Inferno Park (41 page)

“We still barely understand it ourselves.”

“I once had a crush on this girl,” Carter said, and Victoria turned to look at him. “I was twelve. We were both twelve. I mainly just talked to her at school, but one day during the summer, I...happened to run into her at Starland. And we hung out that day, and I felt like we could really be good friends. I was in love with her, you know, as much as a little kid can really feel that way.

“Then she wanted to ride Inferno Mountain, but I was scared of that ride. I already had nightmares about it. I tried to get on it to impress her, but I chickened out at the last minute, and she rode it by herself.”

“What was her name?”

“Tricia. She was great, she was different. I don’t know. I watched the devil swallow her up. The sinkhole opened while she was inside the mountain. It hit the park like an earthquake and shook the foundations of everything. So much of the ground just sank away beneath the pavement. Inferno Mountain moved, too. By the time the train came out of the exit gate, she was dead.”

“Oh, my God.” Victoria touched his hand.

“Something must have broken loose in there, because her head was completely gone, and the rest of her was covered in blood.”

“I can’t imagine seeing that. How old were you?”

“Twelve. So I’ve had nightmares about it ever since.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“I was thinking about it while I watched the Super-Soak Sponge Shirt demonstration this morning—”

“The what?”

“An infomercial. It’s for people who spill their drinks a lot, you know, this shirt just soaks it right up. Or if you’re a messy eater, it soaks up ketchup, and some of the thinner mustards and salad dressings, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Victoria asked.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I watched the whole infomercial, it was kind of gross...anyway, I was thinking, since the souls of all those kids are trapped in the park, then she must still be there, too. And what if these dreams aren’t just bad memories? What if she’s trying to reach out to me?”

They sat quietly for a minute. Below, somebody lit a string of Black Cats, and a group of voices gave a drunken cheer as the firecrackers burst like series of gunshots.

“It’s not the craziest idea, when you put it with all the other crazy things,” Victoria finally said.

“What if she needs me to free her? There must be something I can do, right? Or why would she keep contacting me?”

“If she is contacting you at all. And remember, all the ghosts we saw acted like they were obeying
him
. So even if it is the ghost of your girlfriend, and not just your own brain giving you nightmares, she could be trying to lure you back to the park for him.”

“But he threw us out when he could have had us,” Carter said. “If there’s something I can do to help her, and all the others trapped in the park, that explains why she’s contacting me, and why
he
doesn’t want me there at all.”

“It sounds like you’re planning to go back.”

“I have to. You should stay out of it, though. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You’re not going in there without me,” Victoria said. “Remember why you came with me the first time? You were worried I’d get hurt if I went in alone.”

“I don’t plan to go alone. I’m going to get a group of people.”

“That didn’t turn out well last time.”

“This time, I’ll get
smart
people. Like Emily Dorsnel. And the other science club kids if I can. Wes might help if I can convince him his brother’s in there. If he agrees, then Sameer will go along with it. Maybe even David Huang.”

“Do I count as a smart person?” Victoria asked.

“Sure, but I don’t want to put you in more danger—”

“I’ve been reading up on the devil. That’s what I did most of the night, because I couldn’t sleep. Some sources say that the devil’s power over the physical world is absolute, that he completely controls the world of the living.”

“So we can’t win. Good to know.”

“Others, though, say he his only real powers are deception and trickery. He can tempt people, he can inspire them to do evil, but he can’t control anything. People must make the choices he wants them to make, or he doesn’t get his way.”

“That sounds a little better.”

“More modern sources say that the devil isn’t real at all, that he’s just an idea, and he stands for the evil inside each of us. He’s a symbol.”

“Whatever we’re dealing with is more than a symbol,” Carter said. “Did you find anything about how to stop him?”

“Religions usually teach that only another powerful being like an angel can defeat him. In folklore, though, there are stories of people beating the devil through games and skill. Chess masters like Jose Capablanca were said to have beaten the devil—Capablanca supposedly challenged the devil to turn his king into gold to prove he was the devil, but when the devil touched the chess piece, he was obligated by the rules of chess to move it, and lost.”

“Don’t forget the guy who won the fiddling competition against the devil. And a fiddle made of gold, too,” Carter said.

“Are you any good at fiddling?” she asked with half a smile.

“No. I suck at chess, too.”

“I thought you were in the Chess Club.”

“That’s why I know how much I suck. We need Wes and Sameer, they’re the best players.”

“Do you think we can get them to help?” Victoria asked.

“We can try. Maybe we should bring Jared, too. He’s survived the park before.”

“Is he reliable? Remember what happened last time.”

“I don’t know. Let’s call him.” Carter brought out his phone and dialed.

“Carter,” Jared answered. “You gotta help me. I’ve been trying to go back into the park every day—”

“You shouldn’t go in there alone,” Carter said. “There’s something powerful and evil in there.”

“No shit, man,” Jared replied. His words were slurred, and he sounded more than a little drunk. “There’s a cop there all the time, parked right out front. Sometimes out-of-towners show up so they can, I don’t know, look at the park or take pictures and crap, and the cop runs them off. I can’t get inside.”

“Victoria and I are working on an idea. Don’t try to go in by yourself, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, the great and wonderful Victoria. Becca’s still in there, Carter. Who’s going to help her if I don’t?”

“Let’s talk this out when you’re not drunk—”

“Who’s drunk?” Jared asked. “I don’t need your help, man. I’m going to get everybody I can together to go search the place, and do it right. We’ll go at night, when the park’s actually alive. I think that’s what the cops did wrong. They searched it during the day.”

“Jared, don’t do that. If you bring a bunch of people into the park, they could get taken or killed like last time. We have to be prepared. The guy who built the park told us we’re dealing with the devil.”

Jared laughed.

“I’m serious,” Carter said.

“I really wouldn’t be surprised,” Jared said.

“Just promise me you won’t go in there until we’re ready. You can come with us.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Jared snapped. “It’s your fault we went there in the first place. It’s your fault Becca’s missing...I don’t need your help. I can handle it myself. I have a lot of people who want to come with me already. Just leave me alone.” Jared hung up on him.

“Sounds like that went well,” Victoria said.

“Yeah, right. All those kids who sit around him at lunch and want to hear about the park...he’s going to lead them all in there.”

“They could all die.” Victoria’s eyes went wide. “He can’t do that!”

“I tried to tell him. I’ll try again when he hasn’t been drinking, but it sounds like he’s already been talking about it to other people. Whatever we’re going to do, we have to do it fast, before Jared can lead his expedition. The only thing stopping him is the police—he says they’re watching the park all the time now.”

“At least something is stopping him. That’s good...until we want to go inside ourselves, and then it’ll be a problem,” Victoria said.

Carter nodded. “We’ll have to get around them.”

“Do you have Emily Dorsnel’s number?”

“No, but I can message her on Facebook.”

“Let’s do that,” she said. “Like right away. When is Jared planning to go back?”

“He didn’t say, and I don’t think he’s really decided—but it’s obviously soon. I would think this week, maybe by the weekend.”

“Then we have to hurry,” Victoria said.

Carter got in touch with Emily, and the three of them talked on the phone. Carter and Victoria took turns catching her up on what they’d discovered, putting Emily on speaker.

“I’ll help you if I can,” Emily said. “I’m not sure about going into the park myself, though. I’ll have to think about it.”

“If we don’t stop it, he’s going to keep luring people inside and keeping them,” Carter said. “We might even free the souls he’d already captured. And the cops are never going to accept that something supernatural is really inside the park.”

“I know,” Emily said. “That’s why I’m
thinking
about it instead of just saying ‘no’ and telling you you’re crazy to go back in there.”

“Okay, thanks,” Carter said.

“I’ll also consider appropriate preparations,” Emily added, “Just in
case
I decide to join you on this expedition. I will see that my EMF gear is charged and stocked with fresh batteries, just in case.”

“I appreciate it,” Carter said. “Do you think the others will help us?”

“I would think not, except that Wes’s brother Finn is among the missing, so they might help because of that. We can only ask.”

“Thanks, Emily.”

“If we are to move, we should move quickly,” Emily said. “The more souls captured, the more powerful the trap becomes, just as a young planet’s gravitational pull grows as its mass increases.”

“We should talk to them tomorrow,” Carter said. “I’ll get Jared there, too, as another witness for what’s happening in the park. They don’t even believe in the supernatural—I mean neither did I, a few weeks ago—so we should do this in person.”

“Agreed,” Emily said, and Victoria nodded.

Later, as the sun sank down and the fireworks shot up, painting the sky above the apartment complex with explosions and crackling flames, Carter felt more and more afraid. It was good to be taking some action, but he was drowning in things far beyond his understanding, and he was dragging everyone else down into it with him. First Jared and his friends, now the science club kids, and worst of all Victoria, who’d just arrived in town only to be pulled deep into its darkness.

He reached across to her chair and took her hand. She let him hold it. Her fingers were cold and trembling, and the contact didn’t seem to bring much warmth and reassurance to either of them.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

With help from Emily, Carter convinced Wes McKinley,
Sameer Upadhyay
, and David Huang to meet with them after school on Tuesday, without giving them too much information about why. Carter wanted to talk in a deserted place where nobody would overhear them, so they met at the beach.

Wes, Sameer, and David listened to Carter, Victoria, and Jared tell their story, with Emily adding background lore about hauntings and dark places. The seven of them sat on the rickety stairs from the boardwalk down to the empty beach, where the wind blew restlessly, casting waves of sand left and right.

The three boys listened with few interruptions, probably because they were outnumbered and weren’t allowed much chance to interrupt, but they cast looks of obvious disbelief among themselves, particularly when Carter described seeing the host of dark spirits in Haunted Alley, and when he recounted Schopfer’s claims about the devil.

“This is all crazy,” Wes said, when he finally had a chance to speak. He looked at Jared. “I know my brother was probably with you the night he disappeared, but I can’t believe the rest of it.”

“Then go inside the park and prove me wrong,” Jared said.

“Are you sure you didn’t see my brother again? At all?” Wes asked.

“I didn’t see any of them again,” Jared said. “The park was deserted when I finally escaped Dark Mansion. I thought everyone had gone home, but I found out nobody else ever came back.”

“So what are you proposing we do?” Wes asked.

“We go back into the park as a group, at night,” Carter said. “We try to chase him out of there, free anyone who’s still alive...maybe free the souls of the dead,” Carter added.

Sameer snorted and shook his head.

“Why do you expect us to help with that nonsense?” David Huang asked.

“For one, Wes’s brother was last seen in the park,” Carter said. “Second, we need chess players.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sameer said, elbowing Wes, who didn’t return his eye-rolling grin.

“Why chess players?” Wes asked.

“In the stories I’ve found, chess is the game people play against him,” Victoria said. “Smart people can beat him, or trick him.”

“There’s a game in Haunted Alley called Beat the Devil,” Carter said. “It’s chess-themed. I’ve never played it, but—”

“I have,” Wes said. “I dominated that game when I was six years old. I still have the giant stuffed devil goat to prove it.”

“So we go into the park and challenge him to a game,” Carter said. “And if he loses, he has to free the people he’s taken and leave the park forever.”

“And what if he wins?” Wes asked.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“If he wins, he gets your soul,” Sameer said. “Everyone knows that.”

“This entire conversation is ridiculous and pointless,” David said. “The police will never allow us to go inside the park, so there’s no point talking about it.”

“Who said we’re getting their permission?” Jared asked.

“I’m not going to jail just to investigate your weird ghost stories.” David stood up and kicked sand from his shoes. “You people are crazy. Right?” He looked to Wes and Sameer.

“Yeah, you’re not going for this, are you, Wes?” Sameer asked.

“Sameer, I am not an ignorant thirteenth-century peasant, therefore I don’t believe in devils and ghosts,” Wes said. “But this is my brother. He’s been missing for more than a week, and the police don’t have any ideas. If going into the park offers any chance of finding some clue about my brother...He may be a useless jack rag with only a handful of functioning neurons, but I have to find him if I can.”