Dreamworld

Extreme Horror

By

Sam West

Dreamworld:

Extreme Horror

By Sam West

Copyright Sam West 2015

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced or used in any way without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews. The characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

– Shakespeare.

1.

“No. I am not going to some sleazy strip-club,” Jim Pearson said, knocking back the last of his pint.

“You’re kidding me, right? Why the fuck else are we in Broadgate?” Gavin said.

“Er, for a quiet drink. Besides, I promised the missus. No strippers.”

“Fuck the missus.”

“Yeah, I’d like to. Which is why I don’t want to go to strip-clubs.”

“Boys, boys, this is getting us nowhere,” Andy said. “Gavin, it’s your round, leave my brother to me.”

Gavin got up and rolled his eyes, gathering together the empty pint glasses with an angry clatter.

“Andy,” Jim said to his younger brother as soon as Gavin had cleared off out of it. “If you don’t sort out your friend, I’m catching the first train out of this dump back to London. Why the hell is he here, anyway?”

“I thought he might liven things up a bit. Get you out of dives like this.”

“I like it in here.”

The pub they were in was indeed to Jim’s tastes. It wasn’t showy, and there were no girls in mini-skirts here. Just lots of dark wood, an ancient carpet and old men propping up the bar. Perfect.

“It’s crap,” Andy said.

“It’s a proper pub. All I want is a quiet pint. It’s my night, not yours.  I can’t believe you invited Gavin, you know I think he’s a cunt.”

“Yeah, well, you and Nigel are hardly the life and soul of the party are you? And as your soon-to-be wife is currently living it up on a girl’s weekend in Benidorm, I thought you’d secretly be pleased I made the effort to spice things up a bit.”

“Spice things up? What kind of moronic thing is that to say? You make this stag-night sound like a failed marriage. Nigel? Haven’t you got anything to say? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Nigel remained silent and shrugged helplessly.

“Thanks,” Jim muttered, feeling dangerously close to tears.

God, if he shed a tear right now he’d feel like the stupidest cunt in the whole wide world. He would sooner die. The fact was, Andy hadn’t just touched a nerve, he’d fucking yanked it out his body, stuck a pin through the end of it then set it on fire. He was worried sick about his gorgeous fiancée living it large in Benidorm. Men hit on her constantly, and she was hardly forthcoming when it came to batting them away. His beautiful Elise enjoyed being the centre of attention a little too much.

“Stop being such a morose bastard. This is supposed to be your stag-night, your last night of freedom, and all that,” Andy said.

With a sinking heart, Jim took in his three companions. If this was ‘freedom’ then he sure as shit could go without it. His eyes locked with his miserable looking, best-friend Nigel across the rickety, wooden table. His only friend, if truth be told. Which is probably why his brother had felt compelled to make up the numbers with ‘Gavin The Cunt,’ as Jim fondly thought of him.

Nigel was even more of a nerd than he was, and Jim considered that to be really saying something. He also took social-ineptness to a whole new level. He had barely spoken a word since they had hit the town a few hours ago, being terrible in a group situation away from the work environment. This was partly the reason Jim had brought him along, but now he regretted it. This probably wasn’t the best time to give Nigel a crash course in ‘How To Behave In Social Situations.’

The two lads had bonded over their love of computers at their job for an up and coming computer company that designed gaming programmes. Jim was pretty much the only person on the planet who saw what a great guy Nigel was beneath the lank hair, ratty face, puny body, unflattering glasses and Oxfam pullovers. Jim considered himself to be the spit of Nigel, except taller, and not as thin.

He couldn’t be more wrong. Jim certainly didn’t consider himself trendy, but unbeknown to him, others did. The Argyle pullovers, little round glasses and Converse-style, colourful trainers that he had worn for ten years since his geeky mid-teens had come full circle and now he was the cutting edge of male fashion of the ‘retro’ variety. Not that Jim knew this, or even cared.

“Let’s just go to one strip-club,” Andy was whining in his ear. “We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. Come on. It will be fun.”

Jim stared incredulously at his brother. Fun. He would feel dirty oggling strippers, like he was being unfaithful to Elsie. Not that Andy would ever grasp that concept; ever since he had joined the fire-force and started hanging out in earnest with ‘Gavin The Cunt,’ Jim had really noticed the change in him. He was beginning to wear the same arrogant expression Gavin did, and had even hit the gym, like Gavin did, even though he had a long way to go before he hit Gavin’s proportions. Both Andy and Gavin shared the same neat dark hair, dark eyes, pumped bodies and self-important swagger, making them look more like brothers than he and Andy did. With his natural blonde hair, pale skin and slim build, Jim felt like a kid when he was with them, even though at twenty-six he was older than both of them by two years.

Speak of the devil…

Gavin was back, carrying a tray laden with four pints of bitter and four whisky chasers.

“Drink, then we’re going to Laplands and you cunts will enjoy yourselves and Nigel here will get to see his first, real life, naked woman.”

Andy was the only one who laughed. Nigel blushed and Jim bit down an uncommon, violent urge to reach over the table and ring his stupid, muscled neck.

I don’t have to be here. I can just catch the late train back to London. And Nigel can come with me. Or not. I don’t care. Fuck them, and fuck the hotel they’ve booked…

The realisation that no one was forcing him to stay was a breath of fresh air. He was on the verge of getting to his feet and announcing his plans when the door to the pub, which was right next to their table, swung inwards. All four heads automatically swivelled in the direction of the sudden movement.

Jim shivered at the sudden rush of cool, October air that swirled around their table and felt icy fingers ruffling the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck. A sense of dread so strong gripped him; he held his breath and goose-bumps puckered his exposed forearms beneath the rolled up sleeves of his pullover.

No one entered the pub, and the door slammed shut. Jim found he was inexplicably shaking. A twirling movement caught Jim’s eye; a sheet of paper dancing in the air in front of Gavin’s face.

Gavin snatched at the A4 sheet.

The strange sensation passed. Jim figured it was the icy air that had made him shiver and the shock of the door opening suddenly that had made him jump.

“They should get the bloody door fixed,” Andy grumbled, hugging himself. “It’s bloody freezing in here.”

“What’s that?” Jim and Andy said in unison.

Gavin handed him the sheet of paper and Jim quickly scanned it. It was a flyer, advertising a tour round Broadgate’s infamous and now closed down theme-park, Dreamworld.

‘Halloween, Midnight Tour of Dreamworld,’ blazed the heading in big letters. Jim proceeded to read the elaborate scroll of the handwritten paragraph beneath it. The words were inside a wide, yawning mouth of the entrance to a ghost-train. ‘Come and join the scariest midnight tour in the whole wide world; the tour of Dreamworld. Find out about the gruesome history of the theme-park, about all the countless lives that have been lost on these haunted grounds. Who knows, maybe on this magical night you’ll get to meet the devil himself…

Tour five pounds per head, tour guide Eric Flu.’

Absently he handed his brother the flyer, lost in thought. Back in the day, it had been a popular theme-park. Jim had a vague, child-hood memory of visiting it one hot summer back in the early nineties with his parents when Andy had still been in his pushchair. The place had been billed as one of the spookiest theme-parks in the world, and it had certainly lived up to its reputation; it was dark and seedy with ghost trains and haunted houses. It even had creepy clowns with cracked face-paint handing out balloons to worried looking children.

Despite being scared shitless, Jim had loved it.

“I want to do the tour,” he announced to the group.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Gavin sneered. “That place has been closed for years and left to rot.”

“Not true,” Nigel said, speaking for the first time for ages. “It’s recently been bought again by a developer who wants to restore it to its former glory.”

“That’s lovely Four-Eyes. Who gives a fuck?”

Nigel blushed some more.

“Don’t talk to my friend like that,” Jim said, sick to the back teeth of Gavin. He turned his attention to Nigel. “Fancy doing that tour, mate?”

“Yeah,” Nigel smiled. “I really do.”

“What?” Andy spluttered. “You can’t be serious. This is a fucking stag-night, we can’t go on a bloody tour round some bloody building site.”

“Why not? It’s Halloween and I feel like celebrating,” Jim said.

“You can fuck off,” Gavin scoffed, getting to his feet. “I’m going to see me some strippers. Are any of you cunts coming?”

Only Andy stood up. “Oh, come on, Jim. Don’t be such a prick.”

“I’m not the one being a prick,” he replied.

“Just come, will you?”

“No. If you’re going to your sleazy strip-joint, then just go already.”

“Leave him, Andy,” Gavin said, before addressing Jim. “We’ll be in Laplands if you ever get the urge to act like real men and join us.”

“Jim?” Andy asked.

“Just go.”

“Fine, I will.”

“Fine,” he spat back, instantly regretting telling his brother to do one.

But it was too late, the two men had already left.

“Just us, then,” Nigel said with obvious relief.

“Yeah.”

That stupid urge to cry was back again and he took a big gulp of his pint. Some fucking stag-night this was turning out to be. He glanced at the clock. There was still an hour to go before the tour of Dreamworld began.

Fuck my brother, he thought bitterly, draining his pint before reaching for the pint his brother had deserted.

Jim decided he was going to get very, very pissed.

2.

“I’m sorry, Trace, I’m not really in the mood. Maybe we should just call it a night.”

“Come on, Georgie, he’s not worth it babe, you need to forget about him and let your hair down. Plenty more fish in the sea.”

Tracy slipped her arm into Georgina’s, probably to stop herself from falling flat on her face in the high heels she wore. An icy wind blew along the promenade and Georgina shivered. She had no idea how Tracy could go out with bare legs this time of the year, she was cold enough in jeans and boots.

“Look, it’s very sweet of you to invite me out tonight, but it’s late and I’m tired.”

The truth was she hated this kind of thing, just the very mention of ‘girl’s night out’ was normally enough to bring her out in a sweat. She was more of a ‘half-a-pint-of-lager-and-a-bag-of-pork-scratchings-in-a-corner-of-a-quiet-pub,’ kind of girl, as opposed to a ‘dancing-‘till-dawn-in-a-pretentious-nightclub-with-overpriced-cocktails’ kind of girl, like Tracy.

And for one night, Georgina had had just about all the ‘fun’ she could take.

“Stop being so boooring,” Tracy whined. “You’re twenty-four but you act like an old man.”

Yeah, well, it’s better than acting like a complete slapper…

Immediately she felt guilty for thinking such a thing. Tracy was a sweet girl and a good friend, so what if she went out looking like a total prostitute? It wasn’t as if she acted like one. And she was being nice to her, trying to help mend her broken heart and all that.

“Look, I’m tired, that’s all. I’m not really in the mood for this, I miss him, Trace.”

“I know you do babes. Which is why we’re going to have a good time.”

As she spoke she clung on to her all the tighter, almost bringing Georgina to her knees. Her feeble protests died on her lips when she noticed the car curb-crawling them. The window wound down.

“Hello ladies, you looking for a good time?” Georgina steered her friend away from the edge of the pavement, but still the stranger persisted. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Georgina hazarded a glance in his direction. He was nothing but a silhouette in the dingy interior. Tracy wasn’t nearly so coy.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Fuck off, you dirty pervert.”

“Trace,” she hissed in embarrassment.

“What?” she replied in a too-loud voice. “If it looks like a shit, and smells like a shit, then it usually is a shit.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, you ugly cow. I meant the total babe who’s propping you up. I wouldn’t let my dog fuck you, bitch.”

“Why you fucking…”

“Trace! He’s not worth it,” she all but shouted, clinging on to her friend’s arm to stop her from stropping over to the sleaze in the car.

“Is everything alright here, ladies?”

Georgina had been so busy looking sideways at the perve, she hadn’t noticed the uniformed policeman heading towards them in the opposite direction on the promenade.

“No,” Tracy shouted. “It’s not. The shit in the car was soliciting us. Fucking arrest him.”

“Trace!” Georgina hissed. “I’m sorry Officer, please excuse my friend…”

As she spoke the car revved up.

“Fuck!” she heard the man curse.

She watched the man lean out of his window to peel something off the windshield that must have been stuck fast and obstructing his view. It was some flyer that fluttered in her direction. Out of sheer reflex, she caught it.

“Sir?” the policeman asked. “Would you mind turning off your engine and stepping out of the vehicle…”

But it was too late, the offending car was already halfway down the wide, seafront road.

“Aren’t you going to get on your walkie-talkie, radio thingy and get him arrested?” Tracy said. “Last time I heard, curb-crawling was a criminal offense.”

“Seems to me like it was a simple misunderstanding,” the policeman said with steel in his voice and a warning glint in his eye which Tracy was blatantly choosing to ignore. Or maybe she was just simply too pissed to notice. “If a girl such as yourself chooses to go out dressed like a prostitute then you can only expect negative attention.”

Fucking pig, was all Georgina could think, but had the good sense not to say. Tracy, however, was experiencing no such brain-to-mouth filter.

“Jesus Christ. Men. They’re all the same, policemen or not. I suppose I deserve to be raped, seeing as I am expressing my right as a human being to dress however the hell I want to dress.”

“I suggest you take your friend home and sober her up. It was obviously just a simple misunderstanding and best forgotten.”

“It’s fucking illegal to solicit.”

“Tracy! God Almighty, you’re going to get us arrested.”

“You should listen to your friend. Go home or I’ll have you arrested for being drunk and disorderly.”

Georgina gripped her friend’s arm and looked beseechingly at her. The look must have had some kind of effect, for she lowered her gaze first and sighed deeply.

“Okay, fine. Let’s go.”

“Stay out of trouble, ladies,” the policeman called after them.

“Fuck you,” Tracy said under her breath, and Georgina’s toes curled in her sensible ankle-boots.

Thankfully, the policeman didn’t appear to have heard. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was already halfway down the street in the opposite direction.

“Fuck, I need a drink after that.”

Georgina inwardly groaned. “I’m sorry, Trace, but what I said still stands. I really want to go home…”

Her voice trailed off as she realised she was still clutching that piece of paper the perve had flung from his windscreen. She stopped dead, and from the light of the tacky gift-shop they happened to be passing, she began to read…

‘Halloween, Midnight Tour of Dreamworld,’ blazed the heading in big letters. She went on to read the rest of it inside the wide, yawning mouth of the ghost-train…

‘Come and join the scariest midnight tour in the whole wide world; the tour of Dreamworld. Find out about the gruesome history of the theme-park, about all the countless lives that have been lost on these haunted grounds. Who knows, maybe on this magical night you’ll get to meet the devil himself…’

“What is it? Gimme that,” Tracy said, snatching the leaflet out of her hand. “Oh, wow, cool. It’s Halloween, I reckon we should do it.”

Georgina wasn’t completely turned off by the idea. She did enjoy a good ghost story, and a spooky tour sure beat trawling round more tacky bars. It sounded like it might be a laugh. And anyway, as much as she wanted to go home, she didn’t relish the idea of offending her friend.

“Okay, fine, why not? It’s almost midnight now. But after this I’m definitely going home.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on then, let’s get spooky.”

3.

Jim and Nigel stood outside Dreamworld. The past hour, since his brother and Gavin-The-Throwback had pissed off to Laplands, had passed uneventfully. Tediously, one might say. Nigel had droned on and on about the computer programme they were currently working on, and Jim’s mind had continually drifted to what his beautiful fiancée might be getting up to in Benidorm.

“I don’t see a way in,” Nigel said, swaying slightly on his feet.

Jim scanned the high, steel-hoarding fence that ran for a good fifty metres parallel to the pavement. At the point where the fencing abruptly stopped, the pavement veered left at a sharp right angle, turning into one of the many side-roads that forked off from the promenade. The steel fence continued for almost another quarter of a mile, housing the building site within.

Jim reached out a hand to steady himself against a panel of the steel-hoarding. Everything was decidedly fuzzy; maybe those last three pints hadn’t been such a smart move. He’d felt fine inside the pub, it was all this bloody fresh air that was making him lightheaded.

“I remember that the main-gate used to be somewhere near here,” Jim slurred.

Nigel shrugged. “Maybe this isn’t such a hot idea anyway. I’m knackered, why don’t we just call it a night and go back to the hotel?”

Maybe my brother was right. Some fucking stag-night this is.

“Because I want to do the tour, if that’s alright with you. This is my stag-night, after all.”

“Okay, okay,” Nigel said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

Jim rarely smoked and only when he was very pissed. Seeing as tonight was technically his last night of freedom, he had bought a packet especially. Sighing heavily, he proceeded to free a fag from the pack and stuck it in his mouth, patting his jeans down for a lighter.

Shit. He didn’t have one because he wasn’t a smoker. What a dickhead.

The clatter of high heels permeated through the tipsy fog that clouded his dilemma-addled brain and he lifted his head. His eyes seemed to take a few seconds to follow the trajectory of his head and he focussed on the two girls stood before him.

“Hi,” the tarty looking one said. “Need a light?”

But it wasn’t her he looked at. He barely noticed her fit body displayed in the shortest of skirts complete with bare legs, and the skimpiest of tops which barely constrained her ample cleavage, her torso protected by the flimsiest of little denim jackets. All he saw was her companion who was dressed in jeans, sensible boots and a khaki anorak. Her long, blonde hair spilled over the dowdy jacket and danced gently in the slight, sea-breeze. She was beautiful. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.

Shit, I must be pissed, I never look at other women, I love Elise and I’m going to marry her…

“Are you deaf?” the tarty one asked.

“What? No, sorry, yes, I’d love a light.”

The girl pulled out a light from her handbag and it flickered into life.

“You two are here for the tour then?”

He looked at the tarty girl in confusion before the penny dropped. “Oh, yeah, right, the tour. Yeah.”

“I’m Tracy,” she said, “and my silent friend here is Georgina.”

“Hi,” Georgina said.

Her voice was like liquid silk, the tiny smile on those full, lipstick-free lips that of an angel.

“Hello. And this is Nigel,” he mumbled back, gesturing with his head to the silent Nigel who had moved slightly away.

Georgina smiled awkwardly in Nigel’s direction but Tracy blanked him. Jim was about to open his mouth to say something even more inane, like, wasn’t it cold tonight, or were they having a nice Halloween, because dear God, the girl called Georgina was actually making him tremble.

The deep rumble of his brother’s voice split the night, saving him from embarrassing himself further.

“There you are, you pair of sad fucks. I knew you’d be here, but I can’t believe you really are here.”

“Who’s the charmer?” Tracy asked, patting down her neat, red bob.

“My brother, Andy. Where’s Gavin?” he asked Andy when he had reached them.

“I left him in Laplands.”

Jim raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“Let’s just say I grew a conscience. I felt bad leaving my big brother to fend for himself with the computer nerd. It is you stag-night, after all, if you want to do some dumb tour, then some dumb tour is what we’ll do.  No offence, Nigel.”

“None taken,” he replied.

Although from the clipped tone to his voice, Jim guessed he probably had.

“You’re on your stag-night?” Tracy asked.

“Yep, he sure is,” Andy replied on his behalf. “Broadgate has a few of them, don’t you know. But I’m free and single.”

Tracy giggled. “Is that so?”

Jim rolled his eyes. His brother was on form, as per usual. Or a complete man-whore, as Jim fondly thought of him. He wondered if Tracy would wind up as another notch on his bedpost.

As long as he doesn’t make a play for Georgina.

Jim didn’t manage to catch the errant thought in time.

I love my fiancée, I love my fiancée…

“So is this ghost tour starting already, or not? Soon as it’s done, the sooner we can get the hell out of here and back to Laplands.”

“Now hang on,” Jim began. “It’s nice of you to come and find me and all, but I’m still not going to any strip-clubs…”

“Hey, you boring cunts!” called a horribly familiar voice from way down the street.

Jim’s heart sank. Gavin. He was in silhouette and far away, but the broad shoulders, arrogant voice and the trying too hard to be funny, ‘ta-dah’ stance was unmistakable.

He swaggered towards them and Jim felt a strong surge of hatred. He took it out on the cigarette, sucking angrily on the smoke so that his lungs spasmed in protest, making him cough hard.

“You alright, mate?” Nigel asked, coming up to him and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

Nigel leaned in close and whispered in his ear; “If it’s any consolation, I hate the prick too.”

Jim couldn’t help but smile. Apparently, Nigel did have an opinion about stuff that didn’t involve his beloved computer programmes.

“Thought you were gonna stay at the club all night gawping at the totty,” Andy said, striding towards Gavin.

“Nah, decided to come and find you guys, get some fresh air and all that.”

Andy said something quietly that Jim didn’t catch, and the two men burst out laughing. Jim didn’t pay much attention however, he was more interested in the girls’ conversation.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” the beautiful one called Georgina was saying to the tarty one called Tracy.

“Will you quit being such a party pooper? You were the one that wanted to do this tour in the first place, remember? Besides, I think I’ve pulled here.”

Tracy glanced over at Andy and Jim breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t talking about him. Georgina caught his eye, and even in the dim glow of the street-lamps he could clearly see the blush that suffused her cheeks.

My God, she’s adorable.

“Er, excuse me, but he’s taken,” Nigel piped up, addressing Tracy.

“Relax, will you, I’m talking about the stag’s not-so-little brother. What are you, his keeper? Or has ‘ickle Nigel got an ‘ickle crush?”

“Tracy, come on, don’t be rude,” Georgina hissed at her friend.

The two men approached and Tracy threw Andy the biggest smile whilst twiddling a strand of her short, red hair.

Gavin elbowed Andy in the ribs and leered at Georgina, who thankfully didn’t return his broad grin. His stomach twisted into inexplicable knots; just the thought of Gavin copping off with Georgina made him feel sick.

For God’s sake man, you’re supposed to be getting married the day after tomorrow…

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to the tour of hell.”

All six of them spun round and Jim stared at him in confusion.

Where the hell had he sprung from?

Gavin, ever the nob, burst out laughing. “Hello, little man, thanks very much.”

Jim stared at him, still confused as to where he had come from. There were no doors in the steel-hoarding fence that he could see and he felt sure he would’ve noticed the man had he approached them from either side of the street. A few other people had passed by; it was impossible to miss them on this wide stretch of pavement.

But it was the man’s appearance that troubled him the most. Gavin was right, he was so little. He couldn’t have been an inch over five-foot, and he was stooped, like an arthritic old man. He wore a fedora hat that cast his face in shadow and a leather coat that would have been knee length on anyone else, but on him scraped the floor. The man looked so much like creepy Uncle Alex back from the dead that for a moment he thought it was him. Uncle Alex had died when he was ten, and it was not a loss that he mourned. Even though Uncle Alex had never actually touched him in an inappropriate way, Jim had always sensed his desire to do so in the way that only a young child could. The man’s sleaziness had been lost on his parents. He looked at the little man in disbelief, a chill creeping into his heart. Uncle Alex had worn a fedora hat just like that. And that very same coat, too. He shuddered. How strange.

“The name’s Eric. Eric Flu,” the little man said. “But you may call me Eric.”

Jim peered at him more closely, but the rim of the fedora was wide, and at over six-foot, Jim towered above him so all he saw was the top of the man’s head. But despite the dark and the hat, he could tell that the man possessed the same skinny, weasel face as Uncle Alex.

“What kind of a name is that?” Gavin asked with more than a smidgen of drunken contempt.

“The one God gave me, young man. Are you fine folk ready for the tour of a lifetime?”

“Yeah, bring it on,” Tracy said giggling, sidling up to Andy.

Andy draped his arm casually over her shoulder like they had been a couple forever and Jim shook his head at the sheer audacity of his brother. When Gavin approached Georgina in the same manner, she shrugged him off and came straight over to Jim’s side. She smiled shyly up at him and Jim actually felt his heart melt and drip down his chest-cavity wall.

“Follow me,” Eric said, leading them to the end of the steel fence where it joined the ice-cream parlour next-door.

Except now there was an alleyway separating the two places. Funny, he didn’t remember seeing that earlier when they’d passed the very same spot.

Gavin was in front, closely followed by Tracy and Andy, arms draped around each other, still giggling like love-struck teenagers. Jim and Georgina followed, with Nigel lagging behind.

“Spooky,” Gavin said, as Eric led them deep into the bowels of the alleyway.

“This is strange,” Georgina whispered in his ear, her hand lightly resting on his forearm for a second.

Just that smallest touch made his heart hammer and his mouth go dry.

“Tell me about it,” he whispered back.

Truth be told, he had gone way beyond uneasiness.

I’m scared.

The realisation was far from comforting. Half of him wanted to turn round and run, but he refused to give in to his irrational fear. This was his idea, after all. There was no logical reason for him to turn tail like a complete yellow-belly. Besides, even though he knew it was wrong of him and made no sense whatsoever, he couldn’t bare to leave Georgina.

Gavin and Andy were starting to heckle Eric in earnest. Jim wondered if they were feeling uneasy too and were being even more obnoxious than usual to hide that fact.

“So what’s your story, Eric Flu? You a builder on the site or something? You don’t look much like a builder to me. How comes you got keys for this place?” Gavin asked.

“Probably the cleaner out to make a few extra quid,” Andy said.

Eric stopped suddenly before a side door in the steel-fencing and Nigel almost walked into the back of him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our destination. Are you ready to enter hell?”

Jim’s heart fluttered when Georgina leaned against him slightly. Even through her thick coat, he could feel her tremble.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“Yeah,” she said, tilting back her head and smiling up at him. “It’s just a bit surreal, that’s all.”

“Tell me about it,” he whispered back, completely sharing her unfounded reservations.

Although it was hard to know for sure if she was smiling; her face was nothing more than a shadowy blur in the black alleyway. Instinctively, he reached for her hand and squeezed it. As soon as he realised what he was doing, that he was actually touching another woman, he quickly withdrew. Christ, this was turning out to be the oddest night of his life.

The party of six were silent when Eric Flu inserted the Yale key into the lock.

“Let’s go,” the funny little man said, stepping to one side to allow them all to pass through to the other side.

4.

“Ooh, I’m shitting myself,” Gavin said. “I’ve never been on a building site at night before.”

“It’s so dark,” Andy added, clutching his face in mock horror.

Tracy giggled incessantly at the pair of them and Georgina gritted her teeth in annoyance. She was acting like a child and not for the first time she wondered why the hell she was friends with her.

Neither was Jim’s annoyance at his brother’s childish, arrogant behaviour exactly hard to spot. Georgina quite understood; she disliked Andy almost as much as she liked Jim.

He’s getting married in a few days. And I’m not over my ex anyway.

So then why in the hell am I mooning over a complete stranger?

“I’m sorry about my brother,” Jim said.

“I’m sorry about Tracy,” Georgina smiled.

“They make a perfect pair,” they said at the same time, then laughed sheepishly.

Georgina’s eyes were beginning to grow accustomed to the gloom. It was still very much a building-site, but she could see the theme-park taking clear shape. The highest curves of the roller-coaster that had once been one of the biggest and most famous in Britain peeped over all the building work and heavy machinery. Despite the JCBs, mountains of rubble and scaffolding, a lot of the rides appeared restored to their former glory. Very little light entered the theme-park; the high fencing prevented most of the light from the well-lit promenade getting through. Whatever electricity had been rigged up on site, it sure as hell wasn’t turned on now.

At least the moon is full and there aren’t any clouds.

Eric Flu came to a halt.

“Yes, the moon is only full four or five times each century on Halloween night. This is a special night indeed.”

Georgina shuddered. Weird. Like he’d read my mind…

She didn’t like this guy one bit. It was fair to say that Eric Flu was seriously creeping her out. He was so tall, almost seven-foot and rake thin with it. He wore blue jeans and a raggedy blue pullover. Just like him. Yes, he really did remind her of a guy who periodically haunted her nightmares. When she had been just fifteen-years-old, some guy had accosted her when she had walked home from school on a dark, wintry afternoon. He had looked just like Eric Flu; tall, and skinny, with wild, straggly hair hanging to his shoulders and a look of madness blazing in his eyes. Her heart picked up its pace when she remembered how scared she had felt when that crazy guy had grabbed her and groped her. If it hadn’t of been for that kindly woman who had happened to be passing, God knows what might have happened. Sometimes, in her worst nightmares, her brain kindly filled in the blanks. And it sure wasn’t pretty.

“Whoopy-fucking-do for the special night,” Gavin said, yawning theatrically. “Is this going to take long? Because I’d much rather be looking at naked women right now.”

“Then do us all a favour and piss off back to the strip-club,” the geeky looking one called Nigel muttered behind her and Jim. “Some of us want to hear what she has to say.”

She? Georgina thought. Nigel didn’t strike her as the type to be so deeply sarcastic.

Jim spun round and even in the gloom she could see his eyes were wide.

“My God, Nigel, full of surprises tonight, aren’t you?”

“What are you cunts whispering about?” Gavin boomed over his shoulder.

Georgina stiffened at his coarse language; the c-word never failed to get her back up. That Gavin really was a piece of work and she was baffled by the way Tracy was fawning all over him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Eric said, clapping his hands together, “the tour has officially begun. This is going to be a different kind of tour. A tour of hell itself.”

“Oh my God,” Andy said, rolling his eyes, to the amusement of Gavin.

“I’m sorry, Eric, please excuse my brother and his oafish friend,” Jim piped up next to her. “Some of us are interested in this tour.”

“I know you are, young man, although I cannot promise your innocent curiosity will be rewarded.”

What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Georgina wondered. She didn’t get to ponder on the oddity of his statement for long as the gangly young-man began to talk, and the more he talked, the more confused and apprehensive she became.

“As I am sure you are aware, many lives have been lost in this theme-park. The reputation of the place became so tarnished that people simply stopped coming and it was forced to close. The current owner believes that time is a great healer, he believes that the public will forget all about those horrific, freak accidents that have blighted the fifty years that Dreamland has been open. All those poor souls falling out of or getting crushed by various rides. No to mention the horror stories that have been kept out of the press. The amount of human-beings that have dropped dead of heart attacks on these very grounds is extraordinarily high. There have even been cases of staff and customers spontaneously combusting.”

Gavin snorted derisively. “And how the hell do you know? You’re full of shit.”

Andy was the only one that laughed, but Georgina detected a hint of uneasiness behind it.

“You’re entitled to your opinion, young man. In fact, maybe this tour isn’t for you. If you are going to belittle everything I say, then I would prefer it if you just went and didn’t ruin it for those that actually want to be here. Don’t worry, I won’t charge as we haven’t even started yet.”

“You know what, Mr Eric Flu, you’re right, this was a mistake. It’s cold, I’m bored and I could murder a fucking pint. Anyone coming?”

“What do you say?” Andy asked Tracy, who was hanging off his arm.

“Fine, but I’m not going to some strip-club.”

“Tracy!” Georgina gasped. “You can’t go.”

“I can and I am. Do you want to come?”

Georgina locked eyes with her friend, feeling quite torn. She wanted nothing to do with Andy and Gavin, that was for sure, but at the same time, she didn’t relish the idea of leaving Tracy alone with them.

She’s a big girl, she can make her own decisions.

She knew she shouldn’t feel guilty about not wanting to go for a drink with them; if Tracy was going to go home with Andy, then there was nothing she could do to stop her anyway.

“Look,” Tracy said, “why don’t we all meet up at the Red Lion when you guys are done here?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jim said. “What do you two think?”

Although it was obvious to Georgina that he was talking to her and her alone. Nigel might as well have been invisible.

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“Fine by me,” Nigel muttered. “So long as we get a break from listening to the Neanderthals.”

Despite his fighting words, Georgina noticed how low he kept his voice.

“What’s that you say, geek-boy?”

“He didn’t say anything, Gavin. Just go, we’ll meet up with you guys later when we’re done here,” Jim said.

“Whatever,” Gavin replied.

Gavin, Andy and Tracy moved away from the group, retracing the way they had just come. In a matter of seconds, the darkness and clutter of the half built theme-park had swallowed them up.

“And then there were three,” Eric Flu said.

He grinned, and Georgina shuddered. The darkness made it near impossible to see the minute details of his lean face, but she was sure she saw something move inside his mouth.

Don’t be so ridiculous. What the hell is with you? It’s a trick of the dark.

She glanced at Jim and Nigel. Jim threw her a small, comforting smile, and Nigel’s face remained impassive and weasel like.

“Please, follow me, I have such sights to show you, you may decide you never want to leave.”

He walked away from them, cocking his forefinger for them to follow. Georgina felt light-headed and strange – she was beginning to seriously regret not going with the others. Even if the others were a pair of nut-sacks and a drunken tart looking to get laid when the clubs shut.

Unfair, Georgina, unfair.

“You okay?” Jim asked her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You heard the man, let’s do this tour,” she said with a plastered-on smile.

The three of them followed him deeper into the bowels of the soon to be re-opened theme-park. Her heart tripped wildly and when Jim reached out for her hand she felt slightly less on edge.

But only slightly.

Their tour-guide produced a slim flashlight from the back pocket of his jeans and switched it on, bathing their passage in a beam of light.

“So who are you, really?” Jim asked the back of the man’s head. “Are you working on the site, or something? How comes you know so much about this place?”

Eric stopped, abruptly spinning round and shining the flashlight into their faces. Georgina squinted, shielding her eyes from the harsh light with her hand.

“Let’s just say I have a powerful and profound connection to this theme-park.”

“How do you mean?” Jim persisted.

“Do you believe in God, young man?”

Georgina was entirely taken aback by his odd question. So, apparently, was Jim.

“Er, no, not really. I guess I’m an atheist. Why do you ask?”

“An atheist. How lovely. I do love the company of an atheist, and I especially love the company of three atheists.”

Georgina wished she could see his face, but she was blinded by the brilliant light.

What a weird question. What the hell is his problem?

Then it occurred to her that she and Nigel hadn’t told him anything about their religious beliefs, or lack thereof. She couldn’t vouch for Nigel, of course, but he was spot on with her.

“Why do you ask if we believe in God?” Jim asked again, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice.

“Would you mind lowering the flashlight?” Nigel asked.

“Of course, where are my manners?” Eric replied, ignoring Jim. “This is the spot I wanted to show you, anyway.”

Georgia shuddered. They were stood by the entrance to the ghost train. A huge clown face was painted on the front of the black building, the wide, grinning mouth painted over the double doors.

How original, Georgina thought. But still freaky, especially at midnight on Halloween.

“Not entirely original, I will agree, but still entirely freaky, especially at midnight on Halloween.” Eric said.

She froze, her stomach twisting into a big, fat knot.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jim asked, his hand squeezing hers.

She could only look up at him with what she was sure was a moronic, wide-eyed stare of terror.

Christ. This guy was seriously starting to freak her out. She wanted to leave, but she didn’t want to make a scene.

I’m just being jumpy, it’s coincidence, that’s all.

Eric laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

“On this special night, in certain spots throughout the world, hell can partially materialise on earth. Especially on a rare full moon, such as tonight.”

“Come again?” Jim asked good-naturedly, but Georgina could detect the tremor in his voice.

“It’s really quite simple, young man. For one night a year, hell and the real world can merge. And tonight is the strongest bond between your domain and mine since the beginning of time.”

“I think the guy is a nut job,” Nigel hissed at them.

“Me too,” Georgina hissed back.

She smiled at Nigel in the gloom, but he didn’t return the gesture, glaring at her instead.

What have I done to upset him?

“That’s all very interesting,” Jim said, as if to appease him. “But if that’s true, then why here? Of all the places in all of the world, hell chooses a theme-park in Broadgate?”

Georgina sniggered at his naff choice of wording straight out of Casablanca. The smirk froze on her lips at Eric’s well thought out reply.

“All theme-parks are attractive to the devil. Just as in hell, those whom abide in it are firmly in one of two camps; entertained or terrified. Or maybe it’s the noise of a theme-park that attracts the devil. The screams of terror and of joy mingled together. I’m not saying war and mass genocide are not music to the devil’s ears, because believe me, it is. As delicious as the wails of the agonised and dying are, the devil does like to hear shrieks of joy mixed in with the terror. It is an audio illusion of course, but it just sounds so nice.”

That had to be the weirdest thing Georgina had ever heard someone say.

“That sounds a bit silly to me,” Jim said in a too-bright voice.

“It’s just a little quirk of the devil. But more importantly, this theme-park is built on one of the most powerful ley lines in the whole world.”

Georgina had heard of ley lines, although her knowledge of them was sketchy at best. Once she must have heard them been called ‘energy highways’ and the term had stuck in her head. They were supposedly invisible, mystical and mythical lines running over the surface of the earth, or some such thing.

“Energy highways. Yes, that’s a good way to put it, I like that,” Eric said, pausing as if for effect.

Her skin crawled. He can’t be reading my mind. He just can’t.

She leaned against Jim slightly and he looked down at her with concern.

I should just go, maybe I can catch up with Trace…

But she couldn’t bring herself to move. She didn’t want to make a scene, and she was inexplicably too frightened to walk away by herself.

“What, exactly, is a ley line, then?” Nigel asked.

“From a scientific point of view, ley lines are cracks in the earth’s tectonic plates that release magnetic energy,” Eric said. “But they are so much more than that; ley lines are the cracks between realms. And this line is especially strong; it has been blackened by countless occult practices that have been performed on it over the centuries. A blackened line is a glorious thing, it means the cracks deepen and hell and earth can be as one. On this perfect night, the sun, moon and five major planets are in perfect alignment, opening those cracks wider still.”

His words were too strange, too out there and something clicked inside her. She had heard enough.

“Please don’t think me rude, but I’d like to end this tour now,” she said to Eric Flu. “Jim? Would you like to come with me?”

“Yeah, I really think I would,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Nigel? Are you coming too?”  The weedy looking young man nodded his head. “We will pay you for your time, Mr Flu, but my friends and I have decided to end the tour. How much do we owe you?”

“You owe me your lives.”

Georgina froze as surely as if someone had tipped a bucket of ice-water over her head.

“Excuse me?” she asked in small voice.

“You heard. You six are the chosen and your blood must be spilled. You didn’t find the tour, the tour found you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jim said, his grip on her hand tightening so that she winced.

“You may thank the leaflets you found on the street, or rather, the leaflets that found you. Those leaflets were made in hell, and so by their very nature those leaflets will be attracted to pure evil. It is not that this merger of your realm and mine requires evil people, just that it is the natural by-product of finding sacrifices. Sacrifices can be good, evil or indifferent, it truly matters not. But one leaflet found Gavin alright and I’m so glad the rest of you came too. Georgina, the leaflet originally found that guy curb-crawling you in the car, now he really was a nasty specimen. But I’m so glad you came instead.”

“How do you know about the man in the car?” Georgina asked.

Then it hit her that none of them had told him their names.

“Because I am omnipresent. I see everything. And now it is time for your blood to spill. Your life force, your very essence will open the crack of the ley line into a chasm and at last hell will claim the earth.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Jim said, tugging on her hand which was still firmly in his. “You need help, mate.”

“Yes, I do,” he called after them, “I need your help. Run, the chase is on.”

“What a nutter,” Jim said, dragging her away from the tall man with Nigel hot on their heels.

The three of them ran back the way they had come. Georgina could hardly catch her breath and tears stung her eyes.

“Eric-fucking-Flu,” Nigel gasped as they plundered through the darkness of the building-site. “It’s an anagram. Eric Flu is Lucifer with the letters jumbled up.”

It took a moment for the magnitude of Nigel’s words to sink in, and when they did, it was a physical blow. She could run no more; the breath knocked out of her and she hunched over her knees.

“Come on!” Jim cried, stopping dead to yank on her arm. “We’ve got to go.”

Eric Flu…

She almost tripped over her own feet in an attempt to keep moving, that funny name bouncing around in her skull and making her head ache.

Except it wasn’t funny in anyway whatsoever.

I’m going to die tonight. The thought was crystal clear in her mind and not for a second did she doubt the truth of it.

5.

Andy shivered in the freezing night, wrapping the ineffective, thin jacket more tightly around himself. He would’ve worn his parka if he’d known he was going to be pissing around outside for ages in the middle of the bloody night. Still, at least he had Tracy to keep him warm. He pulled her closer towards him, copping a cheeky feel of her backside. She giggled and he wondered if they could go back to hers for a shag, seeing as the four of them had doubled up to save money and he was sharing a hotel room with Gavin.

“Why have you guys stopped?” Tracy asked, when Gavin ground to a halt.

Andy smiled to himself. To pounce on my dopey brother when he’s done with the tour and tie him naked to a lamppost and give him a proper, stag-night send off, he thought, but didn’t say.

Gavin leaned causally against a life-size horse on a big carousel ride. It was so dark that Andy couldn’t make out the details of the ride, but the elaborate, floral patterns in shades of grey shone in the moonlight, suggesting that it had been lovingly restored. Gavin patted the head of the horse he was leaning on.

“I thought we might have a bit of fun. What do you say, Andy?”

Andy looked at him blankly for a second. His head was so filled with the thoughts of the pussy he was bound to be getting later that the penny didn’t drop immediately.

“Huh? Jim won’t be done for ages yet.”

“I know that, dipshit, I mean some fun with Tracy here.”

Still he didn’t get it. Yes, the Gavin he knew was a bit of a prick, but he was a nice prick. Okay, so he was a Jack-the-lad and a loud-mouth, but there was no harm in him. Or so he thought up until the moment that Gavin yanked Tracy out of his arms. Completely stunned, Andy watched as Gavin held the squealing girl in a headlock with her back pressed against his front, his free hand pulling down her flimsy little top. Perky tits that were large for her small frame spilled out of her bra and Gavin squeezed one of the fleshy orbs.

“Let me go, you fucker!” Tracy had time to scream before Gavin let go of her tit and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Feisty little bitch, ain’t she?” Gavin said.

At last, Andy found his voice. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Cleaning my teeth, what does it look like?”

“Let go of her,” he said, his heart beating uncomfortably hard and his mouth dry as sandpaper.

This couldn’t be happening, Gavin wasn’t like this.

“Oh, come on, where’s your sense of humour gone? I’ll even let you have first go, so long as you take the pussy ‘cause I like it better in the backdoor.”

Unconsciously, Andy’s hands balled into fists.

What a bastard he is. What a complete and utter cunt…

Despite thinking this, Andy was having great difficulty in tearing his eyes away from Tracy’s breasts. They were every bit as perfect as he’d hoped they’d be and for the briefest of seconds, he had the most vivid image of bending her over a carousel horse and banging her hard. He shook his head to dispel the image.

“Just let her go, this ain’t right.”

“Don’t be so fucking soft. We’ve got to do something while we’re waiting for your twat of a brother.”

Tracy squirmed and moaned, her bared tits jiggling pleasingly as she did so.

Andy wrenched his gaze up to Tracy’s eyes and her look of pleading, wide-eyed terror snapped him back to himself. His hard on deflated in a heart-beat. What was he thinking? The poor girl was terrified, he had to help her.

Calmly, he went up to the struggling girl and placed a gentle hand on Gavin’s forearm that circled the girl’s neck.

“Mate, this isn’t cool,” he said in a low voice. “Just stop, okay?”

“I didn’t know you were such a wimp, Andrew Pearson. Fuck you, you can’t stop me. You want to fuck her as much as I do.”

With that he spun the girl round, and like a re-enactment straight out of Andy’s fleeting fantasy, he bent her over the horse. Andy felt dream-like and strange, swallowing dryly when Gavin pulled down her knickers and yanked up the miniscule skirt, exposing the cutest little arse that Andy had ever seen.

The girl squirmed and screamed, her rounded backside wobbling pleasingly. Gavin held the struggling girl down by the scruff of her neck and slapped her exposed bottom.

“Christ, girl, your wailing is giving me a headache,” he said, clamping one hand over her mouth, the other still on the back of her neck. “Come on mate, it ain’t going to fuck itself, you know. I said you could go first and I am a man of my word.”

Andy couldn’t pretend he didn’t have a raging hard-on. It was so much easier when he couldn’t see her face and her screams were muffled. He licked his dry lips, imagining how soft and tight her pussy would fee wrapped around his cock.

No! Christ, what the hell is wrong with me? I’m not a god-damn rapist.

“No,” he said, none too convincingly, backing away.

“Suit your-fucking-self, loser.”

He had to let go of her mouth to un-zip his fly and when he did, she renewed her pleading and screaming in earnest.

“Help me, Andy! You can’t let him rape me, you can’t…”

Her words tailed away into sobs.

You have to stop him…

But the sight of her getting used like this was crudely arresting, he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze off her and his hard-on was showing no signs of abating anytime soon.

“Go on, do it. You know you want to.”

The voice directly behind his left shoulder made him scream and spin round.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Andy gasped, clutching his heart.

“The second you consented to the tour, I never left you.”

Andy stared down at Eric Flu, the man that looked so much like creepy Uncle Alex.  He had no clue what he meant but his words chilled him. Eric Flu’s head suddenly snapped back, as if attached to an invisible string.

“My powers are gaining strength. On earth, as it is in hell, give us this night our nightly bloodshed.”

Even Gavin had stopped in his tracks and stood there slack-jawed, staring at the funny little man with his head thrown back and his arms outstretched like some parody of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Instinctively, Andy edged closer to Gavin and the girl he was about to rape. Sobbing softly, Tracy righted herself and straightened out her clothes.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Gavin said, turning heel to run.

Andy shook his head. It was like he had fallen under a spell and Gavin speaking had jolted him back to his senses.

But no one got the chance to run anywhere. In total horror, Andy watched the little man. The bastard was actually glowing.

No man, that ain’t possible…

Except it was possible because it was happening, right before his disbelieving eyes. Eric Flu appeared to be lit-up, as if from within. An orange light emitted from his parted lips as if his head was a hollowed, Halloween-pumpkin with a candle placed in the scooped-out insides. Even his nostrils glowed orange and when he opened his eyes, all three of them screamed.

Bright, red orbs stared back at them and the beam of orange light coming from his mouth widened with the curvature of his smile. Then it wasn’t orange light anymore, but fire. Fire that was spewing forth from his mouth in a straight red-line, hitting the fleeing Gavin square in the back.

Gavin went down with a high-pitched wail, landing flat on his front like a felled tree.

Tracy started screaming and didn’t stop. Her eyes bugged from her head and Andy’s mind swam with the insanity of the situation. Eric had stopped breathing fire and smoke billowed up from Gavin. With Tracy’s screams ringing in his ears he stumbled backwards, his knees wobbly and his legs doing a crap job of supporting his weight. His backside hit one of the carousel horses and he clung to the pole that extended out of its saddle.

“On your feet, Gavin King.”

Eric’s voice sounded different now. Louder. Deeper. Crackling, somehow, like he was gargling though flames and shards of glass.

Oh dear God, this can’t be happening.

Gavin got to his feet and even in the dark, Andy could see that his face was contorted in terror.

“Get off me,” he screamed, although his cries of protest were barely audible over Tracy’s incessant screaming.

Gavin looked weird when he got to his feet, like he was doing so against his will. Like invisible hands were dragging him upright. The fire on his back was completely out, but tendrils of smoke still curled upwards. A smell of cooked meat hit Andy’s nostrils.

Bacon, he thought, fighting the urge to double over and throw up.

More flames shot out of Eric’s eyes and seared Gavin’s face. The man’s screams pierced his ears, high-pitched and blood-curdling. Andy watched in mute horror, teetering on the brink of madness as everything he thought he knew and understood about the world he lived in crumbled to dust.

Gavin’s entire head was on fire. Nothing else, just his head. Beyond the flames Andy could clearly see the contorted grimace of his friend’s twisted, open mouth. His head was on fire, but his face wasn’t burning. The sight defied logic; it defied every law of nature.

There is nothing natural about this…

When the flames ceased to shoot from Eric’s eyes, he turned that red gaze onto Andy.

Now it’s my turn, he’s going to incinerate me…

Wet heat soaked his crotch and inner thighs and he was only dimly aware that his bladder, in the grip of fear, had let go.

“His skin won’t burn. It will never burn. He will feel pain though, oh yes he will experience pain. It takes a human mere seconds to burn to death, the agony of which is unspeakable. Imagine if that agony lasted for all eternity.”

Gavin’s entire body burst into flames and he twisted and writhed, his clothes instantly consumed by fire and disintegrating on his body. His muscled physique was clearly visible beneath the licking flames, his body convulsing and his muscles flexing, dancing the dance of death.

A dance that will never end. Oh Jesus Christ…

“No Jesus,” Eric said. “Not here, not tonight.”

Tracy, apparently, had seen enough. Just as a crack in the ground opened up silently beneath the human fireball that had once been Gavin and more flames appeared in the split in the earth, so Tracy fled. Andy wanted to join the fleeing woman, but he could not tear his gaze away from Gavin. Vertical flames flared upwards in a perfectly straight line from the narrow fissure; a fissure that Gavin appeared to be suspended over. A man made of fire suspended over a lake of fire.

He’s dangling over hell...

It was impossible, yet he knew in his heart it was the truth.

Then just like that, he was sucked down. Instantly the fissure closed over and Gavin was gone. It was like both had never been, not even a wisp of smoke remained.

“What have you done?” Andy cried, stumbling to the empty, cold spot where just, mere seconds ago, his best-friend had been aflame.

“Dear Gavin got what was coming to him. He will burn for all eternity. And so will you. After I have some fun. Go and get the girl. Ravage her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Andy said, but already, entirely against his own will, he was running after Tracy. “What the fuck have you done to me?”

He was gaining on her, but he didn’t want to be.

Eric Flu’s laugher rung in his ears, like he was right behind him. Like he was inside his head. But when he glanced over his shoulder, Eric was some way back from him. He faced forward once more, scared of tripping. His arms pumped hard in time to his striding, powerful legs. Her speed was no match for his. With her short legs and high heels it took less than ten seconds to close the gap between them. Andy tumbled on top of her and easily tackled her to the ground so that she was on her back, the blood pumping in his ears and his body shot with adrenalin.

She screamed and fought, clawing uselessly at his face. Something wet and hot ran down his face.

My blood.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except for stripping naked the struggling girl. In some distant way, he knew what he was doing was wrong but he couldn’t seem to stop. His breath was ragged and desperate to his own ears, the roar of his own blood drowning out all rational thought. All he cared about was seeing her body. Touching her. Fucking her. Hurting her.

Even with all her clothes ripped off her body, she continued to struggle. That made him smile. She was a fighter and that was a good thing. Those perky, cone-shaped tits jolted and shimmied beneath him with her struggles, taunting him with their juiciness. A sudden, crystal-clear image of biting off one of those hard, little nipples sprung into his mind and his erection strained at the seam of his jeans.

But the screaming was giving him a headache so he punched her in the jaw. It didn’t have the desired effect; the bitch continued to scream like a scalded cat. So he punched her in the mouth three times, hard enough to knock out her front teeth and get his face sprayed with her blood. That sort of worked. Her screams turned to whimpers and he stuffed her knickers into her gaping, bloody mouth.

Much better.

Some of the fight had gone out of her, but not enough for him to do what he wanted to do. Instinctively, he got to his feet and lifted up his booted foot, brining it crunching down on her elbow. He felt the snap of her bones reverberate pleasingly up his leg. She kind of lay there stunned, her eyes bulging over her knicker-stuffed mouth.

Better still.

He fell back to his knees, kicking her thighs apart so he was kneeling between them. Now she made a low, keening sound, like a wounded dog. It didn’t matter, he could live with that. He stared down at her exposed pussy, wishing he could flick on a light-switch so he could see her properly. He licked his lips, staring at the shadowy cleft, lightly running a finger over the neat tuft of dark hair above the shapely folds that comprised her cunt.

Light to see her by wasn’t the only thing he wished for. He also wished for a knife. Never mind, he would just have to get by without one.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said, balling his hand into a fist.

A moment of doubt washed over him.

Had he? Had he really wished such a thing?

The thought didn’t hang around for long. He pressed his fist against her anus, her legs prised apart as far as they would go.

With all his might he pushed his fist against her arsehole. He grunted in frustration when all that accomplished was to propel Tracy’s body along the ground.

Getting to his feet, he grabbed her ankles.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said to her wails of protests, panting with the effort of dragging her along the ground.

When his back connected with a small, little building that was probably going to be some ticket hut or something, he dropped her legs. Scooping her up under her armpits he swivelled her round so that the top of her head came to rest against the wall of the building. Once again, he kneeled down between her thighs and spat on his tightly clenched fist for the second attempt at fisting her arse. He smiled through gritted teeth, beads of perspiration stinging his eyes. Or perhaps blood. Whatever. Who cared? Her head snapped sideways on her shoulders, going some way to stop her incessant whining.

At last. Success.

The snugness of her arsehole smothered his knuckles in the tightest caress, hot and wet and gut-wrenchingly inviting.

Yes! I’ve split her anus, just a little more…

His fist disappeared in further, now most of his knuckles were inside her. Yes, she was definitely bleeding, her blood ran down his forearm, easing his passage. Her body was slack now. For a horrible moment he thought she was dead. Where, exactly, would be the fun in that? He breathed a sigh of relief when she moaned softly under her breath, those perky little tits rising and falling slightly.

His fist suddenly jerked forwards, like something had split inside her. Blood gushed, oily and black in the moonlight.

Tracy came round. Andy smiled at that irony; if the pain had initially knocked her out, then now it had brought her to. He pushed all the harder and she screamed some more. Her screams sounded different now. Even with the knickers in her mouth, the sound was higher pitched, inhuman. In the gaps when she wasn’t screaming, he was sure he heard a deep, throaty chuckle that seemed to float around his head like the caress of a soft breeze. The sound of it was somehow empowering, egging him on.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he grunted, slipping his fist out of her twitching body and freeing his cock through the zipper of his jeans.

There was little fight in her when he rammed into her ripped anus. If anything, the sensation was a little disappointing; it was a loose fit due to the massive fissures, but at least the blood was good and hot and wet, pumping over his cock.

He leaned down and took one of those jaunty little nipples in his mouth. He didn’t even try to resist the animal urge to clamp his teeth down on the puckered flesh. In his orgasmic frenzy, he shook his head from side to side like a rabid dog. The nipple stretched taut in his mouth and her glorious, bitter tasting blood flooded his mouth, fuelling his desire further. He clamped down with his molars, chewing and grinding and tearing until the little nub of flesh came away in his mouth, making him gasp in pleasure. The delightful little morsel slipped down his throat like the most succulent oyster just as his orgasm hit.

Sloppily he slammed his hips into her and being as caught up in the moment as he was, it barely even registered that he was strangling the life out of her. Only when he slumped on top of her, his body slack and sated did he notice that she wasn’t moving.

The adrenalin, endorphins and testosterone that had flooded his system just seconds before dissipated. The awfulness of what he had done was just too much to contemplate. There was no way he could even begin to understand it.

I didn’t do that. I couldn’t do that.

Without warning, he turned sideways and vomited up the nipple and blood. He shook violently when he wiped away the blood-curdled vomit on the back of his hand, tears of despair and self-loathing streaming from his eyes.

“Oh dear God, what have I done?”

He stared down at her broken body, still crouched on his knees between her legs. And when he could bare the bloody sight of her no longer, he howled up at the moon, a broken man.

But not even that drowned out the laughter of Eric Flu.

6.

“Did you hear that?” Georgina gasped, whilst being dragged along by Jim.

Her sides burned and twisted in pain, and her heart slammed against her ribcage. Besides, despite her abject terror, she worked behind a desk at the job centre and the nearest she got to exercise was an occasional cream-cake run.

“Hear what?” Jim said. “Come on, we have to keep moving, we have to get out of here.”

Whatever she had heard had stopped now.

But by God if it didn’t sound like screaming.

Must have been a seagull.

At night? I don’t think so.

It was Tracy and you know it.

“Please,” she panted, almost falling flat on her face when she dug in her heels like a stubborn mule.

Jim quit tugging on her hand and clumsily skidded to a halt next to her.

“We’ve been running for ages but we still can’t find the door we came in through,” she panted.

“Fuck it, she’s right.” Nigel said, he too stopping and hunching over his knees. “Besides, we passed that ride just a minute ago.”

“What? But that’s impossible,” Jim said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Nigel replied.

Georgina said nothing and just stood there, stupidly staring at the swinging boat ride. Nigel was right. They had passed that thing a few minutes ago. They were running round in circles like headless chickens.

“We just have to get to the perimeter. Even if we don’t find the same door we came in through, there’ll be others. Or we’ll just climb over the fucking wall.” Jim said.

“We can’t find the perimeter because she won’t let us. We’re trapped,” Nigel said.

“That’s bollocks,” Jim began, “what, you think he really is the devil, or something…”

“Sshh,” Georgina said, putting her finger to her lips, “do you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Jim stopped talking and froze on the spot when he too heard the screaming. The sound might have been faint, but it was definitely no shitehawk.

“Shit,” Nigel cursed.  “What the hell is that?”

“I think the question is, who is that,” Georgina said softly.

“Oh God, this is seriously fucked up. “We need to get of here, like now,” Jim said to the both of them.

“I second that. Only problem is, I’m guessing that the more we run, the more we’ll wind up in her clutches. The only way to get away from her is to use our heads.”

“Her? Why do you keep calling him a she?”

“Because it was a woman. Why the fuck else would I call her a she?”

“A woman called Eric?”

“Why not? It could be a unisex name.”

Jim snorted. “Are you fucking blind? How could you mistake that little bloke for a girl?”

“Little?” Georgina asked.

Both guys turned to look at her, and then it twigged. It made no sense, and yet it was the only possible answer.

“He was tall. Really tall and skeletal thin. He was wearing a tatty jumper and jeans,” she said, feeling sick and scared.

“You’re right,” Jim said, realisation dawning in his eyes. “We’re seeing different things. He was wearing a long leather jacket. And a beat up fedora hat.”

“I saw a woman. Not just any old woman, but some really fat bitch that used to, you know, touch me when I was a kid. She lived next door and my mum was kind of friendly with her and she’d babysit me once in a while. I’m telling you, it’s the devil messing with our heads.”

Georgina looked at the weasel faced man thoughtfully. She figured he was half right.

“I don’t know about demons, but I’ll go with drugs.”

“Drugs?” Nigel said. “How could she have drugged us? That’s just stupid.”

“And saying it’s the fucking devil isn’t?” Jim said. “It’s possible. I mean, maybe it was something in the print on the leaflets, an hallucinogenic or something. We all touched them and somehow it got into our bloodstreams and is making us see things.”

Georgina admitted it sounded lame. But she liked that a lot better than the whole, devil thing. Nigel, however, wasn’t sold.

“She’s the devil.”

“Christ Nigel, I didn’t know you were so superstitious.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jim.”

“This isn’t the time,” Georgina said. “Let’s just go. Nigel’s right, running is stupid, we’re getting disorientated. We need to be calm, look for landmarks and find our way out.”

Her heart skipped a beat when Jim closed the gap between them and slipped his fingers into hers. It felt so right, so natural and for a moment she let herself forget he was getting married in a few days.

Slowly, the three of them pushed onwards. Georgina forced down an entirely inappropriate giggle. The whole thing was so preposterous, so utterly ridiculous. They were just three idiots lost in an empty, seaside amusement-park. They weren’t running from the devil.

Oh yeah? Then how did he read your mind?

When they rounded the corner of the big boat suspended from the massive, steel-frame, all three of them stopped in their tracks. Georgina wanted to cry. Her legs felt shaky and close to buckling.

“But that’s impossible,” Jim said.

Georgina could only stare in horror at the entrance to the ghost-train; at the very place from which they had originally run.

“I told you, it’s the devil. He’s messing with us. All roads lead to damnation,” Nigel said.

Like that even made sense.

“Two down. Four to go.”

Georgina let out a short, sharp scream, invisible fingernails raking her spine. Eric Flu’s voice seemed to float around their heads, coming from everywhere at the same time. The effect was dizzying and she slumped against Jim, drawing comfort from the physical contact. The hug lasted less than a second before she was ripped out his arms with such force she felt the rush of the night against her face. She had no idea what was happening, all shew knew was that one moment she had her face buried in Jim’s chest, the next she was flying through the air and landing on her rump with a sickening thump that reverberated through her body and made her teeth clank painfully together.

What the hell just happened?

Someone had bodily picked her up and chucked her to the ground. But who? There was only Jim and Nigel with her. Her head swam with confusion.

“Georgina!” Jim cried, taking a step towards her.

As soon as he made his move, the ground beneath her began to shake. A crack in the ground of around a metre long opened up parallel to her ankles and she did the crab-shuffle backwards, staring in disbelief at the split in the earth. Accompanied by the sound of stone grinding against stone, the gap widened until it was big enough for a person to easily fall into. Flames shot out of the opening, obscuring the view of Jim and instantly her tears sizzled and dried on her face.

The shooting flames ceased, and standing on the other side of the crack in the earth was Eric Flu. Or her version of him anyway; the tall, gangly guy with the straggly hair that had almost raped her as a teenager.

“Who are you?” she gasped, still on her arse and paralysed with fear.

Eric smiled at her, and it was the cruellest thing she had ever seen.

“You know who I am, Georgina Blake.”

“Georgina!”

Eric Flu’s head whipped round at the sound of Jim calling her name. He lifted up his long, thin arm and pointed a bony finger in Jim’s direction. A bolt of white lightning shot from the tip of his finger.

The bolt of lightning was on-course to hit Jim square in the chest, and it would have done if Nigel hadn’t of seen Eric raise his finger milliseconds before Jim did. Nigel threw himself full-force at his friend, taking the bolt of lightning in his shoulder. The lads tumbled to the ground with Nigel on top.

“I have plans for you two in a very short while. And in the meantime…”

From out of the crack in the ground, a pole emerged horizontally. At first glance it looked like an ordinary, scaffold pole. Except this pole was sharpened to a vicious looking tip and the length of it glowed white hot in heat patches that were visible here and there beneath the rust. It pushed slowly upwards, like someone was feeding it through the small chasm from somewhere below. It stopped when it reached two feet or so.

The sight of it chilled her heart and broke her paralysis. She scrambled to her feet and lunged away from the nightmare scene.

She didn’t get far. Something struck her between the shoulder-blades, and she fell forwards, flat on her face. It felt as if a ton of bricks had toppled onto her back, only worse.

A lightning bolt. I’ve been electrocuted...

In that moment, with her mouth kissing the concrete and every part of her battered and bruised, she wished the charge had been enough to finish her.

“Strip her, then feed her onto the pole. I’ll let you choose the hole.”

Georgina heard the words, but she didn’t understand them. Not even when Jim and Nigel were suddenly flanking her either side. Each man scooped her up under an armpit and dragged her to her feet.

“Hey!” she gasped, wriggling in their grip.

But she hurt too much to put up much of a fight.

“Jim! What are you doing?”

When she looked up into the face of the man whom she felt sure that, under different circumstances, she could have loved with all her heart and soul for the rest of her life, she realised it wasn’t the same man.

“I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm, bitch.”

It was Jim’s voice. It was Jim’s face. But it wasn’t his eyes. He was possessed by the devil and now she was going to die.

In her weakened state, Nigel was easily able to hold her arms tight behind her back and Jim unzipped her anorak. Beneath it she wore a sensible, white-shirt tucked into blue-jeans.

In one swift movement he ripped her shirt down the middle, popping every single button. Her plain white bra was exposed to him, the cold November air goose-bumping the bare skin of her flat stomach.

“Jim, I know you’re in there.”

“Wrong, bitch.”

Just like that he fell on her like a wild animal; ripping, tearing and jerking every last shred of clothing from her body. Even her shoes were wrenched from her. She sobbed helplessly throughout the ordeal, the single word ‘Jim’ on her lips. She didn’t know why she said his name over and over. Maybe because she hoped she could somehow still reach him. Or maybe it was merely a prayer for what might have been.

Despite the uncontrollable shivering that was partly born of terror and partly the start of hypothermia, she looked bravely up at him.

“I just want to say, if you remember doing this, then I forgive you. I’m so sorry we met tonight.”

Jim laughed and nodded over her tear-stained face at Nigel.

The men dragged her the short distance to the fire-spitting crack in the ground and kicked her legs apart directly over the pole.

New strength imbued her and fresh screams escaped her lips. She bucked and writhed and screamed some more, but to no avail.

All coherent thought flew out of her head when the pointy end of the pole pricked between her legs. It burnt her where it touched her, instantly searing her flesh. She was beyond fear now, in a dark place where only pain and suffering and terror existed.

“I say we do it in the cunt,” Jim said.

Nigel shrugged casually. “Whichever. Her suffering will be eternal, either way.”

They each tightly gripped a thigh, lifting her above the pole and holding her over it for a second as if savouring the moment before pushing her down. And push her down they did, like she was nothing more than the plunger top of a coffee-pot.

The agony was unimaginable. The white-hot spike split open her vaginal canal and cauterised her simultaneously. With slow deliberation they lowered her onto the pole. Her mind split like a glass shattering into a thousand pieces when she felt her womb rupture. Then they stopped pushing.

They’re fighting him…

No. The pole was coming to her, she wasn’t going to the pole. The two lads held her steady as the pole slowly rose up through the earth and penetrated her. She felt something else explode inside of her, she heard it go pop and beneath the agony was the strangest sensation of a massive splatter against the walls of her midriff.

Through her haze of suffering, through her insanity, one single, coherent thought came and went like the ebbing tide.

I’m not dead. Why aren’t I dead?

The pole edged upwards through her body and the once vibrant young woman was reduced to nothing more than a worm on a hook. The pain consumed her, it became her.

She screamed and screamed, but no sound came. The pole was getting higher, cutting a blazing path through her lungs. When she threw back her head in the throes of abject misery, she saw the spike emerge past her lips.

And still that one thought flowed in and out of her mind on a wave of torment:

Why aren’t I dead?

7.

Georgina was now fully impaled on the pole. The bloody spike extended a good few inches out of her mouth with her head thrown back and her mouth wide open in a silent scream.

When the deed was done, Jim came back to himself. He actually felt something leave his body; an invisible jolt of energy that made him let go of Georgina’s thigh and stagger backwards, landing heavily on his arse.

The full impact of what he had done hit him full-force and he stared in wide-eyed horror at the spectacle before him. Georgina’s long, blonde hair hung down in bloody strands past her small, but shapely backside, her arms dangling and swaying slightly in an invisible breeze.

“Dear God, no,” he mouthed soundlessly.

Six pints of lager and a bag of pork-scratchings did a little jig in his stomach before rising up his esophagus and erupting out his mouth in steaming hot jets. Some of it landed on his thigh and soaked through his jeans, scalding his flesh before cooling.

This couldn’t be happening, he couldn’t have done that to that lovely girl…

The sight before him proved otherwise. Just then, her left leg twitched. Then her arm.

How is she still moving? She can’t still be alive.

It was just too awful to contemplate and he pulled up his knees under his chin and began rocking back and forth like the mentally disturbed young-man he had become. Georgina’s twitching grew more violent, and it took a moment for Jim to realise that the pole was moving downwards, taking Georgina with it. When Georgina had disappeared up to her waist into the earth’s crust, she was sucked down at speed by an invisible force and the earth closed over her head. The crack in the concrete sealed over, leaving not so much as a hairline fracture in its wake.

The sound of Nigel’s voice snapped him back to grisly reality.

“Jim? Oh God.”

Nigel appeared at his side and sat down next to him. He put his arms around his friend and held him tight. Jim allowed himself to be petted and rocked, giving in to the hot rush of tears.

Nigel cried too, although not as hard as Jim.

“Jim? If we don’t get out of here alive, I just want to tell you that I love you.”

Snot bubbled in Jim’s nose and he wiped it on his sleeve. “Huh?”

“I fucking love you man. I’m gay. I’ve never done it with a guy or anything, but I’ve always known. Why the fuck else would I take that lightning bolt for you? I love you. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you.”

An irrational wave of anger born of the horrors he had seen that night washed over him. Who gave a shit about Nigel and his sexual preferences. How fucking dare he go on about this shit now?

“Just get the fuck off me, you fucking pervert.”

He shrugged off his friend and scrambled to his feet. Nigel’s impromptu confession had given him a second wind; a renewed desire to find a way out of this hell. Life might well be a crazy ride, but fuck him if he didn’t want to live it. Adrenalin pumped through his veins and he scrambled shakily to his feet, stumbling slightly as he lurched into the night.

“Well? Are you coming or not?” he called over his shoulder to Nigel.

Then Nigel was behind him, and they were running. Fuck caution. Fuck trying to apply reason to a situation that defied all logic. With Jim in front, they blindly ran. Past a mix of half completed rides and cumbersome machinery, past an old-fashioned carousel…

And smack bang into his brother who was running in the opposite direction.

Jim ground to a halt.

“Andy? You aren’t supposed to be here. Where’s Gavin? And the girl?” he panted, Tracy’s name having temporarily escaped his mind.

“They’re dead.”

Jim gripped his brother by the upper arms. He looked in a bad way and felt tense and trembling to the touch. Jim recognised the look in his brother’s wide, staring eyes for what it was; he too had seen horrors a person had no business seeing in their lifetime.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her, man.”

Only then did he noticed how gore-splattered Andy  was. He and Nigel were covered in their fair share of blood, but Andy’s right arm was black and glistening in the moonlight. Lumps of God only knew what clung to the hairs on his forearm.

Like he’s been up to the elbow in innards…

He shuddered. After what he had done to Georgina, he didn’t doubt that Andy had done something truly unspeakable. A bad smell of shit assaulted Jim’s nose and he reeled slightly, stepping back from his brother.

Andy’s glazed eyes darted to Nigel. “Where’s the girl?”

Jim just shook his head, a lump forming in his throat.

No. Don’t think about that. Just survive…

“Oh, man,” Andy said, his shoulders visibly slumping.

“No time for this now.” Jim said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

A throaty laugh coming from somewhere behind them made Jim freeze. His pulse quickened and sweat prickled all over his body.

“Did you guys here that?”

But neither of them answered him, they were running scared, scattering like wildlife on hearing gunfire.

“Andy!” he called out to his brother’s departing back. “We need to stick together…”

But his warning fell on deaf ears.

Nigel was the first to die. One second he was running, the next a crack in the ground opened up beneath him and he fell down into the hellfire. The concrete instantly sealed over his head and Nigel was simply no more, wiped off the face off the earth.

Andy stopped running. The way he was knocked backwards and landed on his arse it looked as if he had run into a brick-wall. But there was no brick-wall there. There wasn’t anything there.

“Andy,” Jim cried helplessly, lunging towards him.

Andy got to his feet and the sight of it made Jim’s skin crawl. It wasn’t right; Andy’s head lolled to one side and his movements were stiff and unnatural, like invisible hands were dragging him to his feet.

Jim blinked, and he saw semi-transparent hands were pulling his brother upright. It took more than a moment for Jim’s frazzled brain to grasp what his eyes were seeing. The hands that pulled him up were big. Not big in the conventional sense, but big as in almost as big as Andy’s entire body. Hands the size of two men were wrapped around him, reminding Jim of a toddler clutching a favourite toy. It made no sense, yet there it was. Jim’s disbelieving eyes travelled upwards, latching onto the face in the black night that hovered over the hands that gripped his brother.

The head was huge, in proportion to the hands. At first he thought he was seeing a red-tinted cloud as the face was diaphanous and subtly shifting in shape, the edges blurry. The indistinct face was comprised of a substance that defied comprehension and description, like wisps of fog mixed with fire and smoke. The eyes were black holes in the infernal visage, blacker than the blackest night sky.

Then Andy was being lifted upwards and Jim realised that the thing he was seeing was more than just a face and a pair of hands, it was a body on a massive scale that had been crouched down on the ground to pick up Andy. Andy swooshed up into the night sky, higher and higher until he was level with the top of the ferris wheel in the near distance.

The thing’s entire body was made up of the same, softly undulating substance that was both transparent yet solid.

Am I the only person seeing this? How can that be?

“Because only those to be sacrificed possess the gift of gazing upon my image. Cradled in my hands, Andy is invisible to all but you.”

The voice existed only in his mind, and it was deafening. He clutched his hands to his ears and sank to his knees.

“Kneel before your master. Soon earth will be mine completely.”

Holding his ears did nothing to alleviate the bellowing voice in his brain and he howled through gritted teeth.

“Get. Out. My. Head,” he gasped.

It felt like a shaft of glass had splintered his brain clean in two. When he lifted his trembling head, he saw that the thing was smiling. At least, Jim thought it was a smile. The black smudge beneath the black eyes had widened in an upward curvature. And that black-hole was continuing to widen. The monster lifted Andy headfirst towards the black hole. An image of the painting, ‘Satan devouring his children’ by Goya flashed in his mind. The devil himself was here, and he was eating his brother.

Sure enough, Andy’s head disappeared into the black abyss. When he emerged from the devil’s mouth, even from this distance Jim could see that only a bloodied, jagged neck stump remained. Jim closed his eyes and clasped his hands together.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

He didn’t know where the words came from. Up until that second, he had never believed in God.

Funny how quick a bloke can change his mind on such matters.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”

Jim wasn’t quite sure what happened next, or why. The oddest sense of calm washed over him as he pleaded with God. Something compelled him to look over his shoulder, and when he did, he saw he was just a few metres away from the steel-hoarding fence.

How could we have not seen that? It doesn’t make sense.

Nothing is ever going to make sense ever again…

And all the while he continued to recite the Lord’s Prayer, even when the monster screamed in his head so hard and loud that Jim thought he might pass out.

“Forgive us our trespasses,” he screamed, half running, half stumbling towards the fence, not daring to look over his shoulder at the devil and his brother.

“As we forgive those who trespass against us…”

Now he was scaling the fence, using a conveniently placed pile of concrete-mix bags as a foothold.

“Deliver us from evil,” he wheezed as he dropped to the other side. As soon as his converse trainers touched down on the pavement on the other side, the howling in his mind was already fading.

And then he was jogging along the promenade. He laughed as he lurched onwards, zigzagging so violently he repeatedly stumbled into the road to be blared at by car-horns.

All he knew was he had to get to London, the city he called home. It was the only coherent thought in his head as, like a homing-pigeon, he zeroed in on the train-station.

Images of blood, death, and lakes of fire filled his brain. Jim giggled and cried and knew that life, as he knew it, was over.

8.

Two Weeks later.

Impervious to the odour of stale sweat, piss and shit that hung permanently around him, Jim called out to passersby from his position huddled in a Betfred’s doorway.

“The end is nigh. You’re all going to die, sad fucks, you hear me? You’re all going to die. Satan is coming and you’re gonna burn for eternity.”

It was Saturday night and most people ignored him. Just another pissed homeless man shouting the odds.

“Fuckers,” Jim muttered, taking a swig out of the bottle of vodka within the obligatory, brown paper-bag.

Some of the clear liquid dribbled down his gingery-blonde beard, joining the remnants of a half-eaten Cornish pasty he had rescued from a wheelie-bin a few hours ago. The bottle was three-quarters empty and his goal was to polish it off entirely before ten pm. Anything to stop the constant bloody nightmares. The nightmares where his dead brother and dead best friend and dead girl with whom he’d had the amazing connection called out to him, begging him to come and save their immortal souls from the eternal tortures of hell.

“Bollocks,” he said, when he spilled some of the precious liquid down his saggy, baggy pullover he had stolen off some comatose tramp a few weeks back.

He sensed a presence over him, and looked up to find himself staring into the face of a beautiful young woman. She had long blonde hair, like Georgina. She was dressed a bit like Georgina had been on that fateful night too, in jeans and a plain coat. He thought of her constantly. Not Elise. Not his once-fiancée, no, he didn’t give two fucks about her. Georgina was meant to be the love of his love, and she had been snatched from him. Now there was a girl standing over him that reminded him of her, making him think of what might have been and what he had lost.

And it really pissed him off.

“If I give you one-hundred pounds, do you promise to buy yourself something proper to eat? And maybe a bed for the night?”

“Do I fuck, lady.”

He didn’t regret his words, but one-hundred quid would keep him in booze for an entire week, at least. She turned to leave.

“Wait,” he called to her departing back. “I’ll get myself something to eat, I promise.”

Like fuck...

“Okay. Here.”

She fished in her neat shoulder bag and handed him a wad of notes.

“Thanks,” he grunted, snatching them from her, not believing his luck.

“What happened to you?” she asked in the most innocent manner.

“Why do you care?”

It was then he noticed the funny look in her eyes that was kind of glazed and staring. “Is it a woman? It’s never too late to get back what you lost.”

“Believe me, it fucking is.”

“No. Go back to her. You can save each other.”

She shook her head, and stared down at him like she was completely lost and didn’t know where the hell she was or what she was doing. He could see the way she anxiously rung her hands together as she backed away from him. She turned away and was instantly swallowed up by the busy London street.

Her words didn’t make him think of his fiancée; not once had he so much as spared her a thought. After that night, he had gone back to London to live on the streets. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, it was just that going home was not an option. His wallet and phone was long lost, he was a stranger even to himself. It felt right and natural to roam the streets, as mentally broken as he was. As far as he knew, he could well be in the frame for murder. How could he even begin to explain the disappearance of his entire stag-night? Or the two girls? From reading the newspapers he usually slept under, the police had connected all their disappearances, including himself.

Not that he gave a shit or was even capable of rationalising it on any deep level. His mind wasn’t what it had been; it had caved in on itself under the weight of terror and too much booze.

No, the stranger’s words put him in mind of Georgina. Just like in his dreams where she called to him, begging him to come and save her immortal soul, so now her sweet, beautiful face pleaded with him to go back to Dreamworld.

He lifted the bottle to his lips, intending to drown her with vodka. With the hundred pounds stuffed down the front of his filthy underpants, he drifted into a drunken stupor with the woman’s words echoing in her head.

Go back to her. You can save each other…

The following morning Jim was on the train to Broadgate. The bright, winter sun sliced into his eyes and the hangover was kept at bay by the vodka in the Evian water bottle. Last night’s nightmare in the doorway of Betfred’s was enough to send him back to Dreamworld. His brother needed him. Georgina and Nigel needed him. Somehow, their trapped souls would sense his presence and they would use him as some kind of vessel to get to heaven.

On some level, he knew it made no sense. But neither did meeting the devil.  With the money from the woman, Jim had had the presence of mind enough to wash in a public toilet and buy a pair of jeans and a pullover from a charity shop. He’d even bought a comb. He still stunk, but only up close. Apart from the fact he rocked back and forth in the train seat, he could have been passed for an ordinary, scruffy student.

Once in Broadgate, there wasn’t much going on in Jim’s addled head as he walked the short distance along the promenade to the now fully up and running theme-park.

He stared up at the huge, looming gates, painted a jolly, bright pink. How different it looked in daylight.

So they finished building the place then, he thought in a totally detached kind of way.

Just past the open gates was a roofless, concreted area where an old guy in a tiny ticket office guarded the pleasures that lay beyond the looming, castle gates. These were, in turn, guarded by a set of turnstiles.

Only when he crossed the barrier of Dreamworld did a sense of foreboding so strong grip him by the throat that he couldn’t breathe.

Turn around. Walk away. Don’t look back…

“One, please,” he said instead to the guy in the ticket booth.

The old guy lifted his head and smiled. He didn’t have many teeth and his face had more lines than crepe paper.

Jim shuddered. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t. An image of his brother’s face popped into his head, contorted in agony.

Help me, Jim…

Jim slid a tenner under the glass patrician and for a second his fingers touched the old man’s. He staggered backwards at the intensity of the images that flooded his head. People turned into human fireballs, running and staggering and screaming and dying. Faces of pure evil, laughing. And blood. So much blood. Just as quick, the images stopped dead, leaving him dry-mouthed and his heart hammering.

“Enjoy your day in Dreamworld,” the old man said with a smile.

Jim didn’t care for the twinkle in the old goat’s eyes.

“Fuck you.”

The old man didn’t respond, he just continued to sit there smiling in that strange, fixed way.

His fingers trembled as he inserted the ticket into the turnstile and then entered through a little door in the middle of the mock-castle gates. He was in.

Jim didn’t know what to think or what to feel. The sunlight was so bright today, so low, lending everything a dreamlike, surreal quality. Jim was used to that; his entire life was a strange, waking nightmare. He took a swig from his water bottle to steady his nerves.

What do I do now?

He took in his surroundings in a daze. Even though it was November, it was still quite busy with families and their squawking kids. As if in a dream he wandered aimlessly. Despite the fresh lick of paint and shiny rides, there was still something fundamentally seedy about it. Clowns with cracked face paint handed out brightly coloured balloons to children. Every ride seemed a little off, a little spooky. The dodgems had vampire faces painted on their bonnets, complete with dripping fangs. Freddy Krueger topped his hat in lurid technicolor in the middle of a huge, spinning gravity wheel. The bright helter-skelter had razorblades painted on the sides of the slide.

He passed the funhouse whose façade was painted with scantily clad women with pouting red lips and impossible figures and came to a halt when he reached the gateway to the rollercoaster. It was a big ride, one of the biggest rollercoasters in Europe. The mammoth structure was painted blood red and the free-standing letters comprised of red lightbulbs above the gates proclaimed it to be called ‘The Inferno.’

His head swam with vertigo when he squinted up at the highest loop and despite the crispness of the winter day, tiny beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and stung his eyes. The ride itself whooshed over his head in a rush of noisy machinery, accompanied by high-pitched screaming that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He was feeling so confused.

Why did I come here?

“Because it is your destiny. They were never your dreams, they were mine. I am The Prince of Lies.”

Jim gasped and spun round. A clown stood before him. He had very real looking, tufts of orange hair sticking out either side of his bald, white scalp. In his red-gloved hand he held a bunch of red balloons. When he smiled, the red lipstick caked his teeth.

Except in his heart of hearts, Jim just knew it wasn’t lipstick.

It’s blood.

“Hello Jim. I’m so glad you came back. Have a balloon.”

It was him, who else could it be? He staggered backwards, almost knocking over a passing woman.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going, mister,” she exclaimed, but it barely registered.

“Keep away from me.”

“Too late for that, Jim. Time for you to fulfil your destiny.”

That was when he understood everything in a moment of perfect clarity. The constant nightmares about those he had lost. That woman last night with the hundred pounds. All lies. All trickery.

The ground shook beneath his feet. For the briefest of moments he just thought it was the rollercoaster vibrating at its foundations, but then the concrete beneath his feet cracked, a zigzag running between his feet.

No, not again…

“The final sacrifice. Welcome to the new world order, Jim Pearson. Welcome to hell.”

Jim didn’t stand a chance. When the spiked pole thrust out of the earth’s crust and stabbed between his legs, he was powerless to stop it. Instantly it penetrated his rectum, sliding up through his innards, bursting everything open inside him like a ripe fruit. It happened so fast that the bloody spiked-tip had erupted through his nose before he could even flinch.

When the pain came, it came full throttle. His limbs jerked and convulsed as he hung there, feet peddling thin air. The heat of fire was all around him and some distant part of his mind comprehended the chaos; the running, the screaming, the heat, the odour of burnt flesh, the terror that hung in the air like a living, breathing thing.

With his head tilted backwards he noticed that the sky was black, and as he writhed and squirmed, he knew that this was all there was now.

He had all of eternity to come to terms with it.

The End.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end, it sure means a lot. In case any of you lovely people are interested, herewith is a list of my work thus far. All can be found on my author page over on Amazon:

Djinn: An Extreme Horror Novel

Splatterpunks: An Extreme Horror Novel

His For The Keeping: A psychological Thriller Novel (co-authored with journalist Myra Fox)

Home Intruder: An Extreme Horror Novella

Suffer Hard: An Exteme Horror Novella

Mary Blake: A Nasty Novelette

Meet The Meat: An Extreme Horror Short

If you like what you’ve read, don’t forget to check up on me now and then, I aim to put something out every month or so for your reading pleasure. Any questions or comments are most warmly welcomed, so please don’t hesitate to contact me, I love to hear from you.

Thanks again and best wishes,

Sam West.