with malevolent delight. Sparks flew from the cockpit as his minions tore out its instruments. The metal warped as the shadow creatures battered its hull and bent its tail.

  Lilian grabbed Ben's shoulder. "We have to go now," she said.

  And then the helicopter fell.

  She ran for the house. Ben followed.

  The aircraft hit the ground and exploded with a wave of heat that thrust them forward. Ben ducked, expecting a volley of shrapnel, but he didn't dare stop, just kept running headlong for the gate as burning chunks of twisted metal sailed over their heads. Garrote was so absorbed in the mayhem he'd unleashed he didn't notice as they dashed past him. And even though he knew it wasn't possible, Ben was sure he saw flames dancing in the writer's eyes.

  They passed under the wrought iron arch and Ben looked up, finally getting a good look at the house that had plagued his nightmares for the past four years. The same ivy-covered walls, the same bricks, the same gables. A classic haunted house in every sense of the term. He hoped, with luck, it would be the last haunted house he would ever see.

  Garrote roared behind them, realizing his mistake. They turned to see him charge the opened gate. As he passed under the archway his body was jolted by an invisible force and thrown backward several feet.

  "The ESPs!" Lilian cheered, pointing at the poles standing against the stone pillars. "They can't get in!"

  For now, Ben thought.

  He was certain it wouldn't be long before Garrote would find a way inside. Garrote had said he controlled the park and Ben had no reason to doubt him. It would simply be a matter of finding the right algorithm and deleting it from the program. After that, the Shōki and his army would storm the house and that would be the end of everything.